Scottish independence has always been economic lunacy, but rarely has that reality been exposed as well as by Alistair Darling. Ten years ago this week, the Better Together chief faced off against the then SNP leader Alex Salmond, quizzing the former first minister about what he would do if the UK government refused to let Scotland use the pound post-secession. A decade on, it is striking how the SNP has failed to learn from that ruthless exchange – and still has no ‘Plan B’ for Scotland’s economy.

Extraordinarily, the SNP’s position on currency has not evolved in any meaningful way since Darling challenged Salmond over it ten years prior.

Taking part in the first TV debate of the independence referendum campaign on 5 August 2014, Darling – who passed away in late 2023 at the age of 70 – ruthlessly and relentlessly revealed the fiscal fallacy offered by the Yes campaign. In front of a live TV audience and over 750,000 viewers at home, Darling challenged Salmond on what his ‘Plan B’ would be if an independent Scotland couldn’t maintain a formal currency union with........

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