ALEX Salmond is today accused by the pro-UK campaign of promising things he will not be able to deliver as its analysis of the Scottish Government's White Paper shows more than 25% of the pledges cannot be guaranteed.
Detailed examination of the question and answer section of "Scotland's Future" showed, according to the Better Together campaign, that 26% of the answers provided about life in an independent Scotland relied on agreement with third parties such as the rest of the UK and the European Union.
The No campaign suggested that of 650 issues addressed in the SNP's prospectus for independence, 167 would need to be negotiated with other countries, "meaning there is no guarantee that what is in the White Paper would be what actually happens".
It also pointed out that over 10% of the issues on the SNP's "wish-list could be addressed today as the powers currently lie with the Scottish Parliament, with 14% of the responses based purely on assertion or speculation".
"The SNP told us that the White Paper would answer all our questions about the consequences of breaking up the UK but all we got was a wish-list of uncosted promises," declared Jackson Carlaw, the Deputy Leader of the Scottish Conservatives.
"The fact that so many of the SNP's claims in the White Paper would be dependent on agreement with the very country we would have just left shows how little credibility this document has," he stressed.
But Nicola Sturgeon hit back, branding the Better Together analysis as "yet more negative nonsense from self-styled Project Fear". The Deputy FM insisted the White Paper was the only vision for the future of Scotland that had been published.
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