By Rab Bruce’s Spider

Before we get back into the old routine of Scottish politics after the holiday break, there’s something that’s been bugging me for a while and I’d like to make an appeal for a more reasoned approach to economic news.

We all know Unionists are obsessed by oil but their sense of gloating over the collapse in the oil price and the resultant job losses is really quite appalling. Oil companies are in the business of making huge profits and most of the layoffs are to do with preserving those profits. Investment in the North Sea continues albeit with staff numbers having been cut. What is disturbing is the seeming glee with which Proud Scots greet news of redundancies because they believe it confirms their view that Scotland would not be able to cope as an independent country when the oil price falls. It’s quite a bizarre claim seeing as the jobs are being lost despite what we were assured were the broad shoulders of the UK.

However, Indie supporters cannot be exempted from criticism. Several pro-Union newspapers have announced redundancies and Asda recently announced their worst results in fifty years. While it can be said that these organisations brought this on themselves by their attitude during the Indieref, it really is no cause for celebration that people have lost their jobs as a result of declining sales. The best approach we can take here is a grim satisfaction that the Better Together promises of job security being assured by a No vote were, as so many of their claims have proved to be, complete nonsense. What we should not do is take delight in fellow citizens losing their jobs. That is far too serious an issue for anyone to gloat over.

So please, whichever side of the argument you are on, don’t forget that we should all have the best interests of Scotland at heart and we should all want to see our economy do as well as it can under the constraints imposed by Westminster. This is not a playground argument with petty point scoring as its objective. This is the country we all live in.