I thought Magnus Gardham would have let his non-story of yesterday die quietly to avoid further embarrassment. But no, today he unwisely tries to justify it, to give the wee thing legs ...
Putting our money where its mouth is
It should not fall to me, a voter with no background in journalism or politics to offer the political editor of the Herald some basic concepts from The Ladybird Book of Politics, but sadly, it seems necessary.
There is a fundamental difference between the position of the devolved Scottish Government setting out its policy - and effectively its opening negotiating platform for an independent Scotland after a YES vote - in a White Paper, and a UK Government publishing a White Paper for implementation through its majority in Parliament. In the first context, setting out a "definitive position" on policies defines a negotiating position and a set of beliefs that underpin it: in the second context, it is simply the intention to legislate using a Parliamentary majority.
In his first few paragraphs, Magnus Gardham shows that that he understands this, yet he chooses to reject the reality because it does not suit his story or his agenda - that the Scottish Government is in some way misleading a gullible Scottish electorate over the currency. He might have taken some account of the calm, and faintly amused reaction of Brian Taylor of the BBC (and others) - a man who does understand politics - at the farrago of nonsense thrown up around Colin McKay's entirely unexceptional statement - that no one can guarantee the position of the UK Government or UK Treasury in negotiations after a YES vote, especially since that Government may well change in 2015, halfway through the most complex set of negotiations British politicians have ever undertaken in centuries.
If Magnus Gardham hopes to make the contribution to the great debate on Scotland's independence that some of his journalistic contemporaries are already making, he must outgrow his fondness for conspiracy theories and great unmaskings of secret policies and hidden beliefs, and buckle down to some real journalism in the 300 or so days left to us.
I may add that it is patently evident to anyone who can rise above the adversarial pre-negotiating macho talk that the de facto rUK governments (of whatever political colour) who take part in the negotiation will agree to a sterling-based currency union because it makes eminently good sense.
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