From where I live, in a very remote Scottish place, close to where my ancestors came from, it's all a load of romantic tosh. And I'm (proudly) descended from people who fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie.
I know many, many passionate Scot Nats - perhaps the majority -who have never ventured outside the central belt. They have absolutely no idea of what lives outside that narrow area are like. But those of us who live in remote, sparsely populated rural Scotland know that we simply don't count, in electoral terms. The SNP leaders care for us no more than Westminster politicians do. Sorry, but that's afact of political life.
To take just two examples. In spite of many years of agitatation, our community has no permanent GPs (just pass-in -the-night -and -expensive locums). In the same way, the Scottish National goverment policy is that all out-of-hours-health- care (the majority of the time, because it includes weekends and holidays as well as from 6 pm to 8 am) will be covered by poorly paid (less than £ 1 per hour) volunteers, called 'Emergency Responders'.
I'm not talking through my hat; I've sat through fatuous presentations by the current SNP health minister, who spent all of 2 hours in our remote community. He told us that the unpaid/volunteer emergency responders are going to be the model for most of Scotland... Is that what Scottish people really want and pay their taxes for?
The second example - among many others - is broadband. The Scottish Government have given BT millions and millions in subsidies. But BT will only lay on decent broadband to places where there are enough people. At the moment, our 'main' (though it's only minor) road is being dug up to lay fibre-optic cables. But will they serve the remote villages the road passes through, or villages like ours, about 3 miles away from the 'spine'? Will they hell. The answer is no. I currently spend over £50 per month on satellite broadband, plus over £20 for BT for a landline phone (there is no mobile reception here, or in many other parts of rural Scotland.) I've taken this up with the current SNP leadership and they say its a commercial decision. The Scottish government won't challenge BT, and it's not worth BT's time to make connections to remote areas, and so they won't do it.
I might expect the government in Westminster not to grasp these issues - both of crucial importance to Scottish rural communities. But when Scotland's own first minister and his colleagues also ignore them, as not worthy of their attention, what am I to think??
Come on, Scots Nats, tell me how you'd make this better. I'd really, really like to know. My mind is not closed, and the referendum is less than a fortnight away