Mr. Pioneers, that sounds like you support the creation of an English Parliament, with Westminster's Commons having an equal number of MPs from each constituent part?
I'm a long-standing federalist. The lack of an English parliament has been a major error since devolution 20 years ago for the other home nations. I voted against Prescott's North East assembly because we needed an English assembly not a NE one.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
Scottish Nationalists rarely talk about ending the Union of the Crowns, so it's natural to assume that when talking about The Union, one is talking about the Union of the Act of Union - the political and economic union.
Indeed - in SINDYREF1 Salmond argued that Scotland wouldn’t be “leaving the United Kingdom” because the Union of Crowns would remain.
So that’s just the common travel, customs and currency unions then…..
Mr. Eabhal, could be wrong but I was under the impression that Halifax/BoS was currently registered in Scotland rather than England.
Also, I'm not sure if you know this, but casual racism towards the English is not necessarily a fantastically persuasive approach. Unless you're trying to persuade people you really dislike Englishman, of course...
Oh don't worry, there are plenty of gammony Scots too. The kind of people who think Scotland is in surplus and the English are stealing all the money.
And my point was that technicalities like where a bank is registered, currency etc just don't matter to most of the population. I'm reminded of this every time I go on the stupendously popular Daily Mail website.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
What point? I made no point. I merely pointed out that HMQ might disagree.
Point is, you don’t have to be in the union to have HMQ as head of state. You do have to be in the union to have the pound.
I’m sure HMQ would be upset if Scotland went independent. But it’s not a big concern of mine to be honest.
Isle of Man Bailiwick of Jersey Bailiwick of Guernsey St Helena Gibraltar Falkland Islands
All have a local pound. All are not part of the United Kingdom. You keep making this point which is simply wrong.
These are minuscule bailiwicks. They can use sterling because (a) they're dependencies and, more to the point, (b) they're so tiny that their behaviour poses no conceivable risk to the financial stability of the United Kingdom. The comparison between the circumstances of, for example, St Helena (a remote rock in the South Atlantic with the population of a large village) and a sovereign Scotland (a significant European state about the size of Norway) is therefore risible.
Putting it succinctly, in the event of a split the English taxpayer will not be standing as backstop/milch cow/lender of last resort for Scotland. The prospect of a formal currency union after secession is nil.
To borrow a phrase, post-independence Scotland won't get to cherry pick all the parts of the dead Union that it still likes. Its options are to adopt somebody else's money (ours, the Euro, the Dollar, whatever) or to establish a central bank and print its own. To pretend otherwise is to adopt a Johnsonian attitude to obvious realities.
And if an independent Scottish Government wishes to borrow money it's best plan would be to not be tied to somebody else's money as that would seriously impact future options.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
Scottish Nationalists rarely talk about ending the Union of the Crowns, so it's natural to assume that when talking about The Union, one is talking about the Union of the Act of Union - the political and economic union.
Indeed - in SINDYREF1 Salmond argued that Scotland wouldn’t be “leaving the United Kingdom” because the Union of Crowns would remain.
So that’s just the common travel, customs and currency unions then…..
A bit like the Scottish Parliament flying the Council of Europe flag.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
What point? I made no point. I merely pointed out that HMQ might disagree.
Point is, you don’t have to be in the union to have HMQ as head of state. You do have to be in the union to have the pound.
I’m sure HMQ would be upset if Scotland went independent. But it’s not a big concern of mine to be honest.
Isle of Man Bailiwick of Jersey Bailiwick of Guernsey St Helena Gibraltar Falkland Islands
All have a local pound. All are not part of the United Kingdom. You keep making this point which is simply wrong.
These are minuscule bailiwicks. They can use sterling because (a) they're dependencies and, more to the point, (b) they're so tiny that their behaviour poses no conceivable risk to the financial stability of the United Kingdom. The comparison between the circumstances of, for example, St Helena (a remote rock in the South Atlantic with the population of a large village) and a sovereign Scotland (a significant European state about the size of Norway) is therefore risible.
Putting it succinctly, in the event of a split the English taxpayer will not be standing as backstop/milch cow/lender of last resort for Scotland. The prospect of a formal currency union after secession is nil.
To borrow a phrase, post-independence Scotland won't get to cherry pick all the parts of the dead Union that it still likes. Its options are to adopt somebody else's money (ours, the Euro, the Dollar, whatever) or to establish a central bank and print its own. To pretend otherwise is to adopt a Johnsonian attitude to obvious realities.
I entirely agree - and have described the idea as a shit show.
I was simply pointing out that a one-sided union for non-UK entities already exists, so it was incorrect to say it couldn't happen. It would be stupid and damaging and against Scotland's interests, but it could happen.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
What point? I made no point. I merely pointed out that HMQ might disagree.
Point is, you don’t have to be in the union to have HMQ as head of state. You do have to be in the union to have the pound.
I’m sure HMQ would be upset if Scotland went independent. But it’s not a big concern of mine to be honest.
Isle of Man Bailiwick of Jersey Bailiwick of Guernsey St Helena Gibraltar Falkland Islands
All have a local pound. All are not part of the United Kingdom. You keep making this point which is simply wrong.
I don’t believe Guernsey orJersey money is accepted in UK shops though, while Scottish and Ulster notes are. @CarlottaVance would know
No you cannot. At Guernsey airport they ask if you want your change in Guernsey or English notes. The idea that a currency regime that works for a population smaller than Paisley’s could work for the whole country is laughable
Mr. Eabhal, could be wrong but I was under the impression that Halifax/BoS was currently registered in Scotland rather than England.
Correct. Lloyds is a Scottish bank...
Yes, but in the immediate aftermath of Indyref2, the rUK is going to have to work hard to keep these banks safe anyway.
There is lots of undue optimism on one side, and fear mongering on the other. There will be a short term fudge on currency and banking - it's in everyone's interest.
In the age of covid and culture wars, on the verge of a major cost of living crisis, I’m not sure we’re going through a normal electoral cycle. The supplementaries in the polling certainly suggest that. However, given we now know how flawed the 2010-2015 polling was, I’m not clear when we last did go through what is regarded as a normal electoral cycle.
What’s more, I’d also argue that given the supine failure of all those Tory ministers and MPs, who know just how catastrophically bad Johnson is, to do anything about it, he probably is the best chance they have of turning things around.
My current sense is that we’re probably looking at a 2010-style GE result next time around, with Labour winning most seats but no majority. A propos other current discussions on here it would be interesting to see how the SNP plays that.
I suspect we’re heading to a 1992 result.
Instinctively I would agree, but the actual evidence for that is scant. The economy, for the voting public is going to be horrendous over the next two years unless I am very much mistaken.
The recent wallpaper and parties revelations in themselves are froth (although the misleading Parliament issues would have, in previous administrations had severe consequences) however taken in conjunction with repossessed homes, cars and the burgeoning use of food banks they might bite the Conservatives, under Johnson or anyone else.
Although, as the Johnsonians say on here "Boris is a lucky General"...
