Friday, 1 March 2013

The Melancholy of the No Campaign



The prospect of the decisions affecting Scotland being made in Scotland is a terrifying one for the ‘Better Together’ campaign (and I don’t just mean Alistair Darling losing his ability to flip homes and charge taxpayers for an accountant to work out his tax!).  To them, an independent Scotland would be, unlike every other independent country, doomed to tragic failure for a near endless number of reasons…

The Better Together official spokesperson

Lord Fraser of Carmyllie envisages a future where the enemies of England congregate in Scotland.


“If that were to happen,” he said, “what alternative would England have but to come and bomb the hell out of Glasgow airport and Edinburgh airport?”  He doesn’t appear to mention who these villainous fiends could be or why they would attack an independent Scotland to hurt England…

Anas Sarwar MP says that Scottish viewers might miss BBC programmes such as Strictly Come Dancing.


The fact that the BBC is broadcast in a host of other independent countries including Belgium, Austria, France, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Spain, Switzerland, and Portugal isn’t important, nor the fact that we would have our own broadcasting company to produce our own shows.  No, to the melancholy ‘No’, only the worst possible outcome could apply to Scotland.

It isn’t just individuals who act like this, as anti independence institutions are scared too.  The Foreign Office stated that Scots abroad face a greater risk of “child abduction, forced marriage or crime,” if we dare make our own decisions.


It is a wonder how anyone from the Republic of Ireland musters the courage to travel abroad.

But most worrying for the No campaign, is the removal of Tian Tian and Yang Guang, the two Chinese Pandas currently at Edinburgh Zoo.


A Westminster official actually said “No one has fully understood the ramifications for the Pandas of any bid for Scottish Independence.”  There was, of course, nothing more important for that tax payer funded Westminster bureaucrat to talk about.  But then, it is just yet another ‘why Scotland would be worse off without us being in charge’ story.

There is one sure fire cure for this melancholy…stop hoping for the worst and start talking Scotland up.  But when you see past the scare and the absurd, when you realise that the same, tired, disproven claims keep coming back every few months, you find that ‘Yes’ is the only real option.

And very few feel melancholy after voting for a positive change.
Drew

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