THE SUN MAY NOT HAVE DECLARED FOR INDEPENDENCE...

...BUT, THIS IS A GOOD EDITORIAL FROM THEIR POLITICAL EDITOR

THE last full week of referendum campaigning has been pretty scary, with lots of dire warnings about the long-lasting financial consequences of a Yes vote.

There have been warnings from John Lewis and Asda about the rising costs of their products after independence.

Obviously it costs more to bring a lorry full of stuff to Edinburgh or Inverness — starting next week.

Tesco was quoted in a Better Together leaflet suggesting prices would rise 16 per cent with independence — a claim bosses were forced to publicly shoot down.

But there are two reasons why the price of your shopping will not rise because of independence. One is Aldi and the other is Lidl.

Tesco profits are down by £900 million this year. The big supermarket chains are losing out hand over fist, undercut by the newly arrived chains.

These guys can manage to run a supermarket operation in Scotland all the way from Germany.

So the chances are Tesco can manage to do it from Kent if they really put their minds to it.

But if they are absolutely determined to make sure more people shop at Aldi, a good way to do that would be to make their prices even higher.

RBS and many other banks and financial institutions have made it clear they will flee from Scotland if there is a Yes on Thursday.

The chief economist at Deutsche Bank, David Folkerts-Landau said voting for independence “would go down in history as a political and economic mistake” as large as those which sparked the Great Depression of the1930s.

Just to be clear, this is the same Deutsche Bank which made a loss of 1.153billion euros in only the last four months of 2013.

Roughly half of that loss came from legal fees in America where the bank was forced to pay fines of 1.4billion euros for selling dodgy financial products.

So you may wish to accept Mr Folkerts-Landau’s advice — or you may take the view that he should spend a bit less time fretting about us.

Last month, the London branch of Deutsche Bank was fined £4.7million by UK regulators for financial irregularities in an astounding 29 million separate transactions.

It would have been more but, after they were caught, they put their hands up so they got a 30 per cent reduction.

Which is nice but not the sort of thing that usually applies to your average shoplifter.

In December last year, Deutsche Bank was fined — wait for it — £578 million by the European Commission for fiddling the Libor rate.

That means they were part of a conspiracy to manipulate the interest rates you pay on your car loan, your credit card and your mortgage.

Can you guess who else got fined, who else was part of the conspiracy to rip you off?

That’s right, it was RBS who were fined £310 million.

Do you know who paid that fine? It was the shareholders of RBS.

And do you know who owns 81 per cent of the shares of RBS? That would be you and me.

These people are like criminals — they keep getting caught. They are like inept criminals.

They are so astoundingly bad at their jobs that they actually managed to go bust in the biggest bankruptcy the world has ever seen.

They relied on the rest of us to clean up their mess, continued to use our money to carry out illegal activity and when they got caught, used our money to pay the fines.

Actually I've changed my mind. They’re not like inept criminals at all. That’s brilliant. They are masterminds.

But when they come forward to issue their dire warnings on Scotland’s future, I remember that — however clever they are — they still acted illegally.

It’s just possible — in fact I think it’s more than likely — that these people are not speaking with my interests at heart.

A policeman might suggest I should remember to flick the catch on my double glazing and possibly invest in a new lock for the front door.

A burglar is likely to offer rather different advice.

It’s been a scary week but I’m not scared.

I don’t have room in my heart to be scared because I’m so proud of us.

Look at what we have done. Can you ever think of a time when people were talking about politics in pubs and cafés, on the bus, on a train? It’s happening every day.

Could you ever imagine church halls would be packed out night after night with people wanting to discuss and debate and learn and think and plan together?

Yes, Jim Murphy got hit with an egg. Big deal.

One should not have joined if one could not take a joke.

Aside from that, we have come through this with dignity and generosity, understanding and a willingness to listen.

It took Northern Ireland 30 years of bombings and murders and bloodshed and intimidation to get to where we are now.

And we could be on the brink of going an awful lot further with hardly a nose punched.

