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Salmond vs Darling Debate


culduthel

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Fortunate to be able to receive this debate live on line in NZ.  First time I have seen either of these two people perform on their feet.

 

I have observed sleaze bag politicians the world over and here was another two.  Although I have to say for me, Salmond has become one of the biggest sleaze bags I have ever encountered. I was undecided  on the independence question but after that debate Salmond put me right off his side of the debate.

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Some pure stupidity from Salmond made me think is it better the devil you know........then I think well if the Westminster Government will not tell us what powers they are going to afford us before the Referendum then there cant be much change from  what we have now

 

Still on the fence.........Heart yes............ head  acheing

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Hard to imagine that anyone is going to change their mind, or make up their mind, based on that.  I do think though that the No camp will be a wee bit happier with the way it went. 

 

Who on earth advised Salmond to devote so much of his time to the ridiculous stuff like aliens and pandas? Big misjudgement.  He's the one who needs to be portraying himself as a presidential, mature, safe pair of hands to run a fully independent country, and he simply didn't do that.

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Hard to imagine that anyone is going to change their mind, or make up their mind, based on that.  I do think though that the No camp will be a wee bit happier with the way it went. 

 

Who on earth advised Salmond to devote so much of his time to the ridiculous stuff like aliens and pandas? Big misjudgement.  He's the one who needs to be portraying himself as a presidential, mature, safe pair of hands to run a fully independent country, and he simply didn't do that.

 

Agreed  - I would not trust Salmond to change the toilet roll in our house. 

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I did not watch the debate as I have already decided to vote YES.  I don't know what toilet rolls have to do with the vote that we have in Scotland!  A lot of people do not like Alex Salmond but if we vote yes and win we can then vote for any person or party we want in Scotland.

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I did not watch the debate as I have already decided to vote YES.  I don't know what toilet rolls have to do with the vote that we have in Scotland!  A lot of people do not like Alex Salmond but if we vote yes and win we can then vote for any person or party we want in Scotland.

 

Oh well, if I have to explain it here goes.  It is a figure of speech that implies that if I would not trust him with changing toilet rolls in my house I definitely would not trust him with what he has to say about independence for Scotland. Hope this makes my figure of speech clearer for you IBM.

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I am also a yes voter but I thought that Salmond was terrible last night.

 

It was a big chance for both sides to give some straight answers and sway the undecided voters one way or the other, I don't imagine either side did that although i agree the No camp will have been happier with last night. 

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Salmond was unprepared but darling came across as pompous.

If the rest of the uk wants to devalue the pound by not letting us has it **** them!

Proof that after independence the english politicians still think they control us.

These same people who wont let us have the pound are also saying we cant take the saltire out of the union flag.

But hey lets do what darling said and sit on our hands and hope things get better by chance.

Edited by Ayeseetee
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Alex Salmond is a pompous wee *** .

 

A yes vote though isn't a vote for Salmond to become an ayatollah, in fact I wouldn't be surprised post-independence for a rebranded, phoenix, centre-left Labour Party to be very dominant.  I'll probably vote Yes, but have never voted for Salmond or the SNP and don't really have inclination to ever do so.

 

What I don't understand, is why are Yes running Salmond every time?  If Yes wants to win, one of it's key groups to persuade is the undecided/soft no Labour people and a common complaint is that the Yes Campaign is just an adjunct of the SNP.  Why then do they not run Dennis Canavan next time against Darling?  After all, he is the head of Yes (I think) and having him being ex-Labour up against someone who is current Labour, it could turn out to be very effective if he managed to win the debate.

Edited by Renegade
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What I don't understand, is why are Yes running Salmond every time?    Why then do they not run Dennis Canavan next time against Darling?  

Because hes Scotlands answer to Micheal Foot + Denis Skinner + Derek Hatton + Arthur Scragill all combined. He would embarass them even more than Alec Salmond. We are having this vote only because Salmonds party got a majority. He has been the mouthpiece from the start so if he has become an embarasment as the front man then they will just have to live with that.

Or on second thoughts they could maybe get Micheal Russell to do it.

Micheal Who????

Now theres a point. What HAVE they done with the Minister for Education in recent months?

Maybe theyre playing safe and getting him to run the St Kilda branch of the campaign.

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I seem to recollect hearing somewhere that there's a final debate aimed at young voters just before the referendum and there was talk of Yes running Patrick Harvey.  Think he might be quite good myself.

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The debate only served to strengthen my view that the No Camp have nothing other than a half baked argument on the pound with which to base their case.

 

Unfortunately, Salmond  missed the opportunity to bury that argument by sticking to a few simple facts and seemed more interested in trying to discredit Darling instead.

 

In fact, both men were very guilty of attacking the other instead of the points they were trying to make....and neither did anything which I could imagine would win the undecided vote.

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Is there any reason why this discussion can't be on the well established Independence debate thread?  I think the two threads would be better together.

 

 

That thread is for productive discussion and facts, something this thread was destined never to be because politicians were involved.

 

 

It could have been a rap battle for anyone cared and the amount of voters it swayed...

 

 

Dj fear V plan B

Edited by Ayeseetee
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Wings explains it very clearly here http://wingsoverscotland.com/arithmetic-for-thickos/

 

The Scottish Government’s white paper on independence lists five currency options:

1. The pound in a currency union
2. The pound outside a currency union (so-called “sterlingisation”)
3. A Scottish currency pegged to Sterling
4. A new, fully independent, “floating” Scottish currency
5. The Euro

Now let’s look at what the Sun quotes the First Minister saying no fewer than FOUR times at yesterday’s session when asked what his “Plan B” was:

    “It’s our pound and we’re keeping it.”