For Labour to win there has to be more than distrust and dislike of the Conservatives there has to be trust and enthusiasm for Labour. The Conservatives will ram a wedge into any doubts and if the economy is rocky, they will run on a safety first ticket. Labour needs a huge lead to withstand that.
In my view the events of the past month have made a victory possible, but Labour have a long way to go and a Gordian knot to untangle to avoid a close but no cigar result. How do they mitigate fear and stoke a bit of enthusiasm? They have just two years and are surrounded by enemies and have a Cobyniite fifth column who delight in failure.
I agree with all of that.
I am a firm believer in "Governments lose elections, opposition parties don't win them", but you are right Labour need to start setting out their stall for Government, not in fully costed detail, but some pointers as to the direction of travel. Closer to the election which is as you say is only 2 years away, we will need everything set out in black and white.
I too remember 1992 and it still weighs heavy on the mind. As it stands, my main hope is the replacement of Johnson sooner rather than later. That should be the priority for the nation, get rid of this awful excuse for a Prime Minister. A Conservative victory in 2024 without the threat of a further 5 years of the gurning clown sweetens the bitter pill
You always do this, using that term. You really are grotesque.
It's not funny, it's not clever, it's boorish.
Don’t be such a snowflake.
No it says a lot about you that you think it's okay to use derogatory terms of an entire nation and then label anyone disagreeing as a snowflake.
It's very disagreeable. Grow up and move on and stop tarring an entire nation with a silly, childish, outdated adjective.
It is a joke. I have no problem with POME or Le Rosbif either.
Little Englanders always say that.
I hope you appreciate the irony of the phrase little englander.
Yeah, Little Englanders always start the ‘you DO know the historical origin of the phrase don’t you?’ patter.
Hey man, it is a joke, don’t be such a snowflake.
Good. Well, you’ll be pleased to know that i am very much a little englander in the traditional sense.
The odd thing is, I’m on your side - certainly in terms of wanting another sindy ref (even though I’m not bothered which way it goes). And yet, you don’t seem to be very pleasant to me. Why is that?
Don’t seem very pleasant to you? You are a snowflake!
Why would it make any difference to me if you’re on my side since it changes the situation not a whit? I’m not entirely convinced that people who want to get rid of Scotland because they see it as a parasite sucking in honest, hard earned English pounds without showing sufficient gratitude as on my side in any case.
Mr. Pioneers, interesting that we have obviously differing political perspectives but both agree on the need for an English Parliament (I didn't want an NE Assembly either).
Mr. Eabhal, while still not a fan of such terms, my apologies for the (slight) misreading of your comment.
Mr. Pioneers, Scotland has a financial sector that is proportionally larger than England's.
Without a formal currency union they would require a massive sum in reserve assets to offset the potential for a banking crisis.
No British (ex-Scotland) politician is going to try and persuade the electorate south of the border that being on the hook for hundreds of billions, if not trillions, to support the recently departed Scotland's now rival financial sector is a clever idea.
I agree with this in principle. But, in the short term, the UK Gov would face a massive problem.
Everyone in England will run on the "Scottish banks". There will be whispers about RBS taking down NatWest, and BoS taking out Lloyds/Halifax. These are UK institutions, but your gammony Englishman isn't going to think like that.
Not a problem. A vote for independence will not result in an instantaneous split. There'll be ample time (at a guess, around two years) for the Scottish banking conglomerates to be dismembered in an orderly fashion, and those subsidiaries operating primarily in England to be re-floated in London. Sorted.
Mr. Eabhal, could be wrong but I was under the impression that Halifax/BoS was currently registered in Scotland rather than England.
Correct. Lloyds is a Scottish bank...
Yes, but in the immediate aftermath of Indyref2, the rUK is going to have to work hard to keep these banks safe anyway.
There is lots of undue optimism on one side, and fear mongering on the other. There will be a short term fudge on currency and banking - it's in everyone's interest.
The work has already been done, it is just a matter of executing it.
HMG has already confirmed they will honour Scotland's share of the debt no matter what, the quid pro quo of that for the banks nominally registered in Scotland but with an English & Welsh registered office it should be easy.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
What point? I made no point. I merely pointed out that HMQ might disagree.
Point is, you don’t have to be in the union to have HMQ as head of state. You do have to be in the union to have the pound.
I’m sure HMQ would be upset if Scotland went independent. But it’s not a big concern of mine to be honest.
Isle of Man Bailiwick of Jersey Bailiwick of Guernsey St Helena Gibraltar Falkland Islands
All have a local pound. All are not part of the United Kingdom. You keep making this point which is simply wrong.
I don’t believe Guernsey orJersey money is accepted in UK shops though, while Scottish and Ulster notes are. @CarlottaVance would know
There is a clear difference in status between the various pounds. My recollection is that the “Scottish” pound is purely a different physical printing of the same currency
The Scottish banks print their own notes but they are backed 1:1 by BOE issued currency. The Scottish notes aren't legal tender in England but IIRC the BOE ones aren't, either, it's not a concept that has legal meaning in England as I recall. I've never had any problem using Scottish money in London, FWIW.
That’s was my point: you can’t use Jersey as an analogue for iScot
Mr. Pioneers, interesting that we have obviously differing political perspectives but both agree on the need for an English Parliament (I didn't want an NE Assembly either).
Mr. Eabhal, while still not a fan of such terms, my apologies for the (slight) misreading of your comment.
No problem - feeling a bit salty this morning.
The benefit of English regional assembly would be a new Barnett type arrangement for the NE in particular - actual levelling up.
The benefit of the Scottish Parliament is we have a very strong advocate for fiscal support.
Mr. Eabhal, could be wrong but I was under the impression that Halifax/BoS was currently registered in Scotland rather than England.
Correct. Lloyds is a Scottish bank...
Yes, but in the immediate aftermath of Indyref2, the rUK is going to have to work hard to keep these banks safe anyway.
There is lots of undue optimism on one side, and fear mongering on the other. There will be a short term fudge on currency and banking - it's in everyone's interest.
Whilst I understand Scotland's desire for self-determination and the growing despair with what is going on in Westminster, turning Scotland into a very small country is not the best way forward. I'm not making arguments for independence because I don't support independence - but the arguments that it would be easy or it would be ruinous are both daft.
What is needed is clear thinking south of the wall. Where does England want to be? At the moment it has chosen to have the right to have babies even though it can't have babies. Hopefully soon the foetus gestation box will be put away and recognition that it still has and will continue to have shared standards and trading needs with the EU will sink in.
Scottish independence whilst everyone was part of the EU was hard. Now that we have this absurd WE ARE ENGLAND, FUCK EM bravado as the queues on either side of the channel extend for a dozen miles, it feels absurdly hard. But I don't expect that will stay the case for long. And the longer that England's approach to not just abroad but remoaners is "fuck em" the more Scotland and NI get repelled away.
You always do this, using that term. You really are grotesque.
It's not funny, it's not clever, it's boorish.
