Insidious tactics

OF ALL the SNP’s unfounded economic claims, the most far-fetched is Alex Salmond’s proposal to set up a Norwegian-style oil fund after independence.

Now Alistair Darling, leader of the Better Together campaign, has blown this absurdity out of the water, pointing out that diminishing North Sea oil revenues would be insufficient to finance the running of the country, let alone furnish an oil fund.

Any fund could only be established by borrowing millions of pounds – the reverse of the frugal saving the SNP misrepresents such an exercise as being. Alistair Darling scornfully compared it to ‘borrowing money from your credit card to put into your savings account’. Yet even as the foundations of the SNP’s case for independence crumble, their campaigns become ever more slick and insidious.

Thousands of Facebook users have been given Yes Scotland crib sheets in an attempt – some might say distasteful, or even sinister – to convert friends online to independence.

That is the opposite of the spontaneous, relaxed and sincere interpersonal contact that Facebook is supposed to be about. Instead, 13,000 volunteers are supposed to convert nine Facebook users per month. This initiative is based on tactics used by Barack Obama’s supporters in the US presidential election.

Meanwhile swimming legend David Wilkie complains that the Scottish Government is trying to hijack this summer’s Commonwealth Games for its own political ends.

This protracted referendum campaign is poisoning otherwise healthy areas of life and normal activities. When will the SNP realise that their fanaticism is becoming oppressive to so many Scots?