The Big Scottish Independence Debate

[Oddquine]

Keep going with the posts Oddquine I hope you manage to convince some of those sitting on the fence, it is a bit like ICT against all the big teams but we all can win!  Have an early night.

 Lol! If I didn't get so bogged down in minutae.I'd be unstoppable! 

 

Have to say, though...that if  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26161382 is correct, Scotland would be completely bonkers to go for a Currency Union at all. Seemingly....though how correct it is I don't know, the report is not from the politicians but by HMT and the politicians are going to ride on the backs of it.......but frankly, of the three conditions.......afraid  this one.....Allow taxpayers in one country to subsidise the other is completely unacceptable......along with Underwrite each others banks and Reach broad agreements on tax, spending and borrowing levels on both sides of the border....we'd just be letting them keep same old, same old!

Edited February 13, 2014 by Oddquine

[Yngwie]

At the risk of sounding like one of the paranoid conspiracy theorists, is it coincidence that immediately after Yes start to make a bit of progress in the polls, some potentially fatal blows are unleashed against them?

[Sneckboy]

I wonder if Oddquine's been to bed yet!?

[Charles Bannerman]

At the risk of sounding like one of the paranoid conspiracy theorists, is it coincidence that immediately after Yes start to make a bit of progress in the polls, some potentially fatal blows are unleashed against them?

"Don't shoot 'til you see the whites of their eyes!" - Michael Caine, Zulu, 1879.

 

"Trust in God and keep your powder dry" - Oliver Cromwell, Battle of Dunbar, 1650.

 

"Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition" - Frank Loesser, USA, 1942.

 

"They don't like it up 'em sah, they do not like it up 'em!" - Corporal Jones, Dad's Army, 1940.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Charles Bannerman

[Oddquine]

At the risk of sounding like one of the paranoid conspiracy theorists, is it coincidence that immediately after Yes start to make a bit of progress in the polls, some potentially fatal blows are unleashed against them?

 

If you are into Conspiracy  Theories....I have one which would fit the bill rather better.......Wings has, for the past number of days been hit by massive DDOS attacks, which has brought the site down on a number of occasions and is making conversation on it difficult. Is it just a coincidence that one of the best, most popular, most visited, most denigrated in the UK media, pro-independence sites is under attack by more than just words?  Is it just a coincidence that the Conservative Party uses the same hosts, but on a different server, and hasn't been touched?

 

Potentially fatal rather depends if the blows land, though. If you only consider the way Westminster says stuff, they tend to couch everything in may/perhaps/possibly/according to our experts etc..which is more like sparring than a title fight...but that's politics! Lol!

 

Unfortunately, it is hard for a lot of people who still think that the Media reports facts, is unbiased and that spin is something only washing machines do, to differentiate between what is likely to happen in realpolitik terms, assuming politicians are grown up people making grown up pragmatic decisions/compromises, and what a toddler deprived of his favourite toy might/may/possibly/ is likely to do........and currently Westminster is in that "I'll scweam and I'll scweam until I am sick (or you are!)" phase.  It is getting wearing, tbh, and I think simply illustrates a large part of the reason many of us want out from under.....the fact that, in my lifetime, in this Union, Scotland has been Northern Britain, and invisible to Westminster eyes until we do something to get their attention. 

 

Westminster has never needed, because of the way the Union has been set up, to carry us with them and has never needed to consider our different political mindset,, our aspirations and circumstances while making policy etc. We are, as a nation,.irrelevant in a country in which a king invented an all-encompassing nationality, four hundred years ago, a Parliament of the elite in Westminster and one the same in Edinburgh imposed that nationality by rule of law and has spent the 300 years since trying to homogenise the four UK nations into that single chosen British nationality.   

 

Where we are now is solely and completely down to the Westminster Government...not the SNP. The SNP is a product of the Westminster mindset......and the growth of the SNP, resulting in this referendum, is our reaction to the refusal of Westminster to do any more for us than take our money, resources, young people for cannon fodder in illegal and/or pointless wars.....and in return not even give us as much respect as any decent person would give a £5 whore. 

