Letters: Avoid tartan blindness, Scotland can't afford independence

Monday's Letters page reveals a standard cross section of opinion over the question of independence for Scotland '“ much impassioned claims that 100,000 or so marched in Edinburgh, contradicted by counter assessments of 20,000 or thereabouts, and comparisons with the Jacobite cause, and a wonderful shout for the 'next generation' who 'are not feart'.

SNP Conference fired up independence activists. Picture: John Devlin

Fine. Let us be clear. A ­popular vote in 2014 said No to independence. Had the vote gone the other way, can we presume that a continued whine from the Unionist camp would have emerged, seeking another vote, because they didn’t like the first one? ­Possibly, but unlikely.

The main argument against Scottish independence is that the country simply does not have the economic strength to sustain it. Forget potential Brexit outcomes, of which no one is sure, and any statistical smoke and mirror fantasises that suggest otherwise.

The track record of the Scottish government since 2014 has made it quite evident that the country just doesn’t have the wherewithal to create and sustain policies that ­support a health service, an education system, a police force, a ­transport infrastructure and a welfare state ­without punishing taxes that cripple the people who voted against independence in the first place.

We must ignore the tartan-blinded minority, who would rather perish on the raft of ­idealism than wake up and recognise the truth, which the thinking majority came to realise years ago – we cannot afford it!

Hamish Alldridge