GETTY For Scotland to prosper as a more independent nation, they must abandon socialism

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Take the socialist economic model. The USSR forced it on the millions living under communist thralldom and confined them to endless poverty. Stupid Western academics made their pilgrimages and came back brimming with praise having seen only a few cotton-wrapped showcases of the workers’ paradise. Eventually, after 70 years and unimaginable sacrifices, it all went very predictably bankrupt under Mikhail Gorbachev.

Since their liberation all the satellites have turned to capitalism and prospered.

If Scotland is ever to prosper again it will have to reject socialist economics Frederick Forsyth

After the end of the British Empire most of the newly independent states chose the fashionable socialist economic model and slithered into bankruptcy with the best of intentions. Remember the “saints” Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania? To rounds of applause from Britain’s academia they led their countries from prosperity to poverty. Only Singapore, guided by Lee Kuan Yew, went for capitalism and became the richest per capita country in Asia.

Of course academics can always pursue will o’ the wisp theories. They never do anything practical and never have to bear the consequences of failure. Our universities are still rife with hard-Left academics preaching poppycock to gullible students. In Africa Zimbabwe, once Rhodesia, was on independence the food bowl of the continent. Then in 1980 came Mugabe. Today it is bankrupt and hungry, its currency worth no more than toilet paper. In South America Venezuela with its massive oil reserves was the richest country on that continent. Then came Hugo Chavez, lauded and worshipped by idiots such as Jeremy Corbyn. Now dead he is succeeded by Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela is destitute.

GETTY No prior form of socialism or communism has had any practical success economically or socially

Her people starve, desperate to cross the border each day to Colombia to buy basic foods. Ah, you may say, but that is all far away and nothing to do with us. Not quite. So obsessed are people by the SNP’s lust for an “independent” Scotland that it is overlooked that the Scottish National Party under Nicola Sturgeon is a hard-Left party and is destroying Scotland’s economy. Scotland exports to England double her exports to the rest of the world combined, never mind the EU. And it is English subsidies to Scotland that keep her from going into receivership. Recent analysis by economist David Owen revealed that public contentment can only be maintained by Edinburgh’s lavish expenditure, which – since the crash of oil prices – the Scottish government cannot afford.

GETTY State expenditure is £1300 higher per capita in Scotland than in the UK as a whole

In 2015-16 state expenditure in Scotland was £12,800 per person as against £11,500 for the UK as a whole. The trouble is, Scotland’s small and shrinking tax base cannot pay for this so the Sassenachs have to step in. Outside the UK but still inside the EU (a miracle that Berlin would immediately reject) Scotland would simply be a North Sea Greece, in permanent need of bailouts. Which is why Germany would reply: “In your dreams.” If Scotland is ever to prosper again it will have to reject socialist economics and revert to policies to boost growth. But so far SNP supporters are content to live off Sassenach largesse and just keep complaining – and voting for the SNP, which dominates the landscape. But when we get Brexit sorted it may be wakey-wakey time.

GETTY There is no way that Germany would allow an independent Scotland in the EU

Modern warfare is being fought by drones and our counter-intelligence agent The favourite torture and execution method of those monsters who control Islamic State seems to be decapitation. Now it appears that IS is being treated to a touch of its own medicine. Commander after commander is being systematically erased, so fast they cannot be replaced. The instruments of this justice are our weaponised drones, acting on electronically garnered information. Nemesis is now digitised but no less fearsome for that. The covert truth is that we are listening to every word they say, reading every syllable they write and watching every move they make. Six years ago, when drones were remote and obscure, largely confined to Predators hunting Taliban in Afghanistan with their Hellfire and Brimstone missiles, I was intrigued enough to research the new technology and write a book about them. I called it The Kill List after discovering there really is such a list of kill-on-sight targets in Washington. Since then these unpiloted death machines have revolutionised warfare. Included in “warfare” one must include espionage.

Facebook Aquila drone takes flight Sat, July 2, 2016 Facebook celebrates the first successful flight of its Aquila drone Play slideshow FACEBOOK 1 of 6 Facebook Aquila drone takes flight

The days of the shifty figure scurrying down a faraway alley to meet another shifty figure and collect a package to bring back to the West are gone. Digitisation means that a million documents can be concealed in a memory stick no bigger than a forefinger and brought out in a crevice you do not want mentioned over breakfast. It need not even leave enemy territory: it can be beamed upwards to the waiting drone. Constant interception and observation mean that the terrorist commander can be found bowling across the desert in his Toyota and vaporised with a missile. But the threat is far from over. As land ownership becomes impossible for the terror groups they are already converting to assassin gangs and singleton killers who come out of nowhere, uncaring whether they live or die. Most dangerous are those who have never been heard of or suspected, such as the lorry-borne killer in Nice last July who can mow down scores of pedestrians with a truck. Stanley Baldwin once said: “The bomber will always get through.” He meant something with wings and engines. The phrase is still true but the bomber now has two legs. That is why we need our counterintelligence teams more than we have ever done and why the whingeing civil-righters are doing us no favours.

GETTY The future of warfare is in unmanned drone strikes and surveillance

Huge cost of HS2 cannot be justified So Parliament has passed the last hurdle to endorsing the white elephant HS2 railway project from London to Birmingham (first stage). It is so far costed at £55.7billion, a figure which no one really believes. With rolling stock and the usual time-and-cost overruns which dog every public project nowadays, it is more likely to come out at £80billion. No one remotely associated with it will be in office when it runs the first service north and many won’t even be alive so they don’t care anyway. The oddities surrounding the HS2 continue but with an added new one. When it was first proposed the onus was all on its speed which would cut hours off the rail time between the capital and the Midlands and finally the North. This has now been admitted to be more like 20 minutes from London to Birmingham city centre. But now no one is mentioning speed. It is all about capacity. A sure-fire warning about a white elephant is when it starts for one much-trumpeted purpose but then is explained as needed for a completely different one.

GETTY HS2 will cost billions of pounds with only a minor benefit to users