 

Even today's speech by Osborne continues to emphasise the opinion of Westminster that the heads of Scots button up the back and they are incapable of thinking for themselves.......not being "allowed" by the rUK to share Sterling in a currency union does not equate to "If Scotland walks away from the UK, it walks away from the pound."   And what does Such an arrangement would likely see Scotland lose the the Bank of England as lender of last resort - risking an exodus of banks - and have no control over monetary policy. if we unilaterally use the pound mean?  If we did that, why would we even think that the Bank of England would be our lender of last resort at all?

 

There are more sensible articles on the currency situation out there...like this one

 

http://www.scotsman.com/news/analysis-benefiting-the-uk-is-most-logical-option-1-3304617

 

which show there are other options for Scotland, but options which will not benefit rUK.  And that is their choice, just as Independence or not is ours.

 

Perhaps I am overly cynical.....but if there was no oil.....would Westminster care what we did?  Really? Did they care before oil was discovered?  Did they care before the SNP started growing from a fringe group into a party capable of Government? And does anyone think that the way to run a Union, which was supposed to be a partnership of two nations, is to have one of the nations in it reduced to using the SNP, with what is becoming regular monotony,as a clarion call to get the insular London-based UK MPs to take notice that the status quo is not acceptable?  It took until 1885 to get  any real specifically Scottish representation at all in Westminster which acknowledged that Scotland was not just North Britain, with the formation of the Scottish office...and the last time, I think, that the Scottish MPs acted as a body on behalf of Scotland with any effect.

 

Have to say, I think, even with a NO vote,  that this campaign has already broken the Union past repair, and the Union is in its death throes, even if not quite dead yet.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Oddquine

[Yngwie]

Perhaps I am overly cynical.....but if there was no oil.....would Westminster care what we did?  Really? Did they care before oil was discovered? 

 

Turning that around, if there was no oil would anybody want independence? The SNP has been around since the 1930s but had an insignificant share of the vote until 1974.

[dougiedanger]

Perhaps I am overly cynical.....but if there was no oil.....would Westminster care what we did?  Really? Did they care before oil was discovered?

 

Turning that around, if there was no oil would anybody want independence? The SNP has been around since the 1930s but had an insignificant share of the vote until 1974.

We have oil, rakes of it, so both points are moot.

[Charles Bannerman]

 

Perhaps I am overly cynical.....but if there was no oil.....would Westminster care what we did?  Really? Did they care before oil was discovered? 

 

Turning that around, if there was no oil would anybody want independence? The SNP has been around since the 1930s but had an insignificant share of the vote until 1974.

 

And now the SNP not only seem to want to break up the UK.... they also expect everyone to agree to do so on their terms.

When it comes to Britain's currency (and possibly a few other things as well), they expect the rest of the UK to share that with them. But when it comes to Britain's oil they want to nick all of that for themselves.

However I wouldn't quite say that there are "rakes of it". The SNP are asking for a permanent separation on the basis of a declining asset which will disappear pretty quickly.

 

I would suggest that the rest of the UK would, at the moment, be pefectly entitled to say "So if you guys really are going to vote to leave, taking all the oil with you, why don't you just p!ss off and fend totally for yourselves?"

Edited February 13, 2014 by Charles Bannerman

[Oddquine]

 

Perhaps I am overly cynical.....but if there was no oil.....would Westminster care what we did?  Really? Did they care before oil was discovered? 

 

Turning that around, if there was no oil would anybody want independence? The SNP has been around since the 1930s but had an insignificant share of the vote until 1974.

 

 

I think it may have taken a longer time in getting to here, Ywngie, but I really do think it would have reached this place eventually, though possibly not in my lifetime..so for that alone, I am grateful to the oil.  

