Scotland's Future?

This is a rant. If you don't like rants then do not read on.

Re the photograph. Is this where we are headed after the oil is gone? Empty pumps and historical relics of a past full of 'if only's'? A nation wedded to its past and to the alleged injustices of the past - forever blaming someone or something else?

Heaps of debate is taking place around the magic incantation of independence. Said often enough it proffers a one-word solution for Scotland and as yet - to my mind - with little of substance to move it beyond the realms of incantation and magic. I'm sure there will be a full and proper debate, followed by a vote in the Autumn of 2014 - co-incidentally just a few months after all of the commoration events for the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn. But between now and then I see far too little effective leadership in securing worthwhile jobs for people living in Scotland, or of building a solid economic platform of growth for the country, or of a strategy that says 'This is what we are good at in Scotland - this is what we sell to the world - and these are the education and training investments and systems that feed the companies who deliver these goods and services which we sell to other countries'. I see the same old same old from those who call themselves leaders ....... carping about past and current injustices, always blaming others and never prepared to accept responsibility for their actions. Where there is no vision the people perish. A bit like this old petrol pump.

Rant over. God willing I'll watch the events leading to 2014 with interest. In the meantime if petrol keeps rising the way it has done in the last few years then I guess there might be a few more pumps like this one.