Lord Steel: 'It's up to Scottish politicians, not Cameron, Osborne, or Clegg.'
David Cameron and other senior English politicians should withdraw from the debate over Scottish independence or risk handing victory to the SNP, former Liberal leader Lord Steel warned.
The Liberal Democrat peer, a former presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament, said the row over the referendum had been handled "very badly" by the coalition Government.
And he told Parliament's The House magazine that it would be "plain bonkers" for Chancellor George Osborne, who chairs the Cabinet's Scotland committee, to lead the "no" campaign.
It should be left to politicians north of the border, people from outside politics and Labour to make the case, he suggested.
"I think they have handled it very badly — David Cameron has played into Alex Salmond's hands," he told the magazine.
"The problem with the Scottish issue is that most of the politicians here don't understand Alex Salmond.
"I think I have the measure of him and know him only too well. He is extremely sharp, witty," he said — pointing to a joke about there being more pandas in Scotland than Tory MPs.
"It gets to people. No amount of clever financial argument can overlay that. Salmond is inconsistent, but he gets away with it because he is very bullish."
He went on: "The idea that George Osborne should take on a 'no' referendum campaign ... is just plain bonkers — if I were Alex Salmond I would be rubbing my hands in glee at the thought.
"This has to be a debate in Scotland — it's up to Scottish politicians, not Cameron, Osborne, or even my own dear leader (Nick Clegg), to get heavily involved in it.
"It's no good having so-called big guns flying in from down south, because Salmond will just dismiss it as London bullying, even though he does the bullying himself. It will just backfire."
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