Wings Over Scotland

(See here for the whole story.)

The Scottish Conservatives website runs a promisingly-titled piece today, headlined "Davidson: Scotland is better in Britain". The introduction makes a seductive pledge:

"Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson has urged the SNP to break its silence and set out the cost of so-called Independence in Europe and the Euro as she, in contrast, sets out the positive case of why Scotland is better off in Britain." [our emphasis]

Unfortunately, a technical glitch appears to have caused this apparent "positive case" to fall off the page, because all Davidson actually goes on to say in a few brief paragraphs is that "The cost of independence is frighteningly high", claiming that an independent Scotland might raise interest rates – a figure of £1000 per year extra for the average mortgage if rates rose by 1% is plucked from the ether – and that were said independent Scotland to join the Eurozone (something that's an absolute minimum of 10 years away, were it to happen at all) our corporation tax might be "increased by Brussels or Bonn" rather than controlled in Edinburgh.

In other words, Ms Davidson's latest stab at the fabled "positive case for the Union" turns out to be "if Scotland was independent our taxes would go up, your mortgage payments would rocket and our economy would be run by foreigners". To be honest with you, readers, we're not absolutely sure which part of that is supposed to be the "positive" aspect. At this stage, frankly we're wondering if perhaps all the Unionist parties have bought a faulty dictionary. It would explain a lot.