It wasn’t the lead story today – the murder of an off-duty prison officer in Northern Ireland saw to that – but it still beat the potential loss of 6,000 jobs (count that, 6,000 jobs) at Comet electrical stores down the item list and also, if memory serves, a little local squabble about EU contributions.

Well the US is a large, not-too-far-away country of which we know on the one hand too much and on the other, sadly, not enough.

It’s a disaster for those involved of course, and a tragedy for the dead and their families but did the people of the UK really need such saturation coverage?

Hurricane Sandy also hit Haiti, Barbados and Cuba and we learned far less about that. But they don’t speak English.

Oh, wait. In Barbados they do.

So in 2014 the people living in Scotland will at last be allowed to vote on their continuing presence in the UK.

I used the formulation “at last” because it will be the first time. When Scotland and England with Wales merged in 1707 the only Scots who had a vote on the proposal were members of the then Scottish Parliament. There was widespread discontent in the general public at the time.

Still, over three hundred years we have had time to accustom ourselves to it.

The likley outcome in 2014?

No to independence.

There will be a lot of scaremongering about how Scotland cannot afford to go it alone though other countries of similar size do alright (Denmark anyone?) and newly independent ones (Slovakia?) don’t seem in a rush to remerge.

The status quo will seem a safer option but that too is a leap in the dark – especially if the little Englanders in the UK were to force withdrawal from the EU. Scottish fisheries might be better off in that circumstance but I doubt anything else will be.

But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Short of FIFA removing Scotland’s right to separate representation* in the World Cup and European Championships the majority of Scots won’t vote for independence.

(*Given the national team’s current efforts maybe not even then.)

The above is a Scottish phrase – well West of Scotland really – much used in childhood, which means more or less that things have not turned out to my liking and I’m in a huff, the rest of you can do what you like but you can’t play any more because it was my ball you were playing with and I’m taking it home with me now.

This seems to me to paraphrase what the UK Prime Minister, Mr Irresponsible, aka David Cameron, has done vis-a-vis the rest of the EU. The only differences are it wasn’t his ball and he might have gone home, but the rest haven’t.

Whatever “protections” he sought for British financial institutions* he quite plainly has not got. Moreover he will now have little influence – as he will not be involved in the discussions – over any steps taken in the future in these matters, thereby making it more likely that the situation he professes to avoid will actually come about. Brilliant!

And why does the BBC news keep referring to his veto? It wasn’t a veto. He has not stopped the other 26 members of the EU from creating a new treaty. Indeed by the BBC’s own accounts they seem keen to go on without him (and us.)

He has also thrown a very large bone to the anti-EU elements within his party, who, far from being satisfied, have now tasted blood, and will go for the jugular. UK politics will, as in the John Major era, be mired in endless argument over the EU.

(The people’s response in any subsequent referendum they secure may not quite go the way they want either. Given that the Tories have been banging on for so long about how bad the economic prospects are right now – a self-fulfilling prophesy by-the-by – what possible sense would it make to sever our connections to our biggest export market?)

[*The very organisations to a large extent responsible for the mess several European economies are in.

Who lent money to those countries who are now so heavily in debt?
Aren’t those debt holders in part culpable for the ensuing difficulties?
Is it not the responsibility of a prudent lender to make sure there is a good prospect of the debtor paying the money back?

They seem to think they are on a one-way trip to profit and they should receive all their money in full.
Well, they should take a good part of the hit. They helped to create the hole the world economy is in.]