Ian Jack (The battle for Scotland has begun, 28 January) appears incapable of addressing the real issues about Scottish independence. Anyone who knows the history of the coal, slate, tin, shipbuilding and railway industries (to name but a few) and who lives north of Manchester or west of Bristol will recognise that Westminster manages their part of the world by alternately exploiting and then neglecting it. It is symbolic that, while Scotland is making determined efforts to move out of the union, Westminster decides to start the HS2 alternative to the west coast mainline at the wrong end, and the Welsh rail electrification is planned to go all the way across England and stop just a few miles into Wales.
These railway lines are designed to move people and freight into London, not to help the rest of the UK. Meanwhile London is awarded the Olympics, the Jubilee, Crossrail, Thames Link 2 (or is it 3?), major sewage works, London Gateway and, among many other things, there is now discussion of another airport (profit for London, noise and vapour trails for the rest of the UK). All these projects will draw workers in from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the north of England and the south-west peninsula, leaving only those too ill, or too poorly qualified, to move. Is it any wonder that when families are split in this way, that people dream of independence?
Ian Jack, and those of like mind, should realise that the move to independence is now much more mature then in the romantic days of the (Eton-educated) Free Wales Army, and his Scottish friend, Jack Wills. Lack of certainty about share of the national debt, command lines of the provincial regiments and constitutional niceties may be worrying but, for very many people, almost anything is better then continued mismanagement by Westminster. Those who oppose the breakup of the union had better start thinking about how to improve its governance, so that everyone thinks fondly of it.
Huw Jones
St Clears, Carmarthenshire