Alex Massie Alex Massie

A Cheap Parcel of Rogues

What price a Scotsman’s vote? About £500 apparently. Beneath a headline claiming ‘New poll gives Yes campaign hope’ The Scotsman reports that support for independence, as measured by ICM, rises to the giddy heights of 47 per cent if voters are told that they will be £500 a year better off in an independent Scotland.

If this seems a disappointingly mercenary reason for voting Yes the same poll finds that many supporters of independence have their price. Only 18 per cent favour independence if, hypothetically, it were to leave you £500 a year worse off. The Incorruptible 18 per cent! Almost everyone else, it seems, has a price. Upon such things does the fate of nations hang.

The trouble with all this – and if narrow pecuniary concerns are a mildly shabby reason for voting Yes they’re just as grasping a reason for voting No – is that it does rather confirm something we’ve long suspected: there is no grievance or injustice for which independence is the only reasonable, logical or necessary answer.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in