I see no fundamental reason that a majority of independence-supporting parties in the Scottish assembly be a necessary or sufficient condition for a vote on independence. I like the way you just declare that without feeling the need to back it up!

You were the one who declared that 'Until parties supporting independence get a majority, there's no reason to have a referendum', without backing that position up at all. I made a factual statement: I don't see etc. And yet I'm the one who is guilty of not backing up my statements?

Also you don't seem to get the shape of this argument. I'm not trying to convince you that your views are wrong. I think there's plenty of room for reasonable people to disagree on most of what we're discussing, and I don't particularly care about your views. You're the one who decided that Someone is wrong on the Internet!, so you need to find reasons that my views are unreasonable, not vica versa.

a) Otherwise you end up with every issue which ever achieves 40% in any national poll whatsoever, triggering a referendum. You'd be in continual referendum world, where even if something passed, you'd still be having a referendum to reverse it. It would cause ridiculous instability and expense!

Strawman. I've never argued and don't believe that every issue should be eligible for a referendum. In the UK we normally only have referenda over constitutional issues, which is fine by me. Everyone seems to agree that when a referndum is held on an issue, another shouldn't be held for a reasonable period of time.

b) You're saying that polls can be wrong, yet ignore actual election results! Democracy is driven by elections, not referenda. Of course conventional elections have primacy.

Strawman again. I don't think election results should be ignored, I think that they are not the only factor that should be considered.

Either you're going to have referenda triggered by actual votes in elections, or polls in newspapers of a sample of the electorate carried out by a private polling company! Are you seriously arguing for the latter?!?

False dichotomy. Referenda are not triggered by some single statistical measure and I find the idea that they should be ridiculous. The decision to hold a referendum is taken by the politicians in power, based on their judgement and assesment of all the facts, and in an ideal world on principles of fairness and the interest of the people.

And how do you propose that a nation in a non-devolved parliamentary system should achieve independence? The right to self-determination implies that they have the right to a referendum even if the majority of people in the country are unionists. Logically that must mean taking into account public opinion over and above the composition of the country's parliament.

c) It's necessary just like majority support of a parliamentary body is necessary for every other policy. It's sufficient because what else would you need? A Yougov poll?!? Why are you questioning whether it's sufficient?

The support of a parliamentary body is normally necessary for legislation to be passed, but not for policy to be enacted. Policy is the responsibility of the executive.

Lets take two hypothetical examples:

1. Thanks to their competent governance the SNP wins an outright majority at Holyrood. At the same time, proud of their country's record on foreign policy and human rights, the Scots are overcome with patriotism and support for independence falls below 30%, with 60% negatives. (As I say -- deeply hypothetical.) The SNP is committed to a vote by their manifesto, but they know they have no chance, and would rather wait for a better moment, so they hem and haw and put it on the long finger.

2. In the run up to the election, support for independence shoots up above 65%. The SNP looks assured of a majority. At the last moment Alex Salmond becomes embroiled in scandal, and on a record-low turnout the parties supporting independence scrape below the 50% barrier. The SNP forms a minority government. In Edinburgh, a quarter of a million Scottish people march in favour of a vote.

Should there be a vote in these cases? My views will be obvious. Maybe yours differ -- but can you at least see how a reasonable person can come to the same conclusions as me?

You're seriously saying that as leader of the Labour party, Gordon Brown couldn't have got himself parachuted into a safe seat in England?!? It's a non-issue.

That's actually a reasonable point. It's not quite that simple, because he'd have to delay independence until the next election, but that's not an impossibility, so fair enough.

Also, Gordon Brown would have been confident of winning a vote on Scottish Independence just as Cameron is. In fact, a Scottish Labour Prime Minister would have no problem dispatching a idea that generally only has 1/3 support! Much easier than for a Tory PM who went to Eton.

Have another look at your source, specifically at the first graph of polling on the yes/no question. In March '08, after about a year under Brown, negotiations on independence 'only' had 41% support -- but only 40% polled against! You have to take into account both positives and negatives, and saying that Brown could have guaranteed a no vote when it's polling as a coin-flip seems crazy.

Furthermore, it would hardly gut his party. Out of the last 18 Elections, 15 would have gone exactly the same way without Scottish MPs.

Rather irrelevant: 18 elections brings you back to 1945. You're talking about a period when the Scottish Unionists (who?!) won a majority in Scotland. The current Labour

dominance is a relatively new phenomenon. Labour would loose 40-ish seats, their natural allies in the SNP another 6-8, and the Tories only one. That would decide any currently close contest firmly in favour of the Conservatives, and convert a solid Labour majority into a hamstrung government. That would tilt British politics to the right.

And it's pretty clear that Labour was deeply opposed to independence: for instance, Blair said in his usual measured tones that it would be catastrophic.