Sir, The IFS report into the financial future of an independent Scotland should be taken with more than a pinch of salt. It is touted by unionists as an impartial report but has used the highly subjective Westminster Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) as the source for much of the data it used to reach its rather dubious conclusions.
For example, the OBR’s prediction of the future price of oil was used rather than the more reliable, multinational, Organisation for Economic Culture and Development (OECD) prediction. The OBR prediction was $98, compared to the OECD’s $190. Indeed, the OBR prediction is by far the lowest prediction of many by some considerable margin. This one flaw alone renders the report all but worthless but it is not the only flaw.
Another flaw is to assume Scotland’s population growth will be a fraction of even Westminster’s predictions, never mind Scottish Government ones. One has to ask why? Granted, Scotland’s population was in long-term decline prior to devolution but has since grown by some 5%. Why should the IFS assume this would stall under independence? If anything, this point highlights the weakness of such long-term predictions.
There are many more such basic flaws in the IFS report but perhaps the most topical given the Welsh First Minister’s recent intervention (paid for by the promise of tax-raising powers from Westminster) is the failure to account for a (probable) massive cut to Scotland’s block grant should we vote to remain in the UK in 2014.
The Welsh Government and the English Local Government Association are demanding billions of pounds be taken from Scotland and handed over to them in the event of a “no” vote. What effect will this have on the IFS predictions? We can work it out for ourselves but you can be sure Better Together won’t tell us.
Stuart Allan 8 Nelson Street Dundee.
Missed point on swastikas
Sir, Dave Forsyth is under a very common false impression that the way a swastika is rotating defines it as either a Nazi symbol or otherwise. In fact, on ancient European standing stones, and in Eastern religions today, it makes little difference and a trip to India, Nepal, China, Japan or Korea would allow him to see them all over the place, portrayed as rotating either way.
It is still considered a symbol of good fortune by Hindus, Jains and Buddhists. Indeed, the name “swastika” stems from the Sanskrit, and literally means “it is good”.
The Wikipedia page on the swastika shows pictures of the swastika, as a religious symbol, rotating both to the left and the right.
The swastika was not the only symbol that Hitler and his Nazis distorted and demeaned. There are many others, including other forms of the sun wheel, which were religious symbols in Europe and elsewhere centuries before Hitler decided to hijack them for his own political ends.
By continuing to anathemise these symbols we only allow their negative, Nazi connotations, and the political philosophy behind them, to remain in human thought. By returning them to their original meaning, we take them away from those who would perpetuate a twisted political ideology.
(Captain) Ian F. McRae. 17 Broomwell Gardens, Monikie.
Consult the congregations
Sir, As Holyrood voted for same-sex marriage by 98 to 15, Dr Alan Hamilton, the Kirk’s convener on legal questions, sourly noted that it was not unanimous.
But the fact is the Church of Scotland has made no attempt to gauge the level of support for gay marriage among either parish clergy like me or its lay membership.
It relies entirely on the fierce opposition of activists crowding the General Assembly, whereas congregations are more likely to mirror the public’s sympathetic views.
Surely it is a matter of regret that mainline churches ‘officially’ oppose this long-overdue reform, unlike the Quakers, Liberal Jews and other, less doctrinaire, Christian bodies.
Rev Dr John Cameron. 10 Howard Place, St Andrews.
Immigration not answer
Sir, Alex Salmond has revealed plans to open Scotland’s borders to a fresh wave of immigrants following a “yes” vote in next year’s referendum. No thought about the 201,000 already unemployed in Scotland, then?
The SNP Government continues to peddle the myth that immigration is good for the economy and that immigrants are needed to pay for our pensions. Immigration as a solution to the pension problem has long been dismissed by all serious studies.
The House of Lords economic affairs committee reported that it was “neither appropriate nor feasible to attempt to counter the trend towards a more aged society through manipulation of immigration policy”.
The UN World economic and social survey reported: “Incoming migration would have to expand at virtually impossible rates to offset declining support ratios, that is, workers per retirees”. In other words, immigrants also age, become pensioners and become part of the problem.
Migrationwatch reported that an immigrant with a wife and two children had to earn more than £28,000 a year to pay more in tax and NIC than he received in welfare and housing benefits.
Perhaps the First Minister chooses not to read uncomfortable reports.
Clark Cross. 138 Springfield Road, Linlithgow.