NEXT month will mark 25 years since the historic referendum on September 11, 1997, which delivered a huge Yes, Yes for a Scottish Parliament with tax-raising powers.
Less than a fortnight before the poll, Princess Diana died in a crash in a Paris underpass, on August 31, 1997. Some wondered whether the tragedy would affect the result. Neal Ascherson, in his book Stone Voices, recalls that the mourning for Diana was more muted in Scotland than down south, where vast crowds outside Buckingham Palace wept and waved flags. He noted that these were largely St George’s Crosses rather than Union Jacks, in what he saw as a symbolic moment of the re-emergence of an English national consciousness.
