Salmond under the Darling knife

Surgical incision without anesthetic made for painful viewing last night. Quite why Alex Salmond thought he could continue to shrug off legitimate questions about what currency an independent Scotland might use by amateurish obfuscation and selective quotation is utterly baffling. Monotone Darling adopted the novel idea of assuming the role of an inquisitive 8 year old and it worked. As the groans turned to jeers, the former chancellor cleverly offered child like simplicity and the process of elimination to entice the First Minister to answer the question that we would all like to know the answer to; he skillfully exposed the Achilles heel of the yes campaign.

Jeremy Bentham coined the phrase ‘nonsense upon stilts’ to describe rhetoric on natural rights; Alastair Darling has substituted ‘nonsense’ for ‘stupidity’ to describe currency union without political union. Economic competence matters and if ‘stupidity on stilts’ sticks then the odds on a yes vote will lengthen further than 4/1 which they fell to in the aftermath of Salmond’s stuttering and stumbling.

When given his chance to rise from under the surgeon’s knife, Salmond’s response suggested that anesthetic might actually have been used after all. He chose to cross-examine Darling on an Andy Burnham joke about driving on the right and the probability of attacks from outer space. Darling couldn’t believe his luck as he scored the open goal and sarcastically ridiculed the First Minister’s lack of humor. Isn't it supposed to be Salmond who is the smug and glib political heavyweight? On the evidence of last night he has lost weight both literally and metaphorically. I’d better get down to the bookies.