A day before Scotland's independence vote, historian Ewen Cameron takes Christiane Amanpour on a historic tour of Edinburgh.

Click above to watch.

David Steel, founder of the current Liberal Democrat party and former speaker of the Scottish Parliament strongly believes that Scotland belongs in the United Kingdom.

He told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour why – click above to watch.

Scotland’s landmark independence referendum, due to open for voting in just hours, is a “one-off opportunity,” Scottish Member of Parliament Marco Biagi told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in Edinburgh.

“This isn’t the kind of choice that we get very often. This isn’t like an election.”

“This is a one-off chance to really do things differently in Scotland, and to fundamentally change the kind of society we are living in – to get the governments we vote for, to protect our public services, and to have governments that pay attention to Scotland not just once every three hundred years when an opinion poll suggests we might vote for independence, but every day.”

Click above to watch Amanpour’s full interview with Biagi.

By Mick Krever, CNN

Hours after a fiery last-ditch speech for Scotland to stay in the union, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an international exclusive interview that the United Kingdom is moving towards an “American model” of government.

“Never in the history of the island itself have we seen so much decentralization of power, so much of a transfer of power, from Westminster or London to one nation in the United Kingdom.”

“Britain can no longer think of itself as a centralized state, a unitary state, of undiluted Westminster sovereignty. That has changed. And in some sense we’re moving closer towards the American model of government.”

Nationalists and Unionists threw all their efforts into campaigning Wednesday, the last hours before Scots go to the polls.

Brown set the political and social media worlds alight early in the day, with a speech many said could be career-defining.

“There’s a good kind of change,” he told Amanpour, and a “bad kind of change.”

FULL POST

By Mick Krever, CNN

Exactly 36 hours before Scotland begins voting on an independence referendum, former British Prime Minister John Major made an impassioned plea for Scotland to stay in the United Kingdom, telling CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the Scottish people had been hoodwinked.

“The Scottish nation have frankly, and I don’t say this lightly, have been fed a load of pap by the Scottish nationalists in the belief that everything will be alright on the night. Well it won’t. There are very serious problems that Scotland will face if they go down this route.”

Scottish nationalists have faced up no none of the realities that would face their country should Scotland become independence, Major said.

“Whenever the realities are placed before them they say people are lying. They say, ‘We can get straight into the European Union.’ Well the European Union say they can’t. So they say the European Union is lying.”

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By Mick Krever, CNN

The pro-independence movement in Scotland has both avoided talking about matter of serious economic consequence in its campaign, and convinced the pro-unionist campaign to long avoid the issues as well, the editor of the Financial Times said on Monday.

“I think that it was a brilliant tactic by [independence leader] Alex Salmond to make that case, that you can't come up here and … make your arguments in favor of no, because that will be bullying,” Lionel Barber told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday.

“That meant that a lot of these practical, concrete questions about how the currency would work, what about pricing, were not made until the very last minute.”

FULL POST

By Mick Krever, CNN

To stay or to go.

With just over a week until a crucial referendum and polls on a knife’s edge, the pressure is on Scots to decide whether to end their 300-year-long union with the United Kingdom in favor of independence.

To debate the issue, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour spoke with Brian Cox, an actor and Scotsman who supports independence, and Rory Stewart, a British parliamentarian whose family is Scottish who supports a continued union.

For Cox the push for independence is the result of long pent-up frustrations; for Stewart, it’s a rash and regrettable reaction to a passing set of circumstances.

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By Mick Krever, CNN

With just ten days until Scots vote on independence - and with a poll showing a slight lead for the independence campaign for the first time - “there is no room for complacency,” conservative Member of Parliament and former Defense Secretary Liam Fox told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday.

“There’s no panic,” he said. “But I think there’s a genuine feeling at Westminster that the No campaign has focused too much on the negative.”

A ‘yes’ vote on September 18th would mean a bitter divorce after a marriage of 307 years; up until now, the ‘no’ campaign has kept a comfortable lead in the polls.

Political and business titans warn of grave consequences for the Scottish economy, public services, and national security should Scotland leave. But after this weekend’s YouGov poll, critics say unionists must step up their game in the final stretch if the union is to be preserved.

“It’s caused something of a minor political earthquake here at Westminster. I hope that it’s simply a strong wake-up call for those who’ve not been paying attention.”

“It’s very, very important that the ‘no’ campaign give a positive reason for staying in the union,” Fox said.

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