Scots must be mad to go it alone (From The Northern Echo)

Scots must be mad to go it alone

3:24pm Wednesday 18th January 2012 in Harry Mead By Harry Mead, Columnist

WHAT’S your view on Scottish independence? I imagine it’s something along the lines of: “Let them get on with it. Let’s see how well they provide their free health care for the elderly, free university tuition and free prescriptions without cash from south of the border. Yes, let’s get rid of that infamous Barnett Formula, which last year saw £1,624 more of public money spent on each person in Scotland than in England.”

Of course, you might not be eager to see Scotland take its leave. Especially if you live in Scotland. A poll has shown that while most voters in England with an opinion on the matter favour Scotland leaving the Union (43 per cent), in Scotland, a similar majority is against the change.

Those pro-UK Scots obviously have their heads screwed on the right way. Asked how an independent Scotland would support itself, Alex Salmond, the First Minister, always points to North Sea oil. But even if Scotland successfully claimed the oil, it wouldn’t last forever. How would Scotland then maintain not only the main population in its central belt but communities scattered through the islands and Highlands, for whom the cost of providing the services of modern life is disproportionately high?

Mr Salmond is often described as Britain’s sharpest political operator. Certainly his often-unpleasant anti-Union rhetoric encourages the “let Scotland get on with it” attitude now common south of the border. Perhaps that’s his intention. But given the small land mass that contains the countries of England, Scotland and Wales, in a world of stiffening competition, it seems sheer madness to be moving towards the break up of a union than has generally worked well for centuries.

For the North-East, Scottish independence would be a disaster. What chance a highspeed train link to Newcastle, with the rival Scots piggy-backing a ride almost to their border?

TESCO’S takings fell 2.3 per cent over the Christmas period. This was the lead item on the BBC News. Like much of the rest of the media, the Beeb invited us to consider whether we were witnessing the end of the world as we knew it.

That short-term sales figures of a supermarket company should rate such coverage says something about our values. Shopping is living, is it not?

But the picture of it as an ailing giant is little short of laughable. Tesco actually sold more goods over the Christmas period, while Sainsbury, its main rival, sold less. So did Morrison. Tesco faltered because of a misjudged pricing strategy, a sign that it is not infallible, but hardly a mortal mistake.

Largely ignored in coverage of Tesco’s Christmas catastrophe is the fact that it still commands a whopping 30.1 per cent of the grocery market, almost double the 17 per cent of its nearest competitor.

SHAME that David Hockney, talking about his new Royal Academy exhibition, virtually gave carte-blanche to the fly tippers who so disfigure our countryside. “Sometimes I think ‘How could you?’ But at other times I look at it and think ‘Yeah, that’s rather good’.”

But not good enough to have yet featured in his landscapes. The East Riding lane that has inspired much of his new work looks ideal for fly tipping.

Let’s look forward to a Hockney masterpiece showing it overflowing with discarded mattresses, washing machines and garden rubbish.