Follow that Cab

I knew that the Scottish Independence debate had become a live UK issue when I handed a taxi driver in Haywards Heath a Scottish £10 on Saturday. His response – before he accepted it – was short and to the point and included the word Salmond

While his view on the future use of sterling in an independent Scotland was immediately clear … his ideas about the future of Trident, the apportionment of the National Debt, the securing of pensions and the many other issues now arising we’re less clear. Or at least I didn’t have time to hang around to hear them.

Churches should be agnostic about these issues. I spent long enough in Northern Ireland – where a view on the constitutional position had achieved ‘article of faith’ status – to know how the importance of that. Anything else produces bad politics and is bad for churches too

But the values …. that’s different. There’s been an adversarial tone around these past few days which gives me a familiar dull feeling. The best aspects of the growing Scottish-consciousness which has been around these past few years has been the sense that it has been a positive, open, inclusive and not chauvinistic thing. I think of the Kirking of the Parliament and the opening of Parliament by the Queen las yeart. Pity to spoil it with the familiar adversarial stuff …