The 125 billion pounds question

That Unionist rag the Sunday Times reports on a study claiming that an independent Scotland would inherit a debt mountain of £125 billion ('Alex's albatross'?) and future fiscal performance would be highly dependent on the volatile oil price, but for good measure Nationalist cheerleader Joan McAlpine uses her column to take a more positive view of economic performance post-separation. She also has some interesting comments on the proposed referendum questions:

Apparently the civil servants who drew up the sample ballot papers printed in the consultation document had little trouble defining independence and devo max. Calman was problematic. It is an incoherent pick and mix of compromise — unlike Donald Dewar’s original Scotland Act, which chose to define the powers reserved to Westminster, rather than those devolved to Scotland. It seems unlikely that anyone looking at the options would favour the flawed and confusing Calman over the simplicity of devo max, so the latter will most likely end up on the final ballot.

Well there's a surprise - the SNP will choose devo max over Calman, which would perhaps confirm that consultation about what's on the ballot paper is more about dragging the whole thing out rather than any genuine intention to consult. And while I've certainly argued in the past that Calman was unduly complex and confusing, Joan seems to be saying that which of the two options ends up on the ballot paper depends on the ability of civil servants to express them clearly rather than the substance of the powers proposed to be devolved. And unlikely that anyone would favour Calman? Well, not inside the Nationalist bubble, presumably, but there's also the major part of the population of Scotland to consider.

Moreover, Joan contrasts the "flawed and confusing" Calman with the simplicity of devo max, with civil servants having "little trouble defining" it, as is the case with independence. Well the substantive Calman proposals may be complex and confusing, but if faced with the option on the ballot paper it seems a straightforward case of taking it or leaving it, but if the independence question is supposedly characterised by simplicity then I wouldn't like to see the difficult option:

The Scottish Government proposes that, in addition to the extension of the powers and responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament set out in Proposal 1 [either Calman or devo max], the Parliament's powers should also be extended to enable independence to be achieved.

Which could certainly be construed as asking whether additional power should be sought as some sort of stepping stone to independence rather than as a question about independence per se.

As I argued here the other day, the question also twice refers to the extension of powers to the Scottish Parliament, and could this repetition, combined with a conclusion to the question which seems to stop short of asking about full independence, be worded to exploit the established desire of the Scottish people for more powers short of separation?

Thus as a whole the question, which purports to be about independence, could in fact be intended to downplay the concept and to that extent encourage the more sceptical to vote for it?

Perhaps this all sounds a bit too much like accusing the SNP of electoral chicanery, but even assuming good faith the question presumably doesn't comply with the Electoral Commission's guidelines, as outlined in the Scottish Government's consultation paper:

A referendum question should present the options clearly, simply and neutrally,
and should:
- be easy to understand;
- be to the point;
- be unambiguous;
- avoid encouraging voters to consider one response more favourably than another; and avoid misleading voters.

Surely it doesn't achieve that?