Don’t be such a snowflake.
No it says a lot about you that you think it's okay to use derogatory terms of an entire nation and then label anyone disagreeing as a snowflake.
It's very disagreeable. Grow up and move on and stop tarring an entire nation with a silly, childish, outdated adjective.
It is a joke. I have no problem with POME or Le Rosbif either.
Little Englanders always say that.
I hope you appreciate the irony of the phrase little englander.
Yeah, Little Englanders always start the ‘you DO know the historical origin of the phrase don’t you?’ patter.
Hey man, it is a joke, don’t be such a snowflake.
Good. Well, you’ll be pleased to know that i am very much a little englander in the traditional sense.
The odd thing is, I’m on your side - certainly in terms of wanting another sindy ref (even though I’m not bothered which way it goes). And yet, you don’t seem to be very pleasant to me. Why is that?
Don’t seem very pleasant to you? You are a snowflake!
Why would it make any difference to me if you’re on my side since it changes the situation not a whit? I’m not entirely convinced that people who want to get rid of Scotland because they see it as a parasite sucking in honest, hard earned English pounds without showing sufficient gratitude as on my side in any case.
I don’t see Scotland like that. Clearly a lot of people in Scotland do want independence and I actually think the UK leaving the EU is grounds for another vote. It doesn’t do anyone any good for this situation to carry on like it is.
Mr. Eabhal, I fear that assemblies slicing England into pieces would only further to embed and deepen divisions.
It would take about six minutes before you have demagogues in poorer parts demanding equal spending compared to richer parts, and demagogues in richer parts demanding to keep more of 'their own' money.
Holyrood has not exactly served to diminish the independence movement.
Mr. Pioneers, interesting that we have obviously differing political perspectives but both agree on the need for an English Parliament (I didn't want an NE Assembly either).
Mr. Eabhal, while still not a fan of such terms, my apologies for the (slight) misreading of your comment.
Not sure what part of me being a federalist isn't clear. I am not making right vs left, leave vs remain points, this is about the constitution - who we are and how we govern ourselves. Once we create structures and standards that work we all get a vote and people will vote as their politics compel them to.
Its like the stuff about Scottish independence being SNP being Scottish independence - not true. If we did end up with a Scottish state there would not be one party rule, same with an English Federal Parliament not being Tory forever in a reformed UK.
Mr. Eabhal, could be wrong but I was under the impression that Halifax/BoS was currently registered in Scotland rather than England.
Correct. Lloyds is a Scottish bank...
Yes, but in the immediate aftermath of Indyref2, the rUK is going to have to work hard to keep these banks safe anyway.
There is lots of undue optimism on one side, and fear mongering on the other. There will be a short term fudge on currency and banking - it's in everyone's interest.
Whilst I understand Scotland's desire for self-determination and the growing despair with what is going on in Westminster, turning Scotland into a very small country is not the best way forward. I'm not making arguments for independence because I don't support independence - but the arguments that it would be easy or it would be ruinous are both daft.
What is needed is clear thinking south of the wall. Where does England want to be? At the moment it has chosen to have the right to have babies even though it can't have babies. Hopefully soon the foetus gestation box will be put away and recognition that it still has and will continue to have shared standards and trading needs with the EU will sink in.
Scottish independence whilst everyone was part of the EU was hard. Now that we have this absurd WE ARE ENGLAND, FUCK EM bravado as the queues on either side of the channel extend for a dozen miles, it feels absurdly hard. But I don't expect that will stay the case for long. And the longer that England's approach to not just abroad but remoaners is "fuck em" the more Scotland and NI get repelled away.
The "WE ARE ENGLAND, FUCK EM" attitude is what scares me about independence.
JRM as rUK PM with HYUFD patrolling the border. Eeeeeek.
With my ex-journalist hat on, the MoS Gove splash seems remarkably weak. The front page story was basically “platitude platitude platitude platitude Sheffield Wolverhampton”. No meat to it at all. I wouldn’t have run it as the lead story at my alma mater (not quite Grommets Monthly, but close… some of you might even read it), let alone on the front page of a national paper.
When the Mail print titles are prioritising “save Boris” over an actually compelling story, something is wrong. I’m starting to agree with those who say the returning Dacre has lost his touch.
In the age of covid and culture wars, on the verge of a major cost of living crisis, I’m not sure we’re going through a normal electoral cycle. The supplementaries in the polling certainly suggest that. However, given we now know how flawed the 2010-2015 polling was, I’m not clear when we last did go through what is regarded as a normal electoral cycle.
What’s more, I’d also argue that given the supine failure of all those Tory ministers and MPs, who know just how catastrophically bad Johnson is, to do anything about it, he probably is the best chance they have of turning things around.
My current sense is that we’re probably looking at a 2010-style GE result next time around, with Labour winning most seats but no majority. A propos other current discussions on here it would be interesting to see how the SNP plays that.
I suspect we’re heading to a 1992 result.
Instinctively I would agree, but the actual evidence for that is scant. The economy, for the voting public is going to be horrendous over the next two years unless I am very much mistaken.
The recent wallpaper and parties revelations in themselves are froth (although the misleading Parliament issues would have, in previous administrations had severe consequences) however taken in conjunction with repossessed homes, cars and the burgeoning use of food banks they might bite the Conservatives, under Johnson or anyone else.
Although, as the Johnsonians say on here "Boris is a lucky General"...
For Labour to win there has to be more than distrust and dislike of the Conservatives there has to be trust and enthusiasm for Labour. The Conservatives will ram a wedge into any doubts and if the economy is rocky, they will run on a safety first ticket. Labour needs a huge lead to withstand that.
In my view the events of the past month have made a victory possible, but Labour have a long way to go and a Gordian knot to untangle to avoid a close but no cigar result. How do they mitigate fear and stoke a bit of enthusiasm? They have just two years and are surrounded by enemies and have a Cobyniite fifth column who delight in failure.
It depends what you mean by "win" I think. I can see Starmer getting more seats in a hung Parliament on anti-Conservative sentiment, but I agree it's implausible that he will get a working majority without people being enthsiastic about Labour.
But you're right. Labour won stunningly under the political genius Blair when people were enthused about his alternative, while the deeply mediocre Cameron failed to win a majority against Brown because he didn't have the same level of support behind him.
Ms. Heathener, the approval of the terms by you and Mr. Dickson do suggest they're not necessarily in the interests of those who want the country to survive rather than splinter.
I agree on the point about acting as though the boundaries are like international borders is wrong and dumb, but as a unionist I have to stick up for Mr Dickson on at least one point, in that the UK being described as a country of countries is pretty common. Country is a word without a precise definition. I personally think of the UK as a nation made up of four countries, though it is a unitary not federal state certainly.
This talk of four nations or four countries is wrong, and not something the short-sighted buffoons of Westminster should encourage (obviously, I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
You illustrate the issue perfectly MD, we will not ever be counted as being part of England , Scotland has been a country for many hundreds of years despite attempts to wipe it out.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
What point? I made no point. I merely pointed out that HMQ might disagree.
