Very brave or very stupid

Oo er, big news coming from Scotland. After a few busy and exciting months, things seemed to have settled down into a consistent pattern. We had the Scottish Government running rings around the Labour party, with Alex Salmond coming across as a very impressive figure. We had the Labour party doing just appallingly, seemingly unable to cope with the fact that it had lost, wildly lashing out at everything that moves, led by one of the worst party leaders I have ever seen. Then we had the Tories, doing actually pretty well (although you would expect me to say that, wouldn't you..), not setting the political scene on fire, and still stuck in the 17%-20% box, but at least stable, and impressing in dealings with the SNP. Finally we had the Lib Dems, but the less said about them the better.

Anyway, that was how it was 6 months ago, that is how it was yesterday. Things were settled, things were calm. No longer, however, for Wendy Alexander seems to have actually made a positive leadership decision, shock horror. Mrs (could someone please clarify if it is Mrs) Alexander has decided, after months of rubbishing the idea, to support a referendum, in a 'put up or shut up' challenge. As the title of this blog suggests, this is either a very brave decision or a very stupid one. If she forces a referendum now, and the SNP lose, she could be seen as the person who broke the Nats, every Unionist in the land would love her. However, imagine what would happen if Scotland said yes. She would be the leader who played politics with the union and lost, a leader who took an unnecessary gamble and ended up dissolving the UK. A leader who made her boss lose his job.

It is risky, it shows desperation, and I would not have the balls to do it.