 

Where we are now has been coming since there was that first attempt at Westminster a couple of years after the signing of the Union Treaties, to get out of it.....but, for many of us, it has never really been about money....although that is certainly a part of it now, but more about national identity. If it was only about money, there would be similar parties all over England, in the various regions which lose out in funding to London and the South of England.......but there isn't apart from in Cornwall.  Nationalism exists when the existence of a nation is denied, and is a response to attempts at assimilation by a larger nation.

 

I may not live to see an independent Scotland, though I hope I do....but  at least I can look down (or up) and say to anyone who will listen that I was there, rolling my eyes and shaking my head in despair and disbelief when the supporters of the Union began the process of finally killing the very thing they were trying to save. 

[Oddquine]

Just compare the rantings of Osborne and the other Unionist politicians with a thoughtful article like this.

 

http://www.cmonscotland.org/#!Debt/c112t/39C2D4C6-1629-4E14-8EF9-A69EA307F7E0

Edited February 13, 2014 by Oddquine

[Joe DiMaggio]

For someone who is bored with the referendum Charles appears here constantly saying the exact same thing. Ragggeee SNP raggggeee Braveheart z z zzzzz.

 

I fancy chipping in to get Charles on the first train to Carlisle on the 19th September, sorry I mean donkey, I forgot in an Independent Scotland we would have no transport at all.

 

He can take his boring negativity and repatativeness there and moan about Morris dancing and UKIP all day long.

[robbylad]

For someone who is bored with the referendum Charles appears here constantly saying the exact same thing. Ragggeee SNP raggggeee Braveheart z z zzzzz.

 

I fancy chipping in to get Charles on the first train to Carlisle on the 19th September, sorry I mean donkey, I forgot in an Independent Scotland we would have no transport at all.

 

He can take his boring negativity and repatativeness there and moan about Morris dancing and UKIP all day long.

What has Carlisle ever done to you?

[Charles Bannerman]

For someone who is bored with the referendum Charles appears here constantly saying the exact same thing. Ragggeee SNP raggggeee Braveheart z z zzzzz.

 

I fancy chipping in to get Charles on the first train to Carlisle on the 19th September, sorry I mean donkey, I forgot in an Independent Scotland we would have no transport at all.

 

He can take his boring negativity and repatativeness there and moan about Morris dancing and UKIP all day long.

Joe I think some of you chaps on the "terribly serious" wing of the separatist lobby really need to lighten up a bit, stop being such Chippy Jimmies and remember that a huge number of people have no interest at all in going all po-faced and embarking on desperately intense "debates on the constitution" and all the rest of the stuff we've now had to endure since 2011. The reality is that a very large section of the population is actually quite happy to be part of the UK and hence see no need at all to keep banging on about this stuff.

However, thanks to the SNP's Holyrood majority, we are now faced with what many of us regard as at least a potential threat to our happiness, our wealth and our quality of life. As such, we are entitled to use any reasonable means to oppose what the SNP are attempting to impose upon us. These means include ridicule and satire, especially since there is so much on the yes side which is particularly wide open to these well established forms of political comment.

In fact it's rather a shame that Jonathan Watson hasn't been touring Scotland with a Watson's Windup Referendum Special! We seriously need to lighten up about this!!

To be quite blunt, a Scottish identity doesn't really loom very large at all on my list of priorities. Scotland happens to be the part of Great Britain in which I was born and live. But for an accident of my father's employment, that might just as easily have been Yorkshire or Wales or Cornwall or Sussex. The subdivision of the UK with which I identify by far the most strongly is the Highlands (but not because that's the bit where most of the oil REALLY is), far ahead of Scotland.

As a result, this current attempt to split off part of the UK in which I live from the rest of the country has all the possible down sides and absolutely nothing to commend it - and that's before you look at the hypocrisy of expecting to take all the oil whilst still also expecting to be bailed out by sharing sterling and God knows what else.

 

But never mind Joe. If we get a yes vote in September, you would surely be well placed to step in as Scotland's Senator Joe McCarthy and become Chairman of the "Un-Scottish Activities Committee."

 

"Are you now, or have you ever been a member of a Unionist Party?"

