Professor Ciaran Martin said the 'once in a generation' phrase had been nothing but a slogan THE “once in a generation” phrase parroted by Conservatives in their attempt to block a second independence vote is nothing but a slogan and has no constitutional relevance, one of the architects of the Edinburgh Agreement has said. Professor Ciaran Martin, from the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, also warned that any Supreme Court battle between the London and Edinburgh governments would likely be nullified by a change of law pushed through by the Tory majority in the House of Commons.