Poor sales tactic

I SUSPECT the Better Together campaign and its political party sympathisers must be behind the latest “scare” of the potential death of Scottish farming in the case of a Yes vote (according to weekend reports). The idea of supermarkets rejecting Scottish food produce for want of a Union Jack label is bereft of even elementary commercial sense, let alone the common variety.

Are we to believe that English customers would overnight be aghast at the sight of “Scottish produce” on food labels (it’s on whisky labels in the same stores)?

This goes beyond clumsy intervention; it’s a stark insult to English customers who enjoy Scottish products. Right now, they may be deliberately buying salmon knowing it to be Scottish, despite its UK label.

This is only the latest in a series of false claims of businesses decamping from Scotland in the event of a vote for independence, but no one supermarket would be greatly missed; the others would absorb the trade, not to mention the custom of local people (they’re not all English, you know) who value and enjoy Scottish food.

It’s most likely that a major factor in Ukip’s recent electoral success was the relentless negativity and insults of opposing attacks on the party.

That same unintended consequence could well result from the equally determined use of manufactured fear by the No campaign.

Robert Dow

Ormiston Road

Tranent, East Lothian