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Good question. Answers are as follows. First, a Scottish financial collapse would have a major effect on rUK. That's the biggest and most important reason. Second, do they want to keep Scotland? Well OK yes, most of them do, but some of them don't, or not much. Few British-level politicians are spending a lot of time backing the NO campaign. Most people agree that Better Together is "lacklustre" to use a common cliché and could do with some more big-name support. It's not as if many senior British politicians who are well known on Scottish TV screens aren't themselves Scottish. Some of them have a lot more charisma or at least respect than Alistair Darling. So it wouldn't surprise me if some of those who have done a few things to help the "NO" campaign might just be doing it for appearances' sake. Don't forget that turnout in Scotland in UK general elections is significantly higher than in Scottish general elections. It's not as if people in Scotland aren't interested in British-level "Westminster" politics. Their actions show that they are. And don't ever forget that polls in rUK show a majority for Scottish independence! It's not just the unprofitability, by the way. It's also the view that basically you have got Scottish-level politics based on pork barrels and people are scared that after independence crooks would walk off with anything that isn't nailed down. If you read the SNP government's white paper (which in many places reads more like election propaganda than a document for intelligent adults) and strip it of spin, basically it says that the SNP talked with the EU about the economy, and the EU said don't even think about applying to join the EU unless you let the London government run your monetary policy. Why did they say that? Answer is obvious. Nobody wants a local council running the show. They'll do an Enron. Remember the Western Isles and BCCI? That would affect confidence in rUK. Your reference to the existence of people who want the Scottish Parliament abolished is interesting. You are right, but it would be quite difficult to abolish it. A referendum would be needed. But people have become very used to Holyrood on their TV screens. The decision to have a Scottish Parliament is very hard to reverse. Independence would be harder still to reverse - very very hard. Even after a financial collapse and 90% support in Scotland for rejoining the UK, it would still be hard to reverse. Why? Because a referendum would be needed in rUK as well as in Scotland, and the result in rUK would probably be against. Whether Scotland stays in the Union or leaves it - that's a decision for people in Scotland. If Scotland leaves the Union, then Scotland could only rejoin if there were majorities BOTH north and south of the border in favour of Scotland rejoining. So it wouldn't just be a decision for people in Scotland. Scotland independent of the rUK would mean that rUK would be independent of Scotland. It cuts both ways. Almost everyone in Scotland could think "the hell with this independence lark - look what misery it's brought us - let's rejoin the union", but there would have to a debate in the rUK as well. Very probably people in the rUK would be against having a union with Scotland again. Which is a big reason why people should vote "NO". It's safer. The SNP leadership tells people to block their ears when people say independence would be dangerous. They also say that those of us who say independence would be dangerous are nervous ninnies at best and victims of "Westminster" brainwashing at worst. But our case knocks theirs out of the ring. They just want people to vote with their hearts out of national pride. Very insulting. Cameron doesn't express that view in that article. He just says he thinks it's tactically inadvisable for Unionists to say otherwise. Rather than go by what a politician thought in 2007 was tactically sensible to say, I'd go by what one of the world's biggest ratings agencies, Standard and Poor's, said last month. It's very clear. They say an independent Scotland would be at risk of ending up like Iceland. Point acknowledged and accepted. My information from editors and from contacts in party head offices and at Holyrood - including MSPs, staffers and officials - is that the whole incident is still being looked at very closely by all players. By Friday a lot of people were expecting it to be splashed in today's newspapers. As I understand it, some legal activity took place early yesterday afternoon, basically to put things into stasis for a day or two. Things are moving very fast. I'm not aware of anyone who believes the dam won't have burst by the middle of the week. Which is not to say it definitely will. I wouldn't be surprised if Salmond is forced out of office before the referendum. Politics is a funny game.

