Salmond under the Darling knife

Surgical incision without anesthetic made for painful viewing last night. Quite why Alex Salmond thought he could continue to shrug off legitimate questions about what currency an independent Scotland might use by amateurish obfuscation and selective quotation is utterly baffling. Monotone Darling adopted the novel idea of assuming the role of an inquisitive 8 year old and it worked. As the groans turned to jeers, the former chancellor cleverly offered child like simplicity and the process of elimination to entice the First Minister to answer the question that we would all like to know the answer to; he skillfully exposed the Achilles heel of the yes campaign.

Jeremy Bentham coined the phrase ‘nonsense upon stilts’ to describe rhetoric on natural rights; Alastair Darling has substituted ‘nonsense’ for ‘stupidity’ to describe currency union without political union. Economic competence matters and if ‘stupidity on stilts’ sticks then the odds on a yes vote will lengthen further than 4/1 which they fell to in the aftermath of Salmond’s stuttering and stumbling.

When given his chance to rise from under the surgeon’s knife, Salmond’s response suggested that anesthetic might actually have been used after all. He chose to cross-examine Darling on an Andy Burnham joke about driving on the right and the probability of attacks from outer space. Darling couldn’t believe his luck as he scored the open goal and sarcastically ridiculed the First Minister’s lack of humor. Isn't it supposed to be Salmond who is the smug and glib political heavyweight? On the evidence of last night he has lost weight both literally and metaphorically. I’d better get down to the bookies.  

Not enough information?

As the commonwealth games draw to a close, the final push from either side of the Scottish independence campaign will be unleashed and, make no mistake, it will get pretty messy. Already I’ve heard of disagreement between family, friends and work colleagues causing angst. I would urge everyone to hold his or her nerve and persevere. Rational argument and iteration is surely conducive to arriving at a decision that each of us is happy with. Who is correct will perhaps never be known because we won’t have the opportunity to try each scenario out and compare them. 

Over the past couple of months, I’ve heard more interesting arguments. A respected financial journalist told me that independence would be a disaster because of the capital flight that he believes would ensue in the event of a yes vote. The prospect of Scottish sovereignty over North Sea oil reserves being in question has also been brought to my attention. Each argument has been carefully researched with their respective proponents displaying impressive vigour and knowledge. In my experience the most common utterance though is that there is ‘not enough information’.

If you desire all the facts in order to conclude what will happen whether Scotland votes yes or no, then I think you are perfectly entitled to make this complaint but you will probably remain disappointed. The dearth of certainty highlights the crux of the referendum: nobody actually knows very much at all. Will Scotland continue to use the pound? Will all oil companies shut up shop? Will a tin of baked beans cost 2p more in Tesco? Will house prices crash 20%? Will we be £1100 better or worse off? I don’t know and I very much doubt that anybody else does either, at least not for sure anyway.

I think both sides have run a pretty cynical campaign. As I’ve said before, I think the SNP argument has been ruinously denigrated by their (presumably) pre-meditated decision to tip toe around some of the most emotive issues. The nationalist argument venerates our confidence to become a nation state and take control of our economy. Yet, perplexingly, Salmond et al think that it's a good idea to abdicate responsibility for the monetary tenet of marcoeconomic policy. Moreover, fiscal policy is restrained when one is not in control of monetary policy as has been brutally demonstrated in the Eurozone. The twin planks of fiscal and monetary policy need to operate symbiotically to be effective and sustainable.

I’ve accepted that there is not much good information to go on and that both sides peddle their own propaganda. I will not be voting on whether I think that hedge funds pull the plug on certain Scottish investments nor whether a fledgling Scottish state meets the requirements of the United Nations Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to have territorial and economic rights in the North Sea recognized. I am going to vote on which option I think offers the greatest prospect of building a better society over future generations.

I have touched on many of these issues in this blog. What I do know are my own beliefs. I think nuclear weapons are a crazy waste of money; I don’t think that a largely hereditary elite should rule us; I don’t think children’s prospects should be afflicted by who their parents happen to be; I would like to see greater equality and humanity in our society. 

I am open to changing my mind but at the moment I’m inclined to vote yes because I think the probability of achieving the aspirations that I value would be enhanced. Even if my lifetime only yields the plugging of the democratic deficit and the eradication of weapons of insanity, that would be enough for me to hope that future generations can flourish. I don’t think that an egalitarian utopia will be created overnight but I’d rather have a go then reminisce on what might have been. Enjoy the debate and remember that every vote – unlike at Westminster elections - does count on the 18^th of September.