Letter: Support Scotland

Not content to talk Scotland down, Labour's Michael Kelly (Comment, 20 October) is intent on talking down other small countries. The downturn in fortunes for Ireland and Iceland, which he mentions, is used as a means to prove small, independent countries can't succeed. What he disregards, however, are the facts.

According to the IMF, Ireland and Iceland remain well above the UK in terms of GDP per capita. Ireland's GDP per capita is 30 per cent above the European Union average, while Scotland's, sadly, is well below it.

The country in second place in terms of GDP per capita is Luxembourg, with a population of 500,000 and in third is Norway, with a population of 4.9 million. Now, to be fair, the United Kingdom does eventually feature in 20th place.

In addition, only this week the central bank of another oil-rich nation, Norway, announced that its oil-fuelled state pension fund had grown to a massive 324bn.

Labour's attempts to continue to knock Scotland and our neighbours is thankfully backfiring as despite the economic impact of the recession on these small nations they are still doing considerably better than the UK.

Alex Orr

Leamington Terrace

Edinburgh