Emotional Tug Of Freedom Against Economic Risk

By Faisal Islam, Political Editor

The Prime Minister has signed off from the independence referendum campaign with a final speech in Aberdeen.

Facing a friendly audience of Scottish pensioners, oil executives and Conservatives, the Prime Minister pleaded with Scots to reject independence in the too-close-to-call referendum on Thursday.

Arriving to a slick marketing video featuring three centuries of historic achievements of the Union - from Pankhurst to Wilberforce and Darwin to the British Lions - an emotional PM told the audience: "We want you to stay. Head and heart and soul, we want you to stay.

Alex Salmond: "Cameron's prints are all over a scaremongering campaign"

"Please don't mix up the temporary and the permanent. Please don't think 'I'm frustrated with politics right now, so I'll walk out the door and never come back'.

"If you don't like me - I won't be here forever. If you don't like this Government - it won't last forever. But if you leave the UK - that will be forever.

"Yes, the different parts of the UK don't always see eye-to-eye. Yes, we need change - and we will deliver it. But to get that change, to get a brighter future, we don't need to tear our country apart."

There would be no "trial separation" but the prospect of a "painful divorce" for the UK under a Yes vote.

The PM's key message, though, was of "safer change". The status quo was not on the ballot paper. He reassured his audience that a No vote would trigger "a major, unprecedented programme of devolution with additional powers for the Scottish Parliament", that Gordon Brown's timetable of delivery by January was "set in stone".

He said it amounted to an offer of guaranteed change for the Scottish people without losing the "UK pension, the UK pound and the UK passport".

The question, of course, is whether the Scottish people are going to trust such promises, as there's a history of that type of thing not being delivered by Westminster.

Some Conservative backbenchers are very nervous of the promises offered to keep Scotland in the Union. In an interview with Sky News Tonight, the leader of the Better Together No campaign Alistair Darling addressed this point and said Labour had promised and did deliver the Scottish Parliament.

But few can tell how such late promises are going to go down with many Scottish people distrustful of what they see as a Westminster elite.

Mr Darling also told Sky News of his concern about how the tone of the campaign had soured, and referred to protests by Yes campaigners against journalists as "deeply sinister".

His assessment that some of the campaigns against out-of-favour journalists by the Yes campaign - posters and the like - were "deeply sinister".

He said there was a quiet majority who might be afraid to speak out, who will say "no thanks" to independence on Thursday.

He also said he found it galling that EU nationals get a vote in Scotland whereas Scots who have moved down south don't get a vote. Although he accepted that this was the agreed system for the referendum.

The broader picture, though, is what some politicians are calling the "air war" - big ideas, facts, debates about currency union and devolution - is over.

The next two days of campaigning is all about the "ground war" - getting the vote out and going into people's homes. And this message of Safer Change is very specifically calibrated - not at Yes voters or No voters - but the fact there is a rump of Scots who have a bit of both Yes and No within them.

Alistair Darling told Sky News that the tone of the campaign had "soured"

They are trying to tip that balance away from the emotional tug of freedom for Scotland towards a hard-headed assessment of economic risk.

Earlier, First Minister Alex Salmond visited Edinburgh Airport where he claimed Mr Cameron's "fingerprints are all over a scaremongering" campaign by banks, businesses and leading retailers who have voiced their concerns over independence.

Mr Salmond said: "The next time he [Mr Cameron] comes to Scotland it will not be to love-bomb or engage in desperate last-minute scaremongering, and following a Yes vote it will be to engage in serious post-referendum talks in the best interests of the people of Scotland and the rest of the UK, as pledged in the Edinburgh Agreement."

The Prime Minister, abundantly self-aware that there are limits to the persuasive appeal of any Conservative prime minister in Scotland, will now return to London for the remainder of this closely-fought campaign. The Labour Party will step up its campaign with the return of Opposition leader Ed Miliband on Tuesday.

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