Half-baked?

I read today in the Scotsman that Andrew Wilson of the SNP has admitted the SNP’S White Paper on independence had a robust oil price “baked into the numbers” in 2014. I wonder if the SNP’S current home economics team can

be persuaded to let us know whether there’ll be any cookery in the books in any financial projections for a second “once-in-a generation” referendum.

DAVID RICE Belstane Cottage, Kirknewton, Midlothian

We learn in your report about Scottish Business UK, a prounionist organisation set up by former care home operator

Robert Kilgour, that trade with the UK is worth three times as much as trade with the EU (18 September).

It is implied that after independence, trade with the rest of the UK would disintegrate. I would have thought that it’s stating the obvious that the rest of the UK buys goods and services from Scotland because they appreciate their quality and value for money and will wish to see the trade

continue. We also learn from Mr Kilgour that his principal concern is that “an extended period of uncertainty... is destabilising our opportunity to grow and secure inward investment”.

This is odd, because earlier this year the business consultancy EY announced that foreign investment projects had risen by 7 per cent and Scotland had retained its position as the second most attractive part of the UK after London.

They further announced that 2017 was the third consecutive year in which Scottish FDI had set a new high and that for research and development projects Scotland was the best-performing part of the UK. This appears to give the lie to Mr Kilgour’s assertion that investors are turning to other parts of the UK and it seems that a key part of his argument for the existence of his pressure group is based on a false premise.

We now know that Scottish Business UK is a Unionist organisation, but in the absence of any details in the article, readers are entitled to ask whether it is pro-brexit?

GILL TURNER Derby Street, Edinburgh