Let's Stay Together Blog

Dan Snow blogs from the road for Let's Stay Together, a UK-wide campaign that gives a voice to everyone who doesn't have a vote in the decision to break up Britain. Add your support: www.letsstaytogether.org.uk

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Together our NHS is best in world: Robert Winston says #letsstaytogether

Doctor & Labour Peer Robert Winston says he hopes the Scottish people vote to stay in the UK and help safeguard the fabric of the NHS

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Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown says #letsstaytogether

Wartime flier Captain Eric "Winkle" Brown joins the campaign trail to convince fellow Scots not to break up UK Britain

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Bob Geldof says Scotland should vote No to independence

Some fantastic coverage in today's Daily Record from Bob Geldof on why he believes the UK is best off sticking together.

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Sir Paul McCartney signs our Letter to Scotland

Our tour rolls into Liverpool today and I’m thrilled to announce that Liverpudlian legend and former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has added his support to Let’s Stay Together by signing our letter to Scotland.

  Sir Paul’s love for Scotland is well known and it’s no surprise as Scotland has had a large part to play in his career.

  Scotland first crops up in the history of the Beatles in 1960, when the Silver Beetles, a band of young Liverpudlians featuring a certain Paul Ramon on guitar, played a series of dates as a backing band for the singer Johnny Gentle. Over the coming months Paul McCartney would drop his pseudonym, trade guitar for bass and the band would change their name to the Beatles. This brief trip north of the border marks the band’s first tour outside England – even predating their famous sessions in Hamburg.

  As the Beatles’ popularity exploded and Beatlemania gripped the world, the band would frequently tour Scotland, playing dates in Elgin, Dingwall, Bridge of Allan, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Kirkcaldy, Dundee and Edinburgh throughout the early sixties before they gave up touring in 1966. The Beatles were famous for writing on the road and it’s safe to assume that many of their classics would have been in gestation as they were driving from show to show in Scotland.

  Perhaps it was on these formative tours that Sir Paul first developed his fondness for Scotland, as he bought High Farm near Cambeltown in 1966 and was to return there with increasing frequency over the years.

  After John Lennon announced his intention to leave the Beatles, Sir Paul headed to High Farm to regroup and gather his thoughts. Here, inspired by the wandering single-track roads and the sense of solace he found in the Scottish landscape, he sat down at his piano and wrote The Long and Winding Road, one of the Beatles’ most enduring hits.

  During the same period Sir Paul began work on his first solo album, McCartney, and High Farm and Scotland were about to go on to play an even bigger part in Sir Paul’s life. It was at High Farm, or Rude Studio, as it was affectionately renamed, that his next band, Wings, worked on and recorded some of their biggest hits.

  One of the most famous of these, Mull of Kintyre, featuring the local Cambeltown pipe band, became the 1977 Christmas number one and the first single to sell two million copies in the United Kingdom.

  Scotland again played its part in Sir Paul’s success when a live recording of his song Coming Up recorded by Wings in Glasgow reached number one on the US charts in 1980. By contrast, the studio version, which featured on Sir Paul’s second solo album, only reached number two in the UK. Maybe the Scottish audience made the difference!

  We are absolutely delighted to be able to have Sir Paul’s support for Let’s Stay Together, as he is not only a national treasure but somebody who loves Scotland for what it is: a beautiful and inspiring country, and one that we are proud to count as part of the United Kingdom.

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Leeds

Dan Snow outside the Leeds Art Gallery collects the signature of student Rhiannon Hope. Picture by Tony Johnson, courtesy of the Yorkshire Post

Under a clear Yorkshire sky we set about gathering signatures in Leeds, together with Leeds City Council leader Keith Wakefield. We had a touch of star power as we were joined by soap star John Middleton, better known as Emmerdale's Ashley Thomas.

