THANK God for financial meltdown.
That sentiment basically sums up the attitude of many in the Scottish establishment who have watched in horror over the past 18 months as the SNP have surged in popularity. So what if the Royal Bank of Scotland is to be nationalised, if the Bank of Scotland is to be reduced to a shell and if the country is to enter a prolonged recession? At least, and at last, the nationalists are finally stuffed. Hallelujah!
Jenny Hjul, Angus Macleod etc can barely contain their glee at the troubles faced by Ireland, Iceland and other small countries caught up in the global economic crisis.
The fact that two iconic Scottish businesses are in trouble and have had a massive injection of tax-payers money just tops it all off.
Most sickening of all was Winston Brown calling in BBC Scotland yesterday to say this was no time to make political points – except that he summoned David Porter for no other purpose than to make, err, political points – something the BBC may just have mentioned.
Winston, of course, has spent the last ten years helping to create the credit-fuelled conditions that have allowed the current crisis to take hold. But that’s bad form to mention apparently as we all have to pull together.
In truth, there is no doubt that as Tony Blair might say, the kaleidoscope of the politics of Independence has been shaken. But the pieces may not fall quite where the Unionist die-hards are predicting.
Before the crash, there were signs that Labour was changing the nature of its argument against the SNP. For election after election Gordon Brown had dictated the basic message – that Independence for Scotland would be a catastrophe and prompt massive cuts in public spending as the country faced up to a huge deficit without the benefit of subsidies from tax-payers south of the border.
Recently that argument has faced two major problems. Firstly, as the last Holyrood elections showed, people in Scotland no longer believed it – or at least did not see it as a barrier to voting for the SNP. Secondly, it was proving uncomfortable for Brown himself, the Chancellor and other leading Scottish politicians at Westminster, as their repeated (and false) claims that Scotland was heavily dependent on Treasury hand-outs caused some in England to argue that in that case Scottish Independence seemed a reasonable idea after all.
Those realities prompted a re-think: it was accepted that post-Independence, Scotland would no longer be an economic basket-case.
That new thinking has now gone the way of banking stocks. The old messages are now being wheeled out, only much harder. No-one in Scotland should be left in any doubt – vote for Independence if you want. But when disaster strikes, you’re on your own.
Although it appears attractive now, I believe the return of the old religion, will in the longer term hasten, rather than halt, the likelihood that the British political state will come to an end. It’s been argued elsewhere that despite appearing to be in his element, the current crash will prove to be as disastrous for Gordon Brown as the ERM was for the Tories and John Major. When weekend news bulletins are no longer dominated by Robert Peston and international crisis talks, the reputation of Mr Brown and Labour for economic competence will be essentially shot.
Economists may be predicting that in Ireland the economy could contract by as much as two per cent this year, and three per cent in 2009, but some forecasts for the UK are just as gloomy. Take away the extreme case of Iceland (which after all has a population about six per cent of Scotland’s) there is little to suggest that small countries will somehow permanently reverse their impressive growth rates which in many cases pre-dated property and financial services booms. Consider the fortunes of small Sweden and large Japan to previous banking crises.
In those circumstances, having led the UK and Scotland into a recession and having racked up an enormous public debt, attempting to scare Scots away from Independence because of the foolish decisions of a few bankers in Reykjavik and Edinburgh, will not look quite so clever.
