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Keep hold of your money

Over the past week there have been a number of reports from the bookies about punters placing four and five figure bets on NO in the IndyRef at prices as tight as 1/7.

The thinking is that the outcome is now a certainty and that locking your cash up for ten months produces a return that is far in excess of what you can get elsewhere.

I’m not convinced. There is a long way to go and I’m not writing off the YES camp at this stage.

Alex Salmond has shown remarkable strengths and resourcefulness in elections and might still find a way of presenting the YES case in a way that gets him over the barrier.

He’s very skillfully managed to equate “Scottishness” with supporting his party and now YES.

Just remember how two and a half years ago LAB was riding high in the Scottish polls and look set to win back power at the May 2011 Holyrood elections. There was even talk of securing a victory that would mean that they could govern on their own.

The SNP was trailing badly and only became odds on favourite to win most MPs ten days before the election.

As we all know they did far better than that and won an overall majority – thus paving the way for the next September’s referendum.

A lot of this was down to the appeal of Salmond himself and could easily find a way to present next September’s choice in a form that will ease the concerns of doubters.

This is one election that I’m not tempted to bet on

Mike Smithson

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