Letter: Braveheart bluster and young vote basis for Yes campaign
As a person of Scottish descent and proud to be British, I find that the whole issue has been badly handled.
Alex Salmond has appealed to the Braveheart scenario, especially amongst young voters, who should not have been given the vote in the first place because this is not allowed anywhere else in the UK but Cameron weakly acquiesced to Salmond's demand.
Nearly one million Scots who live in the rest of the UK have been denied the vote yet other UK inhabitants and Europeans living in Scotland can vote which seems very unfair.
See also - Poll: Do you think Scotland should become independent?
I do not know whether or not this applies to Service Personnel. Leading on from the latter point, what is going to happen to these Service men and women? Are they allowed to remain in the UK forces or are the Nationalists going to form a new Navy, Army and Air Force?
The naval base at Faslane would be closed with the loss of thousands of jobs either directly or indirectly plus the closure of the RAF bases and there would be no obligation to give warship building to Scotland which would result in the loss of another few thousand jobs.
The idea of declaring a nuclear free zone is as ludicrous as Sheffield declaring the same 30 or 40 years ago.
The financial sector as well as other leading businesses seem to be wary of the whole situation which will result in the loss of even more jobs but I suppose the SNP will be able to create thousands more by pulling a rabbit out of the hat (I will not mention the everlasting oil).
Leading on to costs, the population in Scotland receives a much greater benefit per capita than the rest of the UK, especially England, where not all of us live in London and the South East. Free higher education and transport comes to mind.
There may be financial benefits for an independent Scotland but I think that there are more benefits for everybody by staying together.
Remember "you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time"!
Martin Laing Reid, Edgmond
