Alison Rowat
Call that a constitutional crisis? What a let-down. In response to the
defiance of the elected Commons by the unelected Lords over tax credit
cuts, one half expected to wake this week to rioting, shelves stripped bare
in Waitrose, escaped zoo animals wandering up Sauchiehall Street, and other
signs that the democratic end of days, as foretold by Mr Cameron and Mr
Osborne, the Pony Club of the apocalypse, had indeed come to pass.
All appeared calm. Except for viewers in Scotland. Here, we were indeed
living in tempestuous times, if only we looked closely enough. In the
villages and the cities, the classroom and the boardroom, various Scotch
myths were being blown away like Highland mist.
Scotch myth one: we are a caring, sharing, friendly country in which no
soul is left behind to suffer the curse of loneliness. One of the more
distressing pictures of the week was the one which emerged from a report by
the Scottish Parliament’s Equal Opportunities Committee.
SNIP
Scotch myth two: Scots are solidly European in outlook, so much so they are
likely to vote for independence if it looks like Britain is heading for the
EU exit door.
SNIP
Scotch myth three: poorer students are better off in Scotland’s higher
education system than if they went across the border.
SNIP
>Scotch myth four: There is a bright future ahead for Scotland if it
>embraces green power with gusto. Following the failure of the Leith-based
>wave energy firm Pelamis, administrators have been called in to Edinburgh
>company Aquamarine Power. The firm’s chief executive said the move
>underscored “the financial as well as technical challenge in bringing an
>entirely new form of energy generation to commercialisation” and called
>for new private sector funding. This would be in addition to public money
>already given, which one estimate puts at £28 million. The days of
>Scotland becoming what former First Minister Alex Salmond called “the
>Saudi Arabia of marine power” grow ever distant. As this newspaper
>reported yesterday, the Institute of Civil Engineers in Scotland is
>warning Scotland will shift from being a net exporter of energy to a net
>importer if the shortfalls created by the closures of Longannet coal-fired
>power station and the nuclear plants at Torness and Hunterston B are not
>addressed.
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