The newspapers today are obsessed by the threat to the Murdoch empire. But I wonder whether the gloating over the sight of the media mogul laid low is slightly diverting attention from a potentially more dramatic angle to the phone-hacking story - the threat to the entire Cameron government.

I was so shocked by the rise of the Scottish National Party in last week’s elections that I have had to retreat to the Andes to get some perspective on the situation. I am writing this from an internet cafe in Cusco, once the Inca capital, in Peru. Perhaps, it is the high altitude or the benefit of distance, but I feel I am now seeing the situation in Scotland with new clarity. My view is that, even though the SNP now control the Scottish parliament and have promised a referendum on independence, Scotland will choose to remain part of the UK.

Forget Osama bin Laden. In Britain, the real political drama is about the referendum that will be staged tomorrow on the Alternative Vote – which would be a new way of electing parliaments. It is the first referendum for the whole of Britain on anything for decades.The idea would be to abandon first-past-the-post – in which the winning candidate is the one that gets the most votes – in favour of AV, where you list candidates in order of preference. If your first-choice candidate is eliminated, your second preference vote is then assigned – the idea is that nobody can be elected without 50% of the vote.

I am voting against, which seems to place me in a minority of one on the FT columnists’ corridor. Martin Wolf is in favour of AV; so is Philip Stephens; so is the FT as a newspaper. So let me explain myself.

Rather to my surprise, I felt sad this morning that I was not in London to watch the royal wedding. By the time I turned on the TV at 6.30am Washington time, the vows had already been taken. I got the Archbishop’s homily, the singing of Jerusalem (always a highlight) and the carriage ride back to Buckingham Palace. I chose to watch the coverage on Fox, but it is difficult to discern conservative bias in the coverage of British royalty. The funniest bit of commentary was when a baffled American studio guest asked to have the concept of a Royal “tea towel” explained to him. Well, it was explained, British people don’t have washing machines – so tea towels are particularly important to them, since all dishes are dried by hand.