Scottish referendum no further forward
“Spin” the Telgraph acidly calls it, while the home- based Herald labels it “confusion“
There are different views, of course, on the timescale that the Scottish Government has set out. I don’t think that is a serious argument any more.”
However, Mr Moore later insisted that he timing question was far from settled and said the two sides “still have some way to travel” to reach an agreement.
Mr Moore said: “I am still not convinced that the people of Scotland should have to wait nearly three years to have their say on independence. It is a long time until Autumn 2014 and I have still to hear a good reason for why we should have to wait so long.”
So the date, the questions and eligibility to vote by 16 year olds are all outstanding.”Modest progress” indeed. Will there be further such progress when Eck meets Dave on Thursday? And which of them will get his oar in first after the meeting?
Meanwhile, Salmond has picked a grand wee scrap with the BBC which barred him from appearing as the voice of Scotland before the Six Nations match on Saturday. In a neat analogy with the bigger political struggle, he claimed that BBC HQ in London had thwarted the wishes of BBC Sport Scotland to have him on. No said the BBC, it was all Eck’s idea. Three times his office tried to get him on and three times they failed.
I’m not sure that the voting age can be considered as an outstanding issue still to be settled. The UK has a well established system which allows for people 18 and above on the electoral role to vote – and barring any change to that rule, the matter is settled already.
Of course, it may well be an issue that the SNP might like to change but that is a different matter.
The question or questions are, of course, outstanding.
I might be wrong, but the last major plebiscite that had the voting age lowered beforehand was the South Africa Republic referendum in 1960, not something I would have thought the SNP would wish to emulate.