THE sixth in our series of nationhood debates saw some feisty exchanges at North Berwick High School in East Lothian. Former Labour minister Iain Gray, bidding to return to Holyrood in the East Lothian seat, clashed on a range of issues with the SNP MSP Kenny MacAskill, independent MSP Margo MacDonald, Judy Hayman, the East Lothian candidate for the Lib Dems, and Bill Stevenson, the Tory candidate. This is a flavour of the debate:
Q: What does modern Scotland mean to you?
IG: It is what I know; it is my home. I have spent 47 of my 49 years here. To be Scottish in 2007 means wanting the best for Scotland. To want to continue with the Union doesn't mean that you do not want the best for Scotland. Nobody has a monopoly on patriotism.
KM: Being Scottish gives you a sense of belonging in a changing world. Scottishness provides you with values, whether they be the quality of education, hard work, probity or thrift. We have to revere our past but we also need dreams and aspirations.
JH: I was not brought up in Scotland but I have lived here for all my adult life. It is very much my home. Scotland is a fantastic country of great tolerance and great acceptance of new people.
BS: I am a Scot and also proud to be British. Scotland is a proud, confident country with a great heritage and history. Political parties have taken it for granted; I want a proud Scotland looking after its people.
MM: To me, Scotland is an amalgam of Rabbie Burns, John Knox and Rab C Nesbitt, a character who talks about the ill divide of resources in Scotland. When I started out in politics, a report called Born To Fail said one in ten children were born to fail; now that figure is one in four. It's difficult to be proud of a country that allowed that.
Q: The Scottish Parliament was described as being desirable because it would be closer to the Scottish people. In East Lothian, our environment is under threat by the proposal to conduct ship-to-ship oil transfers in the Firth of Forth. Can the panel explain why the Scottish Parliament is powerless to prevent it?
MM: I would need legal guidance, but I believe politically we could stop it. Don't expect the parliament to do everything - it will not act unless there is pressure, so take an issue relevant to this area and build support for it. I will vote against it whenever I have the chance because even one spillage would be one too many.
JH: I am totally opposed to ship-to-ship transfers and have been working hard to collect signatures. It's something we must fight against; it is everybody's fight. The only beneficiaries are Forth Ports and its directors.
BS: Forth Ports are both regulator and proposer of this scheme. There is confusion over where the power lies between the Scottish Parliament and Westminster. I have not come across anyone in favour of it.
IG: The parliament certainly should be closer to local issues and this is an entirely perverse legal position. Environment is a devolved matter and in this case it is further devolved to the port authority, but the port authority is the main beneficiary of what is proposed. Yet, because powers on the environment are devolved, I think we have much more chance of doing something about it.
KM: This has less to do with devolved powers than the perversity of privatisation. We hand over power for all ports to Forth Ports plc, even those ports it does not own. We wouldn't hand over regulation of the roads to Eddie Stobart or railways to Richard Branson. What happens in the Firth of Forth should not depend on the whims and fancies of a private company. We need a maritime strategy and maritime authority.
Q: What do the panel have to say about the economics of change - the immediate and then ongoing costs of the break-up of the Union?
BS: We just do not know what would happen; we have no idea what an independent Scotland might look like. How can any economist really measure these things? All I can say is it will cost more than at the moment.
MM: There is no guarantee that if we run our own country, we will do it well. But we would have to be genetically inferior to run things worse than they are now. Scotland has centuries of tradition and experience in law-making, and it would come down not to whether you pay a couple more pounds a week, but to the ingenuity and energy committed to Scotland by the people who live here. We would not lose the social union with England.
IG: Our future is about the ingenuity and energy of people, but I disagree that in the 21st century, the Union doesn't have a place. The reasons for creating the Union were largely economic; about pooling resources, investment and free access to markets. In a globalised 21st century, these arguments are more powerful than ever. It would be perverse to start throwing up barriers.
KM: It's about taking responsibility for Scotland's economy. Other countries managed it - Ireland, Iceland, Norway. Of course, there are no guarantees, but we are an educated people with a great deal going for us. It is about making Scotland competitive. We need a different fiscal regime so we can vary corporation tax, etc; we need to be able to take hard decisions and I believe in a couple of years we could really have the economy motoring.
JH: We do need to look back a bit. The world has changed a lot since Ireland became the Celtic tiger - the EU is much bigger and the subsidies Ireland had would not be available for Scotland. There will be a lot of problems if we break the Union completely. What I would like to see is developing devolution. I think the UK has a global voice which an independent Scotland would not have, but I think we do need fiscal autonomy. We need to break down nationalist barriers and become internationalist.
MM: In 1967, Winnie Ewing said: "Stop the world, I want to get on." Nationalism in Scotland has always looked outwards, which is admirable. We do not want to become parochial.
