Dave Woodhall provides an alternative view of the independence debate.

I was at a trade fair in London last week where I was talking to some Scottish food producers. They were the sort of smoked salmon and shortbread purveyors that Alex Salmond would doubtless draw on for some of the Braveheart rhetoric which has been fuelling the ‘Yes’ campaign.

As you can imagine I asked them their opinion of the independence debate, and I don’t suppose it was the first time any of them had been questioned on this particular topic over the course of the three day event. In fact, a couple looked as though they’d got their answers well-rehearsed.

But what surprised me is that they all said they were voting no. In truth, they didn’t seem to be voting that way as praying for such an outcome. One woman told me that she wanted the result for her son, “because otherwise by the time he grows up we’ll have nothing.” This was particularly significant because she came from Aberdeen, which is usually regarded as a stronghold for the SNP and therefore the independence movement.

I want Scotland to stay in the United Kingdom, because I think the union is better together than as separate parts. However there is one area of the UK that I would happily see become independent.

It’s a city that has little in common with the rest of the country. Its hyper-inflationary house prices have distorted the national market and threaten other areas of the country as its residents find themselves unable to afford to live there.

It’s a city where nothing of any great worth is manufactured, but whose wealth is built by money being moved between its financial institutions, who themselves can act with impunity, knowing that the government is unable or unwilling to legislate against its unethical practices. It thrives as a result of undeserved bonuses paid to bankers and criminally lax tax regulations more suited to a Caribbean island.

And as its excesses go unchecked, so inequality grows. The richest 1% of the population takes a three times greater proportion of the national income than it did a generation ago. A recent EU survey revealed that nine of the ten poorest regions of northern Europe are in Britain. The richest is London, home to more billionaires than any other city in the world.

And as London becomes increasingly powerful, so the cost of living will rise for those of us sucked into its sphere of influence. It won’t be long before Birmingham becomes a commuter suburb of the south-east, with a cost of living to match.

The government defends this situation by saying that if it were changed, if bankers weren’t allowed to flaunt their wealth and billionaires had to pay their fair share, they would move abroad. In that case, fine. Let them go. Or even better let them stay where they are and the rest of us can move away from them and their bloated, corrupt city-state.

Let London be the city where people who contribute nothing can flaunt their wealth to each other and the rest of us can get on with rewarding those in greater need, with a government whose concern is for the entire nation rather than providing assistance for those who need it least. Let doctors, nurses, teachers, live in a society where their earnings can give them the lifestyle they deserve and where the rest of us know that we can at least afford a roof over our heads.

In the words of that great seventies revolutionary Wolfie Smith, “Freedom for Tooting!”