That is a fantastic achievement by a fantastic nation.

It’s like the Bible says — “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams”.

Our sons and daughters are daring to look ahead to a future that will be much different from what we have known.

There is a vision now available to us of a Scotland over the horizon.

These past two-and-a-half years have changed everything.

I look at my kids and I trust them. I’m not scared.

On Friday, we are going to start again.

We either start from scratch on new foundations or we rebuild what we’ve got.

But we have to believe it’s going to be better so, please, don't be scared.

BUGGERED TOGETHER... THAT'S THE LIFE

After listening to Alistair Darling today, I was just thinking that he may have a point....how much better are we together?

After all, I pondered, who'd want to break away from a society that, instead of tackling the tiny amount of fraud that there is in the social security system, takes a sledge hammer and cracks everyone who is not strong enough to fight for themselves. It's cheaper, saves more money, and the only people it hurts are poor and uninfluential, so what's not to like?

Who wouldn't be happy to be a part of a state that, as the result of the policy of unfettering rents, (most recently by Labour), from which people have made a fortune, the housing benefit bill has soared to an unsustainable level, and thinks that the best way to deal with this is not to cap rents at a reasonable level, and not to build affordable rental houses of the size that people need, but to reduce the amount of money available for benefit? 

In theory, people should simply have to downgrade... but in fact they are not able to do this because of there's no available housing, and as a result of the most recent policies, even the most awful of houses in the most terrible of areas can command the same rent as the nicest property of the same size in a pleasant suburb.

Who'd not be delighted to live in a society where there is no money to expand the economy regardless of how many times the government is told that it must try to kick start some activity, because all the money that has been created by QE over the past few years by both the red and blue/yellow parties has gone straight into the banks... The same banks whose greed played an enormous part in getting us into our current situation... and the same banks that the government refuses point blank to penalise, and goes so far as to fight against the rest of the EU to try to ensure that no one can interfere with their bonuses?

Who'd not be charmed to live in a country where the government wants to play at world statesmanship, take on foreign wars; cut the troops on the ground and the facilities available to them, but insists that it must have a nuclear capability because without it the seat at the top table would no longer be theirs...? Think of the loss of prestige (and put out of your heads the suffering of the troops left to fight more and more with less and less).

Why, surely you'd have to be mad to want to break away from all that.

Who'd not want to see wage and benefit increases at 1% and gas and electricity prices rising at 10-20% with forecasts of worse to come? Surely that's a joy. 

Even devolution, it seems to me, has been a step too far. If we had just stayed as a county in the north of England, we too could have enjoyed Serco stealing from our National Health Service just as they are in England  and have the head of that service admit his part in the cover up of the most horrific neglect and death of patients in order to reach targets, and yet stay in his job.

No. Surely Alistair and his friends David and Nick, Ed and Johann and Ruth and that funny wee bloke are right.

This is the life.
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Update: I'm indebted to Marcia for bringing this Scottish Sun editorial to my attention.

Who scares?

Last Updated: 07th March 2013

Just once, just for a change, let’s hear something positive about why Scotland would be better staying part of the United Kingdom.

Because frankly, the scare stories are wearing a bit thin.

The latest is over a leaked SNP document that’s cue for a doom-laden warning about slashing pensions, cutting defence spending and shedding public sector jobs

.

Strip away the hysteria and what you actually have is a sensible Government prepared to make sensible decisions about spending.

A Government aware they are operating in a tough economic climate where there is no bottomless pit of money. And that’s whether you’re an independent country or part of the UK.

Is there a single household in Scotland that doesn’t have similar conversations about what they can and can’t afford?

It would be a shambolic Government that didn’t behave in the same responsible way.

Bear in mind, too, this document was written a year ago in different economic circumstances and that oil prices and revenues have risen.

The net effect and the hard fact is that the finances of Scots are £863-a-head healthier than the rest of the UK

.

Or isn’t that scary enough to tell folk?

Read more: http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/sun_says/1460642/The-Scottish-Sun-Says.html#ixzz2MrzWsWUF