The Independence that isn’t.

Must sleep early tonight. The change from late shift to early shift gets harder to deal with when you get a bit old. Especially if you write at night. Getting up in the morning is okay, I don’t like it but I can do it. Being even reasonably functional takes three cans of Red Bull-like cheapo chemical fizz topped up with the awful ‘espresso that is really just bad instant coffee with less water’ from the free machine at work. That said, I have never yet failed to do everything I’m supposed to do and often done a bit more. Just… on autopilot.

Lidl do a nice chemical fizz with some actual fruit-like flavour in there. A touch more expensive than the four-for-a-pound at Poundland and Farmfoods but £1.79 for six is still a hell of a lot cheaper than the original.

Which reminds me, I have to go there and get some Ben Bracken in before the Budget booze-price increases. The inevitable blast of tobacco price increases no longer interest me. I have seeds and soil, a combination that gets more attractive to more people every year. The budget is in March, which gives the newly enraged time to get some seeds or seedlings in. Just guard them from slugs and frost until they are big enough to sneer at both.

Tobacco grows perfectly well in Scotland although I’m not sure I can get it to grow wild here. Won’t stop me trying – it costs nothing but a little time. Late frosts are common and could wipe out the wild plants, but I have so many seeds now that failure doesn’t matter at all. Even if I fail here I might produce something hardy enough to grow wild further south. It’ll do and once established, it’ll spread.

I fully expect Oily Al, the Wee Plastic Wallace (a term I picked up from a Mail commenter and thought was perfect) to immediately ban any and all growing of pretty much anything that can be turned into smoking or drinking material as soon as he has control.

The thing is, he won’t have control, not even the limited control he thinks he’ll get. Andrew Marr was slated for his remark but he was right. The EU will not welcome Scotland with open arms. Many European countries have little bits that want to be independent. Even some US states have made loud noises about secession. People do not like central control. If Oily Al were to succeed, all those little bits of land will think ‘Wahey, we can get independence and then get the EU to subsidise us forever’.

Not ‘until we can get our act together’. Forever. Whole small countries in the benefits trap. Why work for peanuts when you get coconuts for free? The few remaining countries with money will have realised this and will be thinking ‘Git awa’ tae buggery ya wee bawbags, ye’re no’ gettin’ a penny oot a me’.

Perhaps I should have titled this ‘Scotland Adrift’ because that is what Oily Al and his Spiteful Nannying Puritans promise.

No link with Wastemonster? It does sound good but then Wastemonster isn’t running itself. The EU runs it. The Cleggy and the Cameroid are just the front men, the warm-up act. What Oily Al and his sidekick, Miss Caviar, want is to free Scotland from the ineffective and emasculated Wastemonster and give it to those who control Wastemonster anyway. So, an expensive exercise in achieving nothing at all. They must have had lessons from NHS management.

Then there is money. Oily Al pretends he does not want the Euro while deviously steering his supporters into demanding it. He claims Scoitland will use the Pound whether the Bank of England likes it or not. His supporters are easily pushed into demanding something non-English instead but that’s not the real point.

The point is that whether he uses the Pound or Euro or Dollar or Yen or pints of yak’s milk or shiny stones from Tenerife is all irrelevant. He will preside over a country that has absolutely no control over its own currency. That model has worked out so well for Greece and Portugal and so on…

As for the great Scottish economy, that is based on running-out oil, whisky and Buckfast. All of which Oily Al wants banned. Really. If you vote SNP you are voting for someone who wants your country destroyed. Tourist industry? With the whole landscape looking like a Windy Miller wet dream? Get real.

Independence means independence. It means ‘Nah. I’m living life my way and you can just go and live yours’.

It’s what smokers do. It is not what the SNP do, which might be why they hate smokers so much.

Oily Al wants a socialist utopia like North Korea. If he manages to win a Yes vote, that is what will happen. When it comes to running an actual country he has demonstrated that, like all those past revolutiionaries, he has no fucking clue. What will you use for money? We’ll use yours. Where is your business base? Currently packing and moving out but that’s okay. we don’t want capitalists and all their filthy money anyway. Does your plan involve escaping the EU to join the EU? (dons Bane mask) Of course! The man is an idiot but admittedly, a personable moron.

There is no independence in Oily Al’s promise. He wants to switch from the current master to the same master. With a bit of spin and illusion for good measure. Really. England is just another EU region now. Breaking free and then re-attaching the chains is a level of stupid we need a new word to describe.

In the event the idiot wins, nothing at all will change except for the very much worse.

I’ll miss the whisky.