Scotland The Brave

Yesterday Cameron and Salmond signed the accord to enable the Scottish  Independence  Referendum to be held on the 700th anniversary of the Scots victory over the English at the Battle of Bannockburn. Salmond hopes the choice of date will boost the independence vote by reminding the Scots of how they can beat the English. The Scots are not fools though and Salmond's choice of date will not persuade them to vote in favour of independence anymore than by allowing 16 and 17 year olds to vote. 16 and 17 year olds are supposed to be more romantically attached to their country and more fervently patriotic and thus more likely to vote for independence but if the polls are anything to go by they will vote in the same percentages, for and against, as their elders. Even though it is disagreeable to be on the receiving end of what is in effect a divorce petition that generates a desire to tell the Scots to 'get lost', sentiment and reason tells us to hope that the referendum is lost and that we remain one nation. If the referendum is won the Scots still intend to use the English pound in the same way as the Irish did following their independence. The Irish though swapped the pound for the euro as soon as there was a chance to do so, which is a decision that many of them must now be bitterly regretting as a result of the total failure of the euro as a currency. The Scots have posted a desire to switch to the euro as soon as circumstances allow. No doubt the euro will have a false dawn or two when, if the SNP are still in charge, they will decide to make the transition and, I predict, bitterly regret it. Marry in haste, repent at leisure and all that. Should the vote be in favour of independence then the amount of national debt, the portion of the North Sea oil and gas fields and other such shared assets and liabilities to go to Scotland will have to be negotiated. This could last for months and could leave a bitter taste with either the English or the Scots or both. If the two countries are to split we will have to look for the silver linings. There is one that immediately comes to mind and that is that the SNP are much keener on green issues than the Tories in whom I detect a shift towards a more sceptical approach. Such shift is still far too little for my liking but has been enough to frighten Blair's discredited climate change guru Stern into writing an article in the FT this morning calling for Cameron to embed decarbonisation of the power sector in a framework for the reform of the electricity market. Stern does not of course mention the cost of such an unnecessary policy to be added to the 6% or so increase in the cost of energy we are all going to have to suffer this winter caused by the green stratagem that has already been imposed on the UK.