By Rab Bruce’s Spider

I’m pleased to hear that Nicola Sturgeon plans a charm offensive to push the positive case for Scottish independence and win over enough No voters to swing the next Referendum – whenever that comes about. It is about time the Scottish Government took a positive stance on this and stopped simply reacting to Unionist attacks. We have seen over the past eighteen months that most of the scare stories and lovebombing we were subjected to during the IndieRef campaign were little more than bluster and lies, so the next campaign, when it begins, really ought to put the pressure on the unionists to explain what is so good about Tory rule and austerity, waging war against Muslim countries and strutting about on the world stage as if Britain still possessed an Empire.

However, wile I welcome the news, I believe Nicola Sturgeon has a difficult task ahead of her. That is because, as the recent media frenzy over the latest GERS figures has shown, there is and always has been one major and fundamental difference between the attitudes of Yes and No voters. Put simply, the vast majority of Unionists are enthralled by money and finances. Nothing else matters to them and appeals to broader issues such as equality or a fairer society mean nothing to them.

Money is important, of course, and it would be foolish to deny this but, as many of us have learned over the past few years, much of the rhetoric spouted by politicians is wildly inaccurate because their comparisons of a nation’s finances with a household budget are utterly meaningless. As many commentators and economists have pointed out, a country’s finances do not operate in the same way as a household budget.

Sadly, this reality will not prevent Unionist politicians and journalists repeating the false claims ad nauseam and those who have grown up under and benefitted from a system where the acquisition of wealth and material goods is the only purpose in life are going to be difficult to persuade that a fairer redistribution of wealth would actually benefit the entire country.

It’s going to be a long, hard slog and we all need to keep spreading the word that the prospects for Scotland would be much brighter if it could break free of the stifling Westminster rule that has, after three centuries, left our nation apparently impoverished to such an extent that, uniquely among the nations of the world, we would not be able to survive on our own.