Tory leader Annabel Goldie said today that Alex Salmond wants to make Scottish pound notes a foreign currency north of the border by ditching them for the euro.

The SNP favours adopting the euro if Scotland became independent, although party policy states there will be a referendum on the issue.

Miss Goldie said that under the SNP people will be able to spend Scottish banknotes in Brighton but not in Banff and Buchan – the constituency Mr Salmond represents at Westminster.

She challenged the First Minister on the issue the day after Tory MP David Mundell launched a private members’ bill at Westminster to make shops in England accept Scottish notes.

full article

But the attempt totally backfired. Not just because Salmond had a good answer ready, but because of the inference she was trying to make. After all, trying to paint Salmond as a radical separatist doesn’t fly – he embraces that image. And the issue of the Euro is, at long last, becoming considered as a serious option in the UK. So the point about sovereignty, of trusting a ‘centralised’ private bank, is probably moot too.

In Scotland, of course, the ‘debate’ about the Euro – to the extent that there has been any – is substantially different from the rest of the UK. The traditional argument against it, specifically that centrally-set interest rates don’t suit marginal areas and those with different types of economies, is less powerful here. There is a perception that this sort of thing has been going on for decades already. The argument goes that the Bank of England sets interest rates primarily with the economic base of the south-east of England in mind, so Scotland already faces this problem.

On another note, let’s hope that the Private Member’s Bill forcing English and Welsh firms to accept Scottish banknotes is passed. The situation at the moment – that Scottish notes are not legal tender anywhere, even in Scotland, is utterly ridiculous – and the scourge of many a a Scottish traveller. The concept of ‘legal tender’ doesn’t exist in Scottish law, which is why Scottish notes are ‘promissory’ in law. In England and Wales, only Bank of England notes are legal tender. But if the UK Parliament can figure out a way round that thorny issue, then all the better.