Point is, you don’t have to be in the union to have HMQ as head of state. You do have to be in the union to have the pound.
I’m sure HMQ would be upset if Scotland went independent. But it’s not a big concern of mine to be honest.
Isle of Man Bailiwick of Jersey Bailiwick of Guernsey St Helena Gibraltar Falkland Islands
All have a local pound. All are not part of the United Kingdom. You keep making this point which is simply wrong.
These are minuscule bailiwicks. They can use sterling because (a) they're dependencies and, more to the point, (b) they're so tiny that their behaviour poses no conceivable risk to the financial stability of the United Kingdom. The comparison between the circumstances of, for example, St Helena (a remote rock in the South Atlantic with the population of a large village) and a sovereign Scotland (a significant European state about the size of Norway) is therefore risible.
Putting it succinctly, in the event of a split the English taxpayer will not be standing as backstop/milch cow/lender of last resort for Scotland. The prospect of a formal currency union after secession is nil.
To borrow a phrase, post-independence Scotland won't get to cherry pick all the parts of the dead Union that it still likes. Its options are to adopt somebody else's money (ours, the Euro, the Dollar, whatever) or to establish a central bank and print its own. To pretend otherwise is to adopt a Johnsonian attitude to obvious realities.
They would need to get rid of Sterling teh minute the assets were divvied up, so it would be Sterling for the transition and then once we got all our goodies back it would be a Scottish Central bank and our wn currency or the Euro. Pretty simple. Scotland will no longer bankroll England's bank loans, they are in for a shock.
Mr. Eabhal, I fear that assemblies slicing England into pieces would only further to embed and deepen divisions.
It would take about six minutes before you have demagogues in poorer parts demanding equal spending compared to richer parts, and demagogues in richer parts demanding to keep more of 'their own' money.
Holyrood has not exactly served to diminish the independence movement.
We're back to the need to address the structural inequalities that riddle the home nations. Where New Labour succeeded is that it flooded investments into former industrial red wall areas that were literally falling to bits. The failure was that it levelled them up to match the Home Counties 1990 standards as the Home Counties surged forward. The inequality - now perceived widely as injustice - remained.
And English parliament would need to spend actual money outside the SE. Some areas remain pretty crummy and now that the European Regional Development Fund has gone (and shockingly enough isn't being replaced by UK government money) the iniquity will get worse.
The model has to be what great cities like Manchester did when industrialising. Build the infrastructure - in their case pneumatic systems and centralised power generation for machinery - and offer big subsidies for new companies to start up.
What is needed is a 25 year investment plan of the kind that no government wants to bother with here but so many European governments have always done. Don't consider short term profitability, look to the long term strategic needs and spend money now for big returns later.
EDIT - like Big Ben Houchen has said with regards to the South Tees Development Corporation. You know, the "publicly owned" long term redevlopment of Redcar steelworks that has mysteriously ended up 90% owned by donors and patrons for their short-term profits...
You always do this, using that term. You really are grotesque.
It's not funny, it's not clever, it's boorish.
Don’t be such a snowflake.
No it says a lot about you that you think it's okay to use derogatory terms of an entire nation and then label anyone disagreeing as a snowflake.
It's very disagreeable. Grow up and move on and stop tarring an entire nation with a silly, childish, outdated adjective.
It is a joke. I have no problem with POME or Le Rosbif either.
Little Englanders always say that.
I hope you appreciate the irony of the phrase little englander.
Yeah, Little Englanders always start the ‘you DO know the historical origin of the phrase don’t you?’ patter.
Hey man, it is a joke, don’t be such a snowflake.
Good. Well, you’ll be pleased to know that i am very much a little englander in the traditional sense.
The odd thing is, I’m on your side - certainly in terms of wanting another sindy ref (even though I’m not bothered which way it goes). And yet, you don’t seem to be very pleasant to me. Why is that?
Don’t seem very pleasant to you? You are a snowflake!
Why would it make any difference to me if you’re on my side since it changes the situation not a whit? I’m not entirely convinced that people who want to get rid of Scotland because they see it as a parasite sucking in honest, hard earned English pounds without showing sufficient gratitude as on my side in any case.
I don’t see Scotland like that. Clearly a lot of people in Scotland do want independence and I actually think the UK leaving the EU is grounds for another vote. It doesn’t do anyone any good for this situation to carry on like it is.
Fair enough, apologies for mischaracterising your feeling on the subject (I may have confused you with one or several other PBers).
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
It is indeed oppresive, who the F*** gives a hoot about the pound, we already fund our own one at present and when we are not subsidising theunion we will for sure be better off.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
What point? I made no point. I merely pointed out that HMQ might disagree.
Point is, you don’t have to be in the union to have HMQ as head of state. You do have to be in the union to have the pound.
I’m sure HMQ would be upset if Scotland went independent. But it’s not a big concern of mine to be honest.
Isle of Man Bailiwick of Jersey Bailiwick of Guernsey St Helena Gibraltar Falkland Islands
All have a local pound. All are not part of the United Kingdom. You keep making this point which is simply wrong.
I don’t believe Guernsey orJersey money is accepted in UK shops though, while Scottish and Ulster notes are. @CarlottaVance would know
No you cannot. At Guernsey airport they ask if you want your change in Guernsey or English notes. The idea that a currency regime that works for a population smaller than Paisley’s could work for the whole country is laughable
Kosovo, Montenegro and Andorra all use the € despite not being in the EU (FWIW). In Switzerland the € is de facto accepted almost everywhere at an exchange rate of 1.
Mr. Pioneers, Scotland has a financial sector that is proportionally larger than England's.
Without a formal currency union they would require a massive sum in reserve assets to offset the potential for a banking crisis.
No British (ex-Scotland) politician is going to try and persuade the electorate south of the border that being on the hook for hundreds of billions, if not trillions, to support the recently departed Scotland's now rival financial sector is a clever idea.
It would be a shit show - I'm not an advocate for it (an independent Scotland would need to join the Eurozone). My point was that when @tlg86 keeps saying "you have to be part of the UK to use the pound" it simply isn't true.
You do raise an interesting point though - Scotland does have a massive financial sector. The idea that Scotland would be an impoverished hell with no resources and no income now that oil is smaller than it was isn't true either.
I come back to basics - the union in its current form no longer works. We either remake it fit for the future of we will lose Scotland and NI and even the England still won't be happy with what is left. Balkanisation is not the way forward - partnership is. So lets remake the union into one where the 4 home nations are partners not 3 being supplicants to the 4th.
I'm sorry but this is my day job (and banking, financial services, and insurance after independence is something I've several years working on.)
Scotland's financial services sector will be utterly screwed by independence.
Now first of all there's issues of the lender of last resort which pretty fundamental there's also the issue that plenty in the independence movement have said is that an independent Scotland will walk away with no debt if it doesn't get a good deal, so if you think a sovereign nation's first act will be to not honour its debt and have the financial services sector to trust it is a courageous move.
