IN principle there can be little objection to using the annual tax revenues from North Sea hydrocarbons to establish a stabilisation fund and a sovereign wealth fund (Letters, October 4).

In reality, however, it is pie in the sky, as Finance Secretary John Swinney well knows, not least because all the revenues are being consumed in order to fund a pattern of public spending bequeathed by Gordon Brown, never opposed by the SNP, and barely curtailed by David Cameron's Coalition.

The UK has an annual fiscal deficit of £120bn. Scotland's share on the more favourable population ratio basis is at least £11bn. Since Scotland's public expenditure per head is unjustifiably at least 10% more than the UK average, I would argue that Scotland's share of the annual deficit and of the UK national debt is more than its population share of the UK. To recognise that would be only fair, a word that the equality-obsessed SNP and Labour lefties are always peddling, except when it does not suit them, as on this matter.

The SNP loves to quote the most recent edition (March 2013) of Government Expenditure and Revenue in Scotland (GERS) in support of its case. Referring to the fiscal year 2011/2012, this publication inevitably fails to capture the massive fall in oil and gas revenues since then, caused by lower taxable profits brought about by lower output and higher production and maintenance costs. Even if an independent Scotland controlled 80% of North Sea hydrocarbon tax revenues, these would reduce Scotland's current fiscal deficit by no more than £5bn. So there is nothing left for a stabilisation fund nor for a sovereign wealth fund. Massive borrowing would still be unavoidable.

Mr Swinney assures us that with control of the economic levers an independent Scotland would grow the economy in order to reduce the deficit. I wish. SNP policy is to adopt sterling or the euro, so the economic levers of fiscal and monetary policy would be firmly in the hands of London or Berlin/Brussels. Only a separate Scottish currency would give Mr Swinney control of the economic levers. However, an independent country driven by socialism and more spending (as Mr Salmond never fails to promise), would fail to convince the markets to buy its government bonds and currency, in the absence of much higher tax and interest rates. It would be a basket case, and in the short term at least, all the oil in the North Sea would matter little.

The SNP will never achieve independence as long as it presents itself as a big-state/high-spend party - simply because the sums just don't add up to pay the current bills, never mind establish a stabilisation fund and a sovereign wealth fund.

Richard Mowbray,

14 Ancaster Drive,

Glasgow.

THE identity wrangle within the referendum debate will roll on and on, as long as No voters make no clear distinction between nationality and citizenship ("Census suggests that the Yes Campaign is missing a trick", The Herald, September 28, and Letters, September 30, and October 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5). The British, confusingly, talk about French, US, Belgian and indeed British "nationals", when what they really mean is "citizens".

Over ages, as a group of people coalesces in its actions, defensive or otherwise, it is in a process of becoming a nation; that is, a people conscious that it is a nation, and generally recognised as such by others. It may, additionally, achieve statehood, not always by painless processes. And of course, in the rough and tumble of history, it may again lose its statehood; but loss of its sense of nationhood does not inevitably occur as a result. Thus, Scotland.

"Britishness" is quite a different case. There is no nation of Britain: a nation of nations is not a concept that makes strict sense. So, as long as Wales and Scotland, drawn in under English hegemony by military and political defeats respectively, survive undeniably as nations, Britain itself cannot logically be one. It is a political construct alone, a state, of which, like it or not, we are citizens.

So what is this sense of Britishness which many No voters assert adherence to? During the 20th century's two world wars, peoples of Britain experienced a significant community of interest (in defence). Our No voters are appealing to events like these, but are expressing their feelings in terms of nationality. However, if awareness of common goals does not actually extinguish Welsh or Scottish nationhood, there cannot be a British nation, any more than a French-British nation was forged by that parallel community of interest. Or any more than the Austro-Hungarian Empire was ever a nation, or that there will ever be a single EU nationality.

Whatever routes ahead are taken by Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in the future, there should, and I think always will, be a recognition of common interests. But concepts of real democracy languish in this Britain and consequently its road ahead is uncertain.

What those of the Yes persuasion want to see is simply a Scotland where the nation has regained its statehood, a country of citizens empowered by a constitution to impel its governments to act in their best interests, something the UK is signally failing to achieve.

Michael F Troon,

15 Crawford Avenue, Gauldry, Fife.

SO it seems that if I decide not to vote for independence it's because I lack the courage of my convictions. (Letters, October 2 and 5).

Perhaps the next stage of the campaign will be along the lines of cowardy, cowardy custard.

If I choose to vote No it's not because I'm a big feartie, but because I am persuaded that facts are chiels that winna ding.

R Russell Smith,

96 Milton Road,

Kilbirnie.