'Compelling' White Paper set to address independence concerns

It will make a compelling read, Scotland’s Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told me.

‘Scotland’s Future – a guide to independence’ she said is stuffed full of facts and figures that will address the Scottish people’s questions.

In fact 200 pages of the 670 page White Paper are dedicated to a Q and A addressing the questions being posed by businesses and voters across Scotland.

With 86 per cent of the population claiming they don’t have all the information they need ahead of next Septembers referendum, the SNP know they have to start coming up some detail.

For months the Scottish Government has been telling us journalists, and indeed the electorate, that all the questions we have about independence will be answered in the White Paper.

Well today that can finally be judged.

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The ten chapters of this guide to independence are going to be pored over by opponents, the Better Together campaign team have assembled a ‘war room’ of experts in Edinburgh to assess every claim and evaluate every figure.

The SNP’s sums had better add up.

Before the document has even been published there has been a claim made by the Treasury this morning that independence could cost Scottish taxpayers an extra £1000 a year.

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The figure has been dismissed as ‘scaremongering’ by First Minister Alex Salmond but he as an economist himself knows that the document he’s publishing today needs to have the figures to back his rebuttal up.

For the next ten months ‘Scotland’s Future’ is going to be used to shape the independence debate here in Scotland. It is going to be the reference point for both sides of the argument. In many respects today, November the 26th 2013 marks the start of the campaign proper.

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