EMERITUS Professor James Pickett's letter (October 27) is at odds with the evaluation of the Scottish economy as outlined by world-renowned economists Joseph Stiglistz (Nobel prizewinner) and Andrew Hughes Hallett.
He claims Scotland "gets more from the UK Treasury than it gives to it". Prof Hughes Hallett has shown that for each of the last 33 years but one, it is Scotland which has contributed more than it receives.
Prof Pickett's contention that London subsidises Scotland is simply not true. When unidentified public expenditure is taken into account, including infrastructure and transport costs, London receives massively more per capita than any other region or country of the UK. That has to be set against its larger net contribution. If you run five businesses and you pump hugely more money per capita into one than any of the rest, you will obviously expect a greater return from the one receiving such largesse.
The true wealth of any nation lies in its manufacturing base, not its financial centres. Here successive Unionist governments have proved manifestly abysmal at creating high-tech jobs and a highly skilled workforce. In their place we have seen an increasingly rotten banking community, poorly paid service industry and an increasingly low-paid workforce. Many folk have also been forced into part-time and zero hour contract work. None of this is healthy for the economy.
I am in the age group that Prof Pickett claims voted "in their patriotic droves" to stay in the Union because it offers the best prospects for the long-run prosperity of their children and grandchildren". I voted the opposite way for precisely those reasons.
That 45 per cent of people did so, on a huge turnout, in the face of a hostile establishment and media (I exclude the Sunday Herald, which was pro-independence, and The Herald, which I believe was the only balanced, objective daily newspaper during the referendum) was quite remarkable in my view.
As for his remarks about terrorism, an independent Scotland, which would not be involved in such absurd adventures as the illegal war in Iraq in 2003, and the equally futile Afghanistan conflict, would be far less of a terrorist target in the first place. But in any case military minds made quite clear during the referendum campaign that an independent Scotland could provide perfectly adequate defence forces for two-thirds of what it currently contributes to the UK defence budget.
Had the UK not been so obviously unfit for purpose, with its increasingly elitist House of Commons and its unelected second chamber of nearly 800 archaic Lords and Bishops, 1.6 million Scots would not have voted to leave it.
I would suggest that unless home rule is instigated, by which I mean full fiscal control of all Scottish resources, including oil - leaving foreign affairs and defence to the UK Parliament - the entire issue is bound to be revisited sooner rather than later.
Roger Graham,
23 Cullen Crescent, Inverkip.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article