Edited February 13, 2014 by Charles Bannerman

[dougiedanger]

Loving the growing desperation of the unionist.

[Laurence]

I said all along that this vote is a non starter

It is a waste of time and money

Most of the advantages put forward by the SNP are covered by devolution anyway

It is dead in the water - It has been very decisive, when all the nation in the UK should be working together. We have this rhetoric  from separatists who

care not what they say and do. There only raison d'etre' is to get Independence at any  price.

[robbylad]

I said all along that this vote is a non starter

It is a waste of time and money

Most of the advantages put forward by the SNP are covered by devolution anyway

It is dead in the water - It has been very decisive, when all the nation in the UK should be working together. We have this rhetoric  from separatists who

care not what they say and do. There only raison d'etre' is to get Independence at any  price.

Charles must be your researcher Laurence. "Dead in the water" ??? You must be kidding???

[Oddquine]

Personally, I'm not bothered how we deal with the currency...I'd be happy enough to use sterling informally in the short term until we can make up our minds. That is no different in fact than the position we are in  currently, really.  We are subjected to UK monetary policy, geared to London and the South of England, with no input from Scotland to the decision making, and little ability to ameliorate the effects on the Scottish economy. Using Sterling informally would leave us in the same position as we are now re decision making.....but we would have the full panoply of fiscal tools to counteract the effect of a London-centric monetary policy.

According to Mark Carney, what a currency union would  do......."…it eliminates the transactions costs associated with using, and switching between, different currencies…Sharing a currency can promote investment by reducing uncertainty about currency movements and giving businesses access to deeper, more liquid financial markets… Sharing a currency can also help to increase the mobility of labour and capital, raise trade in goods and services, and improve the flow of technology and ideas."   As Scotland is rUk's second biggest trading partner, transaction costs would likely be around £500 million, and it is possible that the extra costs, particularly with smaller businesses, would threaten some of the 700,000  jobs related to that trade.

According to the ONS...UK Trade is a major component of two other key economic statistics – UK Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the UK Balance of Payments. This means that there is a threefold potential for UK Trade statistics to inform the Government’s view of the UK economy, as well as the views of others, such as economists, City analysts, academics, the media, and international organisations.   So a reduction in both of those statistics would affect the statistics produced using them...and that could affect things like the credit rating, position in league tables etc.  While I'm not saying for a second that it will produce a much more enormous hole than a £1.4 trillion National Debt has already drilled, it could affect the level of interest paid on the annual borrrowing, which is  currently at a level which is continuing to add to that debt and has no chance of not being required by 2016, as Osborne has admitted.

The UK , in 2012, had a Balance of Payments deficit of £59.2 billion, and that was with Scotland, without Scotland, that would have been around £99 billion. Whisky alone, according to Cameron, adds £135 to the UK balance of payments credit side every second..and the rUK GDP would be reduced by the 9.9% of Scotland's input, not only affecting statistics, but also the income available to service the debt and support the spending.

I think the main problem, apart from politicking, with Westminster's attitude is that any negotiations would not be the rUK dictating what was going to happen, but a joint agreement to satisfy both sides.....and Westminster doesn't like not being in charge of everything. If Westminster thinks it can just impose monetary and fiscal parameters on Scotland and not have to accept the equivalent themselves, then they are as daft as they so often appear.

Today, of course, Westminster is not just foot-stamping and pouting.....it is actually throwing its toys out of the pram.....A REFERENDUM Yes vote would not guarantee Scottish independence and the 'status quo' will be maintained if talks do not go smoothly, a senior ­Coalition source has warned.......pretty much saying that if the Scottish negotiating team doesn't agree with what Westminster says is going to happen, then even if we vote YES in appreciable numbers...we ain't getting Independence, because they won't let us! 

 

Don't see how they can stop us, myself.....all we would need to do is stop trying to be reasonable and walk away with nothing but the clothes we stand up in ....a bit like someone reaching the end of his/her tether with an abusive spouse..and start again..with no  debt....no good neighbour and no friends, because the spouse has turned everybody against us....but with a roof under which to shelter, and an income to pay their way. 

