Our Politics newsletter is now daily. Join thousands of others and get the latest Scottish politics news sent straight to your inbox. Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

THERE'S a bit of a cynic in all of us. It’s hard to trust but even harder knowing WHO to trust.

Some folk give up and shrug: “One’s as bad as the other.”

It comes from seeing Westminster MPs fiddle their expenses, take us into illegal wars and preside over the worst squeeze on living standards for decades.

That’s why we MUST trust in ourselves and find a better way.

Today, the Scottish Government publish the most detailed prospectus ever produced by a country on the brink of independence.

It answers 650 questions about Scotland’s future – everything you ever thought to ask and some that probably never occurred to you.

It makes America’s historic Declaration of Independence look like a Post-it note.

Of course, that will not stop the other side trashing it. So who should Scots trust?

There is the Scottish Government led by Salmond, Sturgeon and Swinney. If trust is earned by action, the SNP Government have a good record. They keep their promises.

We should remember that as we consider the White Paper.

The SNP promised to end tuition fees – and they delivered.

They promised to stop charging sick people for medicine – and they delivered.

They froze the unfair council tax, just as they promised, saving the average family £1200.

They promised 1000 extra police officers and delivered that too, reducing crime to a 39-year low.

They tackled youth unemployment, doubling apprenticeship starts to 25,000 a year.

Figures released last week showed the Scottish Government have put more money into economic recovery than any other part of the UK.

It’s paid off – with inward investment here ahead of other parts of Britain and employment higher.

Remarkably, this was achieved despite brutal cuts from Westminster and the worst recession in living memory.

The SNP have promised an independent Scotland will have an industrial strategy promoting manufacturing, innovation and boosting productivity.

An increase of one per cent in Scotland’s productivity could boost employment by around 21,000.

The No campaign offer no such vision – just decades of cuts and inequality. Remember that when the White Paper is savaged by anti-independence politicians.

Do you trust David Cameron and George Osborne, whose economic policies have done less than zero for ordinary people?

Do you trust Alistair Darling, the leader of the No campaign, who addressed the Tory Party conference to huge applause last year?

Darling, when he was chancellor, promised cuts “deeper and tougher than those of Margaret Thatcher”.

He was part of a Labour government who allowed council tax to rise by 60 per cent, who failed to regulate the banks and left the UK with one of Europe’s biggest deficits.

Ten of Darling’s Scottish Labour MP colleagues recently failed to show up at Westminster to vote down the bedroom tax.

Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael will be shouting down the White Paper in the days ahead.

Let’s judge him by his record, too.

He voted for the bedroom tax and other welfare cuts. He is part of a lamentable Liberal Democrat party who betrayed their principles to share power with the Tories.

He stood for election, beside his boss Nick Clegg, promising to end tuition fees, and betrayed the voters.

Darling, Cameron, Osborne and Carmichael should be judged on their actions.

That’s why you cannot trust a word they say on Scotland’s future.