As chances of UK split grow, costs to the world become clearer

It seems that the situation has changed rapidly in the last week or so. A successful independence vote had seemed unlikely, but there was a televised political debate in which the advocate of independence apparently made a very compelling case. It's now considered too close to call.

Beyond the statistical cross-checking, there are several reasons to believe that a breakup of the United Kingdom has become a genuine possibility. For a start, the shift in public opinion had a clear catalyst: a televised debate last week that was clearly won by Salmond. More fundamentally, the assumption that the Scots would be mainly swayed by economic issues, which favor risk-averse voting for the status quo, has turned proved wrong. It now appears that many voters are focusing mostly on the political implications of independence. Many Scots see the referendum as an opportunity to turn their country into a Scandinavian-style social democracy, expressing a collectivist national spirit that has been suppressed by English conservatism, especially since Margaret Thatcher’s election in 1979. The fact that Scotland did not elect a single Conservative Member of Parliament in the last UK election provides clear evidence of this ideological divergence.