Scottish Independence

In the real sense, Scotland has never been a nation. It was always a country of several parts: Gaelic Speaking Highlands and Western Isles, Norse Orkney, Shetland and much of the NE, English/Northumbrian speaking SE.
So, I’m not one of these romantics who think that the “Scots” (the name of an Irish group who took over Pictland in much the same way the Normans took over England) have a inalienable right to “Pictland”.
But, having lived in Scotland most of my life … but also having lived in England and particularly around London, I can see how much of the wealth of the UK has been stolen by the SE. It comes down to something very simple: a minister in London, asks a civil servant to do something. That civil servant then ask their (London) contacts which firm could help and that civil servant then goes to the firm best suited to them in London.
It might be an order for paper clips, it might be an order for an aircraft carrier, but their first port of call will be the people around them … and that means the SE. So, any company in the SE has a natural advantage over any other company.
But surely a few order for paper clips doesn’t matter? Is there anyone who builds aircraft carriers in London? But it does, because the London based government has a massive massive budget. Once a company starts supplying government, it has a reliable steady income. That steady – guaranteed payment income, then allows it to employ staff – knowing they can be paid, so that it can really crank up the profit on other orders, knowing that if all else fails, it can fall back on government orders. That gives the SE companies dealing with government a huge competitive advantage over other companies, and so they grow at the expense of everyone else with the result that SE companies dominate.
And of course, because it is essential for government contracts to be SE based, most companies have HQ in the SE, with the result that even companies that have their manufacturing elsewhere have their HQs in the SE. So then even companies that supply nothing to government, find that they need HQs in the SE in order to supply to all the HQs of companies that do.
And because the HQs are in London/SE … who do they go to if they need to procure something? Do they:

1. Hop on a train to go to Edinburgh overnight to talk to the company there
2. Drive a few miles to a local company

And that is why I am in favour of independence. I don’t believe for a second that the Scottish economy will suddenly thrive by the nature of independence … if anything, I think our politicians will make a pretty awful job of it. But primarily, I think if the Scottish share of the UK procurement budget were spent in Scotland, then over around 25-50 years, we would see a massive growth in companies & particularly company HQs in the central belt.
And to be blunt, it is company HQs that make the future “experimental” or risk-taking dicisions that  stimulate the small innovative companies that are the next generation of economic growth. And it is this next generation which will provide jobs for the next generation of school leavers. So only if we can dramatically increase the number of HQ/procurement in Scotland can we create the environment that means my children are far more likely to stay in Scotland than if we don’t have independence.
And, to be honest, I don’t see the inevitable failure of the Scottish politics as all bad. Too many people in Scotland blame the problems of Scotland on the “English”. It really is time a lot of Scots were told the honest truth … Scotland has been in terminal decline for many years because of the pathetic politicians we keep voting into office. Politicians with a myopia about smacking, global warming, more holidays … whatever the latest fad.
What we need is politicians who stop blaming other people, who stop blaming anyone, and who start making things easier for business … less rules, less regulation, less petty planning officials who reject plans because …. well it seems they’d reject a house if they didn’t like the door colour … in fact, why have planning officials at all for residential properties extensions? Building control yes! … but I digress.
Things which would improve under independence:

• Economic growth due to company HQs in Scotland.
• Scotland stopping funding all the “British” institutions in SE England – and starting to fund institutions in Scotland like a security service, MOD. (In other words, ceasing to supply the personal to be shot in the next war, and starting to supply the equipment which is far far more beneficial economically)
• A Scottish Broadcasting company …. which would be a very cut down version of the “BBC” with a price tag to suit and even so a vastly increased Scottish content.
• A Scottish Met Office … one that doesn’t produce forecasts for SE England and then pretend they represent the wind, rain and snow we get in Scotland.
• Scottish Oil, coal and gas for Scotland.
• Scots (politicians) would be blamed for Scots problems … which eventually will mean that we get political parties who deal with the problems rather than the present bunch who pretend it has nothing to do with them.

Problems of independence:

• Scotland really lost its way in the 1700s when much of the intellectual development left us for London. The result is that many institutions in Scotland have not been updated since the 1700s. One is the legal system which still has this concept of the “troublesome Scot” who has to be squashed. Whilst part of the Union, we are protected, even oblivious to these outdated institutions, because they either have no power, or are curtailed by superior English institutions like the Supreme Court. There is no doubt that with independence, we will suddenly find that many of our institutions are totally outdated and ill-suited for the modern world. (See below)
• Unfortunately, the Scottish parliament has been set up with no oversight. The parliament is essentially self-regulating and we all know that such regulation never works in the long run.
• In the extreme, there is a serious risk that Scotland’s politicians, with no effective control over their actions and a young “fresh behind the ears” press to egg them on. A political group who have a proven record of being idiotic on issues like global warming … instead of tackling the real institutional problems of independence, may instead go on a decade long PC/self-serving “modernisation” of Scotland until we are such a basket case that we basically go bankrupt.

In other words, Independence is bound to lead to a whole series of stupid actions by politicians. My belief is that pretty quickly, the electorate will get fed up of the old-style idiotic politics that brought us things like the Global Warming nonsense, and common sense will prevail eventually leading to a booming economy. But the danger is that we lack the institutions (legal, political oversight, and journalistic oversight) to prevent us going so far into the PC-economic wilderness that we cannot return.