Thrive by Lesley Riddoch sampler
Why won’t Scots simmer down? Why batter on about independence when folk voted No a decade back? After all. Scotland’s not as populated as Yorkshire, nor as wealthy as London. But it’s also not as Conservative, as keen on Brexit, or as willing to flog public assets to Tory party pals. So does Nicola Sturgeon’s departure terminally damage the case for independence? The answer, with all respect to her legacy, is no. Scotland has bigger fish to fry. In this book, Lesley Riddoch makes an impassioned call to action, weaving academic evidence with story, international comparison and anecdote to explain why Scotland is ready to step forward as the world’s newest state.
Why won’t Scots simmer down?
Why batter on about independence when folk voted No a decade back?
After all. Scotland’s not as populated as Yorkshire, nor as wealthy as London. But it’s also not as Conservative, as keen on Brexit, or as willing to flog public assets to Tory party pals.
So does Nicola Sturgeon’s departure terminally damage the case for independence?
The answer, with all respect to her legacy, is no.
Scotland has bigger fish to fry.
In this book, Lesley Riddoch makes an impassioned call to action, weaving academic evidence with story, international comparison and anecdote to explain why Scotland is ready to step forward as the world’s newest state.
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The New Case for Scottish Independence<br />
17<br />
accession or which currency to use, Scottish independence is<br />
deemed impossible. That’s a strange logic. Like sticking with<br />
oil and gas indefinitely because renewable energy has storage<br />
issues.<br />
In fact, it’s even stranger.<br />
The need to make big choices about currency is regarded as<br />
terminal for independence, whereas big choices about energy<br />
storage are just challenges for clever Scots to fix. Why the<br />
difference?<br />
Well, no government or political party has chosen to<br />
weaponise the difficulties that inevitably lie ahead as we<br />
transform a fossil-fuel-powered world into a sustainable one.<br />
Yip, big difficulties do exist. Nope, they aren’t getting talked<br />
about. Because not even Tories fancy sounding like climatechange<br />
deniers these days.<br />
The things we worry about, talk about, the facts and figures<br />
that lodge stubbornly in our brains, the expenditure that looks<br />
unjustifiable, the problems that seem insurmountable are all the<br />
things raised day-in, day-out <strong>by</strong> status quo-supporting papers,<br />
media and vested interests. It’s a carefully crafted Selection<br />
Box of worry.<br />
Thus, the cost of the 2014 indyref was £15.85m. That’s<br />
either outrageously wasteful or a real bargain. £15.85 is twice<br />
the cost of enlarging the main door into the House of Lords<br />
(£15.85m v £7m) and one hundredth of the price-tag for<br />
restoring the whole Palace of Westminster (£14bn).<br />
Now, I’m not saying the crumbling Commons is a satisfactory<br />
place for MPs or staff to work. I am saying a successful exercise<br />
in popular democracy (85 per cent turnout) conducted for twice<br />
the price of a door into the world’s second largest unelected<br />
chamber sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Value and waste<br />
depend on how the argument’s framed.<br />
So, this book takes a wee tilt at frames which generate a<br />
pervasive gloom and negativity before any rational argument<br />
about independence has even begun. We’ll also hook up with<br />
our collective inner child – the one that desperately wants to
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