Salmond bests Darling – but the bully boy still can’t answer the basic questions

So with only a few weeks to go until the biggest day in Scotland’s history, Alex Salmond was the victor in last night’s televised debate. He shouted, he hectored, he obfuscated. But the polls clearly showed he was the winner. Indeed, his victory was a clear cut one, whilst Darling’s previous victory was more marginal. Whether or not it will have an impact on the polls remains to be seen (early evidence suggests it won’t), but Salmond performed markedly better than he had last time out. Darling, alas, performed markedly worse.

The problem with Salmond’s style – indeed the style of both men in many ways – is that last night neither were attempting to speak to anyone who isn’t voting for them already. It wasn’t a debate, it was a double-headed last-minute pep-rally. Salmond’s argument in particular was exceptionally one dimensional. For much of the evening he effectively shouted “bah! Tories!”, and waited for the applause. Now I’m no fan of the Tories (I hope that much is obvious). But nationhood is about so much more than that – otherwise the North East, Merseyside, Wales and London would be having independence referenda too.

Salmond was helped in his endeavours by a shambolic night from the BBC. Journalist Glenn Campbell was – notionally at least – the “moderator” of last night’s proceedings. At times it appeared that American country music singer Glenn Campbell would have done a better job. Salmond’s bully boy tactic of talking over Darling whenever the former Chancellor was gaining traction was as transparent as it was effective, yet Campbell gave so much leeway the so called “debate” rapidly took on the finesse of a scrap outside a bus station. The lowlight of the evening was when Campbell took four – deeply biased – questions in a row. Like the audience (supposedly representative of the Scottish people, but sounding more like an SNP rally) any semblance of balance had gone out of the window, suggesting that the BBC’s determination not to appear biased in favour of No had left them, instead, to create an event that favoured Yes.

Yet too much focus on the opposition’s tactics and the poor refereeing – in politics as in football – risk allowing sub-par performances to go unmentioned.

Alistair Darling didn’t hit top form last night – far from it. At times it felt like he was trying to re-run the previous debate in its entirety. The currency question – which he wielded so successfully last time round – appeared to be Darling’s primary and sole focus at times. Of course it’s an important issue – it underpins jobs, homes, pensions. It underpins everything. And Salmond’s plan – to adopt the pound, even if a currency union is a non-starter – is as foolhardy as it is reckless. It’s the politics of the banana republic. It would leave Scotland without a reserve bank, and utterly beholden to the economy of the rest of the UK. Ecuador, Panama, East Timor and the British Virgin Islands are just some of them…ahem…powerhouse economies that currently operate in such a way. VOTE INDEPENDENCE, BECOME PANAMA! I can see the posters now. No doubt the NO campaign will hammer home at this point in the days ahead.

But once Salmond had shown his weakness on currency once again, Darling should have varied his attacks. Once – in a fit of pique – Darling railed back at the First Minister, saying in exasperation, “He can’t answer basic questions”. That should have been the key message that Darling was using last night, repeated in response to questioning on all of the big issues. On oil, Salmond’s head is in the sand. On Trident, his number and dates don’t add up. On the NHS – his smears have been branded “crap” and “codswallop” by the head of the North East NHS. (That’s the NHS, the best of Britain, founded by a Welshman, devolved to Scotland by Labour, by the way. Stick that in your pipe Mr Salmond).

Yet Darling allowed Salmond to bully his way free of scrutiny, and failed to punish Salmond for his blindness and inconsistency. The SNP leader really does believe that everything would be better if only Scotland was independent. That’s not politics or reason. That’s blind dogma- and for all his bluster last night, Salmond failed to back up any of his arguments with anything more than more bluster. Now, as ballot papers drop on doormats across Scotland, the Scottish people will need to decide if they’re willing to take a punt on Salmond’s pipe dream, and abandon a successful union that they’ve helped build. The debate they’ll have in the homes, workplaces and pubs of Scotland will be – I’m willing to bet – be more edifying than the one we saw on TV last night….