The city with an independent air

WE'RE in the United Kingdom – but we don't need to be. Our natural resources, our creativity, and our resourcefulness are plundered by others – but they don't need to be.

We have our own proud history that is a match for anyone's – we don't need to hide behind someone else's big skirt. We have a future of great opportunity before us – if only we would cut ourselves loose from the others that drag us down.

These are the sort of themes we are forever hearing Scottish nationalists make – and too often the Unionists don't respond, thinking that people's innate conservatism, that "it's aye been" and the fear of the unknown, will be enough to keep Scotland inside the UK.

This week though, there was a report that, for me, pointed out how absurd and how socially corrosive the nationalist argument can be. It was published, quite innocently I'm sure, by the accountants Campbell Dallas, and it showed that, economically, Edinburgh was the most successful city in the UK.

In case you didn't know – we in Edinburgh produce an average of £28,432 per person – better than London, which manages only £27,672, and better than the UK average by some £10,000.

It got me thinking. Why stop with Scottish independence? The world's history is peppered with successful city-states – such as Athens and Venice. If the argument is that Scotland doesn't need the rest of the UK why should we, in Edinburgh, not take it one stage further? Why doesn't Edinburgh strike for independence from the rest of dependency-culture Scotland, never mind the allegedly oil-subsidised English?

Edinburgh's in Scotland, but doesn't have to be – it's a cosmopolitan outward-looking city that trades with the world. Edinburgh doesn't have oil but its resource is its people.

Edinburgh's experience in finance, education and culture can easily make it rise above city-states such as Monaco, Liechtenstein or Luxembourg – and even give some small countries a beating.

Through our rich history of scientific progress and colourful political intrigue, Edinburgh is already known and loved, and would easily be accepted into the world.

Independence in Europe could be our motto! We could have cordial relations with the rest of Scotland, and what might remain of the United Kingdom. We could set our own attractive tax rates to entice even more financial companies to locate here – and we wouldn't need an army or a navy – as our location is of no strategic importance to anyone.

If Scotland carries London does Edinburgh not carry Glasgow? What's to stop us becoming more prosperous, with better healthcare, better schools – in fact a land of life-enhancing semi-skimmed milk and heather honey? We don't need the English and we don't need the rest of Scotland!

We would have to be careful, though. The good burghers of Leith, or maybe Morningside, might think it clever to break away from the city!

My message is simple, we should be careful of reducing the debate to mere cat-calling about economic statistics. I have no doubt that Scotland (and indeed Edinburgh) could succeed if it were to go it alone – but the issues go beyond economics and it is time for Unionist politicians to get involved in the debate and explain that far more is at stake.

Belated critics
I read this week of how, in Zimbabwe, a four-year-old girl had to watch her mother being murdered for supporting the wrong political party, her breasts and legs cut off, by Robert Mugabe's militia.

It has taken this level of barbarity before former comrades Thabo Mbeki, and Nelson Mandela have finally openly criticised Mugabe in strong terms.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Conservatives have suspended a young parliamentary candidate, Philip Lardner, for saying that the former Rhodesian leader, Ian Smith, was a war hero and probably a good bloke. Outraged Labour MPs have been baying for Lardner's blood and the gutless Tories have accordingly caved-in, as if something blasphemous has been uttered. I'm sure if he had said Castro or Stalin they would have applauded.

The small matter that Lardner was speaking the truth, as Ian Smith was a distinguished Hurricane and Spitfire pilot, clearly matters not one jot in our politically correct world.

By comparison with Robert Mugabe, Smith was a pussycat. He did, after all, negotiate a settlement whereby he gave up power resulting in black majority rule. I don't see Mugabe going until he's bayoneted by a mob and hung upside down like that other fascist, Mussolini. Frankly I think it would be too good for him.

Crazed crusader
Since I wrote last week about the SNP's mistaken puritanical policies on alcohol, the SNP Justice Minister has compared drinking at home to looking up child pornography.

MacAskill is now displaying the crazed judgement of a zealot that comes of a convert trying to prove he has changed. It's not our fault that he drank too much a few years ago before going to a football match at Wembley – so we shouldn't have to pay for his redemption from his disgrace.