Independence will be won by gaining support of people from all classes

Here is how he summed up a distinct aspect of my own position: “Perhaps the key to winning sufficient support for independence is in managing inequality rather than eradicating it and risk scaring the middle classes along the way.”

Well spotted, Kevin. I do not believe inequality can be eradicated in any event, not so long as human beings show diverse levels of ability and energy. In any case, their economic activity may be valued differently according to its time and place, or to the evolution of the societies behind it. Hot countries generate different types of demand from cold countries, industrial countries from agricultural countries, and so on. I don’t see how supplying such varied wants can be condemned as exploitation.

Since Adam Smith three centuries ago, economists have often added to these abstractions further telling evidence from historical observation (surely congenial to socialist Kevin). Over time, societies divide themselves into classes with a range of desires and interests, expressed in modern politics by highly organised parties.

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Since, according to our own official figures, Scotland has a majority of people who can be classified as either comfortable or very comfortable, it is not surprising their representatives govern and make choices to please them in those terms. The surprise would be if they did anything else, as Kevin will have learned from a favourite author of his, Karl Marx. On a general level, there is up to this point little divergence between the views of the two columnists, him and me. But a yawning gulf opens up when we come to the present condition of Scotland, as the government seeks to make independence look like the best choice for the voters.

Yet it does so with policies that to my mind are not much good for anything and in the end will fail to win the voters over. These are mainly socialist policies. In the economic conditions we face, they will bring about the opposite of the intended benign effect and so indefinitely postpone national independence. My own capitalist counterparts are not problem-free either. They will all the same have a better chance of working in the end.

Let’s start with the official classifications used by the Scottish government itself and quoted by me last week from an official website: 22% of Scots belong to higher occupations and 31% to junior managerial and professional occupations, 21% to skilled manual occupations and 26% are semi-skilled, unskilled or unemployed. To win a majority of the Scottish electorate, the two poorer groups need some support from the two richer groups. But it is not clear the SNP follows this logic.

When the First Minister talks about the social and economic structure of the nation, she often says she wants it to show more equality. But by international standards this society, sharing as it does the standards of the prosperous industrial peoples of northern Europe, is already a pretty equal sort of place.

Scotland shows more equality, for example, than England, which has in London the centre of a region with extremely wealthy people, who for good measure have got relatively wealthier in the financial upheavals of the last quarter-century. On the other hand, Scotland is somewhat less equal than near neighbours such as the Scandinavian countries, which have been working to make themselves more equal for several decades. On a variety of different grounds, Scotland is less equal than many poor countries, but more equal than the US.

AS the figures show, however, the net outcome from a range of historical forces is that most Scots belong to two classes with higher earnings. It is not a nation polarised between a tiny, bloated bourgeoisie and downtrodden masses, as columnist Kevin commonly contends.

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On the contrary, revolution within it will not come readily. Nor will forward evolution in its history conform to what Kevin regards as scientifically predictable. And the winning of independence will be more complex still, “managing inequality rather than eradicating it”.

I am happy with all that. It is why I argue that Scottish independence will come about not by relying on the militant working class (or by pretending there is one where there isn’t). It will come about by appealing so far as possible to all classes, or at least by leaving the door open even to those who at first reject the invitation to enter. The SNP have had some support in every part of the country and in every section of society, not always at the same time. Independence is most likely to come when it commands a majority, or something getting close to it, in all regions and sections. We are not there yet.

This is not a signpost to independence at high speed and therefore may be a disappointment to the most militant nationalists. But their own breakneck methods are not getting them any faster towards where they want to go.

The next year or two will be a critical juncture in Scottish political history. The First Minister often says she wants a dedication to equality to carry her, her party and her country through it to the sunny uplands of independence. I have two things to say about this.

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I do not think it possible to eradicate poverty altogether, not least because it is a relative term. We certainly have in Scotland people poor by the standards of capitalist northern Europe, though by the standards of, say, Somalia they are inconceivably rich. Individual Scots’ positions on the scale of poverty and riches are determined not by the wickedness of capitalism but by their age, qualifications and effort. In these terms, some are better placed than others, which may be reflected in pay rates and so in relative wealth or poverty.

This is what happens in all societies of our varied type and I wonder why the First Minister thinks it, in terms of equality, deficient. Scotland is a kind of mix of Belgium and Norway, and I doubt if diktats from the centre (Nicola’s favourite form of government) can adequately encompass its variations. That was one of the things I meant when I used a gibe Kevin objected to, accusing the Scottish Government of trying “to rule a rich country with policies for the poor”, which I said was “a waste of everybody’s time”.

It’s our economic performance that will make us confident enough for independence. And performance is a product of inequality. Health and welfare obviously influence it, but not since the start of the welfare state has the influence been negative.

In any case, nobody really believes we can get equality in health and welfare. People are just too different. In fact, inequality is preferable because individuals can then excel on their own terms.