And The Land Lay Still?

This is just a small post, and one brought on by impulse. It has been inspired by something I’m beginning to sense; something I’m beginning to feel happening in this country. Is Scotland about to wake (or has it already woken?) from a 304 year slumber?

It’s hard to tell for definite, but I think it might be more than just a feeling of hope.

I was on holiday last summer with my ex-girlfriend in sunny Spain, and brought along something to read, settling on the 4^th novel by the brilliant Scottish writer James Robertson, And the Land Lay Still - the title of which was taken from the poem ‘The Summons’ from late Edwin Morgan's Sonnets from Scotland.

The novel itself is preceded by Morgan’s piece, and for me it has a small nationalist tinge. I’ve never been one for deciphering or understanding poems to any degree, but I think the last line resonates…

“The year was ending, and the land lay still.

Despite our countdown, we were loath to go,

kept padding along the ridge, the broad glow

of the city beneath us, and the hill

swirling with a little mist. Stars were right,

plans, power; only now this unforeseen

reluctance, like a slate we could not clean

of characters, yet could not read, or write

our answers on, or smash, or take with us.

Not a hedgehog stirred. We sighed, climbed in, locked.

If it was love we felt, would it not keep,

and travel where we travelled? Without fuss

we lifted off, but as we checked and talked

a far horn grew to break that people’s sleep.”

Will the independence referendum pass? Who knows? But it’s something that I’m beginning to sense is increasingly possible. And if it does, it will be in no small part down to the money gifted by Edwin Morgan to the party. A selfless act and an example.

And if James Robertson could read this - I hope you have another book due in soon.

Happy holidays everyone.

Ross Croall, @croall89

Would I Vote For Independence?

On 1st July 1999, the Scottish Parliament took up its full powers as established by the Scotland Act 1998. Twelve years and three more elections since, we have a majority SNP government, which promises us a referendum on independence before May 2015.

I've said for years whenever anyone asked, that while I'd want to be a Scot if Scotland got independence, I'd vote for what we now have: devolution within the UK. I have always thought this fits our peculiar situation as a country - we have not been fully independent as a nation since 1603, and separating Scotland from the rest of the UK into a separate nation would be as bad as moving house when you've been married for 408 years: there's so much community property that would have to be divided, and with one thing and another it doesn't seem likely to be a friendly, unrancorous divorce. The last time something like this happened in Europe was 1905, the dissolution of the 90-year union of the crowns of Sweden and Norway. That ended peacefully, but Sweden and Norway had never become as closely married as England and Scotland.

The SNP has won - more or less - two elections in a row. Both times they benefited from external events - the guddle of the ballots in 2007, the unpopularity of the Scottish Liberal Democrats following Nick Clegg's defection to the Tories in 2010. (Unfairly unpopular, it has to be admitted, since the Scottish LibDems had nothing to do with the actions of the Westminster party.) But win they did, and though confused London pundits may put this down to the genius of Alex Salmond, anyone familiar with Scottish politics knows it's quite a bit more complicated than that.

The last time the Tories were in power in Westminster they succeeded in making themselves so unpopular in Scotland that a Scottish Tory MP is now a rarer species than a giant panda: in 1992 all of the Tory MPs in Scotland could have been fitted into two taxis, and by 1997, the year of the total wipeout, the Tories were so worried about their electability in Scotland that even before Section 28 was repealed they'd started courting the gay vote. (The first time an official representative of the Conservative party ever attended a LGBT conference in Scotland was 20th June 1997 in Edinburgh City Chambers.) Conservative MSPs get into the Scottish Parliament, 15 of them at last count, benefiting from the list vote – ironic since Tory party policy is in favour of first-past-the-post.

Alex Salmond has nothing to lose and a great deal to gain if he puts off the referendum til the very end of the fourth term of the Scottish Parliament. David Cameron and Nick Clegg seem likely to keep the Conservatives in government in Westminster till April 2015, and the lackluster opposition of the Labour party combined with some interesting revisions of the Westminister constituencies mean that the Conservatives could even win a second term, and this time without even the tiny brake on their drive that the coalition represents.

And if that happened?

