FlyTheNest

BBC anchorman: So the NO side, for all the criticism and wobbles, have won rather comfortably. What do you make of it, Nick?

Nick Robinson: Let's leave aside all the boring economic and constitutional stuff for a minute. What this referendum has really been is a referendum on the government in Westminster. And David Cameron has won it. He's had to make very unpopular decisions, but he's won it, and in hostile territory for the Tories.

BBC anchorman: So could he claim it as vindication for his modernisation project?

Nick Robinson: I think he can. He's actually won over a lot of natural Labour supporters, who worryingly for them still don't seem to rate Ed Miliband any more than they did when they voted for the SNP in 2011, which allowed the whole referendum to take place.

BBC anchorman: Briefly, Nick, how does that leave him for the General Election next year?

Nick Robinson: If you'd asked me that a week ago, before David Cameron's unashamedly emotional appeal for the union, I'd have said he was struggling. But he's turned all that around. He'll now be able to concentrate full time on seeing off UKIP, though he may well lose Clacton to Douglas Carswell because of Labour's failure to pick up swing voters. And there's a theme here- Mr Cameron is a fighter and a survivor. Will Ed Miliband have the stomach for that fight?

BBC Anchorman: You mention Clacton there. Shouldn't the Tories really be looking to hold a seat like that so near to a General Election?

Nick Robinson: The thing about Clacton is that it's not really part of twenty-first century Britain. You can basically assume that a vote for UKIP is a vote against all the political parties. Sure it might go down on paper as a Tory loss, but that doesn't really tell the whole truth. Actually, it's only a third of a seat loss for them, Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Perhaps less than that for the Tories because Douglas Carswell used to be a Tory. In fact, perhaps it's a gain as well as a loss. David Cameron is well-placed to win the moral election next year.

- Nick, David Cameron's detractors made a lot of Devo Max not being on the ballot paper, didn't they?

-Yes, Jeremy, they did. But he's actually gone beyond Devo-Max, and delivered Devo-Max Plus. Which is something that Gordon Brown can't say. Nor Ed Miliband, who is still not resonating in Scotland.

- But constitutional historians might argue that we've just had a long referendum process, only for the system of government to be decided on the whim of the UK Prime Minister, some might say, on the hoof. Surely this new system has no mandate at all from the people of Scotland?

- Politics is about perception. And I can tell you that's not how it's being perceived in the bars of Glasgow. I'm told that Mr Cameron was blocked from putting Devo-Max on the ballot paper by officials, despite him having argued very strongly for it. Which very much underscores his point that the Civil Service needs reforming and replacing with people from Policy Exchange. I think Ed Miliband will be put very much on the backfoot. Will he be prepared to push these important reforms through, against the wishes of his union paymasters in the Unite Union? People here in the pubs of Glasgow sound unconvinced about that. Character issues are what matter in politics.

- Is there talk about the Clacton by-election in the bars of Glasgow, Nick?

- Lots, Jeremy. But the interesting thing is, very few people see it as a problem for David Cameron. They're saying the constituency is very much sui generis, and that nothing too much should be read into it. They're a very knowledgeable lot up here, and they're already comparing this to the 1973 Lincoln by-election in 1973, where the sitting MP Dick Taverne ran as an independent and defeated the official Labour candidate.

- They're saying Douglas Carswell is like Dick Taverne?

- No they're saying the by-election will be a big embarrassment for the Labour leader.

- Taverne lost the seat in the November election the next year, and Labour was in power for the next 5 years.

- That's not what they're saying here.

- Nick, things are pretty bad for the Lib Dems.

- Well, they always knew they'd take a hit from being in government. Ask people in here, and you detect a lot of grudging respect for Nick Clegg. That's a tangible feeling, literally tangible. You know, there's an adage in politics that that the polls never tell the whole story, unless they're personal ratings for Ed Miliband.

-

Are you by any chance related to him Tubby ?

You are Nick Robinson posting as TubbyIsaacs, and I claim my £5.

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We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop

It's genius isn't it?

Anyone who can read any of that and not hear Hugh Edwards talking to Nick Robinson....

- Nick, What's your reading of today?

- Well, Huw, the feeling up here is that the people have never lost faith in David Cameron-

- Up in Scotland?

- Up in Witney. Not in the town itself, a couple of miles outside. These are the people who know David Cameron best.

- Did they tell you they hadn't lost their faith?

- You know, Harold MacMillan once warned about-

- Selling off the family silver and using the proceeds to fund current expenditure, like this government?

- You know, Harold MacMillan once warned about "Events, dear boy".

- David Cameron keeps being left behind by them.

- It's only a saying. And there's an old agage in this business- a saying isn't as good as a fable.

- The hare and the tortoise?

- That's right. Mr Cameron was very clear to avoid comparing himself to a hare in his speech today.

- He didn't compare himself to a tortoise either.

- Not in so many words, but in politics you have to read between the lines-

- And that's what Scottish swing voters, will be doing?

- Yes. Because things look different outside the Westminster bubble.

I now know what Ernst was on about, I can hear Huw Edwards in my head..

Genius Tubby, er Nick er

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We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop