For years wee Alec Salmond has been making a meal of the Scottish position and has been telling the people of Scotland people how much better off they would be if they followed him to the promised land of oil-powered prosperity. All a load of tosh of course. The oil industry provides employment for many around Aberdeen, which would not change on independence, but the total UK government revenue from Scottish oil (excluding English gas) is less than UK Government gives away in foreign aid. If Salmond thinks he is going to continue to pay for the Scottish NHS and free university education with less than the amount of UK foreign aid, he has got his sums very wrong.
But more than one can play at that game, as the Orkney and Shetland Islanders have discovered for themselves. Perhaps they read this blog. Anyway they have taken a shine to the several billion of oil revenue and figured that it will go much further if kept in the islands rather than being shared with the Glasgow trade unionists and Edinburgh lawyers. They might prefer to stay with the rest of the UK, or they could go it alone.
Salmond, caught on the hop without a real answer, resorts to personal abuse and calls them "troublemakers".
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