So far, the SNP and the previous SNP/Green coalition have shielded Scotland from the worst of the Tory cuts. If Scottish youth unemployment is at an all-time high, Scottish unemployment is still overall not as bad as it is in England and Wales. But things are bad all over, and the Tory committment to public sector cuts mean things are only going to get worse. In Scotland we won't (so far) suffer from Andrew Lansley's plans to allow the private sector to make use of 49% of NHS hospital resources: the Scottish Parliament have refused consent to the horrifying Welfare Reform Bill, the first time Holyrood has refused Westminster legislative consent, on the grounds that the changes to the welfare system proposed by the Tories at Westminster would result in damaging cuts to some of the most vulnerable people in Scotland.

But this shield can't stay up forever. The Tory determination to cut public services is ideological, not economic: claims by John Redwood that austerity is good for the country look as inaccurate as his own claims for expenses.

In simplified form, a government always gets the money it needs to run the country by borrowing and then gets a steady trickle or hopefully a flood of money coming in from taxes: the better the economy (and the better the revenue department) the more money comes in for the government to spend, and the better off we all are.

The claim by George Osborne and other right-wing thinkers that if the economy is doing badly and so less money is coming in from taxes, the thing to do is to create massive unemployment and cut services that people depend on, and to cut investment in young people who will be the creators of wealth in the future, and thus ensure even less money comes in from taxation - even if you could count on HMRC to collect all the money we're due, which we can't, and even if the Tory government had not been steadily cutting the number of tax inspectors trained to deal with megamillion tax avoidance, which they are. We aren't as badly off as Greece or Ireland yet, but those countries are where the Tory "austerity" is taking us to. Calling this Osbornomics is too much of a compliment to the Tory chancellor: he did not originate the idea of cutting the economy in order to save it, and he's hardly the only exponent of it in the current government.

Points of information: The UK's national debt is not excessive, is long-term, is largely internal: the UK lends more money to other nations than it borrows. The 2008 banking crash, caused by deregulation of the financial industry, is the cause of the current depression in the UK and the worldwide economy - the Tory story that we have a problem because Labour spent too much money on public services is, not to put too fine a point on it, a lie.

I lived through the last Tory years, 79-97: I remember just what they were like. We have, in this united country, built up shared treasures of community property - from the National Health Service to the Human Rights Act 1998, from the smallest of local services to help troubled teenagers to the grandeur of an education system that is in principle open to all and is in practice still one of the best of the world.

What the Tories are doing to our community property is nothing short of vandalism. Massive cuts are being made that will cause permanent damage - loss of experience and skill that can't be brought back. These are ideological cuts, all too clearly driven by the Tory party's financiers, and sadly, it seems Labour in Westminster has been far less radical in reaction to this than the SNP in Holyrood.

What will the SNP become in an independent Scotland? They're not exactly free of links between major donors and policy changes: Brian Souter, baron of the buses, makes huge donations to the SNP - and the SNP mysteriously dropped the policy of bus re-regulation. Iceland is an example of how a small country can come to disaster by predatory banks despite strong opposition from the Icelandic people. Would the SNP continue to be as radical in government in an independent Scotland without the spark of opposition to a Westminister government that's been steadily drifting rightward?

I've gone from being sure I would vote against independence to being unsure - is it really time to break up a 408-year marriage over a few unhappy years of Toryism? Can the damage the current Westminister government is doing be fixed once they're out of power? How long can the Scottish Parliament hold them off? How soon will the UK be able to elect a better government? Above all: is it really right to end the union because of a temporary political fault? Has English politics really become so alien that we'll never again be able to agree on a common government? I read English reactions to Tory cuts and I have hope: I listen to English MPs of all three major parties and I lose hope.

If I vote for independence, it will be because I feel there is too much risk of an ongoing right-wing government in England - Labour in Westminster seems to be running to the right in order to win votes from the Conservatives: a pattern that results in the Tories running further right, and eventually overturns the whole ship. It will be because I believe that Scotland still holds as a nation to the principles of universalism which underpin a working welfare state. The SNP long ago rejected the concept of Scottishness as a racial characteristic, identifying anyone as a Scot who wants to be, who's born in or living in Scotland, whether they're Henderson or Hussain, Dalgleish or De Luca. Can we hold to this, if a majority vote for independence? I hope so. Because I can't help thinking that I'm not the only one who's doubtful about breaking up the union, but horrified at what another few terms of Tory government would do to Scotland after what the last lot did.

