These days the Scots feel as proud of their banks as they once did of the Clyde shipyards — a macho symbol of economic prowess. This explains why the future of Scotland’s financial sector under a possible SNP government has become a hot issue in the forthcoming Scottish Parliament elections on 3 May.
The Scottish Nationalists, led by ex-Royal Bank economist Alex Salmond, have maintained a lead in the opinion polls for over five months and are currently on course to displace Labour as the largest party at Holyrood. Top of the agenda if the SNP forms the next Scottish Executive is a referendum on quitting the United Kingdom in order to (in nationalist parlance) ‘rejoin the world’.
After the second world war, the family-owned firms of Clydeside turned out a quarter of the world’s shipping by tonnage and kept hundreds of thousands of riveters, steelworkers and miners in work. Rich Scotland voted Tory.
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