Tourist the article by the BBC reporter Evans is a little out of date and while alot of it is still valid this quote
It's a gamble because we don't know what will happen to oil, and nor do we know how successful Scotland will be at reinvigorating its economy.
It could go right, as it has for Ireland in recent years.
shows how events can catch economies out.
Salmond "used" to talk that an Independent Scotland would be as successful as the tiger economies of Iceland and Eire. He doesn't anymore
.
As an Englishman who is married to a Scot and had lived in Scotland I fear that a lot of wool is being pulled over the Scot's eyes. We have seen the SNP up in arms about the closure of bases in Scotland but when pressed they have no credible defence policy. I am sure that the small airforce that Salmond envisages (based on his enthusiasm for Iceland and Ireland and their small airforces) will be based on existing civil airfields such as Prestwick. So all their rhetoric supporting Lossie et al is false and is just to ensure that the locals here in the SNP strongholds vote as required. I predict that an independent Scotland will have no pure air force bases.
I admit that Salmond has been good to me personally - 2 kids through Uni for free, a freeze on Council tax and free prescriptions. However, I can't get an NHS dentist, the nearest motorway is 120mls away, the local major A road the A96 is a disgrace along with our single track railway. So personal bribes have been good but the area's infrastructure is badly underfunded. Even improvements are made on the cheap - the 2 local bypasses, on the A96, that have been built in the last 22yrs are single carriageways.
In the short term oil revenues may just keep the 25% of Scots employed in the public sector in work but it will run out. I have worked in the oil industry and seen how predictions of revenue can be erratic and how production can both be greater than envisaged as well as drop well below what was expected (Miller Platform).
I hope I and the rest of those living in Scotland make the right decision once Salmond reveals both the referendum question as well as the date of the poll.
HF