Scottish Independence.....

EC1 said:
aren't you all fed up with this yet?..its all over the media..same thing over and over again

human nature decrees it will be a no vote..its called fear of the unknown...all this other stuff won't influence anyone..fear of starving due to having no pension to live on will be enough ...just on its own ...to guarantee a NO
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It's a decision which will affect you a deal too, EC1. The English lot might improve as jobs gravitate south. It may also lead to a degree of devolved power in the English regions, which - theoretically at least - is a good thing.

The only downside for rUK/England, is if Scotland chooses to default on its debt, But even then, it's only 10% of the pie, and the markets would probably not take too punitive a view, given rUK remains one of the strongest-performing economies in the West; maintaining a progressive productivity curve, in an environment where stagnation cannot be shifted.

That said, it's getting a bit tedious.

Salmond isn't going to make a gaffe (or say anything of substance) now, Nd Better Together aren't going to find a haymaker either. I am still quite spellbound by it myself, I have to say.
 
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Scots are being warned of economic doom if they vote Yes, but that doesn't have to be the case, especially in the long run. Many of the countries doing best economically in Europe are small. Alex Salmond used to hold out Ireland as an example of what Scotland might achieve, but since our fall from grace he would be sneered at for doing so now.

And yet, even after the crash, he probably still has a point, as the facts quoted in this link will demonstrate:

http://statsireland.blogspot.co.uk/


In the end of the day, however, decisions such as these are about the heart as well as the head. It has to be about more than pension entitlements and pay slips.

The push for Irish independence came from a conviction at the time that there was no place for us within the UK on an equal footing. We were distrusted on grounds of nationality and religion and subject to negative stereotyping. The management of the famine showed that even in times of the direst need Irish concerns were not going to be taken up as British concerns too. So in the end the Irish left the UK.

Independence was not an immediate panacea. There had been decline all through the 19th century - Dublin, from being the second city of the empire in 1801, had decayed to such an extent that 75% of housing was officially classified as slum 100 years later. The turnaround only started to happen in the late 1950s, after more than 30 years of independence, but since then we've not done too badly.

I don't think the Scots are facing negative factors of a similar scale to those which confronted Ireland at the start of the previous century and it's not clear to me that they need to leave the UK in order to meet their aspirations. But these are subjective judgements and not for outsiders like me to make.

Whatever decision it takes, I wish Scotland well.
 
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Who gave you £7Bn interest free? (admittedly to save our own rotten banks) but you were allowed to borrow at a much cheaper rate (free) than the troika imposed on you. Not to mention the infinitely bigger amounts of structure funding that have been flowing into Ireland from Europe for decades now. Not a single mention of this artificial stimulus. You've basically been handed your own Marshall aid plan.

The bottom line is that Ireland was bankrupt and its banks were empty if they hadn't been rescued - end of!

And just remind us during Europe's darkest hours how Ireland lined up will you? Irishmen who actually fought nazism were only granted a pardon last year or something weren't they?

In any event, I'm sure the Scots (who've been immersed in this debate for 18 months) are going to welcome the imput from Ireland sticking their noses in. I'm not sure if this isn't a spoof actually

"We were distrusted on grounds of nationality and religion and subject to negative stereotyping".

I wouldn't make the mistake of reaching out to Scotland using catholicism though. If you want to test your theory that you could connect with Scots, just try wearing a Celtic shirt at Ibrox and see what happens to you
 
Warbler said:
I wouldn't make the mistake of reaching out to Scotland using catholicism though. If you want to test your theory that you could connect with Scots, just try wearing a Celtic shirt at Ibrox and see what happens to you
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Well Desert Orchid is arm in arm with the chap I saw on the news the other day carrying a banner proclaiming "No Popery", so if nothing else, in some ways it's brought people together.
 