We won't be living in the fantasy world of an independent Scotland telling the Bank of England what to do, even if it contradicts what is good for RUK, leaving aside the illegality of the BoE following instructions from someone other than HMG/The Chancellor.
A currency union in this scenario only works properly with the consent of everyone in it.
Years of twiddling your thumbs by the sounds of it, a 7 year old could work it out. Clue look at every other country in the world it is that simple. The B of E can do one as it will have no control over Scotland and it's currency.
On the header, after having spent a weekend in Manchester and talking about BJ with a variety of people (admittedly a small sample), I’m more convinced that @TSE is wrong.
Both folks - who do switch their votes or just don’t vote if they don’t like anyone - said they are sticking with Boris. Their views was that the parties thing was overblown. More on topic, they both were disdainful of Starmer and Labour.
I then went out with some old friends, two definitely old school Labour (but also not woke - my school friend would be called a TERF) and one who voted for Brexit. All of them said they felt Boris was a leader whereas Starmer wasn’t. They all pointed out the importance of portraying optimism and an upbeat message, and they felt BJ had that and Starmer didn’t. Interestingly, Blair’s name came up and the women talked about how his smiling was a definite plus for them, at least at first.
That didn’t blind them to his faults nor that the Government had cocked up badly on several fronts. But they would much rather have BJ as PM than Starmer. Ironically, the one who was most anti-BJ was the Brexiteer because she didn’t want to be “ruled by toffs”.
PS enthusiasm for Rishi was low. All felt he was untrustworthy and the word ‘sneaky’ came up more than once. I’m not sure Rishi would do much for the Tories outside places like St Albans and, as pointed out, seats with large Indian populations.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
Independent Ireland was de facto part of the pound currency union until 30 March 1979. It can be done.
Mr. Pioneers, Scotland has a financial sector that is proportionally larger than England's.
Without a formal currency union they would require a massive sum in reserve assets to offset the potential for a banking crisis.
No British (ex-Scotland) politician is going to try and persuade the electorate south of the border that being on the hook for hundreds of billions, if not trillions, to support the recently departed Scotland's now rival financial sector is a clever idea.
I agree with this in principle. But, in the short term, the UK Gov would face a massive problem.
Everyone in England will run on the "Scottish banks". There will be whispers about RBS taking down NatWest, and BoS taking out Lloyds/Halifax. These are UK institutions, but your gammony Englishman isn't going to think like that.
we will be well shot of Nat West and halifax, we can get back to having real Scottish banks rather than them being regional offices of English banks.
In the age of covid and culture wars, on the verge of a major cost of living crisis, I’m not sure we’re going through a normal electoral cycle. The supplementaries in the polling certainly suggest that. However, given we now know how flawed the 2010-2015 polling was, I’m not clear when we last did go through what is regarded as a normal electoral cycle.
What’s more, I’d also argue that given the supine failure of all those Tory ministers and MPs, who know just how catastrophically bad Johnson is, to do anything about it, he probably is the best chance they have of turning things around.
My current sense is that we’re probably looking at a 2010-style GE result next time around, with Labour winning most seats but no majority. A propos other current discussions on here it would be interesting to see how the SNP plays that.
I suspect we’re heading to a 1992 result.
Instinctively I would agree, but the actual evidence for that is scant. The economy, for the voting public is going to be horrendous over the next two years unless I am very much mistaken.
The recent wallpaper and parties revelations in themselves are froth (although the misleading Parliament issues would have, in previous administrations had severe consequences) however taken in conjunction with repossessed homes, cars and the burgeoning use of food banks they might bite the Conservatives, under Johnson or anyone else.
Although, as the Johnsonians say on here "Boris is a lucky General"...
For Labour to win there has to be more than distrust and dislike of the Conservatives there has to be trust and enthusiasm for Labour. The Conservatives will ram a wedge into any doubts and if the economy is rocky, they will run on a safety first ticket. Labour needs a huge lead to withstand that.
In my view the events of the past month have made a victory possible, but Labour have a long way to go and a Gordian knot to untangle to avoid a close but no cigar result. How do they mitigate fear and stoke a bit of enthusiasm? They have just two years and are surrounded by enemies and have a Cobyniite fifth column who delight in failure.
For Labour to win there has to be a different leader.
Qualities required
Able to unify
Requires Charisma
Requires ability to develop popular policy.
Current leader fails miserably on all counts.
As for fifth column what goes around comes around. Without aforesaid we would have had a Lab led Government in 2017.
Publish the Gray report in full says the man who has failed to do so with the equally important Forde report into racism and deliberate self harm in Labour
Mr. Pioneers, Scotland has a financial sector that is proportionally larger than England's.
Without a formal currency union they would require a massive sum in reserve assets to offset the potential for a banking crisis.
No British (ex-Scotland) politician is going to try and persuade the electorate south of the border that being on the hook for hundreds of billions, if not trillions, to support the recently departed Scotland's now rival financial sector is a clever idea.
It would be a shit show - I'm not an advocate for it (an independent Scotland would need to join the Eurozone). My point was that when @tlg86 keeps saying "you have to be part of the UK to use the pound" it simply isn't true.
You do raise an interesting point though - Scotland does have a massive financial sector. The idea that Scotland would be an impoverished hell with no resources and no income now that oil is smaller than it was isn't true either.
I come back to basics - the union in its current form no longer works. We either remake it fit for the future of we will lose Scotland and NI and even the England still won't be happy with what is left. Balkanisation is not the way forward - partnership is. So lets remake the union into one where the 4 home nations are partners not 3 being supplicants to the 4th.
I'm sorry but this is my day job (and banking, financial services, and insurance after independence is something I've several years working on.)
Scotland's financial services sector will be utterly screwed by independence.
Now first of all there's issues of the lender of last resort which pretty fundamental there's also the issue that plenty in the independence movement have said is that an independent Scotland will walk away with no debt if it doesn't get a good deal, so if you think a sovereign nation's first act will be to not honour its debt and have the financial services sector to trust it is a courageous move.
We won't be living in the fantasy world of an independent Scotland telling the Bank of England what to do, even if it contradicts what is good for RUK, leaving aside the illegality of the BoE following instructions from someone other than HMG/The Chancellor.
A currency union in this scenario only works properly with the consent of everyone in it.
Years of twiddling your thumbs by the sounds of it, a 7 year old could work it out. Clue look at every other country in the world it is that simple. The B of E can do one as it will have no control over Scotland and it's currency.
Shove your comments up your erchie you ludicrous popinjay.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
What point? I made no point. I merely pointed out that HMQ might disagree.
Point is, you don’t have to be in the union to have HMQ as head of state. You do have to be in the union to have the pound.
I’m sure HMQ would be upset if Scotland went independent. But it’s not a big concern of mine to be honest.
Isle of Man Bailiwick of Jersey Bailiwick of Guernsey St Helena Gibraltar Falkland Islands
All have a local pound. All are not part of the United Kingdom. You keep making this point which is simply wrong.
