An independent Scotland can thrive - your views

"Scotland has neither contributed to the accumulation of this debt nor benefited from it”

An independent Scotland can thrive

Alexander McKay (Letters, February 13) should fear for his children and grandchildren remaining part of this unequal Union, not an independent Scotland.

London has conceded that Scotland won't inherit any of the UK debt upon independence. Scotland has neither contributed to the accumulation of this debt nor benefited from it. Second, Scotland’s fictional deficit will vanish once it breaks free from the UK straitjacket as it will no longer be charged £4.5b pa for debt servicing, nor billions for a London civil service, a bloated nuclear defence sector, expensive overseas embassies and infrastructure projects outside Scotland.

The UK has a legal obligation to pay state pensions post-independence just as they are currently paid to UK expats. The UK has the lowest state pension in the developed world and Scotland, as a wealthy first world country with full control over its economy and finances, has committed to raise state pensions to the EU average.

Smart borders are the norm. Norway’s 1000-mile border with EU member Sweden works smoothly because of collaboration and technology. Trucks stop at one customs checkpoint and police forces have the right to operate 10 miles into each other’s territory.

Major IT investments allow goods to be declared to customs before they leave the warehouse and a communications network enables customs officials to effectively monitor the long border. Scotland and England could have a similar arrangement.

Leah Gunn Barrett, Merchiston Crescent, Edinburgh.

Forget indy fears and focus on the facts

Alexander Mackay fears greatly for his children and grandchildren if they have to live in an independent Scotland (letters), although being a Unionist, he doesn’t use the word “independent”, but “broken off, separated, poverty-inducing, painful and austerity.”

Do Mr Mackay and his like never look at other small independent countries? For example, Ireland, which is slightly smaller than Scotland yet has the highest GDP in Europe after Switzerland.

Or Denmark, whose pensions are double the pathetic UK level. Neither of these countries has anything like the natural resources of Scotland yet do so much better, as do all the small independent north European countries.

How can that be? By Mr Mackay's reckoning they should be poverty stricken wastelands. If Scotland is such a basket case, as Unionists make out, why is Westminster so desperate to hang on to us?

James Duncan, Rattray Grove, Edinburgh.

Covid vaccines mean lockdown can end

As the UK vaccination effort goes from strength to strength a crucial question is being studiously avoided. Once the elderly and those at high risk are vaccinated, can the continuation of Covid restrictions on the the rest of the population be justified?

Given that the average age of death from Covid-19 is over 80, and we have almost completed giving the first dose to all over 70s, we can expect that their risk of death from Covid will plummet in the next few weeks.

Before the end of March we will be left with an unvaccinated majority of the population, who are at little risk of serious symptoms from Covid-19 and even less risk of dying from it.

With the vulnerable largely protected, there will be no more justification for restricting the unvaccinated majority than there is to prevent the flu each winter. Will we, however, be able to get that message to SAGE?

Otto Inglis, Crossgates, Fife.