ONCE again, The National has published an excellent article by Professor Richard Murphy on the financial health of an independent Scotland’s economy (Why Scotland does not need the international money markets, thenational.scot, Sep 23).
Richard and others have made it crystal clear time and again that the GERS figures can’t be used to predict anything meaningful about an independent Scotland’s economy, yet once again a London-based institute fails to understand this, in spite of the fact that GERS itself acknowledges this.
Of course, this is made worse when people like Andrew Wilson make the same mistake while claiming to represent the views of Scots campaigning for independence. With friends like that we do not need any enemies in the independence movement.
READ MORE: Richard Murphy: Why Scotland does not need the international money markets
Yet Richard is absolutely right. Scotland is a medium-sized country by population size, but it has significant land and sea resources per capita and no national debt.
It also has a skilled and well-educated labour force and a sound industrial base. The last thing an independent Scotland will require is loans from the corrupt international money markets.
Scotland, with its own currency and its own central bank, will be able to manage its own financial arrangements, and with its ability to maintain a sound balance of payments in international trade it will not require to build up a national debt such as the UK has.
No matter how often the Unionist media insists that Scotland will be running a balance of payments deficit, or will require to create a national debt to pay for its service provision, this has no basis in economics, it has no substance. So once again, repeat after me. An independent Scotland will not require to borrow from international money markets.
Andy Anderson
Saltcoats
YOU can see the parallels between Henry McLeish’s responses in an interview with The Herald when he said that he could vote for independence, and the following prescient poem by John Milton, written in the 17th century.
McLeish said “All I am arguing is that there is a chance of doing something different. Let’s have a debate about alternatives to independence before there is a vote on it.”
READ MORE: Former Labour First Minister Henry McLeish says he would support independence
He’s been flogging that dead horse for so long now that only its bones are evident. There is no possible alternative to independence that the sovereign people of Scotland would find acceptable. McLeish won’t be agreeable to that and consequently, despite what he says, will not vote for independence.
They bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
Yet still revolt when truth would set them free.
License they mean, when they cry liberty;
For who loves that must first be wise and good:
But from that mark how far they rove we see,
For all this waste of wealth and loss of blood.
Another prescient English man of letters, Samuel Johnson, was recorded by his biographer, James Boswell, in 1775 as saying “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” and later qualified that by stating “he that wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot.” How would that sit with the pathetic nonsense about the “multi-headed hydra of Scottish nationalism” being the issue most damaging to our country, as spouted by Keir Starmer in The National on Friday?
Most damaging to what country? That’ll be England I guess, and I have to say, so what, it’ll be very good for Scotland, despite a Tory government at Westminster’s recent and continuing attempts to ruin Scotland.
Johnson also wrote an interesting piece called The Patriot, and prefaced it by quoting the same poem by Milton. He must have liked it just as much as I do.
Bruce Moglia
Bridge of Weir
COME back, our European friends,
this is the plea that Boris sends;
I know we’ve had disputes and rancours,
but we need you now to drive our tankers.
If you return it would greatly please us,
and reward you with your three-month visas;
you can dig us out our self-dug hole,
hence I reach out with a begging bowl.
Come shake our hands, our EU mates,
come swiftly though, get on your skates;
we need your skill and your expertise,
‘cause Brexit Britain’s on her knees.
Yes we told you once, you’re a burden,
and we hope that you shall accept our pardon;
Please come back, make our trucks roll,
with a three-months deal and our begging bowl.
George Robertson
Edinburgh
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