2015年经济学人 苏格兰独立公投将近（在线收听）

Scottish independence

Sparks flying

Poverty and dependence on the state pull Scots in opposite directions

BETTING shops in Rosyth are rowdier than usual.

The troublemakers are not the familiar sort—drunks jousting over a Rangers match or the 4.30

at Musselburgh—but punters debating Scottish independence.

“We've had to chuck people out,” grumbles one bookie.

A gnarled customer agrees: “I don't like people talking about it in my cab,” he growls, eyes not moving from the racing.

As the referendum on September 18th draws closer, tensions in this shipbuilding town are growing.

All politics is local, even when an entire country's future is at stake.

But in Rosyth, a run-down port in the shadow of the Forth Bridge near Edinburgh,

distinctive local factors are pulling people in opposite directions.

The importance of the town's biggest industry seems to militate for sticking with Britain.

But the generally depressed state of the economy makes independence more appealing (see article).

The outcome of this tug-of-war will determine how people vote in Rosyth—and in other parts of Scotland.

Residents are reminded of the case for union every time they leave their homes.

Above treetops and through gaps between pebble-dashed houses,

glimpses of a vast blue rig marked “Air Carrier Alliance” and “Royal Navy” are visible.

Beyond, the grey, 65,000-tonne slab of Britain's newest aircraft-carrier,HMS Queen Elizabeth, sits in the estuary.

In a place where 13% of working-age adults are on out-of-work benefits,

the shipyard is by far the largest employer—and it relies on money from Westminster.

Those who build and man the ships are therefore firmly unionist.

At a ceremony to name the carrier on July 4th, they booed Alex Salmond,

Scotland's nationalist first minister and the leader of the pro-independence “yes” campaign.

The following week the Rosyth workers' union representatives appeared before MPs in Westminster to warn against secession.

Henry Wilson, a convener at BAE Systems, a defence firm, warned that naval shipbuilding in Scotland would be “finished” if Mr Salmond got his way.

In the ex-servicemen's club on Admiralty Road most agree with Mr Wilson. Only one drinker is willing to admit to backing “yes”.

“Ey, I've made up my mind,” says Jimmy, grinning defiantly.

He struggles to hold his own around here, he adds: “full of “no” voters; gets very heated.”

“He won't listen,” sighs Janet, the barmaid, wiping beer glasses. Janet thinks Mr Salmond's promises are baloney:

“I don't trust him as far as I could throw him.”

Jimmy is in a minority in the ex-servicemen's club, but he may not be in Rosyth at large. Nationalist sentiment is widespread.

More “yes” signs are visible in windows than are “no” ones.

Scottish saltires the size of bedsheets billow above allotments and from blocks of flats.

Beyond the shipyard there is little sign of the British union flag.

In 2010 an NHS study of central Rosyth put male life expectancy at 73.3 years—five years shorter than the British average.

Teenage pregnancy and welfare dependency are unusually common, too.

Those hard-up locals not employed in the shipyard could be forgiven for thinking that the union is not working for Scotland—and taking a gamble on independence.

A great many former Labour Party voters fall into this category.

The collapse of the party's working-class base in the 2011 Scottish election gave Mr Salmond's Scottish National Party

(SNP) the majority it needed to press for a referendum on independence.

In Cowdenbeath, the seat containing Rosyth, support for the SNP jumped from 29% to 42%.

This makes Rosyth typical of a sort of Scottish town:

post-industrial and deprived but sustained by the British state,

which spends about 1,500 ($2,500) more per head in Scotland than it does nationally.

Others include Govan and Scotstoun, both shipyards, and Pollokshaws,

home to National Savings and Investments, a state-owned bank.

In Cumbernauld, outside Glasgow, Britain's largest revenue and customs office employs four times as many people as any other outfit.

Gregg McClymont, Labour MP for Cumbernauld, notes that Scotland has 8% of Britain's people but 13% of its tax jobs.

How could it sustain them if it became independent?

In such places, the “yes” campaign faces a particularly acute version of a problem that confronts it across Scotland.

The disadvantages of independence are concrete and would be quickly felt—in the case of Rosyth,

shipbuilding jobs would sail to Portsmouth, on England's south coast.

Any advantages, such as the broad industrial revival promised by Mr Salmond, would take years to materialise, if they ever do.

Folk in Rosyth enjoy the odd flutter. But on September 18th the stakes will be much higher than usual.