HERE'S A BLINDINGLY BRIGHT GLIMPSE OF WHAT AN INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND IS GOING TO LOOK LIKE

I gather there has been an outbreak of bickering amongst 'Yes' supporters over the last little while. I can't say I have followed any of it. I suppose it is inevitable but it's still a serious pain in the neck. At times I we get so obsessed with just how God awful our Westminster rulers are, we tend to forget the bigger picture. Oh my God, will we be able to manage on our own! It really is completely ridiculous when you stop for a second to think about the thing properly.

Obviously, we will be able to manage on our own. Think about a few of the countries who have taken their baby steps into independence over the last few years. Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia. They are not exactly massive countries blessed with oil fields and millions of acres of corn. And yet they have all managed to find their feet pretty confidently as far as I can tell.

We have so much more going for us than any other small country who has become independent in the last fifty years. It is so blindingly obvious I always find it hard to believe anyone can think otherwise. I guess this is what you get after 300 years of misinformation, brainwashing and lies.

So what has brought all this on? Two days at the Edinburgh Festival has brought this on. If there is any event on planet Earth capable of holding a candle to the Edinburgh Fringe, then I am yet to hear about it, let alone be a part of it.

Sure there are 3500 acts and God alone knows how many visitors, but the star of the show is the same every year.

The city itself.

Independence will mean Edinburgh will almost automatically win the prize for being the most drop dead gorgeous capital city on planet earth every year. I've been to more than my share of capitals and thus far nowhere has come close. Prague is great in the centre, but the outskirts are as grim as hell. Same with Budapest. Certainly the same with Paris and London. Washington, Moscow and Berlin are as bland as a Tesco own brand cheddar cheese sandwich. In fact, the only capital cities I have ever visited which manage to come close are Rome and Athens, both of which have way too many people and a whole bunch of pollution.

Think about it. Has any newly independent country in all history ever had such an oven ready capital city to move into? Answers on a postcard. But bugger that. The answer is no. End of story.

The streets under all those mighty buildings of the Enlightenment become more cosmopolitan with every passing year. As the white half of a mixed race couple, I have a highly trained eye for this kind of thing. Over the last two days  I lost count of how many white grandparents I clocked out and about with their brown grand kids. The tiny grandmother with her hulking six foot four grandson carrying all the bags. The beaming white granddad pushing a buggy loaded up with brown twins. We were only a hundred miles or so north of the Brexit heartlands, but it felt like half a world. Of course, there were bagpipes and tartan and Harris Tweed everywhere you looked, but the tourist kitsch was nothing more than a minor sideshow.

The main event was all about young and old and black and white and straight and gay all getting along without an eyelid being batted. The city was hosting tens of thousands of visitors and yet there was barely a copper in sight. If such an event as the Fringe was hosted by London, Paris or New York, they would have tanks on the streets and helicopter gunships in the sky.

When exactly was it when Scotland became Scandinavian? Who knows? But this is what we are now. Edinburgh feels much more like Oslo or Stockholm than London. It just looks a whole lot better and the pubs are a bloody sight cheaper.

A few things really smacked me in the face over the last couple of days.

First up, anyone who ever visits the Fringe cannot fail to be impressed by the its sheer efficiency. It runs on rails. Shows are never late, seats are never double booked. It is hard to see the Germans or Japanese making a better job of it. If we can run the biggest festival of its kind in the world as smoothly as this, who can say we can't run our own country every bit as well.

Next up. The fastest growing industry in the world right now is Tourism – by a country mile. One in eleven of the global workforce is now employed by the tourist sector. In 1989, before the Berlin Wall came down, 25 million people a year took a trip outside of their own country for leisure. Last year the figure was more than a billion for the first time. That's right. A forty fold increase. This is what happens when people in China and India and a whole bunch of other fast developing countries suddenly have the wherewithal to take a holiday. And guess what? Scotland is high on their wish list of places to go.

Half an hour's worth of people watching from a pavement cafe during the Festival is more than enough to see we Scots are actually pretty good at the whole being bloody good hosts thing. The more the rest of the world cottons on to the fact that we have become such an open, non-racist, non-xenophobic place, the more tourists will start to beat a path to our door.

