Another Irish Loser: Alex Salmond

There are precious few heroes in Ireland today and no gods either. But not all the losers are Irish either. Some are Scottish. Chief among them, Alex Salmond and the Scottish National Party. Not because an independent Scotland would necessarily have been destroyed by the financial tsunami that swept the globe (though, to put it mildly, it would have been “difficult” to cope and might well have required a humiliating begging-trip to London) but because an independent Scotland would have made some of the same mistakes and unfortunate assumptions that have helped cripple poor Hibernia.

Europe, you see, was an important part of the SNP’s slow rise to power. At the time, it seemed a masterstroke: “Independence in Europe” offered the best of all worlds – sovereignty and safety.  No longer would an independent Scotland be a tiny place on the edge of the continent, struggling to swim in choppy international waters.