 

And the Westminster government, which invades to impose democracy in other countries will be shown up for the arrogant, terminally thick, two-faced barstewards they are.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/yes-does-not-mean-yes.23438016

 

Beats me when folk on the "NO" spectrum bleat about an Alex Salmond dictatorship after Independence..when the UK is already governed by a dictatorship of the Westminster plutocracy, and has been for decades. At least Alex Salmond is more likely to protect his position by undertaking policies which will get him regularly elected in Scotland. No Unionist Scottish MPs in Westminster care what Scotland would like..and even if they did, there is bugger all they can do about it.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Oddquine

[Charles Bannerman]

 

 

And the Westminster government, which invades to impose democracy in other countries will be shown up for the arrogant, terminally thick, two-faced barstewards they are.

 

 

Oddquine...how much personal forward planning have you done in the event of a yes vote? I mean, if you are no longer a citizen of the United Kingdom, do you have another target waiting in the wings for your considerable sense of grievance and resentment?

I mean, you almost make me look like an Alex Salmond/SNP fan!

[Scarlet Pimple]

Again may I ask what the r in front of UK stands  for.     rUK? Eh what?

 

If it means are you ready U K?.   Now that would make sense.

 

As for Marcus Carnage, I suggest you-all heed that man because he has a very clever financial mind. The problem he has is that he is always right....but not pompous with it.

[Oddquine]

Again may I ask what the r in front of UK stands  for.     rUK? Eh what?

 

If it means are you ready U K?.   Now that would make sense.

 

As for Marcus Carnage, I suggest you-all heed that man because he has a very clever financial mind. The problem he has is that he is always right....but not pompous with it.

 

it means........rest of UK or rump UK...or remainder of UK...as in what is left when Scotland goes.    We did heed Mark Carney......thought he was very professional and factual. Shame his "bosses" can't take a leaf from his book!

Edited February 14, 2014 by Oddquine

[The Mantis]

For someone who is bored with the referendum Charles appears here constantly saying the exact same thing. Ragggeee SNP raggggeee Braveheart z z zzzzz.

 

I fancy chipping in to get Charles on the first train to Carlisle on the 19th September, sorry I mean donkey, I forgot in an Independent Scotland we would have no transport at all.

 

He can take his boring negativity and repatativeness there and moan about Morris dancing and UKIP all day long.

Joe I think some of you chaps on the "terribly serious" wing of the separatist lobby really need to lighten up a bit, stop being such Chippy Jimmies and remember that a huge number of people have no interest at all in going all po-faced and embarking on desperately intense "debates on the constitution" and all the rest of the stuff we've now had to endure since 2011. The reality is that a very large section of the population is actually quite happy to be part of the UK and hence see no need at all to keep banging on about this stuff.

However, thanks to the SNP's Holyrood majority, we are now faced with what many of us regard as at least a potential threat to our happiness, our wealth and our quality of life. As such, we are entitled to use any reasonable means to oppose what the SNP are attempting to impose upon us. These means include ridicule and satire, especially since there is so much on the yes side which is particularly wide open to these well established forms of political comment.

In fact it's rather a shame that Jonathan Watson hasn't been touring Scotland with a Watson's Windup Referendum Special! We seriously need to lighten up about this!!

To be quite blunt, a Scottish identity doesn't really loom very large at all on my list of priorities. Scotland happens to be the part of Great Britain in which I was born and live. But for an accident of my father's employment, that might just as easily have been Yorkshire or Wales or Cornwall or Sussex. The subdivision of the UK with which I identify by far the most strongly is the Highlands (but not because that's the bit where most of the oil REALLY is), far ahead of Scotland.

As a result, this current attempt to split off part of the UK in which I live from the rest of the country has all the possible down sides and absolutely nothing to commend it - and that's before you look at the hypocrisy of expecting to take all the oil whilst still also expecting to be bailed out by sharing sterling and God knows what else.

