NO FUTURE FOR YOU

Sleepy cities could have been buzzing like Dublin' | Unionist parties offer no hope to society, author claims

- PAUL HUTCHEON and GEORGE MAIR

TRAINSPOTTING author Irvine Welsh has claimed Scotland hasn't "much of a future" after voting against independence in 2014.

The hit novelist said a Yes vote would have energised the nation but everywhere in Britain outside London is "like a third world country now".

Welsh was speaking at the Bloody Scotland International Crime Writing Festival at the Albert Halls in Stirling on Saturday night.

Broadcaster Stephen Jardine, who chaired the event, asked for the 65-year-old's view on independence 10 years after the No vote in the referendum.

Welsh said: "It was a disaster really that we didn't quite have the bottle just to push through and go for it.

"I was in Dublin the other week. I think it was Monday and Tuesday night I was out and it was absolutely teeming and rammed. If you look at Edinburgh or Glasgow now on a Monday or Tuesday night, it's just tumbleweed.

"I was in Leeds a few weeks ago and Leeds used to be the club capital of England and now it's just dead. There used to be 36 clubs in Leeds and now there's two that are open.

"And it's like London is just absolutely buzzing and thriving and heaving and the rest of Britain is like a third world country now in comparison."