This debate over currency feels like most of the Brexit debates. It's not going to be as bad/good as either side claims, and it's hard to explain to people. Even people with a base in economics don't really get it (me included).
The bigger question is the border. It's tangible, proven to awkward as fuck by Brexit, and Scotland is hyper vulnerable to it (see the M74 closure during the Beast from the East).
Border would be same as any other EU border and once independent they woiuld hopefully improve the infrstructure and not be dependent on ports in southern England. No issue at all and the border closed once in history for a day or two is no big deal.
An uncharacteristically robust editorial in The Observer:
But because reforming the Gender Recognition Act will affect another protected characteristic, sex, it is critically important that any proposals to reform it in the UK are informed by proper consultation with all those affected. That has not happened in Scotland. Instead, Nicola Sturgeon has simply denied such a conflict exists. Women raising legitimate concerns that opinion polls show are widely shared have been tarnished as “transphobic” by Scottish politicians.
This is politicians fomenting rather than diffusing contested debates. It has created a culture where women of the view that biological sex cannot be wholly replaced by gender identity in law – a belief itself protected by equalities legislation – get harassed out of jobs and visited by the police as a result of expressing lawful and legitimate views. Everyone loses: in a world where some people are bullied out of the democratic process of debate and consultation, it is impossible to build social consensus around the balancing of rights of two groups facing significant discrimination.
Not often I would agree with an editorial in the Observer but that is spot on. This has been incredibly divisive, not least for the SNP itself, and largely unnecessary. I am not sure what they think that they are gaining from it other than yet more devotion from their little green helpers.
Intriguing trial balloon from Javid to nationalise General Practice. What do people think?
Somethings got to change with the GP system
One thing I don't get is why politicians (and presumably the public) are so down on telephone appointments...
Personally I find they are way more convenient. Is it just me?
"nationalise General Practice"??
Jeez. That would finally be the nail in the coffin. They'd all be off. And years of chaos as the transition is undertaken.
As often said, the irony about Tories' attitudes to the NHS is that most of their complaints are about the more private, more free market, general practice.
But nationalisation would not bring years of chaos. They'd not "all be off" (to where?).
If there is a shortage of GPs, it is because so many doctors now work part-time. 90 per cent of salaried (ie not partners) GPs work part-time. Ninety per cent.
Telephone appointments are fine for me because I know what I want. Trouble is if the doctor can't actually see me, they won't notice I'm a bit green about the gills or am wheezing slightly.
One thing I would mention is that while dentists and opticians have lots of shiny new tech kit, you could walk into many GPs surgeries and not notice much change since the 1950s, except that the doctor uses a keyboard rather than a fountain pen and has plastic not rubber tubes on their stethoscope.
Mr. Pioneers, Scotland has a financial sector that is proportionally larger than England's.
Without a formal currency union they would require a massive sum in reserve assets to offset the potential for a banking crisis.
No British (ex-Scotland) politician is going to try and persuade the electorate south of the border that being on the hook for hundreds of billions, if not trillions, to support the recently departed Scotland's now rival financial sector is a clever idea.
I agree with this in principle. But, in the short term, the UK Gov would face a massive problem.
Everyone in England will run on the "Scottish banks". There will be whispers about RBS taking down NatWest, and BoS taking out Lloyds/Halifax. These are UK institutions, but your gammony Englishman isn't going to think like that.
Not a problem. A vote for independence will not result in an instantaneous split. There'll be ample time (at a guess, around two years) for the Scottish banking conglomerates to be dismembered in an orderly fashion, and those subsidiaries operating primarily in England to be re-floated in London. Sorted.
Reality at last, good that one person understands.
Mr. Eabhal, could be wrong but I was under the impression that Halifax/BoS was currently registered in Scotland rather than England.
Correct. Lloyds is a Scottish bank...
Yes, but in the immediate aftermath of Indyref2, the rUK is going to have to work hard to keep these banks safe anyway.
There is lots of undue optimism on one side, and fear mongering on the other. There will be a short term fudge on currency and banking - it's in everyone's interest.
Whilst I understand Scotland's desire for self-determination and the growing despair with what is going on in Westminster, turning Scotland into a very small country is not the best way forward. I'm not making arguments for independence because I don't support independence - but the arguments that it would be easy or it would be ruinous are both daft.
What is needed is clear thinking south of the wall. Where does England want to be? At the moment it has chosen to have the right to have babies even though it can't have babies. Hopefully soon the foetus gestation box will be put away and recognition that it still has and will continue to have shared standards and trading needs with the EU will sink in.
Scottish independence whilst everyone was part of the EU was hard. Now that we have this absurd WE ARE ENGLAND, FUCK EM bravado as the queues on either side of the channel extend for a dozen miles, it feels absurdly hard. But I don't expect that will stay the case for long. And the longer that England's approach to not just abroad but remoaners is "fuck em" the more Scotland and NI get repelled away.
Plenty of small European countries doing very nicely thank you.
On the header, after having spent a weekend in Manchester and talking about BJ with a variety of people (admittedly a small sample), I’m more convinced that @TSE is wrong.
Both folks - who do switch their votes or just don’t vote if they don’t like anyone - said they are sticking with Boris. Their views was that the parties thing was overblown. More on topic, they both were disdainful of Starmer and Labour.
I then went out with some old friends, two definitely old school Labour (but also not woke - my school friend would be called a TERF) and one who voted for Brexit. All of them said they felt Boris was a leader whereas Starmer wasn’t. They all pointed out the importance of portraying optimism and an upbeat message, and they felt BJ had that and Starmer didn’t. Interestingly, Blair’s name came up and the women talked about how his smiling was a definite plus for them, at least at first.
That didn’t blind them to his faults nor that the Government had cocked up badly on several fronts. But they would much rather have BJ as PM than Starmer. Ironically, the one who was most anti-BJ was the Brexiteer because she didn’t want to be “ruled by toffs”.
PS enthusiasm for Rishi was low. All felt he was untrustworthy and the word ‘sneaky’ came up more than once. I’m not sure Rishi would do much for the Tories outside places like St Albans and, as pointed out, seats with large Indian populations.
OMG A vox-pop anecdote alert.
Whereas your witnesses may well think Starmer isn't presidential enough for them, the anecdotal evidence I am seeing in RedWall Wales is "one rule for Boris, another for the little people" and I see no hostility yet to a CofE that gave us all free money for a year.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
What point? I made no point. I merely pointed out that HMQ might disagree.
Point is, you don’t have to be in the union to have HMQ as head of state. You do have to be in the union to have the pound.
I’m sure HMQ would be upset if Scotland went independent. But it’s not a big concern of mine to be honest.
Isle of Man Bailiwick of Jersey Bailiwick of Guernsey St Helena Gibraltar Falkland Islands
All have a local pound. All are not part of the United Kingdom. You keep making this point which is simply wrong.