Written by Jane Carnall

Independence, Nationalism & Internationalism

A few weeks ago I had a conversation with my boss about how the concept of nationalism reconciles itself with the idea of solidarity. His argument was one of greater collective responsibility taking precedence over issues of autonomy, self-governance or in this case, independence. Playing devil’s advocate, he made a good fist of it, and I did concede the point that I might have more in common with a 22-year-old from a metropolitan English town than with people from the Western Isles or other remote areas of Scotland. I suppose it’s a fair view, and one that has always brought issues of class as well as struggles of race and gender, historical and geographic elements, and wider social structures into line with how we hold the nation as the best way to analyse and describe society.

But I also think that I missed my point somehow. Something I’m similarly afraid of doing here!

I’ve never had any bother with people substituting independence with separation, or calling us separatists rather than nationalists. A rose is a rose, and this is one that’s not worth bickering over.

But equating Scottish independence with some sort of unwavering self-interest or abandonment is annoying. It’s the same reasoning that angers me when some Scots use self-interest as a way of sticking with the Union. When the‘English subsidy’ argument is played (its truth here is irrelevant), and Scots use it as a reason againstindependence, I can’t help but feel the opposite. Isn’t it an embarrassment if your neighbour hands out subsidies? Surely we have more pride than that. Surely your neighbour doesn’t deserve being made to ‘play the fool’. Isn’t that a reason for change?

Nationalism and independence for me have never been about revelling in ostracism and neglect; about choosing – about aligning - about picking-your-side; about ‘turning-a-cold-shoulder’to the troubles faced by others; about pure self-interest in the face of the good and greater causes. Nor is it about excluding Scotland to global (or even British) issues in exchange for our own greener pastures.

Independence for Scotland is about our future. And it’s a process as well as a destination. I’d argue that it’s also a stance. There are causes all around the world worth supporting. None are hard to find. They range from climate change to economic improvement - from social and legal justice to nationalism, separatism and independence - from a peoples’ freedom to their cultural and historical recognition, the world over.

Catalonia and Scotland are often used as the two prime examples or case studies in the ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Regionalism’chapters of politics textbooks. Similarities are easy to find. Both share a different sense of nationhood to that of the states to which they belong. Both have had a rich cultural heritage with language playing an important role. And the differences too are also fairly easy to find. It has been a long time since Scots and Scottish culture was suppressed. Catalan identity and culture was suppressed until the 1970s. Catalonia also had a parliament of its own some 20 years before ours was reconvened, and continues to operate with greater responsibility over matters of autonomy.

Last century Catalonia had war on its doorstep and found itself as one of the main strongholds for the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War. It was the location of the Loyalist’s last stand and a rallying-point for the anti-fascist fighters. This presumably has reasserted, and perhaps redefined or redrawn what it means to be Catalan.

I was first drawn to Barcelona (if you exclude the footballing side of things) by the story of Ethel MacDonald. Ethel was a Scottish anarchist who travelled to Spain in the 1930s to report, both on and for, the Republican side in the fight against Franco. (A brilliant documentary telling her story is available here on YouTube). To me it showed the best side of Scotland, a side which again is often found wanting today. It showed the idealism and optimism of a person who viewed the world on a genuinely international scale, and who acted through the courage of her convictions.

Whilst I doubt that Ethel was ever a Scottish nationalist, that is not the important point. This is not ‘tallying-up’ who the good and bad guys are, or who’s on whose side. But she can be held up as a beacon and an example to follow; a true internationalist and a woman who should be a strong cultural and historical inspiration for Scotland. But sadly, like so much of our rich history, this story isn’t taught in our schools. I had to learn much of our history - after those formative years - by reading the brilliant work of Arthur Herman (himself an American). However one-sided the central strand to that book may be, it gave a view of Scotland that was scarcely to be found in our education system.

And apart from her reporting, to me Ethel also embodied the struggle of a country seeking recognition – seeking to define itself. That country was both Spain and Catalonia, but in a way I also thought she spoke of Scotland. The Spanish cause was universal; fascism meeting anti-fascism, with the outcome having great consequences for Catalans, Spaniards and Europeans alike. The cause was international. I can’t remember where I read or heard this, but per head of population, more Scots headed to join the XV International Brigade and fight Franco than any other nationality. If that’s true then it’s a history that we should be proud of, and one that we should be encouraging in our schools.

My brother used to live in Barcelona, and I was lucky enough to travel there a few times each year to visit. It is a place with an explicitly international feel; a city so vibrant and awash with culture that it may as well reflect the world at large. But it is also a city with a distinct and rooted Catalan identity. The locals are often quick and eager to assert their language, their identity (perhaps rightly so) and yet the pull factor of Barcelona for many people around the world remains undeniable. It is perhaps unique. The history of the War and Franco’s suppression is all around, and yet it’s a place reborn and redefined as a distinctly ‘World City’. It’s why you don’t feel so guilty (or angry?) when walking down Carrer de Sants to see ‘Go Home Tourist’ (in English I’ll add) graffitied onto the face of a building.

