I used to be a barman in a pub in Rosyth, where David Cameron is visiting today, and it’s hardly a hotbed of separatism. Its dockyard is not just a reminder of the many defence jobs the Union brings, but of what happens when the work shrinks and the jobs go.
Many of the locals in Cleos were unemployed ex-dockyard workers, and I spent a good chunk of my life hearing them tell me about life and politics. All of them derided the idea of an independent Scotland: they saw it as a quixotic bet that a family man could not afford to place. Mind you, they had a burning hatred for obfuscating politicians who spoke down to them. This was a solidly Labour seat, and had been since Gordon Brown settled down (and even married) a couple of miles away in North Queensferry.
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