Sunday's opinion columns cover the cost of Scottish independence, Labour's plans to dump the honour's system and the retail crisis. Here is The Herald's pick of the day.

Sunday Times

Alex Massie urges the SNP to be honest about the costs of independence, writing that the economic case against Brexit is also an argument for staying in the union.

'Senior SNP politicians rushed to their social media accounts to rubbish or otherwise try to discredit a new paper from the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics that made the wholly uncontroversial observation that, purely as a matter of trade, if Brexit is bad for Scotland, independence would be worse.'

'It has long been argued that the SNP is congenitally incapable of levelling with the Scottish people but even those inclined to afford the nationalists the benefit of the doubt cannot continue to do so.

'If it is an act of economic self-harm for the UK to make trade with the EU more difficult - it simply must be an act of economic self-harm for Scotland to do the same with the UK'.

Scotland on Sunday

Andrew Woodrow, a planning associate at Barton Willmore, says there needs to be greater integration between retail and residential in city centres to boost struggling high streets.

'City planners must embrace the so-called ‘mosaic cities’ – with each section of the city including a robust mix of uses all within walking distance of each other.

'This means homes next to co-working spaces and a city park. It means university accommodation, social housing and private flats nestled in and amongst retail outlets, offices and green streets – with each section of the city connected to others by a fast and reliable public transport network.

Retail alone can no longer be relied upon to ‘bring the noise’.

Sun on Sunday

The editorial accuses Sir Keir Stammer of hypocrisy over plans to rip up the honours system.

'The revelation that an official Labour HQ report proposes that the honours system be torn up will send shudders down the spine of voters.

'It calls for all honours and aristocratic titles, including knighthoods, to be axed and replaced by a Civic Award decided by Parliament, cutting out the monarch.

'But only a few days ago we heard Labour was planning to rebrand itself as the party of patriotism. As usual the Labour leader appears to be stuck in no man’s land. If he wants to appeal to ordinary voters he must bin this report.'