I would love to see big banks go bust everywhere, and I oppose bailing the moneygrabbers out, so I agree with you there. But that report from Bloomberg's is one-sided. Many other reports say Iceland is still in the you-know what (click here, here, here). Incomes are still 10% below pre-crash levels. But if Iceland can run its own currency... I am fed up with that creep Salmond blaming foreigners and scaremongerers. Maybe if Scotland had an independence movement, supported by a wide range of different Scottish political parties and the movement was up to leading the country in a grown-up way then there might perhaps be a viable independence on the horizon that would be worth voting for. Although I'd be sceptical about whether it actually could be viable. Most likely would be that an independent country was talked up for about a week by the derivatives boys before they went in for the kill. If my auntie was my uncle...

What I'm saying seem not obvious enough. The SNP couldn't have prenegotiated terms with the EU regarding membership or for that matter with the UK government regarding a currency union. Why not? Because neither of those bodies would want to - or should! - pre-empt the referendum result and give them all that publicity. To be unbiased the EU and UK government would have to give similar space to preparing for the other result, and who would they negotiate with? There is a year and a half between the referendum and 'independence day'. That would be long enough for talks to reach the two desired conclusion (membership and currency union), some sort of halfway house, or fail - or maybe one result on one issue and a different result on the other. In reality, they just strut around like peacocks blaming other people: Jose Barroso doesn't know his stuff, and George Osborne doesn't recognise 'it's Scotland's pound too', and so on. These people are not fit to form the government of an independent country. They can only play to prejudice. They can't show leadership. So you're missing the point, which is that a government of an independent country meets problems and it must show leadership by dealing with them. It shouldn't just blame other people. It should lead its country. Everyone knows there are global financial problems ahead. Should Scotland be independent in those rough seas? NO! And actually Alex Salmond could answer all three questions if he wanted to. I'll even tell him how: 1) "if we aren't allowed in the EU we shall thrive outside it" (he could then say that Scotland would apply to join EFTA for example, or he could talk about aiming for a bilateral treaty with the EU, or a special economic relationship with Norway or the rUK or wherever - but for goodness sake, stop coming out with the rubbish that the EU doesn't understand Scotland's right to be a member, whereas the SNP does - there's no court of appeal where independent states' membership of international bodies is concerned, matey) 2) "if the government of the rUK does not wish to join us in a currency union, we will print our own currency" (of course the problem here is that nobody in international markets would want it, otherwise that's exactly what he would say; such a statement would be weighed up by the ratings agencies and found wanting) 3) "we think the excessive power wielded by ratings agencies is indicative of the excessive weight of the financial sector, and if necessary we will strive to set up barter arrangements if the casinos of the world decide to try to undermine us" Or something, right? You know, show leadership. I would have much more respect for the SNP if they could conduct themselves in that fashion. But they can't. Please try to get to grips with the fact that the SNP's unfitness to run an independent country, being completely clueless about what to do if they can't use someone else's currency or don't get into the EU, etc., is partly their own fault but it's mainly explicable by the fact that Scottish independence would not be economically viable. Salmond may compare Scotland with Norway and Denmark. Standard and Poor's don't. They compare it with Iceland. No carping about it or blaming other people is going to change that. (And if an independent Scotland doesn't contain Shetland, then Scotland wouldn't even have much oil.) The problems definitely aren't the fault of the EU for not bowing down and promising them membership, or the fault of the English Westminster for not bowing down and giving them some seats on the board of the UK national bank. @Crofter - Yes, S&P did warn that Scotland could tank like Iceland. This was widely reported. Here's a write-up in the Independent. You can find many more reports in a variety of newspapers etc. here.

The idea that the British government has 'suppressed' its own private poll is just SNP propaganda. In this case, it's black propaganda, given that the letter was put into the pro-YES Sunday Herald under a false name. How long are people going to stand for these kinds of dirty tricks? The same thing goes for the islands referenda petition. Let it be discussed at Holyrood. That's what the Public Petitions Committee is for. Stop obstructing the work of the Scottish Parliament. Lots of people have signed this petition. Stop saying we've all been taking mushrooms. We've got a right to be heard. If there's a case for Scottish independence, make it honestly. Say what you're going to do if you're not allowed in the EU, for example. Stop blaming the English (sorry, "Westminster") for raising such questions. Say what you're going to do if nobody wants to enter a currency union with you too. Say what you're going to do if Standard and Poor's, the ratings agency, turn out to know what they're talking about and the economy of an independent Scotland tanks like Iceland's. These are legitimate questions. Stop attacking people who ask them. Answer them. A government of an independent country would have to deal with many problems, which may well include these ones. Can't you show some leadership? Stop squirming and blaming the English for everything. Nobody who does that should be on anything more than a local council. In fact, they don't even deserve to be on a local council. And did someone mention polls? Well, this week's poll of polls shows that there has been a swing towards NO. Click here to verify.

