Thrive by Lesley Riddoch sampler

The New Case for Scottish Independence
19
from the Yes campaign – a call echoed so strongly by a hostile
media that hard-to-keep guarantees about the shape of a new
country were made by SNP leaders.
I understand why.
In a world where big false promises written on the sides
of buses get you an 80-seat Commons majority or four years
in the White House, it’s hard to sell shades of grey.
But we’ve watched the ‘oven-ready’ trade deals of Brexit fail
to materialise. We’ve watched President Trump fail to make
America great again and President Putin’s ‘special operation’
in Ukraine grind to a halt. Those who live by certainty tend
to (politically) die by it too.
Yet certainty thrives in uncertain times. What are the oddson
Rishi Sunak still being Prime Minister by the time this book
is published? I was going to ask about Nadim (tax dodger)
Zahawi, but a mere week after this sentence began, he was
toast. Meanwhile, what about you? Will you retire at 64, 66,
68 or never?
Life is becoming increasingly random and uncertain –
especially for folk without heating this crisis-strewn winter.
But the more old certainties dwindle, the more we crave them.
No wonder politicians choose undeliverable promises over
coming clean with the electorate, every time – even though
madness lies therein and disillusioned voters end up wishing
a plague on all party political houses.
The truth is we don’t live our lives by certainty but by
probability and trust. Yet this reality-defying demand – that
the future be 100 per cent predictable – is applied to just one
side of the constitutional debate. That doesn’t mean a detailed
prospectus isn’t needed. Just that its absence right now may
not be a bigger obstacle for independence than this impossibleto-satisfy
thirst for absolute certainty.
Let’s drop the independence bar to the same height louped
by every other proposition for Scotland’s future, including
the status quo, and consider briefly here – and at length later
on – what’s highly probable after a Yes vote.