THE party is over for BBC Scotland documentary Yes/No: Inside the Indyref. Amid the meat and drink of revelations and interviews with the major players, some choice crumbs may have slipped through. Here, for those still peckish for more, are 21 Revelations From Yes/No: Inside the Indyref.
21. HE’S NOT FROM BARCELONA, YOU KNOW According to Nick Clegg, then deputy PM, George Osborne, on hearing a referendum was afoot, said “half-jokingly”: “Can’t we just run the referendum from London? That’s what they would do in Spain.”
20. ARE YOU A MEMBER OF THE AA, SIR?
Scottish Secretary Michael Moore’s chauffeur driven car broke down on the way to the ceremony to sign the Edinburgh Agreement, setting up a referendum. With time ticking away he had to get out and race to the venue.
19. WHAT A PICTURE For the photograph of Alex Salmond and David Cameron signing the Agreement, the then First Minister made sure there was a map on the wall behind of the vote share in 2011 election, with Scotland a sea of yellow SNP seats.
18. MIND YOUR LANGUAGE A Treasury report on the benefits of the Union was originally called Case For The UK. When someone realised the initials gave rise to the anagram CFUK the title was changed to the Scotland Analysis Programme.
17. WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD NO CAMP?
Moore thought the self-labelling of the No campaign as Project Fear was “horrific”, adding: “We were constantly rebutting it.”
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16. OOH LA LA Douglas Alexander, charged with rebranding the No campaign, found Pierre Trudeau’s closing address at the 1980 Quebec referendum while trawling YouTube. In the background was a poster saying, “Non, merci.” So it was that Better Together became “No thanks”. When they sampled the slogan with voters it “tested out the park”.
15. ROLL UP, ROLL UP Jim Murphy was on his Irn Bru crate in Bathgate when a man emerged from one of the shops carrying a 12-pack of toilet rolls, which he promptly put beside the Labour MP, saying: “Big man, this is for you, you’ve been talking ***** all day.”
14. I’M MORE OF A BISTO KID The strangest thing Mhairi Black had thrown at her was a Bovril cube. “But it wasn’t just any Bovril cube. They had unwrapped it and flung it. I thought, that’s a lot of effort and it’s no even hurting, but okay…”
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13. TROLLING WORKS Historian Dan Snow, recalling the backlash to his anti-Yes, Let’s Stay Together campaign, said: “What I would say, sadly, is that trolling works I would love to sit here and say I found it bracing and only strengthened my resolve to get involved in things I care about in the future, but it was brutal.”
12. A TATTOO TOO FAR After a clip of Nicola Sturgeon meeting a voter who had Yes tattooed on his arm, documentary director Paul Mitchell cut to an interview with a laughing Nicola Sturgeon. “The wrist is not the most unusual place I’ve seen people with Yes tattoos … but I’m not going to go into any more detail than that.”
11. EDITOR STURGEONED The SNP top team got wind of a Sunday Times poll to be published a week before voting. It was Nicola Sturgeon’s mission to find out more. Editor Jason Allardyce joked that he was “pretty much locked in a room and interrogated by Nicola” at the end of the usual Friday afternoon press briefing.
10. MMM, INTERESTING Sturgeon laughed off suggestions of editor-napping. “That’s a slight exaggeration,” she told Mitchell. “I may have barred the door so that he couldn’t get out of the room.” Allardyce was giving away nothing, so Sturgeon settled on asking if the poll was “interesting”. Allardyce replied: “It’s definitely interesting.” Showing Yes in the lead by two points, 51/49, it was that all right.
9. NOT SO GORGEOUS, GEORGE Scots Tory leader Ruth Davidson was “really annoyed” by Osborne going on the Andrew Marr Show and floating the idea of more powers for Scotland, a pledge that would become “The Vow”. She felt it smacked of panic and the campaign should hold its nerve.
8. LUKE, I AM YOUR YES SUPPORTING FATHER When a train-load of Labour MPs arrived in Glasgow they were met and followed by a Yes campaigner blasting out the imperial march from Star Wars. Murphy conceded the move was “absolutely brilliant”.
7. HERE’S TO YOU, MR ROBINSON When Allan Little was sent off to do a Panorama in the last week of the campaign, BBC political editor Nick Robinson came north to do cover the Salmond press conference. The rest is history. Interviewed about the demo outside BBC HQ in Glasgow, Robinson said: “I’m laughing now but it was a really unpleasant experience.”
6. YOU HAVE ONE MESSAGE Daily Record editor Murray Foote texted former editor Bruce Waddell, then working for Gordon Brown, to ask if he could broker a “front page vow” with the three main party leaders, Cameron, Clegg and Miliband.
5. TOO QUICK OFF THE MARK Salmond aide Geoff Aberdein spent much of polling day driving from his hometown of Aberdeen, where he voted, to Glasgow. He was in such a rush he got a speeding ticket.
4. NERVOUS NELLY Osborne said waiting for the indyref result was the most nerve-wracking moment of his career - even more so than waiting for the EU referendum outcome.
3. WHERE YOU STILL UP FOR CLACKY?
When Clackmannanshire voted No it was for many in Yes the turning point of the night when they knew it was all over.
2. HANGING WITH THE KIDS Cameron had gone to bed in the flat above Downing Street before the result but he later came back down, two of his children in tow, to watch history unfolding.
1. PULLING A FAST ONE Clegg was shocked to hear Cameron announce his “English votes for English laws” campaign in his post-poll statement. The LibDem leader thought Cameron had just sown the seeds of eventual independence.
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