Not much time for writing this week, I’ve been too busy writing for commercial gain. Yes, that’s right; I am a whore. Line my palm with silver and I will do your bidding, at the expense all other commitments. I think I’m going to start making this blog a bi-weekly thing, actually – those other commitments permitting.
I’m told that there was last night some sort of debate last night about Scottish independence, where Alistair Darling tried with all his might to make his opposite number to seem comparatively likeable. Salmond, unfortunately, is beyond even this level of charity. He is an oily little reptile whose ideas are as small as they are poisonous. I can’t imagine him seeming likeable even if were to debate John Terry on marital fidelity.
I’ve thought for some time that this might be a topic worth pontificating on, but I have yet to confront it because my view of it is completely informed by sentiment. The idea of Scotland leaving the union seems alien and bizarre to me, like something from some dystopian novel in which kilt-sporting robots patrol the streets of Fife and every tap runs cold.
That’s not to say, by the way, I can’t see why Scotland might want to hand in a resignation slip and offer a final parting ‘fuck you’ before going off to concentrate on the things that Scotland is good at; something other than banking, probably. It’s a very seductive idea. I can see the appeal, trust me. Trust me.
But it seems to me that the less meaningful a political border is, the better. Except then I apply that sort of logic to the European Union, and am forced to reconsider. Maybe there are Scottish people that think the same way toward Westminster that everyone else does toward Brussels. We’re just like totalitarian slave-masters to them, crippling their economy with petty rules governing trivial things like shoelace length and wine-gum sourness while we all quaff French champagne with Belgian hookers in the back of German limousines.
There are practical considerations, though; it’s still not clear to me what currency they will have and whatnot. They want to keep the pound, obviously; but that’s not to say we should let them. What are they going to do, right? Well. Some economist bloke has suggested they should just abandon their share of national debt. Can they do that? I suppose national debt isn’t much like personal debt. I suppose they aren’t going to get a stern letter from the bank. I suppose people will just stop lending them money. But then, all I can do is suppose, as I have yet to receive a Nobel Prize.
Anyway.
Until next week.
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