Independence and all that

Here's the thing: I haven't made up my mind about independence for Scotland, unlike most of my friends who are either telling me we'll have a better future without the rest of the UK or we have no future without the rest of the UK.

My friends are usually pretty sensible. If I said to them: I'm going to talk to you about abortion or euthenasia or the death penalty and I'll keep right on talking at you till you come round to my point of view, they'd say - rightly - haud oan, you know you're not going to make up my mind for me in a hundred years unless you give me more information.

Independence is no different. People will have to be in a position to weigh the pros and cons. Maybe consider what will be best for coming generations, although one friend has already told me she doesn't give a shit about coming generations since she won't be around to worry about it. I'd like us to be more inclusive myself.

There are a few issues, in my opinion:

1 We're in a state of total ignorance right now, where nobody seems to know what independence will mean to our membership of the EU, the Commonwealth, the UN, NATO, etc. We get what I think are threats from the No campaign and vague promises from the Yes people.

2 The money situation isn't clear. Not to mention passports, borders, taxes. Would it in fact be better to keep pushing for great devolution of taxing and spending powers? Some hard facts would go down well - again, not threats from the Nos and not vague promises from the Yeses.

3 There are too many people without a vote on this matter: students, people who haven't registered to vote, immigrant workers, kids of 16+ whose lives will be directly affected by the independence vote. How do we include them - has anyone even considered them?

What I most want is clarity. Then I'll decide for myself. No knee-jerk reactions, please. End of.