Chicken Licken

I'm not an out-and-out supporter of Scottish independence - as someone who has lived and worked in differents parts of the UK - I can appreciate both sides of the argument.

So I'll wait and see how things develop - before making up my mind in the independence referendum - which the SNP has agreed to hold in the latter stages of this parliament.

But I couldn't help but smile yesterday.

When I heard the news that the couple from Ayrshire - Chris and Colin Weir - who became Europe's biggest lottery winners - have given £1 million of their own money to help the SNP's campaign for independence.

Now some might say they can well afford it - yet the fact is that these are ordinary people who have put their money where there mouth is - despite their new found wealth.

And I think that is to be admired - compared to all the sourpuss propaganda from Labour and the Tories - about how Scotland can't possibly go it alone - how the country would be bound to fall flat on its face.

I don't go in for all this bogeyman nonsense - from the dreary Labour and Tory voices - many of whom have done extremely well out of the present Westminster system for years.

Without doing much more than jumping on a plane up and down to London twice a week - for only part of the year - while buying a second home in London at the taxpayers' expense.

Spare me the scarey stories about 'separation' and 'divorce' - my head doesn't button up the back - and I don't take kindly to being patronised by second and third rate politicians.

The case for an independent Scotland is a finely balanced argument - is the country likely to be better off in a wider sense - not just economically speaking, important though that is - by taking  responsibility for its own actions.

Is the country better served by the government at Holyrood - or at Westminster? 

Now those are serious questions - and deserve a serious debate - before anyone decides how to answer.

Whereas at the moment the Labour and Tory doom-mongers - are talking up a tartan version of the story of Chicken Licken - that the sky will fall on the nation's head if we dare to believe we can succeed on our own.

And that's no way to win a serious argument - in fact it's almost certain to have the opposite effect - by putting people's backs up.