We are still being asked to vote to separate from the UK on the basis of half baked claims, sweeping assertions and no facts. On the doors last week in Johnstone and Linwood, it was quite clear that even SNP supporters have not been persuaded by Alex Salmond with a growing number promising to vote NO. Alex Salmond can’t tell us with certainty what currency we would be using after separation. The YES camp is hopelessly split on this with many of its leading campaigners telling us that we will have a Scottish currency. But let’s look at Alex Salmond’s desperate claims about the pound. He says we will have a currency union with what would be a foreign country. He refuses to believe the leading UK politicians who are saying they couldn’t agree to such a currency union unless there was full integration of the central economic levers. In other words we wouldn’t be independent, we would become a colony. Many nationalists are now saying we would then just keep using the pound, just as Panama uses the US dollar. But this would be a disaster for Scotland. We would have no control over interest rates set for the rest of the UK, no control over the value of the currency. In short we wouldn’t have the powers an independent country needs over its economy. We need to know with certainty, before we vote, what will happen – we can’t go back if we vote YES and then find out that Alex Salmond has led us up the garden path. Alex Salmond is asking us to buy a pig in a poke and that why I believe Scotland will vote NO.

New chapter for Linwood Linwood is definitely on the up! The opening last week of the new Tesco store and the official opening of the fantastic new Tweedie Halls marks another significant chapter in Linwood’s regeneration. This comes on top of the new sports centre and swimming pool and four brand new school buildings. The people of Linwood deserve nothing less. They have experienced tough economic times and had to put up with a real eye sore at the old town centre. But their determination and their pride in their community never wavered. People like Mary McElhinney from the Community Council and Provost Anne Hall fought long and hard to bring about this change. But so too did many others, some of whom have since passed away. People like Iain Wilson, Jim Taylor, Rose Templeton, Ronnie Burns and Mary McGetrick. Wendy Alexander, my predecessor as the local MSP for Linwood constantly badgered the authorities to deliver the improvements Linwood needed. We now have a well designed and pleasing lay out in the town centre. I know from talking to local people that they are relieved and delighted. Well done to everyone who was involved.