Leaders: Politicians must put domestic woes before global concerns SELDOM can an aspiring head of state have spent so much time on an American newspaper editorial than Alex Salmond on a Washington Post article criticising independence. The First Minister has gone to considerable lengths rebutting a critique that an independent Scotland would be unable to contribute to global security. Global security is also a concern of Scottish Secretary Michael Moore, about to visit North America where he is due to speak on Scotland's place in the world, "making the case for Scotland being stronger on the world stage as part of the UK." It is understandable that Scottish politicians should seek to promote their arguments on a wider stage and in particular to those with whom we have vitally important trade and investment relationships. But audiences both here and overseas would be more interested to hear what they have to say about the most pressing issue facing us at this time: a moribund economy with stubbornly high levels of deficit and debt which constrain the ability to respond by the conventional methods of fiscal stimulus. Those who spend most of their time in the Holyrood parliament must never lose sight of the fact that the single most important issue facing those outside is not "our place in the world" or "our contribution to global security" but high and rising unemployment, the continuing squeeze on living standards, poor job opportunities and an outlook which, were it not bleak enough in the autumn statement last week, has been further darkened by the warning from the Institute for Fiscal Studies that another £27 billion of tax increases or spending cuts may be required. It cannot be right that Scotland's leading politicians shun our economic predicament and preoccupy themselves with other issues to external audiences. Constitutional change will not, and cannot, offer a solution to the complex problems of debt, deficit and stagnation that have brought a sophisticated modern economy to near stasis. The harsh reality is that the biggest hands on the levers of economic power today are neither in Westminster nor Edinburgh but belong to those of our creditors. And the fastest growing area of public spending in our country today is not welfare, but debt interest. It is this reality, and the implications which flow from it, that pose the greatest challenge to a social democratic system that has prevailed on the basis of economic growth being able to fund the competing programmes of rival political parties. When that growth is no longer present, and we have borrowed from the future to maintain public expenditure at an unsustainable rate, to what better future can we credibly aspire? The truly big questions we face today about our security and our place in the world are to be found here at home. And it is here at home that our political leaders need to come up with some answers. Our favourite star man will be missed LITTLE wonder if the stars seem a little more dim and distant. For no-one brought them nearer to home or infused them with more life than the brilliant astronomer and broadcaster Sir Patrick Moore. It speaks directly to the depths of his knowledge and his gift of explanation that the BBC programme he presented - The Sky at Night - ran for 50 years and made him the longest-running host of the same television show ever. In addition to his skills as a presenter, Sir Patrick wrote dozens of books on astronomy and his research was used by both the Americans and the Russians in their space programmes. It can fairly be said that were a young Sir Patrick Moore to present himself to a television studio today he would not exactly be fast-tracked for Britain's Got Talent. It was not just his uncompromising eccentricity that made him such a distinctive figure. There was the monocle, the dishevelled hair and an unerringly crumpled suit. Sir Patrick gave the appearance not so much of having slept in his suit as having been born in it. Yet it was rather because of these characteristics, not in spite of them, that millions of viewers warmed to him and his subject. He came to represent a complete triumph of substance over style - indeed, his engaged and passionate explanations as to why planets behaved as they did may not have carried quite the same weight had he presented in anything approaching a conventional manner. In conveying the complex and mysterious with such enthusiasm and energy he became one of the objects he studied - a shining star. The Sky at Night will truly miss him.