Scotland should show Western leaders an example – by telling voters the truth

It turns out that an independent Scotland would have a hard time paying for itself. But this provides a golden opportunity for Scotland's politicians to do something truly radical – telling voters the truth.

I wrote last week about the way in which the union argument has finally begun to be made in the Scottish press. That the argument is well made on both sides is absolutely vital, so I was pleased to see that the piece was pretty well read. It has now become one of our most commented onblog postsever! So I thought you would like to know what the press were saying on the arguments last weekend.

First up, the Mail on Sunday, which makes the point about passports. According to the SNP, "Scots will continue to be British citizens even if the country votes to leave the UK." They would still travel on British passports and use all the UK's diplomatic services abroad although over time, the government expects them to take dual citizenship and eventually be Scottish citizens.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.