There barely any divided opinion between economists and financiers on what lies in store going forward with a yes vote. The arguments are very clear and if anything could be underplayed

In fact Scotland needs a good short and medium run for a long run to succeed. North Sea oil is gone in the "long run". There will be a natural brain drain (leaving just simmo and grass behind) and there is the issue of a relatively ageing population with worst health in Europe.

That's before we get onto the issue of excessive taxes and high borrowing costs

England wants Scotland to do well because it is a market and the relations are naturally very close. I believe that nation states and governments are less relevant in this day and age and that nationalism is just a bit passé. It's a bit naff.

If the yes campaign thinks that independence will suddenly bring about policies which will create the new Norway, then they are off their heads. Frankly states are constrained more by outside forces than the leaders are ever likely to admit.

The border is an unnecessary pointless exercise and cost to both nations

And if we are talking 30 years hence, quite a few economic projections by some economists have uk as the largest major economy and population in Western Europe in 30 years time. I'm always sceptical of long term predictions but the basis for the prediction is grounded
 
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The polls have it 52/48, and you have to really look to find a real No voter (as opposed to one in a "poll")

4.7 is massive value. Someone call Slimchance.
 
I just think it's incredible that a country who only few years ago were having to ask the IMF if they could go to the toilet have got the audacity to start handing down lectures to the Scots without any sense of apparent humility. They also might like to dwell on who would have bailed out RBS too, and perhaps equally, do we know the full extent of RBS debt? Are there any more off balance sheet black holes lying in wait?

All I'm seeing from Arthurs tables is the classic case of a country coming from a very small base using the old mathematics trick of converting everything it a percentage to show significant growth.

increasing 2 to 3, is indeed impressive, when expressed as a percentage. It's hardly surprising that mature economies can't match these kind of figures, but once upon when they too went through their growth period they also would have generated very impressive indicators

Come to think of it, I remember Gordon Brown doing this once regarding the number Chinook helicopters he'd sent to Afghanistan which he said was a 33% increase. I think the figure was 4 to 6 in that case
 
simmo said:
The polls have it 52/48, and you have to really look to find a real No voter (as opposed to one in a "poll")

4.7 is massive value. Someone call Slimchance.
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They might be a little bit more lucid over the telephone, but I can barely find a yes voter, admittedly the Scots I'm talking to would tend to be from that constituency, but a lot of them are expressing the fear of voicing their views too publicly in case Salmonds street troopers go on the attack. Yes I've heard three people now use the phrase "krystal nacht", so if anything I suspect we'll see a re-run of the 1992 with people indicating yes and voting no
 
simmo said:
The polls have it 52/48, and you have to really look to find a real No voter (as opposed to one in a "poll")

4.7 is massive value. Someone call Slimchance.
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its not value though..it would have to be over a series..its a one off..4.7 loser is a 4.7 loser,,there is no value in losing money

a 4% difference is massive in numbers of people..plus its more likely to be 60/40
 
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A friend of mine (liberal Tory from guernsey of all places) is up there campaigning for no. Hes certain of the win but says its a touch nasty in places too and the worst side is coming out
 
Grey said:
Scots are being warned of economic doom if they vote Yes, but that doesn't have to be the case, especially in the long run. Many of the countries doing best economically in Europe are small. Alex Salmond used to hold out Ireland as an example of what Scotland might achieve, but since our fall from grace he would be sneered at for doing so now.

And yet, even after the crash, he probably still has a point, as the facts quoted in this link will demonstrate:

http://statsireland.blogspot.co.uk/


In the end of the day, however, decisions such as these are about the heart as well as the head. It has to be about more than pension entitlements and pay slips.

The push for Irish independence came from a conviction at the time that there was no place for us within the UK on an equal footing. We were distrusted on grounds of nationality and religion and subject to negative stereotyping. The management of the famine showed that even in times of the direst need Irish concerns were not going to be taken up as British concerns too. So in the end the Irish left the UK.