I don’t believe Guernsey orJersey money is accepted in UK shops though, while Scottish and Ulster notes are. @CarlottaVance would know
No you cannot. At Guernsey airport they ask if you want your change in Guernsey or English notes. The idea that a currency regime that works for a population smaller than Paisley’s could work for the whole country is laughable
Kosovo, Montenegro and Andorra all use the € despite not being in the EU (FWIW). In Switzerland the € is de facto accepted almost everywhere at an exchange rate of 1.
Switzerland also has the CHF - what’s Scotland’s equivalent? The issue with “dollarisation” (what ever the currency is) is you can’t have a substantial financial sector without an LOLR. For that you need your own central bank and your own currency.
Mr. Pioneers, Scotland has a financial sector that is proportionally larger than England's.
Without a formal currency union they would require a massive sum in reserve assets to offset the potential for a banking crisis.
No British (ex-Scotland) politician is going to try and persuade the electorate south of the border that being on the hook for hundreds of billions, if not trillions, to support the recently departed Scotland's now rival financial sector is a clever idea.
It would be a shit show - I'm not an advocate for it (an independent Scotland would need to join the Eurozone). My point was that when @tlg86 keeps saying "you have to be part of the UK to use the pound" it simply isn't true.
You do raise an interesting point though - Scotland does have a massive financial sector. The idea that Scotland would be an impoverished hell with no resources and no income now that oil is smaller than it was isn't true either.
I come back to basics - the union in its current form no longer works. We either remake it fit for the future of we will lose Scotland and NI and even the England still won't be happy with what is left. Balkanisation is not the way forward - partnership is. So lets remake the union into one where the 4 home nations are partners not 3 being supplicants to the 4th.
I'm sorry but this is my day job (and banking, financial services, and insurance after independence is something I've several years working on.)
Scotland's financial services sector will be utterly screwed by independence.
Now first of all there's issues of the lender of last resort which pretty fundamental there's also the issue that plenty in the independence movement have said is that an independent Scotland will walk away with no debt if it doesn't get a good deal, so if you think a sovereign nation's first act will be to not honour its debt and have the financial services sector to trust it is a courageous move.
We won't be living in the fantasy world of an independent Scotland telling the Bank of England what to do, even if it contradicts what is good for RUK, leaving aside the illegality of the BoE following instructions from someone other than HMG/The Chancellor.
A currency union in this scenario only works properly with the consent of everyone in it.
Years of twiddling your thumbs by the sounds of it, a 7 year old could work it out. Clue look at every other country in the world it is that simple. The B of E can do one as it will have no control over Scotland and it's currency.
Shove your comments up your erchie you ludicrous popinjay.
So I was right , you have been taking money under false pretences. Spun it out for years as well.
Mr. Pioneers, Scotland has a financial sector that is proportionally larger than England's.
Without a formal currency union they would require a massive sum in reserve assets to offset the potential for a banking crisis.
No British (ex-Scotland) politician is going to try and persuade the electorate south of the border that being on the hook for hundreds of billions, if not trillions, to support the recently departed Scotland's now rival financial sector is a clever idea.
I agree with this in principle. But, in the short term, the UK Gov would face a massive problem.
Everyone in England will run on the "Scottish banks". There will be whispers about RBS taking down NatWest, and BoS taking out Lloyds/Halifax. These are UK institutions, but your gammony Englishman isn't going to think like that.
we will be well shot of Nat West and halifax, we can get back to having real Scottish banks rather than them being regional offices of English banks.
Malcolm, you might want to think about why those amalgamations took place in the first place. It massively increased the capital available to the Scottish banks and their ability to trade and lend. It gave the management the opportunities to earn obscene sums of money and this trickled, more like poured actually, into Edinburgh, keeping the private schools going and the tax take way higher than it was before. From Scotland's point of view, it gave us some home grown international businesses again. Once upon a time many Scottish businesses transversed the globe but we now have an almost exclusively branch economy with all the problems that brings.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
Independent Ireland was de facto part of the pound currency union until 30 March 1979. It can be done.
The impossible trinity (also known as the impossible trilemma or the Unholy Trinity) is a concept in international economics which states that it is impossible to have all three of the following at the same time:
a fixed foreign exchange rate free capital movement (absence of capital controls) an independent monetary policy
Which did Ireland choose to sacrifice - free capital movement or an independent monetary policy? And which would Scotland sacrifice to peg the Scottish Pound to the rUK Pound?
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
What point? I made no point. I merely pointed out that HMQ might disagree.
Point is, you don’t have to be in the union to have HMQ as head of state. You do have to be in the union to have the pound.
I’m sure HMQ would be upset if Scotland went independent. But it’s not a big concern of mine to be honest.
Isle of Man Bailiwick of Jersey Bailiwick of Guernsey St Helena Gibraltar Falkland Islands
All have a local pound. All are not part of the United Kingdom. You keep making this point which is simply wrong.
I don’t believe Guernsey orJersey money is accepted in UK shops though, while Scottish and Ulster notes are. @CarlottaVance would know
No you cannot. At Guernsey airport they ask if you want your change in Guernsey or English notes. The idea that a currency regime that works for a population smaller than Paisley’s could work for the whole country is laughable
Kosovo, Montenegro and Andorra all use the € despite not being in the EU (FWIW). In Switzerland the € is de facto accepted almost everywhere at an exchange rate of 1.
Switzerland also has the CHF - what’s Scotland’s equivalent? The issue with “dollarisation” (what ever the currency is) is you can’t have a substantial financial sector without an LOLR. For that you need your own central bank and your own currency.
Doh! you mean like every other country in the world. I am sure they are unable to grasp that fact. Are unionist's really as thick as they make themselves out to be.
Arguing that Scottish independence is technically complicated or difficult isn't going to save 𝒪𝒰𝑅 𝒫𝑅𝐸𝒞𝐼𝒪𝒰𝒮 𝒰𝒩𝐼𝒪𝒩. That's just being a cover band redoing the losing Remain campaign and it'll work about as well.
There has to be a positive case for Scotland staying in the UK if any such exists.
Intriguing trial balloon from Javid to nationalise General Practice. What do people think?
Somethings got to change with the GP system
If it's nationalised then it will be a bit easier to implement wholesale reform. So it's arguably a necessary first step.
Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere, but GP practices, whether multi-doctor or single handed are independent contractors, as are pharmacies, whether they have OK Cole Pharmacist over the door, or Boots, and indeed dentists and opticians. And the other professions, including GP's, are now going the same way as pharmacists, providing investment opportunities for multinationals. I know much more about the structures in pharmacy and medicine than in the other two, but it does seem to me that a total rethink of those structures could well be a Good Thing.
In the age of covid and culture wars, on the verge of a major cost of living crisis, I’m not sure we’re going through a normal electoral cycle. The supplementaries in the polling certainly suggest that. However, given we now know how flawed the 2010-2015 polling was, I’m not clear when we last did go through what is regarded as a normal electoral cycle.
What’s more, I’d also argue that given the supine failure of all those Tory ministers and MPs, who know just how catastrophically bad Johnson is, to do anything about it, he probably is the best chance they have of turning things around.