Perhaps for that reason we had a record session. The people I met were highly engaged in the debate and believed that places with distinctive identities could flourish in larger political units like the UK. Yorkshire has long been at the crossroads of Britain and has become one of Europe's most dynamic regions by adding their home grown talent and drive to that of their neighbours from north and south, and occasionally, although they might not like to admit it, to the west as well...

The letter to Scotland is growing. It's becoming a movement.

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Scottish independence: David Byrne backs Better Together campaign as business leaders line up against Salmond

Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne today warned of the risks for Scotland if it breaks away from the UK.

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The Let’s Stay Together campaign has been on a whistlestop tour of the country over the past few weeks as the Scottish prepare to vote in a referendum on independence next month.

So far tens of thousands of people have added their name to the open letter, which is designed to persuade those north of the border that Britain is better and stronger with Scotland in it.

Snow said the overwhelming majority of members of the public he had met were opposed to independence.

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Sir Bobby Charlton signs our Letter to Scotland

Today I’m delighted to announce the exciting news that none other than Sir Bobby Charlton, Manchester United hero and winner of the 1966 World Cup with England, has added his support to our campaign.

To describe Sir Bobby as a legend would be a huge understatement. He is one of the greatest footballers ever. In a glittering career spanning three decades, he won three First Division titles, one FA Cup, four Charity Shields, one European Cup and, of course, the World Cup at Wembley Stadium.

And that’s not all. Sir Bobby also won ten British Home Championships – the notorious annual grudge matches that took place between the United Kingdom’s four national teams – including scoring on his international debut against Scotland at Hampden Park in a 4-0 win for England.

While there was no love lost on the pitch, Sir Bobby has frequently made his respect for Scotland and its football teams well-known off it. It’s true that sporting encounters between the two sides are often raucous and full-blooded affairs but then again - there’s no rivalry quite like a sibling rivalry, is there? He knows, that we are at our best when we work together, to harness the potential of everyone across the UK to build a better future for all of us. Sir Bobby is adding his name to an England rugby captain, World Cup winners, Sir Steve Redgrave and many other Olympic gold medal winning athletes. They know that their rivals on the pitch are our greatest allies in real life.

Sir Bobby Charlton is an ambassador for English sport and the United Kingdom like no other and we are thrilled to welcome his support to the campaign.

Dan

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Scotland Votes: What's at Stake for the UK?

This week the BBC aired a documentary about what the Scottish referendum means for the whole of the UK made by Andrew Neil.

It was a fascinating (and quite frightening!) – watch and it’s still available to view on the BBC’s iPlayer service here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04dr69k/scotland-votes-whats-at-stake-for-the-uk

I’d urge anybody undecided about or uninterested in the debate to take some time out to watch it – it’s a very thought-provoking watch.

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Bath

Our letter with the Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for Bath Steve Bradley and Councillor Paul Crossley.

The Let’s Stay Together tour keeps on rolling and yesterday it was Bath’s turn for a visit from our letter to Scotland. Bath is a fantastic city that has played a big part in our history, in some surprising ways! Although Bath is best known – and named – for its hot springs which were developed into public baths by the Romans, several events in more recent times serve to illustrate that our country is full of a diverse collection peoples and stories. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, and after his famous appeal to the League of Nations in 1936, Emperor Haile Selassie I was forced out of Ethiopia by the Italian invasion and spent four years in exile in Bath at Fairfield House. Fairfield House has since gone on to become a place of pilgrimage for Rastafarians in the UK as a result of his stay, and people round here believe it is a symbol of the United Kingdom’s welcoming, inclusive culture. Six years later, Bath was bombed by the Luftwaffe, singled out for its cultural significance along with other historic British cities including Exeter, Norwich, York and Canterbury. The city suffered terrible losses to its architecture and population over the course of three raids but underwent significant restoration and re-emerged with its unique identity intact. Much has been said and written about the combined effort that brought about the end of the Second World War but the importance of the camaraderie between the nations of the United Kingdom during that conflict bears repeating, and it’s this spirit of friendship and co-operation that the Let’s Stay Together campaign wants to urge Scottish voters to consider before marking their ballot papers on September 18.

