Iffy arguments

THESE days it only takes a new policy announcement by the Scottish Government to bring out in force all the usual doom-mongers and “glass-half-empty” merchants.

Sir Kenneth Calman (your front-page report, 14 September) warns that allowing Holyrood to set corporation tax could mean the rates could “go down or up”. I wonder which rocket scientist alerted him to that astonishing fact. He only needed to add “or stay the same” and he would have covered all the bases.

Every worthwhile advance in human civilisation has involved some element of risk, without which we would never make any progress.

Opponents of independence or further devolution should have the honesty to stress their real reason for opposition – a wish to keep the Union.

This is a perfectly respectable position, but inventing silly “what if” scenarios to try to bolster their case does not command respect at all.

Peter Swain

Tyme Cottage

Innerwick

Dunbar