ANDREW Tickell asks the crucial question: ‘How do you persuade a wealthy nation to embrace radical change?” (Yes campaigners need to recognise Scotland is already a wealthy nation, The National, January 19). He refers to household surveys which show that most people say they are well-off and very few people say they are poor, which suggests that Scotland is a wealthy nation in those terms.

We do know it is a wealthy nation from the point of view of national resources, but how can we tell if the household surveys give a clearer picture of prosperity at the level of the individual?

There are other ways of measuring this, eg food bank usage and personal debt levels (loans, overdrafts and credit card debts). It would be very interesting to compare these figures over the last few years to see if there is any correlation between these and doorstep perceptions.

If, for example, these types of debts have escalated, as some suggest, it could be that Mr Tickell’s question is easily answered by the publication of such figures. This would probably bring home the realisation, at the level of the individual, that the house in which they live, and the car in their drive, are teetering on the edge of the same cliff edge as the hard Brexit bus?

Dennis White
Blackwood