As I type this, Alex Salmond and Mark Carney are chowing over porridge at Bute House, the First Minister’s official residence in Edinburgh. There is always the risk of exaggerating the importance of these things but this morning’s meeting with the Governor of the Bank of England may be the most important encounter Alex Salmond has this year.
The question is simple: will an independent Scotland be able to forge a currency union with the rump United Kingdom? The answers, for all the First Minister’s bland assurances that such a union is in everyone’s interests, are not so simple. Like poker players, politicians often have a “tell”. When Salmond offers a kind of breezy emollience he’s often holding weaker cards than he wants you to think.
When a Come now, old boy, why don’t we be sensible and just work this out? tone is lacquered on top you know the First Minister is really making a bet he’s no desire to see called.
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