Policy and personality rifts rock No campaign on Scotland

The latest ructions in the campaign to prevent Scottish independence have highlighted differences of policy and personality which have dogged the "Better Together" effort from the outset.

A spectacular breaking of UK ministerial ranks over the crucial issue of currency union and friction between Downing Street and the leader of the anti-independence campaign capped a miserable three days for the cross-party campaign to save the political union between London and Edinburgh.

The No campaign's woes contrast with a slick, united pro-independence effort under the disciplined leadership of Alex Salmond, the Scottish first minister. His message is simple: Scotland will be better off as an independent country.

Recent opinion polls have fuelled jitters in the No camp because they show a narrowing of its once-commanding lead over the nationalists, with less than six months to go until Scotland's independence referendum.

"I think they are in trouble," says Michael Keating, professor of Scottish politics at the University of Aberdeen. He cites the No camp's failure to come up with a sufficiently attractive offer of greater powers for Scotland within the UK, and what he sees as the No campaign's overly negative tone.

Polling experts have advised the anti-independence campaign to play up the risks facing an independent Scotland. The idea is to scare undecided voters into sticking with the union. But that can look like scaremongering - a frequent nationalist criticism.

Concerns have been amplified by open attacks on Alistair Darling, the Labour ex-chancellor who leads the Better Together campaign, and a trickle of announcements by former senior Labour party members and Liberal Democrats who have decided to vote Yes on September 18.

Some unionists have also expressed worries about Better Together's tactics and its struggle to build grassroots momentum.

Tavish Scott, the Lib Dem member of the Scottish parliament (MSP) for Shetland, says Mr Darling and Better Together have done well at providing an intellectual case for remaining in the UK, but have failed to connect with crucial sections of the electorate such as traditional Labour voters.

Mr Scott wants major Labour figures in Scotland such as former prime minister Gordon Brown and former UK minister John Reid to take a greater role in shoring up "soft Labour" support for the union.

Other pro-union politicians defend Mr Darling's strategy, but say he needs to more actively counter the Scottish National party's disciplined and effective campaign. "He's not been vocal or visible enough. I think we should see more of him," says one Conservative MSP.

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However, the Conservatives are themselves hamstrung by their own party's unpopularity in Scotland, a legacy of the Thatcher era. That prevents David Cameron from campaigning actively north of the border. The prime minister has so far confined himself to an appeal for unity broadcast from the London Olympic velodrome in February and a symbolic Scottish cabinet meeting held at an oil company building in Aberdeen.

It was never going to be easy to maintain harmony within Better Together, since the campaign spans a Labour party still riven by differences from its time in office as well as rival Conservatives and Lib Dems.

But not everyone believes the problems of the past three days will make a big difference with voters. "It's been a difficult period for the campaign, but most of this stuff is over ordinary people's heads," says the Conservative MSP.

Adam Tomkins, professor of public law at the University of Glasgow, notes that polls uniformly still show a clear lead for the No campaign. "I can't really understand why there are all these jitters . . . Everyone was expecting the gap would close as the campaign went on," he says.

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