Independence was not an immediate panacea. There had been decline all through the 19th century - Dublin, from being the second city of the empire in 1801, had decayed to such an extent that 75% of housing was officially classified as slum 100 years later. The turnaround only started to happen in the late 1950s, after more than 30 years of independence, but since then we've not done too badly.

I don't think the Scots are facing negative factors of a similar scale to those which confronted Ireland at the start of the previous century and it's not clear to me that they need to leave the UK in order to meet their aspirations. But these are subjective judgements and not for outsiders like me to make.

Whatever decision it takes, I wish Scotland well.
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Good post, Grey.

While I am in the No camp I do believe Scotland could be a success as an independent nation. I just think now is not the day and now is not the hour.

Scotland could well be seen by people with ill-intent towards what would be left of the UK as the rectal access point to England. There are too many global threats to the West for us to break off now. Scotland and Ireland are pretty much everybody's friends but Ireland is a separate island so of little interest to malevolent entities. Scotland would be different.

The end of the cold war and the era that brought the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and reunification of Germany might have been a more opportune time for independence to happen. But how many people foresaw the threat from fundamentalists such as AQ and IS. I think it was Frank Gardner who said AQ are now pretty much finished but IS have plugged that gap and when they are crushed no doubt some other extremist will take their place so security is a major issue and I reckon we're better prepared to withstand these groups by sticking together.

If Tommyboy Sheridan is right about there being 'over 100 years worth of oil' off the west coast which isn't being accessed because of Faslane then I can understand why yes people would want to ditch the base and get the oil up.

If someone convinced me that Scotland would be at least equally secure and more prosperous as an independent nation I could be swayed even at this late stage.

Then again, I was brought up to believe I was a British citizen who happened to live in Scotland.

The SNP are still known up here (at least in certain circles) as the tartan tories so I could never vote for independence while they control the parliament. If it was someone like John Smith leading the charge I suspect I would think differently.
 
Everyone is welcome to push their point-of-view, Warbler. This thread is a pleasant outlet to discuss this matter - away from the crashing-din that exists on Facebook - and all perspectives should be encouraged and permitted.

I certainly don't think that I'm being talked-down to, and don't believe Arthur has "stuck his nose in" either; because if I did, that would make me some kind of screeching ninny....just like the plums on Facebook.

That said, I do think he is wrong.

Art, you credit Salmond with far too much.

His plan is to spend like there's no tomorrow, whilst taxing less. Put all technical matters such as currency-union to one side, and the glaringly obvious is that he thinks he can conjure-up 3, by the process of adding 1 + 1.

To return on his promises - of which there have been many - he would need to do one of two things; either tax more, or borrow more......the former of which be denies will happen, and the latter of which where he goes cap-in-hand to the markets, holding a 72 offsuit.

Either way, someone is paying for it, but this is never said. Whenever questions are raised, the responses are clouded in a miasma of "There'll be tough times ahead" and "Every country has its ups and downs" platitudes; the signals emanting from deep inside the 'Scaremongering Nebula'.

Perversely, there hasn't been an act of evasion like it since Dunkirk.

The entire Yes campaign has absolutely no credibility when it comes to the economic numbers, but the Better Together campaign started rope-a-doping for just a little too long after Darling won Debate #1, and have needed some good rounds to finish-off what should have been a straightforward opponent.

No is ahead on all polls, and there remains a significant percentage of Don't Knows, but logic (and history) suggests that a majority would go with the status-quo. You'd need a Salmondesque mastery of arithmetic and quantum-mechanics, to put Yes ahead on any weighted-poll at any stage.

I've backed 40-45 Yes at (5/2), and 40-43% (4/1), though the latter may be a touch optimistic......there's still a lot of fannies like simmo out there.

:D
 
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I'm not bothered either way, but surely the no campaigners have missed a trick here.
If they'd have said that tax on Buckfast would increase by say 50 % upon independence, I would have thought that would have put the kybosh on almost any yes vote!

:D:D:D
 
I imagine the no will win by 15 points.

