Future honours

Lately there have been many items in your newspaper suggesting an independent Scotland would find it difficult to get along in the world because it would be excluded from arrangements that are presently organised on a UK-wide basis.

The lists of problem areas is seemingly endless: benefits, pensions, banks, defence and security, currency, European Union, passports and embassies abroad, to name but a few.

But here is the clincher, which no one seems to have noted yet. An independent Scotland would have to live without the UK honours system.

No more knighthoods and damehoods for captains of industry and Olympic gold medallists; no more automatic gongs for retiring civil servants; no more ego-boosters for long-serving pop idols; no more MBEs to recognise lifetimes of dedication.

Our local celebrity industry would die!

Of course, Scotland could set up its own honours system, but it would without doubt be a feeble and inferior substitute, not having centuries of tradition behind it, and not having any international recognition.

It would certainly not be a route to instant celebrity.

The ablest Scots would obviously take themselves off to England, so as to remain eligible for meaningful honours and the personal benefits they would bring.

This would be disastrous for Scotland. We must not let it 
happen.

Alan Hamilton

Bridge of Allan, Stirling