Where does the sense of your own culture and national identity stop, and that of the Universalist and Internationalist inside of you begin? It isn’t always an easy thing to ask yourself.

Only recently have I started speaking to an exchange student at university – a Kurd who moved to America at a young age - and who proudly identifies with both nationalities. The energy, pride and enthusiasm he has for his own Kurdish culture doesn’t detract from the sense of principle that seems to come hand-in-hand with being an American – including the attachment to liberty and fundamental human rights so beautifully laid down in their constitution. He wears his‘dual-identity’ a lot better than I have been able to with my ‘Scottish-as-well-as-British’one. This was also a reminder to me that we Scottish nationalists do not have a monopoly on Scottish national identity, and that it isn’t ‘wrong’ to feel both British and Scottish.

Although that still isn’t going to dissuade me from fighting against the notion!

This man is now a friend, and has helped enlighten me to the struggle faced by the Kurdish people throughout the middle-east. The Kurds are a truly‘stateless nation’, and have suffered serious, repeated and often brutal suppression and repression and the hands of neighbouring governments - from those of Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran. It’s not an aspect of Middle-Eastern politics that is given much coverage in the UK, and perhaps the wider Western World, but the struggle of a people to achieve recognition, freedom and respect is a familiar one. The material is there to learn more about the Kurdish plight, and it is something that I think deserves more attention from the wider world. In relation to Europe, the violation of human rights by the Turkish state towards the Kurdish people there appears to be affecting their case for accession to the EU. And in Iraq, the brutal genocide embarked upon by Saddam Hussein resulted in the death of many thousands of Kurds – thousands of whom died through the state’s use of chemical weapons.

Kurdistan too has been subjected to bloodshed from within, with Civil War compounding state repression and adding to the misery brought by both Gulf Wars in the area over the last two decades. I suppose it puts the grievances we feel into perspective. But then again independence is about a better future, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting a better future.

Learning from my friend Kahin was interesting and enlightening. Not that this 22-year-old Airdrieonian had anything to contribute though - my ignorance was embarrassing. But if you want to know more about the uplifting reconstruction that is on-going in Iraqi Kurdistan, the late free-thinker Christopher Hitchens has written well on a cause that you sense was very close to his heart.

Scottish people with a nationalist inclination should be supporting all of these causes, not least and not just, our own. Soft or civic nationalism today seems to me to be about localising governance as well as improving our political architecture - a far, far cry from the patriotism and jingoism tearing this continent apart in the early 20^thCentury. An independent Scotland need not, and certainly should not, be an inward looking country, ever impoverished by the genetic ‘chip on our shoulder’.

Think about Scotland as a truly international country and Edinburgh a ‘Barcelona of the North’.

Would Scotland benefit, and in return benefit the world, by having her own say on the international stage, her input into global issues? Scottish nationalism and independence isn’t – at the very least doesn’t have to be – an introverted, introspective, parochial, self-absorbed and bickering ideal. It can be as dynamic, as egalitarian, as outward-looking and as encompassing as we choose to make it.

It’s also why I have a hard time trying to understand the argument, often levied at us, that there are too many pressing matters at hand (usually economic) and that Scottish independence MUST take a backseat. Independence holds the potential to become a means to their ends - a tool to help. There’s no absolute guarantee that independence for Scotland will drastically improve our living standards or our happiness. But I’m steadfastly convinced that it will prove a sound and solid ‘building block’ to a better future. It’s hard to neglect a lot of the good that has resulted from the independence of many former British colonies and territories. Yet many at home still seem stridently unwilling to even listen to the merits of the Scottish cause.

Clichés can often irritate. But take a moment to think of any truth that you can see in this statement – “You’re often keen to support independence for any other country, but never for your own!”

It has often been levelled at our opposition, and it’s not an argument that I’ve given much thought to until writing this. But the logic is there, proudly pointing out the contradiction behind some progressives’ thinking. It’s also a cliché to see a Palestinian flag, next to the Senyera of Catalonia and the Tricolour of Ireland, in a sort of bannered collage - a homage - to typical ‘soft-left, liberal’ causes. But isn’t there a reason that clichés become so? Perhaps these causes bring out something in us – compassion, romanticism, idealism?

