Vague promises

Ed Miliband, the Westminster Labour leader, thinks that separation would lead to tax cuts for the “rich” and wage cuts for the workers. Some of your letter writers (25 April) say that Scotland’s citizens’ aspirations to have a fairer more equal society do not currently seem in sight with Labour.

Becoming fairer and more just with lessened inequality is one of the promises constantly repeated in Yes proponents’ PR assertions.

The inexactitude of the language used continues to hinder rational thinking, and it seems impossible to get political bodies to spell out details of the financial transfers likely to be necessary.

A good start would be to explain what redistribution of “wealth” has to take place, taking into account the Holyrood estimated as-if-we-were-independent fiscal deficit of £12 billion which means there is no cash left from general taxation to hand out, only the deficit to finance somehow as there is no collateral back-up identified.

Annual income from the 
putative so-called bonus £1,500 billion of “potential wholesale value” of the remaining North Sea oil is already factored into the Holyrood estimates; it is not additional to existing revenue streams.

Joe Darby

Dingwall

Ross-shire