St Andrew's Day

Above: there is a section of Scottish society that sees the country as continually pushed behind England (although were Scotland to ever achieve "independence" it would still remain a small country immediately alongside a much bigger one).

Today is St Andrew's Day, and in Edinburgh the First Minister of the Scottish Executive (Alex Salmond) called for a referendum on Scottish independence. I watched Daily Politics at lunchtime and the First Minister was interviewed on the programme wearing an ethno-nationalist badge and silly ethno-nationalist tie. In appearance Alex Salmond gives the impression of being a jovial buffoon, but if you listen to what he is saying you realise he is promugating the evil doctrine of communal competitive prestige.

During the interview Alex Salmond became rattled at one point, and repeated the libel that "Scottish oil has been stolen by the English" (he said this very obliquely, but that was undoubtedly the slur he was making).

There has been no net benefit to ANYONE in the United Kingdom through possession of North Sea Oil. Having the oil has pushed up the value of the currency, and a strong currency has in turn destroyed British manufacturing industry - the one cancels out the other. Lord Kaldor demonstrated this in a speech to the House of Lords in the early 1980s (you can read the speech in the two images below, if you click on them they will enlarge).







Above: on the whole the SNP is given an easy ride by interviewers. Possibly it is because it is hard to take seriously a political movement dressed up like a tin of tartan shortbread. But these politicians represent the politics of envy, divisiveness and implicit communal violence (always strenuously denied).

SNP policies, like most "ourselves alone" political movements, are also economically crazy.

For instance, if they were to win a majority in a referendum on independence (highly unlikely) and took Scotland out of the United Kingdom they would also be taking Scotland out of the European Union. Are they proposing to have immigration borders and import tariffs at Berwick? Or do they imagine they will fast-track membership of the EU ahead of Turkey?

These people are mad and evil.