The Big Scottish Independence Debate

[Alex MacLeod]

Is this the UK we can expect to face if referendum fails. http://wingsoverscotland.com/stay-with-us-scotland/

[Alex MacLeod]

The sample size was as little as 2 for each team, so you can completely dismiss it!

 

See page 5 for details.  http://www.panelbase.com/media/polls/F4108WingsoverScotland210514.pdf

Must admit that poll is an embarassment. 1064 random people and they all support Rangers or a current Premiership team. 2 people support RossCounty, one says NO the other undecided so the Record reports this as a County NO. Even the Rangers vote of 63 YES 57 NO and 19 Undecided does not say YES majority. With such high percentages of Undecided, and the figures so close among the rest then it can't be reported that one side is winning over the other.

Personally I'd take any internet poll with a pinch of the proverbial.

[+DoofersDad]

Only 2 County fans asked but they are 39% undecided  .  Perhaps one of the poor souls was unsure whether he was undecided or not.

[Oddquine]

Personally, I take all polls with a lot more than a pinch of salt....whether carried out by paid polling agencies, an exit poll from a public meeting, a poll of school children or a poll on the internet etc. They are as accurate as betting odds when it comes to forecasting outcomes.....and the only benefit they provide is that, if they are in your favour, they imbue a feelgood factor for a time.

 

Rather liked this, btw...New Zealand Cannot Exist .http://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2014/05/23/new-zealand-cannot-exist/.

 

The concluding paragraph or so......(and the rest of it is quite good as well)

 

Simply put, it’s a small country, apparently unable to protect itself, a supposed bunch of farmers sheering sheep and milking cows. Therefore, following the illogical, brutal arguments thrown at Scotland by the Better Together brigade, New Zealand cannot exist as an autonomous state.

But it does.

It does exist. It exists very well indeed.

 

[Scarlet Pimple]

Thanks, Oddquine, for that summary  going back donkeys' years.

 

"Who would have thunk it?" is my response but, frankly, my eyes glazed over after reading the first paragraph. You are right--do even the lawyers understand it. However, I will send your comments to the main office of the CABP and maybe they can glean enough material from this to strengthen their case. The research you have done is amazing. Keeping this thread running  to this point is also incredible.

 

Let's face it, a rose by any other name smells the same so the crux of the issue is that  over the years the British Government has used every excuse under the sun to NOT pay us pensioners living in Ex-Commonwealth countries and only public opinion  and an about face in Whitehall will change their attitude it seems.

A ton of thanks for going out of your way to  dig this deep.

[Oddquine]

I'm going to be fair intrigued when the new Project Fear Treasury Report is published next week..if only to find out what 180 government departments they think we are going to need to cope with a country of 5.3 million people.   It's also going to be really interesting to see how they manage to accurately forecast the economics of an Independent Scotland as far ahead as 2035/2036, when they don't know what our taxes and income will be,what our policies will be, and the effect of those policies on our economy. Bloody hell, they can't even forecast accurately the effects of a budget on the economy of the UK for the following year when they know the figures and the policies to be applied....and even with that they certainly haven't managed to do it for the period from 2010 to 2015.......so not much of a track record to make anything they produce for a timespan of twenty years believable, is it?

 

Do you remember that in 2010, the budget  was meant to be in balance by 2015? Hasn't it had the target date revised at every budget since, until the target date is now 2019 (maybe).  Of course, that will be only if they get their sums right for once, and provided the Government continues to privatise the NHS, (and thus cut the Barnett consequentials for Scotland, NI and Wales) and provided it continues to make welfare cuts and maintain the austerity regime.  Or should that maybe be...maintain the austerity regime for everyone but themselves and their party donors/prospective post-Parliament employers.

 

Where has the austerity been felt in a Parliament which spent £5.8 million of taxpayers' money on subsidising the food and drink in the House of Commons..... in the same year the Budget promised to increase VAT to 20%; introduce a public sector pay freeze; reduce the time allowed to phase in the increase in the SPA  to 66; peg benefits increases and public service pension increases,(though not state pensions), to the CPI instead of the RPI; freeze child benefit for three years; increase withdrawal rates for tax credits, cap Housing Benefit; introduce a new assessment for DLA;.......and freeze the Queens Civil List at £7.9 million. Interesting that it cost us just £2.1 million more to pay for the upkeep of the Royal Family, maintain the Royal Households and pay staff etc, than it does to fill the Westminster trough to feed the pigs. 