And where is the Saltire? Supporting and being part of these causes for us is one in the same.

Scottish nationalism is a progressive cause - the next logical step in dispersing democracy. Being a nationalist doesn’t negate being an internationalist. They’re not ‘mutually exclusive’.

Don’t let the opposition Unionists argue otherwise. Just because you’re a Scottish nationalist doesn’t mean that you don’t care about English and Welsh healthcare reforms, the Eurozone crisis, Spanish unemployment, maquiladoras, gender equality, peace in the Middle-East, North Korea, climate change, social justice or even bloody space exploration for that matter! Everyone in this planet is in it together.

Visca Catalunya! Alba gu bràth! And freedom, respect and recognition for the Kurdish people

Contributed by Ross Croall

Independence & The Highlands by Councillor David Fallows

Independence and The Highlands

There would be some who would claim - indeed, have already claimed - that an independent Scotland would be no better for the Highlands than a Westminster Government - that the Central Belt would dominate. Well, let's start with a bit of that usual refreshing honesty that is the hallmark of SNP Politics from the leader down.

Of course the Central Belt is important to the future of Scotland, and must have its fair share of resources and attention from Government. It is a power house of the Scottish economy, and, let's not forget, where the majority of people live.

So does that by definition mean that the Highlands get the dregs, or a cursory look from afar? Of course not! Even now, we can already see the attention being given to the Highlands. The announcements of programmes to dual not just the A9, but also the A96 from Inverness to Aberdeen are to be especially welcomed, after all the years of labour and libdem coalition rule, which achieved nothing but a few bits of 2+1 overtaking lane.

The present Holyrood Government's support for renewable energy initiatives in Highland is also testament to the fact that the Highlands stand to benefit massively from Independence. We're not just taking about a plethora of onshore wind farms here, either. The real future of renewable energy lies not onshore, but offshore, via wind, wave and tidal generation. Highland has that offshore resource in abundance, and can benefit to the full from harnessing it. And Highland also has three of the best possible locations for the construction of the equipment needed. Most obviously apparent of those is Nigg, on the Cromarty Firth - once a thriving oil rig construction yard, where, with the active encouragement of the SNP government, moves are already in course to bring many new construction jobs back to the Inner Moray Firth area. And Highland has two other former oil rig construction sites, ideally suited to hook into the prosperity that the energy revolution can bring. These are the former J Ray McDermott yard at Ardersier, and the former construction site at Kishorn, in the west.

All of these opportunities - and many more across a vast range of services and product - let alone the obvious Tourism market for Highland - can and will benefit from an independent Nation - the sixth richest per head of population in the world - a Nation not content with number six, with the confidence and will to do even better. Here in Highland I have no problem at all with the idea that the majority of Scots down in the Central Belt will actually get the attention they deserve, and a future to look forward to after years of disgraceful neglect at the hands of Westminster. I know full well that an independent Scotland, thriving, confident and prosperous will, with absolute certainty, deliver that same new future to Highland - and to every corner of this Nation come to that. We need have no truck with the prophets of doom and gloom who would talk us all down to their miserable level. The future can, will and must be better than that.

 

David Fallows is an SNP councillor in the Highland Council - http://saltire.net/

 

A ‘Call to Arms’ for De-alignment (After Independence!)

I have recently been wondering whether I consider myself a Nationalist or a nationalist; an SNP supporter - a defender-of-the-faith, ‘toeing’ the party line - or an SNP voter – a voter balloting specifically in order to gain independence. I have become more and more convinced that the second wins out. There would be nothing sadder to see than the current Scottish National Party, for all its strengths and wisdoms, become the ‘establishment’ party in an independent Scotland; a party with a legion of ultra-aligned supporters who have become a symbol and a propagator of the reality ever-present and so detestable in modern politics – unabashed and unrepentant partisanship.

For I have become convinced that politics here is beginning to resemble that of the United States. I genuinely think that the hatred, and I mean hatred, between the SNP and Labour in Scotland would give the Democrats and the Republicans a ‘run for their money’. Thank our lucky stars we don’t have legalised guns!

Of course the situation is undisputable. In order to gain independence, not only are you compelled to vote for the SNP, but in electoral and opportunistic terms, the position of the Nationalists is very healthy - and very promising. This 4th Scottish Parliament marks an unprecedented opportunity to achieve what we’ve all been after - the separation of Scotland and the United Kingdom.