Seven words, only one of them more than one syllable. It’s not exactly cryptic. “It’s our pound and we’re keeping it” immediately rules out options 3, 4 and 5, because they don’t involve keeping the current pound. Option 1 is “Plan A”.

That only leaves one other.

1. The pound in a currency union
2. The pound outside a currency union (so-called “sterlingisation”)
3. A Scottish currency pegged to Sterling
4. A new, fully independent, “floating” Scottish currency
5. The Euro

Is it within Mr Salmond’s power to guarantee that? Yes it is. Sterling, everyone freely acknowledges, is a fully-tradeable international currency which any country can use without the agreement of the UK. If an independent Scotland wants to use it, no power on Earth can prevent it doing so.

So there we are. That wasn’t complicated, was it? The “eight-year-old child” cited by Alistair Darling repeatedly on Tuesday night could follow it. If you have five things and you rule out four of them, it’s the other one. Whether it’s the right choice or not, or whether that choice will ever have to be made (it won’t), are separate issues. If all you want to know is what Plan B is, there’s your answer.

 

Pretty much what I've been saying from the beginning, though I usually add that it will be better than sterlingisation within the Union, which is what we really have now, as in we have the use of the pound without any control over monetary policy/interest rates to suit our circumstances.  We will be Better NOT Together, as we would at least, with sterlingisation after Independence, unlike the actual, if not thus named, sterlingisation we have now, have all the fiscal tools available to try to counteract  the effects of the Londoncentric Westminster policies.

 

Fair enough, we have some small effect now, with the ability to move our pocket money around, robbing Peter to pay Paul, but any growth in our economy currently benefits only Westminster, which is a situation which will continue to pertain once the much vaunted Scotland 2012 Act comes into play..and will with any level of devolution we may or may not get after a NO vote. 

 

What we can't do, without independence, is legislate on reserved matters, which are all about how much is taken in taxes and where and how it is spent. In the Union, we can distribute our allowed spending to the allowed areas, and nothing else...and even the amount we can spend is being gradually reduced, by the built in reduction in Barnett, the gradual privatisation of much of the public services in England, on whose spending Barnett funding is based, and the ongoing austerity cuts.

 

 

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...because (to paraphrase one of Oddquine's strap lines) Sterlingisation would give us uncertainty without power whilst remaining within the UK would maintain our current stability with power.  Salmond does not state openly that Sterlingisation is plan B because he knows that the general view of economists is that using another country's currencywith no control over it is generally felt to be a pretty poor idea. 

 

Salmond keeps banging on about it being Scotland's pound as though there will have to be a currency union whether rUK like it or not, but that is not the case.  It is Scotland's currency only in as much as it is the UK's currency and Scotland is part of the UK.  If Scotland choses to leave the UK then it also leaves the currency.

 

If Sterlingisation is Salmond's plan B (as Oddquine asserts) then he really needs to spend time in the 2nd debate explaining how it might work and why it would be in Scotland's interests.  This is absolutely fundemental to the debate and the fact that Salmond appears incapable of doing anything more than use a few words of one syllable as a beligerent soundbite is really quite pathetic.

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...because (to paraphrase one of Oddquine's strap lines) Sterlingisation would give us uncertainty without power whilst remaining within the UK would maintain our current stability with power. Salmond does not state openly that Sterlingisation is plan B because he knows that the general view of economists is that using another country's currencywith no control over it is generally felt to be a pretty poor idea.

Salmond keeps banging on about it being Scotland's pound as though there will have to be a currency union whether rUK like it or not, but that is not the case. It is Scotland's currency only in as much as it is the UK's currency and Scotland is part of the UK. If Scotland choses to leave the UK then it also leaves the currency.

If Sterlingisation is Salmond's plan B (as Oddquine asserts) then he really needs to spend time in the 2nd debate explaining how it might work and why it would be in Scotland's interests. This is absolutely fundemental to the debate and the fact that Salmond appears incapable of doing anything more than use a few words of one syllable as a beligerent soundbite is really quite pathetic.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-28691840

A non salmond answer since as much as you guys would like to think he is not the only choice as the face for independence.

I also liked the many parts where darling would refuse to answer if scotland could be a successful independent country....

Edited by Ayeseetee
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Interesting article which only goes to illustrate the confusion in the Yes camp.  Jim Sillars seems to have no problem with a separate Scottish currency for plan B but as Oddquine points out, that does not seem to be an option for Salmond.  As for Salmond not being the only choice as the face for independence, it is Salmond himself that you should be saying that to.  As others have quite rightly pointed out, in the event of a Yes vote, there would be a subsequent election of a Government and there is no guarantee the SNP would win.  We really need to be hearing the opinions of others in the Yes campaign and whilst the media no doubt focus on Salmond, the campaign should not be using him as their spokesman quite as much as they do.

 

I also thought Darling's reluctance to answer the question about whether Scotland could be a successful independent question was strange.  The answer I would have expected is that it probably could be but it would be more successful as part of the Union.  It's actually a very straightforward question to answer with interest.  I think he was probably worried that acknowledging Scotland could go it alone would be misinterpreted.  He therefore messed around with tippy tappy stuff in defence rather than launching into a swift counter attack

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