[+Wanderer]

How much of The Falklands is Scotland's?

[Oddquine]

How much of The Falklands is Scotland's?

 

Falkland in Fife or the Falkland Islands? 

 

I dunno....I'd have thought, if we really wanted to be bothered we could possibly put up a case for getting an 8.4% share in all the crown protectorates and Overseas Territories....or maybe even half of them, seeing that the Union of the Crowns was only the two countries!   There's a surprising number of them still.  We did get Antarctica (or rather the British Antarctic Territory) in the  Act which set up Devolution, as it wasn't on the list of the issues reserved to Westminster control.  If Westminster hadn't noticed the error and wheeched it back in exchange for control over airguns when the Scotland Bill 2012 was going through Westminster....we'd have a bigger empire in area than Westminster has..though as you cannae really do anything with it,  not getting that isn't much of a loss.

 

Seriously, though, if you are being serious, Westminster thinks it is entitled to be the continuing state, regarding Treaties and being a "world power" and sitting in the plush seats in the big International organisations.....which it isn't automatically, unless we agree.....and I suppose the Crown Territories etc would come into that. Never really thought about it before....but I can't see us wanting to be footered with them, anyway.  If the UK is expecting us to pay maintenance for them as if they are children of the Union...then we can negotiate maintenance like any separating couple.......and take our share of the plush seats and treaties as well!

 

More I think about it all, the more I think the easiest way to do it would be just to pack our bags and go, leaving the movables, the house and the car behind.

 

Noticed something I didn't know when I was browsing. I did know that the Scottish Embassy was in Great Scotland Yard prior to 1707, because I have said  elsewhere (tongue in cheek) that we already have an embassy in London, as it was taken over, not bought, post 1707.  But seemingly After the Act of Union no one remembered to abolish the foreign status of Great Scotland Yard, which means that even today the little street running off Whitehall near Trafalgar Square is actually Scottish territory.   

Edited May 25, 2014 by Oddquine

[Alex MacLeod]

A quote, reportedly, from David Coburn. Scotlands newest MEP.

 

“You left-wing scum are all the same, wanting to hand our birthright to Romanian gypsies who beat their wives and children into begging and stealing money they can gamble with, Muslim nutters who want to kill us and put us under medieval Sharia law, the same Africans who sold their Afro-Caribbean brothers into a slavery that Britain was first to abolish (but you still want to apologize for!)”

 

 

Incidently he doesn't even live in Scotland and hasn't done for 27 years.

 

To those who want to stay in the Union is this the sorts of politicians you want in Westminster? Is our future a multi cultural all embracing Scotland or is it a right wing racist Britian?

[Alex MacLeod]

And some more reported quotes from UKIP

 

“How we can possibly be giving £1bn a month to Bongo Bongo Land is completely beyond me.” – Godfrey Bloom (UKIP)

“The evidence is quite clear that the percentage of homosexuals who molest children is very high and cannot be dismissed.” – Jan Zolyniak (UKIP)

“Compulsory abortion when the foetus is detected as having Down’s, spina bifida or similar syndrome which, if it is born, could render the child a burden on the state as well as on the family” – Geoffrey Clark (UKIP)

 

If referendum returns a decision that we stay UK then come 2015 elections a coalition government will be formed between Tories and UKIP. All that that holds does not bear thinking about.

[mainstander]

 

If referendum returns a decision that we stay UK then come 2015 elections a coalition government will be formed between Tories and UKIP. All that that holds does not bear thinking about.

So whats this - the Nat's answer to Project Fear? A tad hipocrytical wouldnt you say.

[Alex MacLeod]

 

 

If referendum returns a decision that we stay UK then come 2015 elections a coalition government will be formed between Tories and UKIP. All that that holds does not bear thinking about.

So whats this - the Nat's answer to Project Fear? A tad hipocrytical wouldnt you say.

