On the brink: six thoughts about Scotland

Well, nearly there now. So many interesting things, it’s hard to select a few. But I’ll try.

1. Scotland is a beautiful and fascinating country. When QE2 visited the southern section of our country, the expense involved was said to have been justified by the international exposure it gave, the boost to Irish tourism. If that’s true, how much more must the many interviews with people of energy and character have done for Scottish tourism?

2. The amount of money that Westminster passes to Scotland each year occupied a back seat in the debate. It was mentioned, but there was no sustained discussion of what you would have thought was a central issue. Was that because, as one person suggested,  we rarely hear about how much money goes out of Scotland and into the British Treasury’s coffers?  Which are, of course, located in England. It’s nuclear weapons that are located in Scotland.

3. As George Monbiot points out in yesterday’s Guardian, virtually all of the print media have failed to highlight the benefits of independence for Scotland, choosing instead to repeat the No camp warnings of businesses and financial groupings catching the first bus south if it’s Yes. As for the BBC, Alistair Darling said yesterday that the scenes of demonstration outside BBC Scotland were disgraceful. Not quite, Alistair. What was disgraceful was that people should have felt compelled to demonstrate over the neutrality of the BBC.  But then again, it’s not the Scottish Broadcasting Corporation, is it?

4. Does Gordon Brown realise how condescending he sounds when he talks about “further powers” being allowed to a Scottish parliament? The notion that, as one demonstrator termed them, “our Imperial masters”  should decide how much powers the Scottish people be given to govern themselves is breath-taking in its arrogance.

5. It’s disappointing but it does look as if the No camp will win the referendum. I say that as someone whose track record on prediction is appalling. But should that be the case, there’s going to be a number of very loud voices raised in Wales and the north of Ireland for exactly the same Home Rule/federal powers that Gordon Brown says will be delivered to Scotland post-haste.

6. In the nineteenth century, Lord Palmerston said nations  have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests. Isn’t it blindingly obvious that England believes it is in England’s interests to continue the Union with Scotland? All this stuff about a tear in Cameron’s eye and talk of “this family of nations” is because one member of the family (England) is aware that it could lose an awful lot of oil and an awful lot of market wealth  and human capital.

I can’t remember when I last hoped so ardently that my prediction is proved wrong.