Methinks, they protest too much…

After 300 years of sponging, I'm surprised Scotland hasn't been kicked out of the Union already Given the vinegar coming from commentators in the Daily Mail or the Telegraph, I wonder why there's any urge at all to hang on us wasters in the North.

So, what is it has made successions of governments put up with us so long? What do we have that makes them want us to stay, especially when so many increasingly disgruntled people outside Scotland all want us to shove off?

Scotland has been a net contributor to the UK finances for at least a 100 years and it's clearly been worth whatever apparent bounty we receive to keep us. There's seldom mention of the a huge, hidden top-slice kept by the Treasury. That 's what has financed the UK's profligate military and fiscal adventures. With independence the Scottish income stream will go and the UK's dire current account deficit will increases catastrophically. Hence this week's panic attacks and the money market jitters.

George Osborne could have saved all that by being open to change and a good, neighbourly solution. But, no. He chose to close ranks with the big names in the Westminster club and shut discussion down. These are the parties, note, about whom the late Bob Crow said, you can't slip a fag paper between, them politically. Why the stonewall? Why not open debate and dialogue, even as we disagree?

I think they had the arrogance to think YES would wither on the vine. No need to promise anything. Just point out the pitfalls and we'd crumble, stagger back to our couthy lives and dismal weather.

Trouble is, they've not come clean. We have resources. Wind, water, and not the least of it, oil. We had industry too, once upon a time but Thatcher threw that away in favour of the finance sector. Straight Chicago School economics: run down whatever you won't invest in until it's a basket case, then flog it off to speculators in the City. They either asset-strip it or tart it up and sell it on. Whatever, the family silver went at a knock down price. Happy government with a few extra millions. Happy financiers with a fast buck.

Remember, they did the same after the Olympics. Its infrastructure was built with Westminster money (Scotland paid a fair whack) then infrastructure, stadiums and facilities, got sold off at a loss. Nothing changes.

But now the pandemonium begins. Because of this tried and trusted methodology, Westminster has believed it can 'invest' by the back door and then sell off the assets, pleasing the City, who then prop up the economy. The trouble is, this practice has used what it earns like revenue. The same has gone for oil taxation and anything sent south from Scotland, the North of England, anywhere that's not London. And it gets spent. No oil fund, no significant investment. And certainly not where the money comes from.

And now the prospect of Scottish independence...

Now, it's not me, but the BBC's Robert Peston* who pointed out three days ago that, with indepencence, while some financial institutions might be compelled to shift their brass plates out of Edinburgh and go south, the oil would go north. The consequence would be, as I said earlier, disastrous for the London economy

The UK's current account deficit is about 4.4% of GDP and has been as high as 5.7%. Only the UK's international assets keep his from being critical for sterling. It's bearable but on he brink.

If oil falls into the hands of the Scots, the current account deficit is likely to approach 7% of GDP and that is a potential disaster. It can't be allowed to continue. The UK would have to sell its assets and approach a spiral of financial crisis.

That's why we've had the relentlessly negative NO campaign. They don't want to win. Stopping YES is enough. That's why it has no vision. That's also why they've love-bombed us, vilified the YES campaign as racist or fascist. And why they've now sent three impassioned party leaders up the road to plead the case. Three of them. Like buses, all at once. Never mind the timetable.

The promises are bogus, a rehash of what was on the table months ago and cobbled together. None were discussed with the rest of the UK and the resentment there is enormous. Disagreements are already evident among the great and the good about the deal already.

I've said elsewhere, the referendum isn't about the money. I don't think it is, for us. Social justice, fairness and an opportunity for real change figure much more highly. But for them, the NO campaign, it is. That's why they have made so much of it. That's why they trade on fear so much: it reflects the fear in their own hearts.

No matter the rhetoric. For the Westminster parties and the majority of their politicians, the money is uppermost in their minds. The people, Scots, English, Welsh, Irish, no matter, the people don't. For Westminster and the system it presides over, the money is all there is.

* Robert Peston's BBC article