 

Absolutely nothing to do with Nats. It's a well published fact that UKIP is made up of Tory defectors and that both parties are in talks about coalition after 2015 elections. It is also a well published fact that between them they support the privatisation of NHS. The abolition of Scottish and Welsh parliaments. The slashing of government support to the needy. Not to forget the forced abortion of foetus that, if born "could render the child a burden on the state". These are some of the facts. This is the sort of information suddenly coming our as a result of the rise of UKIP. It doesn't come from Nationalist views but from the mainstream press.

Looking at the EU election results I fear that many countries are swinging too far to the right and that that union is going to come crashing down.

[Yngwie]

To those who want to stay in the Union is this the sorts of politicians you want in Westminster? Is our future a multi cultural all embracing Scotland or is it a right wing racist Britian?

 

Where to start Alex?! 

1. The Scottish electorate voting for a Scottish racist nutter to represent Scotland is not something you can pin on Westminster.

2. Xenophobia/Racism/Euroscepticism will only grow in an independent Scotland, when the public realise that our only role in the EU  (if we get in at all) is to fund it, and when the public further realise that all our generous social policies are rather attractive to people from abroad seeking a better life.

3. I'd be amazed if UKIP got even 1 MP in 2015.

[starchief]

In a poll 5 days ago, 70% of Scots agreed with Ukip's immigration policy.  They don't yet vote for them in mass numbers but it doesn't mean that an independent Scotland wouldn't turn towards the right (after all, aren't the Yeses always crowing about how it's not voting for a party?).  Can't say I'd be desperate to replicate Bradford, Small Heath or Tower Hamlets here either.

[Scarlet Pimple]

Gypsies are Muslims????........... Stone the bleedin' crows.

 

Why not read    www.destiniesinmotion.com  for a revealing look at Gypsies in their true forest habitat. Dancing in colourful,, costumes, consuming  quaffs of  this and that, always willing to stand by and help a known friend and stealing what they can from whom they can because they can. And are much smarter than what we " tink" they are.

[Alex MacLeod]

In a poll 5 days ago, 70% of Scots agreed with Ukip's immigration policy.  They don't yet vote for them in mass numbers but it doesn't mean that an independent Scotland wouldn't turn towards the right (after all, aren't the Yeses always crowing about how it's not voting for a party?).  Can't say I'd be desperate to replicate Bradford, Small Heath or Tower Hamlets here either.

Was that 70% of Scots or 70% of those polled? Was it only Scots who were polled?

[starchief]

See for yourself http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/politics/referendum-news/seven-out-of-ten-scots-back-ukip-policy-on-immigration.24278719

[Yngwie]

In Euro elections, people do seem to favour the novelty acts.

 

 

 

[Oddquine]

Interesting take on UKIP .  http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/26/ukip-founder-alan-sked-party-become-frankensteins-monster

[Alex MacLeod]

And here's good reason why women should steer clear of them. http://www.leftfootforward.org/2014/05/15-reasons-women-shouldnt-vote-for-ukip/

[dougiedanger]

What an embarrassment to have that fat, ginger, duplicitous twonk Alexander as MP for Inverness.

[Oddquine]

What an embarrassment to have that fat, ginger, duplicitous twonk Alexander as MP for Inverness.

Been reading about his speech have you?    Fancy making it without removing the crap which had already been debunked, by the authors of the two reports on which the calculations were based, about the cost of setting up 180 public bodies. If he didn't have a hymn sheet to sing from, he'd be speechless.

 

If you buy print newspapers, the Better Together booklet they've been dishing out free in them is no more truthful, it appears.  Article about it here .....http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/05/better-together-vs-truth 

 

and Wings take on it here   http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-lies-you-get/

 

Don't buy mainstream newspapers any more.......haven't for years....so I was spared reading it.

[Yngwie]

How about this for a Holyrood/Westminster union. Yikes.

 

[robbylad]

How about this for a Holyrood/Westminster union. Yikes.

 

10295751_10152567437108900_6120388141724094901_n.jpg

That'll scare the horses.

[Oddquine]

Have to say, JimboLoony is funny. If he can talk as well as he can photoshop, he'd be the Welsh Frankie Boyle!