The opportunity is most certainly‘knocking on the door’. Although, as the latest Ipsos-MORI poll suggests, there’s plenty of work still left to do.

I used to think that economics would be the ‘be-all/end-all’ of the independence campaign, the key to winning‘hearts and minds’, and indeed the key reason behind my own support for secession from the Union. And I still believe that the economic reasoning holds water. But now I feel it in much simpler terms. I just want independence. I feel Scottish, not British. I think the four countries would be governed better apart. I feel no sense of pride or loyalty to the State of which I am a Citizen. The environment in and around Westminster, and the structures of the British State, are not fit for proper government.

Political life at Westminster is tiring, irksome, jaded and outdated. How many hours a year must be wasted in the Houses of Parliament by Members addressing each other as “The Right Honourable” or ‘”The Honourable Member” for wherever’? What time-wasting! What is wrong with addressing someone by their name? It’s a personal and endearing quality. And you have to question how much longer British voters can carry on listening to the same old tripe year-after-year from the main UK parties. Maybe the problem is the system itself.

And although the party politics of Westminster is, for me, one of its fundamental problems, the exact same is increasingly true for political discourse ‘North of the Border’.

Whilst I have voiced my dislike of the Labour Party in many ways over the years, finding myself drunkenly ‘cursing their name’ when nobody cares, maybe I’m beginning to empathise again. Labour really was left ‘bloody-nosed’ after the elections in May. When the Labour Party loses 4 of its 7 Constituency Seats in Darkest Lanarkshire, you really need to sit up and take notice. I couldn’t help but delight when the SNP’s Alex Neil out-polled the Labour candidate to take the Airdrie and Shotts constituency! Indeed by the end of that night, Glasgow itself was painted largely in Yellow. But who knows, it could be the Nationalists who are left licking their wounds next time round.

I don’t think we should be so quick to knock our opponents when they are down.

It was Labour after all that gave us nationalists a great opportunity; an opportunity to change –devolution. And it looks as though the old adage that Holyrood is just a ‘stepping-stone to independence’ might well come true. Whilst ardent Nationalists are often keen to point out that Labour, for so many years prior, had opposed self-determination and home-rule, I will not be so ‘stingy’. After all it is better to have finally attained devolution than never to have attained devolution at all. And what a success story it has become.

Since devolution was formally established in 1999, the political arena in Scotland has undergone many bright changes. The very idea of coalition, so alien until recently in UK terms, has breathed new life into Scotland. Consensus has (again until recently) been the‘order of the day’, and has been relatively effective in displacing the confrontational style encouraged and indeed enhanced by the ‘set-up’ of the House of Commons.

Devolved government itself has introduced many practical changes, from free prescriptions to the smoking ban (introduced under Labour I’ll add) - to name but a few. There is little doubt that Scotland is better governed today than it was in the near-three-hundred-year period from 1707 until the re-establishment of the Parliament.

But in post-independence Scotland, the political scene could be even more vibrant. It is exciting to imagine a new kind of politics where coalition government comes ‘back-into-play’, as it most likely will in Scotland [independence or not] and where the SNP, the Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems compete, tussle and alternative in successive progressive Governments - although there’s no doubt that the Lib Dems will take years to recover from their association with the Conservatives. The scope for voters to alternate between parties would be a welcome change to today’s arrangement.

I’ll forever be grateful to Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon for what they’ve done to the SNP, and more importantly, the greater nationalist cause-at-large. They have contributed massively in changing the SNP from a party of protest to one of power, as Gerry Hassan has termed the transition. Since they were first elected in 2007, the Scottish National Party have shown that they are more than adept at running the country, with their competence - coupled with the popularity of Alex Salmond - identified as key reasons behind their solid progress and successful re-election four years later.

But in a Scotland post-independence, where no-one can ‘second-guess’ what the political landscape will look like, I’d like to see a change away from the current circumstances of extreme partisanship – however idealistic that may seem. Nowhere is this tediousness more evident than in the hatred between the SNP and Labour. When both parties turn their guns to take aim at the Tories, accusing them of being the One True Enemy, I have a hard time believing them. For two fairly centre-left parties, the animosity is staggering. I’ve been as guilty of this ‘ultra-alignment’as anyone, and it’s something we’d all benefit from by changing.

After all, unashamed party politics and ‘falling into line’ with the Whip is a flaw best exemplified by that big talking shop on the Thames!

After Independence, maybe the Greens deserve a shot.

Ross Croall, @croall89