You can’t put a price on independence

This is not the earthshattering turning point some media outlets are suggesting.

In December 2011 £500 per annum would, it seemed from polls then, have motivated many to vote to leave too. £500 per year for each of our five million people has to be paid for from our fiscal deficit which was estimated to be £7 billion in 2011-12 including all the oil  revenues.

With just a per capita share of the oil revenues, our fiscal deficit was an estimated £17bn. On the surface we would seem to be better off with separation with all the oil revenues.

But adding a vote-catching £500 per annum each for 5 million of us (£2-3bn in total) just increases the fiscal gap right from the start and takes it to some £10bn per annum.

Such a deficit would weigh against any attempt to rectify perceived societal inequalities, even if redistribution of incomes and assets was still thought to be a way forward.

How long-term needs would be financed is still open to question.

Reducing the deficit is not covered, let alone paying  the increasing yearly debt  interest.

Even doubling in-house whisky consumption with its high taxation is insignificant in that context. The oil revenues will inevitably shrink, but few acknowledge the likely impact, so expect more short-term blandishments rather than the necessary consideration of long-term prosperity with declining  assets.

It is noteworthy that the first thing Holyrood is apparently going to do if it can raise some of its taxes directly from Scottish incomes is borrow a few hundred million pounds.

Is this our future – more proportional debt per head?

Eminent economist Professor John Kay has urged Yes campaigners to move beyond vague aspirational statements and to spell out the hard choices Holyrood would face on “tax and spend”.

Perhaps the November white paper will do just that.

Joe Darby

Dingwall

Ross-shire

What a distressing, if unsurprising, result to the poll on Scottish independence. Scotland, it seems, is for sale at the knock-down price of £500.

The venality would not surprise any student of Scottish history, nor would it surprise Robert Burns, who wrote of “Such a Parcel of Rogues”.

I have no problem with the Loyal North British Provincials.

They are British; they nail their colours to the mast. But people who would sell their country for £500 amaze me. This sort of thing makes me wonder if Scotland is worthy of independence and question why I have been a nationalist for 40 years.

Am I alone in not giving a damn whether I am better or worse off?

R Mill Irving

Station Road

Gifford, East Lothian

Your front page makes depressing reading.

People who actually believe that a government (as yet unknown) working to a budget (as yet unpublished) in a country (as yet unborn) with a currency (as yet without any monetary structure) can guarantee to make them £500 better off, are going to be given a vote?

And The Scotsman thought it was a sensible question?

Ian Taylor

Manse Road

Edinburgh

According to the ICM poll Scottish residents may agree to be independent if they can be £500 per annum better off. Politicians, of all parties, can easily find £500 (of “your” money) to promise you that you can be “better off” but year after year? I doubt it.

I feel that a Scotsman or woman could not be “bought” for such a shallow outcome suggested by the poll.

The last people we should be listening to are the “here today gone tomorrow” politicians as the referendumis too important to be considered a political vote.

Listen to your heart; take information from any balanced reporting and then listen to your heart again and again through to next September.

Then make your choice for your country.

Allan J O’Connor

Leadervale Road

Edinburgh