I had to insert some punctuation into your first sentence and change your word "link" to the word "article", but yes, of course I read the piece in the Herald Scotland by their political editor Magnus Gardham. I believe I summarised it accurately: it's about SNP leaders interfering with Scottish parliamentary committees. I suggest you base your view of whether or not I am right by reading the article itself, as well as what I say about it. I would encourage both you and everyone else who is interested to read it. In one instance, the SNP leadership sought to stop evidence being heard which indicates that an independent Scotland might not be allowed into the EU or even in the UN. (The EU case is obvious and well-known to everyone who's following the independence issue with at least a modicum of intelligence; the UN case would be interesting to learn more about - I presume it's connected with aspects of the proposed or putative relationship with rUK.) In another instance, they told SNP backbench members of the Public Petitions Committee to oppose having a discussion of the islands referenda petition. As for the Viking-gate claims, I cannot report the facts of what occurred because I was not present. But then you of course were not present when YouGov conducted their poll. I assure you that talk of Viking-gate is all over Holyrood and the Scottish media. Suppression by "Westminster" (do you call the German government "Mitte"?) of polls showing enormous support for "YES" is just typical SNP rubbish. For goodness sake, stop blaming the English for Scotland not being on the road to independence. There's a reason why the Scottish cabinet does "question and answer sessions". It's the same reason why the SNP does so appallingly badly in UK general elections in Scotland - when, by the way, turnouts in Scotland are higher than they are in Scottish general elections. What's that reason? It's because the Scottish government is basically a local council, and a nauseatingly jumped-up one when the SNP are in control. If your poll statistics included a figure for "Don't Knows", "Won't Says" and "Won't Votes", etc. (do you know whether it did?), then 46% would probably be a plurality, indicating of course a rogue poll. YES campaigners know that perceptions of Salmond are a weakness.

The SNP leaders have interfered with the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee, in an effort to stop the committee from discussing the call for referenda in Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles. Have a look at this piece in the Herald Scotland. The referenda would be held on 25 September, a week after the Scottish one. The options would be a) go independent, and stay in Scotland. If the Scottish vote was "yes", there will also be the option c) leave Scotland and stay in the UK. It is completely out of order for ministers to try to nobble a parliamentary committee. But they did exactly the same thing when they stopped Matt Qvortrup from giving evidence to the Finance Committee. They knew he was going to say that Scotland might not get into the EU. They also know that most of Scotland's oil belongs to whatever country Shetland is in, and that most people in Shetland want to stay in the UK. There’s a story going around that people at Holyrood are calling “Viking-gateâ€. In case you haven’t already heard it, here it is… When Salmond heard about the islands petition, he called Shetlanders “a gang of bloody Vikings“. He followed up by saying “They’ve probably all been on the mushrooms!†He was referring to Vikings supposedly eating hallucinogenic mushrooms to make themselves go beserk. What a cheap, unpleasant and racist insult! They SNP leadership know that their campaign is very vulnerable. On the other hand, they've conned quite a large minority of people into intending to vote YES already. So they're very eager as well as very nervous. They know Salmond is unpopular. That's why their activists have been told to parrot the line that the referendum isn't about Salmond or even the SNP. But they're on shaky ground and they know it. They don’t want Salmond’s personality and racism to be exposed. Behind the scenes he isn’t anything like as smarmy and gladhandy as he is when the cameras are rolling Please feel free to circulate this comment and spread the news about “Viking-gateâ€.