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Cardiff

On Saturday the Let’s Stay Together tour rolled into Cardiff where we visited the Millenium Stadium, the home of Welsh Rugby. Here we got the chance to see their statue of the great Sir Tasker Watkins, President of the Welsh Rugby Union from 1993 until 2004, and a man who achieved so much for Wales and Britain over the course of a long and distinguished career that saw him receive the Victoria Cross for an extraordinary act of wartime bravery and rise to become Deputy Chief Justice of England and Wales.

Sir Tasker’s life story is an incredible tale of individual endeavour and brilliance. He is a great example of what we can achieve when we harness the talents of people from all over our country, no matter where they're from.

Our message to our fellow citizens in Scotland is that we value their contribution, like that of Sir Tasker Watkins, to our shared country. We in the rest of the UK feel we are at our best as a community. We have more chance of overcoming the challenges we face ‎when we work as a team. If we focus on what serperates us, if we sow division, that would make us all poorer.

Dan

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Southampton

We were up bright and early today to head back to my home city of Southampton. As you can see, it was a fantastic summer's morning and I was met by Councillor Stephen Barnes-Andrews at the Bargate, a stunning twelfth-century fortification.

  Southampton is just one stop on our tour as we take our letter around the UK but it's a fitting location. As a major coastal city, Southampton has played its part in welcoming many people from all over our islands and further afield into our diverse, eclectic shared country over the years.

  That's what the spirit of this campaign is all about - focussing on the long-lasting bonds of friendship between nations instead of putting up barriers and becoming disconnected from each other.

  Just in the time that I was out and about today I met three or four Scottish people who had chosen to move to Southampton to start new businesses or join up with like minded people to work on projects. It's that ability to move freely across our island and cooperate on projects, put down roots, meet fellow citizens from hugely different backgrounds that has helped to make our country such a success. 

  I'm looking forward to meeting more like-minded people in Cardiff on Saturday! I'll be outside the Millenium Stadium from 9.45am.

At the BBC Solent studio

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Vogue | Kane: No To Scottish Independence

DESIGNER Christopher Kane has revealed that he wants Scotland to remain a part of Great Britain. A group of high-profile names - including Scottish-born designer Kane - have signed a "love letter" to Scotland, asking the country's people to remain in the union when it comes to cast their vote in the referendum on September 18.

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Tom Holland has written a great piece for the New Statesman on the important historical bonds between England and Scotland:

Much will depend on whether the United Kingdom holds together. The decision on that, in the short term, rests with the Scottish electorate alone. Nevertheless, all those in the rest of the island who profoundly value their bonds of citizenship with the Scots, who would be distraught to see them become foreigners, and who believe that the referendum, far from separating us, may instead enable us to repledge our vows, can but watch on in hope. British identity remains what it has always been: a journey, not an end.

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This morning began at 5am for an interview on breakfast radio in Manchester, and then I took the Let's Stay Together letter to the streets by Manchester Town Hall, meeting Council Leader Sir Richard Leese.

It was an easy sell. Manchester is a city made great by men and women from all over the British Isles. Scottish brains and effort helped make Manchester and Lancashire world beaters. Lots of people signed up.

Then we hit the road and traveled to the town of Corby in the East Midlands, which has some of the strongest links with Scotland than any other place in England. It was great to be welcomed by Council Leader Tom Beattie, in the gorgeous new civic space and meet people who were passionate about making the Scottish people aware that the rest of the UK is fervently hoping they vote to renew our shared citizenship. Though the heavens opened shortly after, the people of Corby were queuing in the rain to sign our letter to Scotland!

Keep signing up at www.letsstaytogether.org.uk

For more news on where I'm heading next on the tour, keep an eye on Twitter.