Shake 'em up, Nigel

If taxes are not going to rise to pay for the SNP's welfare proposals, where's the money going to come from? Oil? And when the black gold runs out? Borrow like there's no tomorrow? (Oops - wrong party. Calton is getting confused with Gordon Brown. Mind you, apart from the unionist/nationalist thing there's not much to choose between the SNP and Labour since both are socialist, Europhile, big spenders.) Calton isn't sure that either campaign did themselves any favours today - while Sturgeon dug herself into an ever-deeper hole with her 'natural majority' and 'no rise in taxes', the Great Broon's reappearance on the political stage is hardly an encouragement to vote No if it means going back to the spend, spend, spend of the Labour years. It would be Hobson's choice for Scots, saddled with high spending and the EU whichever way they vote, if today's speakers were the whole story. Fortunately, there has been a sea-change down in England over the EU which might just cause some ripples up here, giving the voters more choice. Anything that shakes up the current stale old slagging match between Labour and the SNP has to be a good thing, in Calton's book.