 

But never mind Joe. If we get a yes vote in September, you would surely be well placed to step in as Scotland's Senator Joe McCarthy and become Chairman of the "Un-Scottish Activities Committee."

 

"Are you now, or have you ever been a member of a Unionist Party?"

Translation:

"It really sickens me how the younger generation care about things, especially crap boring things, and bang on about it all the time. Why can't they just be old and cynical like me and not bang on about this crap. Then we can get on with really banging stuff like the price of a roll and sausage at Tesco Inshes.

Same thing with the bloody Proclaimers. I told people they weren't allowed to like these banger-onners. But they just ignored me and carried on liking them anyway. It's crap. And why do people have to feel Scottish all the time? I certainly don't. Everybody's out of step except oor Charlie.

It never fails to amaze me the strange take many Nats have on history, and geography, and woodwork, and domestic science (insert wee anecdote about 'those sort of people' and back it up by banging on about how Salmond is a bigot and the bastard love child of Willie Bell).

I mean, everybody knows there's no such thing as 'Scotland'. Only about six people believe this and keep banging on about it. They're called Cybernats, I read about them in the Daily Mail. Apparently these six vicious trolls actually have internet access. Shocking but true. Crap too. And they're going to take down the whole internet with their on-banging (probably).

It's obvious that for a clever chap like me topics like this are a waste of time. No, really, it's boring, and crap too. Ok, I DO post a couple of long essays every day, and yes, I go back and edit them every half hour, but I don't bang on or repeat myself like those po-faced Nats. I don't bang on or repeat myself like those po-faced Nats. If they call my bluff I just disappear for a week and then say I'm winding them up. Seemples! (See, I'm not that old!)."

[Oddquine]

Blliddy heck, if I'm younger generation, Charles must be absolutely ancient!

[Charles Bannerman]

 

Salmond is a bigot and the ******* love child of Willie Bell.

 

Now there's a thought!!  On the other hand DNA testing may be required here since Willie Bell allegedly used to enjoy some of the same (non ovine  ) partners as Granville Paterson!

[Oddquine]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/18/scottish-referendum-independent-scaremongering-eu

 

The last paragraph sums it up.......There are seven months to go to the referendum. Let's quit the scaremongering, and accept one thing: if the Scots democratically choose independence, then Brussels, London, and all global institutions will accept this and work to make it happen. Not for Scotland's sake, but for their own. No one is going to throw us out.

 

And specially for Charles because he likes unrepresentative polls.....(btw I'm not going to spin anything from it)

 

Channel 4 online survey.....https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1bjntrrT_1zy4eEdG8FNAPJB_-usej61UgerYAD3t-gc/viewanalytics

 

Are you eligible to vote in the Scottish independence referendum?
Yes    10695    86%
No    1677    14%

Are you in favour of Scottish independence?
Yes    10235    83%
No    2137    17%

Do you think an independent Scotland should be allowed to keep the sterling as currency?
Yes    10155    82%
No    2217    18%

Do you think an independent Scotland should be allowed to join the EU?
Yes    11107    90%
No    1265    10%

 

Edited to add a link rather than make a new post...http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2014/02/17/enter-the-union/

 

Again, the last paragraph says it all.......The union is not a partnership. It is a highly centralised state that only begrudgingly cedes power. The calculated dismissal of an independent Scotland as a partner in a currency union makes the true nature of the relationship clear. The union has joined the debate to show us that, however Scotland votes, punitive measures will be taken. The only questions is whether they’re taken against a demoralised region or a confident young sovereign state in the making.

Edited February 18, 2014 by Oddquine

[Oddquine]

It's not just Salmond who thinks Westminster is bullying!

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2014/02/18/as-scotland-mulls-independence-a-stupid-london-plays-it-dirty/

 

A quote from the above link.

 

Instead of letting the Scottish voters make a reasoned and unpressured decision, the London establishment has increasingly been playing it dirty. As the Irish economics commentator David McWilliams has pointed out, London’s “bully-boy” tactics have been so clumsy that they may backfire.