A wincing Douglas Alexander told Newsnight last night that the tightening of the referendum polls ‘saw more £2 billion worth of value wiped off the stocks of Scottish companies.’ His pained expression revealed concern for ‘real people’s pensions and the threat to real people’s jobs… on the basis of a single opinion poll.’
Better Together are clinging to the markets as an indicator of the consequences of independence: ‘You don’t need to take my word for it, look at the judgement of the market this afternoon – look at the judgement in relation to Scottish shares.’ But does Labour’s general election coordinator have any experience of speculation and mere words wiping out huge amount of value from the stock market?
Where was the concern for ‘real people’s pensions and the threat to real people’s jobs’ when shares in the ‘big six’ energy companies plummeted by 5 per cent, knocking £1.9 billion off their value, following Ed Miliband’s Energy Price Freeze speech at Labour conference in 2013? The party laughed off what one shareholder called ‘economic vandalism at a time when this country needs all the help it can get.’ So
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