Banking on Scott

Angus Howarth’s article (Scotsman, 29 May) about the new £10 note to be issued by the Bank of Scotland later this year raises an interesting historical point about the dangerous ignorance of the English ruling elite in the 1820s.

In 1826, following a series of disastrous banking failures in England, it was proposed to ban the issue of banking notes of less than £5.

As a leading light in the successful campaign throughout an enraged Scotland, that proposal was dropped, and since then the head of Sir Walter Scott has appeared on Bank of Scotland bank notes.

A timely reminder: The Bank of Scotland introduced the £10 in Scotland on 7 April, 1704. So the ignorance mentioned above is even more astonishing. Might this new £10 note be an extra, if unintended, argument for an indyref?

ROBERT M DUNN Oxcars Court, Edinburgh interview with Andrew Neil on Sunday that independence will indeed be at the heart of the election and pursuing indyref2 will be her priority thereafter. She also clarified that an independent Scotland will definitely be in the EU and there will be no temporary halfway house position such as joining the EFTA.

Moreover, she made it clear that Scotland’s woeful economic performance up to last year was due not – as Derek Mackay had claimed – to Brexit but to “difficulties in the oil and gas sector”.

How interesting that a downturn in the sector of the economy which was labelled by the SNP as merely a “bonus” in 2014 is now the single factor leading to the Scottish economy shrinking by 0.2 per cent while that of the UK is growing by 0.7 per cent.

Ms Sturgeon was a little less expansive on the causes of the decline in Scottish educational standards and looked distinctly uncomfortable on this issue.

She did, on the other hand, come into her own towards the end when Mr Neil put to her that some elements of the Labour manifesto, such as free university tuition, seemed to be following the lines of the SNP’S “progressive” agenda.

Attentive readers of the Labour manifesto, however, will have noticed that it is acknowledged there that such policies must be paid for and that Labour would fund them with a variety of methods including the raising of taxes. How is it that Scotland, with a £15 billion deficit and an economy teetering on the verge of recession, can be so progressive? The SNP baulk at raising taxes unless the UK as a whole does the same. So, is there some magic formula which produces the funding out of thin air? Ah yes, of course – the Barnett formula.

COLIN HAMILTON Braid Hills Avenue, Edinburgh