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Johnstone's View 14th October 2008

I have no idea whether it ever happened in real life, but it may have its basis in fact.  The practice I am talking about is the one that often appeared in films and television programmes I remember seeing in my youth.  It worked like this, the criminal, preparing his death threat or his ransom note, would cut out the individual letters from the headlines of the newspapers and stick them down so as to form the words of his written demands.  By doing so he could avoid detection by experts who might identify his handwriting or his typewriter.  These same experts however, never though to simply arrest the man with glue on his hands, did they?

Who ever would have thought that, by the first decade of the next century, this technique would have evolved into a political philosophy which would be used repeatedly by the First Minister and his government to mislead the people of Scotland with their clever slight of hand.

This technique, known to some as the, ‘pick and mix’ strategy, is regularly used to demonstrate how Scotland would be much better off if it were to take its ‘rightful’ place among the smaller nations of Europe.  By this method Mr Salmond can prove absolutely anything he wants to by simply selecting an isolated example from some or other small European nation and, by the enthusiastic application of his boundless imagination (for truly boundless it is), demonstrate how this particular feature could make Scotland a better place.

Of course, he only ever raises these examples in isolation, conveniently forgetting that in their context, they exist as part of a much more complex economic structure.

So then, we hear endlessly about how Norway has an oil fund while he conveniently forgets that Norway has chosen not to be a member of the European Union, allowing it to avoid the responsibilities of other small wealthy European nations.  He also forgets conveniently that unlike Scotland, Norway does not have a deprived postindustrial central belt, which would have easily absorbed the surplus of the last 30 years.

We also hear of Denmark which has, in the mind of the First Minister, shown us how to develop renewable energy for the benefit of all its citizens but whose economic exposure as a result of its over reliance on wind turbines does not fit in to the Salmond model.  Neither of course, does the Danes steadfast refusal to be dragged into the single European currency, a move which some others may wish they had copied, but runs diametrically against the grain of Mr. Salmonds economic philosophy

We also hear about Ireland, oh how we hear about Ireland, a country he likes to call the ‘Celtic Tiger’ because of its high rates of economic growth.  High growth, that is, against a low base figure which we, thanks to our place in the United Kingdom, did not share.  I notice also that Irelands economy is one third public sector and two thirds private sector, something that Scotland, with its majority reliance on the public sector, could only dream of while Mr. Salmond’s party wants to push public spending in Scotland to even higher levels.

We also hear about Finland, an example we are told of how a small Northern European nation can have a successful manufacturing base and generate wealth beyond their wildest dreams.  Some, who see their heavy dependence on one mobile phone company, Nokia, as an excessive exposure to a single industry, may consider Finland’s strategy risky.  Our First Minister also conveniently forgets that this industrial success story of the North is heavily dependant on their cheap and plentiful supply of nuclear power.

And then there is Iceland.  An example to us all of how a small country in the North can become a global success story in the financial services industry.  Scotland too has made a success of financial services with Edinburgh in particular featuring as the headquarters of two of the UK’s major banks and a host of other investment and insurance specialists who had the world beating a path to our door.  Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Aren’t we lucky that we are not a small European nation, adrift on the ocean of uncertainty?  As Alex Salmond watches treasury billions pour into Scottish institutions and then dares to go back, cap in hand, to ask for a billion more to boost his own governments expenditure, isn’t it a good thing that his life-long mission to secure independence had not actually been successful?

Now, can any one spot the man with the sticky figures?