Apparently that old canard is quacking again. The Borders Council and the Berwick Council have been talking about a sort of merger involving partly absorbing Berwick upon Tweed into the Scottish Borders for tourism, economic development, health services and local government (What else is left?) Thus Scotland would regain by stealth what they lost through battle? Not a bad idea actually given that Berwick and the Eastern Borders are already so intertwined. Most people around here shop in Berwick, catch the train from there, many have their GP (and certainly the dentist there) and so on. Berwick Rangers is the only English football team in the Scottish League) And the dozy Borders Tourist Board would welcome an alliance with their energetic and effective colleagues in England. And the Borders would benefit from local taxes paid by the 15,000 or so Berwickers. It might however scotch(no pun intended) the imaginative proposal put forward (and still lost) by the Hutton Think Tank to make Berwick into the Capital Territory for the UK as being more central and less noisome than London. Huttonian will watch developments and report as appropriate. In the meanwhile the HTT is still looking.....
