The BBC reports that Alex
Turbot Salmond knows what question he would like to ask:
The SNP leader said Scots would be asked: "Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?" in a ballot which he wants to hold in 2014. (src)
This is, of course, an immediate contender for a Rentoul: a Question to which the Answer is No. Indeed, like Lady Thatcher to another question, I would be inclined to reply, No, No, No.
(No man is an island, entire of itself -- or so we are told. But ask the SNP, and apparently this island is able to break a piece of itself off without damage to the whole. As an Englishman brought up in Wales, I have a firm appreciation of the benefits of the Union, and would mourn its passing.)
But apart from that, this question seems to me a prime candidate for a Formal Raspberry from the Electoral Commission, which Mr
Mackerel Salmond says could oversee the referendum. For it contains an unnecessary frame around the question, which could far more simply and less suggestively be posed thus:
Should Scotland be an independent country?
I would be surprised, and not a little disgusted, if the Commission let this first, highly leading, proposal pass.
2 comments:
Give them both barrels yourself. 'Tis only fair and meet.
How about "Do you disagree that Scotland should not become an independent country?"
Or "Do you agree that it would be a good idea if it were the case that England, Wales and Northern Ireland became an independent country?"
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