The devil is in the detail

If Nicola Sturgeon is serious about wanting the people of Scotland to make an "informed choice" about independence she should get her head down and make sure that the Scottish Government's much-vaunted white paper addresses all the questions raised in CBI Scotland's issues paper on independence, with supporting evidence. Then, and only then, we might get a positive debate on the subject rather than a load of old assertions. At the moment, Calton has to agree with Alistair Darling when he says that the Nationalists have "not thought through their answers to the really big questions". Calton doesn't think they have thought through their answers to the small and medium sized questions either. And we all know that the devil is in the detail.

Optimism triumphs over experience

Calton thoroughly agrees with David Watt of the Institute of Directors in Scotland, who has said in his New Year Message that Scottish politicians are spending too much time on unnecessary legislation and debating independence instead of focusing on economic growth. Calton would include legislation on gay marriage in the category of 'unneccessary' given that civil partnerships already give homosexual couples all the legal rights of married couples. Instead, the Scottish Government have embarked on a second public consultation on the implementation of gay marriage, at a cost of goodness knows how much, when it wasn't in the SNP's manifesto and, quite frankly, the state of our economy is far more important at this moment in time. Businesses are struggling with the uncertainty produced by the prospect of independence and yet the SNP's response is to tell them to wait until November 2013 for answers to their many questions. CBI Scotland have produced an excellent paper listing all the issues which need to be considered if Scotland is to become independent, including the cost of setting up our own regulators for things like pensions, telecoms and energy and the cost in jobs of closing down Faslane, and they are hopeful that the Scottish Government's white paper will "address these questions in full and provide the necessary supporting evidence". Sounds like a triumph of optimism over experience to Calton.

SNP - doing something right

Calton is aware that the SNP Government comes in for the most stick on this blog, partly because they are the government and partly because of their overweening arrogance since they became a majority, however praise where praise is due - at least John Swinney is resisting calls by the CBI and Willie Rennie to privatise Scottish Water.

2012 Wish List

CBI Scotland director Iain McMillan has said today that the Scottish Government must direct its entire energy to rebuilding the economy, according to the BBC News website. Calton couldn't agree more and would therefore like to add the following to his New Year's wishlist:

• Alex Salmond to concentrate on the Scottish economy instead of point-scoring against the Westminster Government.
• The whole Scottish Parliament to forget about redefining marriage, legalising assisted suicide and other bills which, quite frankly, have far too much time spent on them when you take into account how few people they will benefit.
• The SNP to stop thinking that the basket-case which is now Europe is going to be the answer to Scotland's economic problems.
• Labour to stop thinking that a large public sector is a good thing.