SCOTLAND has the same population as Yorkshire (5.3 million) and, like Yorkshire, it has a great history and identity, so why do they want to spoil the party and opt for independence and break up the union?

I’m sure all Yorkshire parents wish their child would not come out with debts of £60,000 to £80,000 after three or four years at university, and have free tuition fees like the Scots?

I think Alex Salmond is offering a Shangri La life – without even explaining what currency he will adopt. Allowing 16-year-olds with no life experience or responsibility to vote is a farce.

In my working life in television in Yorkshire, the BBC regional budget and output was peanuts – a newsroom – compared to BBC Scotland where a disproportionately large amount from the UK licence fee goes into all the network programme-making for the corporation – when at the same time they closed the major BBC studios in London at TV Centre.

My remuneration and career chances in Scotland would have been far higher and I would not have had to work an extra ten years in comparison.

If it is a “Yes” I hope the BBC has an immediate contingency plan to bring large-scale production-making here to Yorkshire, which used to produce the finest network programmes at ITV in Leeds.

Keith Massey Bishopthorpe, York