Currency costs

I am grateful to Dennis Canavan (Letters, 26 March) for his response to my letter. I believe I am right in thinking Mr Canavan wishes to ditch the pound and install a new currency. He says that this is “no secret”.

Whilst this is true I don’t think he could claim to be shouting it from the rooftops.

Mr Canavan claims that the SNP has a democratic mandate – by winning 45 per cent of the vote, apparently – to set out the proposals for the “immediate” aftermath of a Yes vote. This seems to be his justification for being content to be silenced by his SNP bedfellows in the short term.

“In the longer term it will be up to the people of Scotland to decide such matters,” he writes. Surely Mr Canavan knows this is simply untrue. The people of Scotland can decide if they wish to be in a currency union or not. They cannot decide that they will actually be in a currency union.

What kind of voting process empowers the people of Scotland to decide what the governments of rUK or EU would agree to?

Or does Mr Canavan accept the SNP rhetoric that foreign governments would dance to Mr Salmond’s tune and somehow it will be all right on the night?

I wonder if the truth is that Mr Canavan does not care whether the people of Scotland have the power to decide to retain the pound or not – because he wants to ditch it. I am very suspicious that this would also turn out to be the real choice of the SNP since a currency union stops well short of independence.

Finally, it is claimed that a Yes vote would enable the people of Scotland to elect the government of their choice. This is always made to sound as if every individual in Scotland would get the government of his choice.

In the 2011 Scottish elections, 55 per cent of the voters did not get the government of their choice. Why would it be different in an independent Scotland?

Colin Hamilton

Braid Hills Avenue

Edinburgh

In the present debate on the currency of an independent Scotland there appears to be a lack of confidence about creating an entirely new currency.

Surely we can create something new with a singularly Scottish name and strong Scottish associations, such as “the broon”.

One advantage would be an easy breakdown of denominations from the lowest, “the bairn”, to the highest, “the granpaw”, through “the horace”, “the hen” and “the maggie” and, of course, the symbolic “eck”.

Furthermore, notes and coins would feature an iconic Scottish family in place of the current somewhat archaic one. This new currency would even restore dignity and honour to the letters “RBS” with the Royal Broon of Scotland ready to step in when the present RBS leaves Scotland.

The terminology of money would, of course, have to change, the crime of “broon-laundering” being one example.

Popular culture will have to keep up, with re-titling of television programmes and songs.

We will have the purely Scottish Broons in the Attic and The Broon Programme but will have to be realistic about the prospect of changing song titles such as Abba’s Broons, Broons, Broons and The Beatles’ Broons Can’t Buy you Love.

The practicalities will have to be dealt with by the economists (broonists?) but surely this new currency would symbolise our confidence in a new nation.

Marie Ann Lakin

Learmonth Gardens

Edinburgh