KM: We have to be able to be represented in areas that matter. If you are not a nation state, but a sub-national unit, you are not represented. California has a huge economy but is not represented at the UN, while the Micronesian atoll is. If you want to be involved in discussing international terrorism or global warming, you need to be a nation state. If you want to go to the EU to say we are not happy with what you are doing, you have to be a Malta or a Cyprus, not a Catalonia or Bavaria.
JH: If you are a small nation state, your voice isn't very big.
IG: We are achieving great things from a platform of stability and that is what we would put at risk if we were to break down the Union. I think devolution is evolution in that changes have always taken place over the last eight years.
MM: The only way we can be represented around the table and to make alliances that we see fit is if we take full responsibility and exercise sovereignty. The so-called stability we have as part of the British economy has meant our growth rate has been continually lower than that of England, so we haven't got a good deal.
IG: We have 200,000 more jobs and a lower unemployment rate than London.
BS: I have not heard a single person on the doorstep who wants the Scottish Parliament to have more powers. They just want it to perform better. I think Scotland could survive on its own - whether it would be better is another thing entirely.
Q: Over much of the 300 years since 1707, the idea of Scotland and of the Scots has been maintained by the distinctiveness of the law, the Kirk and education. Do you think education should continue to play this role and, if so, what do you think our schools, universities and colleges should do to sustain and develop the idea of Scotland and the distinctiveness of the Scots in the future?
IG: Our education system has remained distinctive and broad-based with the four-year degree. We get a lot of research-and- development cash in Scotland, often linked to universities, and one thing I would like to see is one of our first skills academies in East Lothian.
KM: We are in a PPP school - and PPP has mortgaged our future. Classrooms are too small and pitches can't be used by community groups because they are too expensive. But we do have a great education system that precedes the Union [he described how the Education Act of 1696 had been a driver of the Enlightenment]. The danger is that we are dining out on our reputation; our system is fraying and fragmenting and we have under-investment in education.
BS: There is no doubt that more money has been spent on education but if you look at many indicators, there are signs that education is in crisis.
JH: Our system is something to be proud of and cherish. I think there have been some real developments in nursery and primary education and the transition years between primary and secondary. We need to put more into young people leaving school without qualifications. We have far fewer opportunities for apprenticeships [and, she said later, there was "endless, pointless testing"] but let's not talk down the system.
IG: In 1997, we had 2,000 apprenticeships - now we have 34,000.
MM: The problem is the morale of teachers who did not go into education to be administrators and bureaucrats. We have to get bums on seats - a greater proportion are not sitting down to listen and learn. It's not so much an issue of education as social behaviour. I want to see those classed as NEETs [not in education, employment or training] given a chance to learn a trade like their grandfathers.
Q: Do you support the retention of Trident?
BS: I think we need a nuclear deterrent. We live in a dangerous world where new countries are developing nuclear weapons.
MM: I don't want Trident. I don't think we need it.
KM: There is no moral, economic or military argument for Trident. It's insane and criminal to be spending this money.
JH: We shouldn't replace Trident. It has no place in society.
IG: I would like to see a world without nuclear weapons, but I don't think unilateralism is the way to do that.
Look out for our van and make your views known
THE Nationhood Debate van is back on the road today, in the West Lothian town of Linlithgow. Famed for its loch and palace (birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots), the town is represented by Labour at Holyrood and Westminster - but there is also a traditionally strong Nationalist vote. SNP leader Alex Salmond lived in the town for many years.
Our reporters Shân Ross and Claire Smith will be outside Tesco in Linlithgow from about 11am to 2pm today (or in the foyer of the library near The Cross if the weather is bad).
Look out for our van and reporters in three towns next week as we continue to take the pulse of the nation 300 years after the Act of Union and just weeks ahead of a fascinating election.
On Monday, we will be in Penicuik, on Wednesday in Cumbernauld and on Friday in Biggar. Look out for details of where to find us in the coming days. The final stop on the tour will be Peebles on Monday, 12 March.
After the North Berwick event, there are just two of our set-piece debates to go. On Tuesday, 13 March, the penultimate event is at the Volunteer Hall in Galashiels, with a strong local panel.
The event starts at 7:15pm and will be chaired by David Lee, The Scotsman's assistant editor. For tickets, e-mail
debate300@scotsman.com or write to Nationhood Debate tickets, The Scotsman, 108 Holyrood Road, Edinburgh. EH8 8AS.
People who have already applied for tickets for Galashiels, or for the final debate in Edinburgh on 15 March, will be sent full details in the next few days.
• NEXT EVENT: Volunteer Hall, Galashiels, Tuesday 13 March, 7:15pm. To reserve debate seats, e-mail
debate300@scotsman.com