I have plenty of first-hand experience of lots of countries where things are not exactly comfortable for anyone who isn't chalky white. Most of Eastern Europe has pretty well become a no go area. France, Italy and Spain are getting that way. Only Germany is wall to wall comfortable. Well, think about this for a moment. Most of the money in the world is flowing East to Asia. All of a sudden China and India have a middle class of over a billion. These are the tourists of the 21^st Century and each and every one of them is yellow or brown. When they take a holiday, they will want to visit places which are cool with people who are yellow or brown.

It won't take them so very long to learn which places to give a wide berth to. And there's no point beating about the bush here, the lands of good old Brexit Central are not about to be high on anyone's list. American tourism has completely tanked since Trump was elected. Well, Gee. Who woulda figured? You fan the flames of racist nastiness and lo and behold lots of black, yellow and brown people start to vote with their feet.

So I will say it again. Tourism is the fastest growing global industry and places who don't do xenophobia and racism are about to hit the jackpot. And guess what? We're one of those places. We are all set to cash in on the 'Becoming Scandinavian' dividend.

OK. One last thing. It hit me for the first time yesterday and this for me is a really, really big thing. A massive thing.

All over the world, the creeping forces of repression are taking an ever tighter hold. China, India, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Egypt, even the United States. Journalists and authors and singers and playwrights are being locked up in ever growing numbers for saying things their government doesn't want them to say: things their government won't allow them to say. We are quietly entering a new era of the four in the morning heavy knock at the door.

Come with us.

NOW!

Whack.

House clearance KGB style.

All of this probably means the Fringe is now the greatest celebration of free speech to be found anywhere. You can say what you like at the Fringe. You can take the piss out of Gods and Governments alike. You are free to offend. To be controversial. To get under the skin. There is no Government subsidy to be used to ban anyone. To muzzle anyone. To de-list anyone. It hit me just how completely appropriate it is for the city which once hosted the Enlightenment should now offer a home to the greatest celebration of free speech in a world where so many millions are being slowly muzzled.

This is something we should shout from the rooftops about. But we don't of course. Which is ridiculous. Fair enough, 300 years of being on the battered end of an abusive relationship doesn't exactly prepare anyone for being good at shouting stuff from the rooftops, but we're going to have to get over it. It's high time we learned how to blow our own trumpet.

Over the next few days, I am going to bend the ears of my two local MSP's. I'll name them. Why the hell not? Joan McAlpine and Emma Harper. I think they must both already be pissed off with me droning on about how Scotland should jump onto the front foot and start making a bit of noise in the world. The rules of our wonderful Union mean only the public school boys of Her Majesty's Foreign and Commonwealth Office are allowed to talk to foreigners and do the whole diplomacy thing. The grown up stuff. It is deemed to be far too complicated for simple unwashed plebs like us.

Well, screw that.

So here's an idea. Google tells me there are 196 independent countries in the world at this moment in time. Here's what I think we should do. We should get in touch with them all and make them an offer. They can go to whichever University is number one in their country and identify five students to send to the Edinburgh Festival for a week.

At our expense.

A thousand in all. We will box off a thousand rooms in the University and create a version of the Olympic village. And we won't micro manage them. We will simply open the door and say on you go guys, there are 3500 acts out there. Check out as many as you want. This pass gives you access to all areas. Go have the time of your lives. We're not about to push any party line down your throats. Make your own minds up. You see, this is what free speech looks like in the flesh. And it is a pretty good look.

In ten or twenty years time, many of these visitors will have grown into being their country's decision makers. We'll be independent by then and able to reap dividends from the soft spot they will have developed for the country which showed them what free speech looked like.

I guess it would cost us about half a million a year. Buttons really. In twenty years time, we could have 20,000 of these guys out there in every corner of the world. And many will have become our very own friends in high places, well disposed to the new kid on the block who goes by the name of Scotland.

The new kid on the block who knows how to open up the doors and show people a good time be they white, black, yellow or brown.

It really is high time we started to find a way to stop cowering in London's bitter shadow and chucked off the shackles. Once we wake up to the facts of what we have to offer, we will start to boom. Very few places have what we have to sell. It is high time we learned how to sell it.