In case i am wrong and some people is so naive to vote yes.

The question is who will want the scotish debt and how You cuantifie it,
Who secures the pensions for retired man,
What does a country like that out of the ue, and why England will want them to stay in the sterlin pounds,
What about the fugue of money of the deposits when banks leave the countrie,



This is so absurd , not as absurd as the catalonia affair we have here but not too far.
 
Irish interference and seeking to influence is about as relevant as the ill-advised vile liberal namby pamby Guardian's attempt to organise letter writing to Ohio which backfired so spectacularly in George Bush's second term. It's just one state pretending to know best and he's clearly handing down a lecture whilst skimming over recent history as if it hadn't happened

On November 9th the Catalans are also voting, do you suppose for one second he's prepared a simialr dossier of managled maths to support their case? If he has then I'd like to challenge him to present it to a Spanish racing forum just to prove he's on the level. Something tells me he hasn't though? So perhaps he can explain why?

Indeed, on the subject of Irish independence and referenda it's almost amusing isn't that they did try and assert their much cherished independence once didn't they in 2008 and generated a result that Germany didn't like. I don't know, perhaps the German's reminded them who bombed the Curragh, but they were sent back to disavow themselves of any notion that they were really independent, and duly voted according to their EU instructions

At least the Scots will stand their ground, and a sight more 60% of them will be participating unlike the Irish who now feel they can give the Scots a history lesson
 
sunybay said:
This is so absurd , not as absurd as the catalonia affair we have here but not too far.
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You beat me to it, perhaps you'd be good enough to nominate a Spanish horse racing site for the Irish to post their views into about Catalonia, I'm sure they'll be delighted to supply a whole series of insights that the stupid Catalans haven't been able to work out for themselves, they are experts on these things
 
So Arthur speaks for an entire nation then?

That's a bit of a barking notion, don't you think?

Turnout will be high for this referendum. This is as it should be, given the momentous implications of the outcome.

But less than 50% of us bothered our arses turning-out to elect our own MSP's last time out, and the SNP govern with only an effective 22% of eligible votes. But hey - I'm a grown-up, and sometimes you get a Givernment you didn't vote for.

Clearly this process has generated a lot of interested, but the notion that Scots are some sort of heroic bastions of Western Democracy, is the kind of dewey-eyed romanticism, that belongs in Salmond's 'Big Book of Brigadoon Belters'.
 
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Warbler said:
Irish

On November 9th the Catalans are also voting, do you suppose for one second he's prepared a simialr dossier of managled maths to support their case? If he has then I'd like to challenge him to present it to a Spanish racing forum just to prove he's on the level. Something tells me he hasn't though? So perhaps he can explain
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Catalans are not voting, is ilegal and has the same effect as if we vote in my building that we want abdullah must sell us frankel and romantica for 10.000 euros.

There are some irresponsable politician in Cataluña that dont know what is the constitution and the law or trying a coup detat but the stupid people folowing them very soon will know how absurd was the plan,


Just a note
The former president of Cataluña leadiring this movements been Found at the moment 2000 millions of euros in banks of Andorra , swiss, Liechtenstein etc
 
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What are you mean is they are voting, but the vote carries no legal status (just like Venetians did last month)

The big difference that I'd see there is that Catalonia would be more akin to the South East of England voting to leave to the UK
 
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Warbler said:
What are you mean is they are voting, but the vote carries no legal status (just like Venetians did last month)
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Voting where?
Some politician told they were going to vote

But country Government is the one to organice it, has the census, the police etc....


As i told they are NOT going to vote and in case they do it in their homes the effect is NULE.

It doesnt mind if the 100% of catalana want their country , it affects the rest of the country and there is a mechanism to do it and is voting the whole country.

Can You imagine if a state in usa makes a referéndum asking the people if they want to pay talxes? And the Result is yes, can You imagine this would have an effect because everyone there dont want to pay taxes?
 
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