My current sense is that we’re probably looking at a 2010-style GE result next time around, with Labour winning most seats but no majority. A propos other current discussions on here it would be interesting to see how the SNP plays that.
I suspect we’re heading to a 1992 result.
Instinctively I would agree, but the actual evidence for that is scant. The economy, for the voting public is going to be horrendous over the next two years unless I am very much mistaken.
The recent wallpaper and parties revelations in themselves are froth (although the misleading Parliament issues would have, in previous administrations had severe consequences) however taken in conjunction with repossessed homes, cars and the burgeoning use of food banks they might bite the Conservatives, under Johnson or anyone else.
Although, as the Johnsonians say on here "Boris is a lucky General"...
For Labour to win there has to be more than distrust and dislike of the Conservatives there has to be trust and enthusiasm for Labour. The Conservatives will ram a wedge into any doubts and if the economy is rocky, they will run on a safety first ticket. Labour needs a huge lead to withstand that.
In my view the events of the past month have made a victory possible, but Labour have a long way to go and a Gordian knot to untangle to avoid a close but no cigar result. How do they mitigate fear and stoke a bit of enthusiasm? They have just two years and are surrounded by enemies and have a Cobyniite fifth column who delight in failure.
For Labour to win there has to be a different leader.
Qualities required
Able to unify
Requires Charisma
Requires ability to develop popular policy.
Current leader fails miserably on all counts.
As for fifth column what goes around comes around. Without aforesaid we would have had a Lab led Government in 2017.
Publish the Gray report in full says the man who has failed to do so with the equally important Forde report into racism and deliberate self harm in Labour
Sounds like you’re looking for a Tony Blair like figure.
Mr. Pioneers, Scotland has a financial sector that is proportionally larger than England's.
Without a formal currency union they would require a massive sum in reserve assets to offset the potential for a banking crisis.
No British (ex-Scotland) politician is going to try and persuade the electorate south of the border that being on the hook for hundreds of billions, if not trillions, to support the recently departed Scotland's now rival financial sector is a clever idea.
I agree with this in principle. But, in the short term, the UK Gov would face a massive problem.
Everyone in England will run on the "Scottish banks". There will be whispers about RBS taking down NatWest, and BoS taking out Lloyds/Halifax. These are UK institutions, but your gammony Englishman isn't going to think like that.
we will be well shot of Nat West and halifax, we can get back to having real Scottish banks rather than them being regional offices of English banks.
Malcolm, you might want to think about why those amalgamations took place in the first place. It massively increased the capital available to the Scottish banks and their ability to trade and lend. It gave the management the opportunities to earn obscene sums of money and this trickled, more like poured actually, into Edinburgh, keeping the private schools going and the tax take way higher than it was before. From Scotland's point of view, it gave us some home grown international businesses again. Once upon a time many Scottish businesses transversed the globe but we now have an almost exclusively branch economy with all the problems that brings.
David, it was just another con to enrich Hooray Henry's , mainly English but Scottish versions as well. It did noth ing much for Scotland other than the fancy new office block. They did wreck good banks that had been doing fine for hundreds of years and making them so large just made us dependent on others. We have branch economy because that is what Westminster forces on us, it all has to be centred on London. Where those supposed Scottish banks were run from indeed.
Would Boris poll better than Johnson? Has this been tested? I think he would be 2-3 points higher!
We can easily test that - get the Conservatives to expel Boris Johnson from the party and then see if Boris tries to form his own party (everybody tries sooner or later) and then see if he polls better than the Conservative Party.
To be fair, Nigel Farage tried it and in the spring of 2019 he was polling better than the Conservatives.
Mr. Pioneers, Scotland has a financial sector that is proportionally larger than England's.
Without a formal currency union they would require a massive sum in reserve assets to offset the potential for a banking crisis.
No British (ex-Scotland) politician is going to try and persuade the electorate south of the border that being on the hook for hundreds of billions, if not trillions, to support the recently departed Scotland's now rival financial sector is a clever idea.
I agree with this in principle. But, in the short term, the UK Gov would face a massive problem.
Everyone in England will run on the "Scottish banks". There will be whispers about RBS taking down NatWest, and BoS taking out Lloyds/Halifax. These are UK institutions, but your gammony Englishman isn't going to think like that.
we will be well shot of Nat West and halifax, we can get back to having real Scottish banks rather than them being regional offices of English banks.
If I see a Hillman Imp with a Saltire decalled roof parked in John Finney Street outside the Clydesdale Bank, I'll know it's you
Arguing that Scottish independence is technically complicated or difficult isn't going to save 𝒪𝒰𝑅 𝒫𝑅𝐸𝒞𝐼𝒪𝒰𝒮 𝒰𝒩𝐼𝒪𝒩. That's just being a cover band redoing the losing Remain campaign and it'll work about as well.
There has to be a positive case for Scotland staying in the UK if any such exists.
On the header, after having spent a weekend in Manchester and talking about BJ with a variety of people (admittedly a small sample), I’m more convinced that @TSE is wrong.
Both folks - who do switch their votes or just don’t vote if they don’t like anyone - said they are sticking with Boris. Their views was that the parties thing was overblown. More on topic, they both were disdainful of Starmer and Labour.
I then went out with some old friends, two definitely old school Labour (but also not woke - my school friend would be called a TERF) and one who voted for Brexit. All of them said they felt Boris was a leader whereas Starmer wasn’t. They all pointed out the importance of portraying optimism and an upbeat message, and they felt BJ had that and Starmer didn’t. Interestingly, Blair’s name came up and the women talked about how his smiling was a definite plus for them, at least at first.
That didn’t blind them to his faults nor that the Government had cocked up badly on several fronts. But they would much rather have BJ as PM than Starmer. Ironically, the one who was most anti-BJ was the Brexiteer because she didn’t want to be “ruled by toffs”.
PS enthusiasm for Rishi was low. All felt he was untrustworthy and the word ‘sneaky’ came up more than once. I’m not sure Rishi would do much for the Tories outside places like St Albans and, as pointed out, seats with large Indian populations.
More affinity bias I see but it's true - people do like people like themselves.
In the age of covid and culture wars, on the verge of a major cost of living crisis, I’m not sure we’re going through a normal electoral cycle. The supplementaries in the polling certainly suggest that. However, given we now know how flawed the 2010-2015 polling was, I’m not clear when we last did go through what is regarded as a normal electoral cycle.
What’s more, I’d also argue that given the supine failure of all those Tory ministers and MPs, who know just how catastrophically bad Johnson is, to do anything about it, he probably is the best chance they have of turning things around.
My current sense is that we’re probably looking at a 2010-style GE result next time around, with Labour winning most seats but no majority. A propos other current discussions on here it would be interesting to see how the SNP plays that.
I suspect we’re heading to a 1992 result.
Instinctively I would agree, but the actual evidence for that is scant. The economy, for the voting public is going to be horrendous over the next two years unless I am very much mistaken.
The recent wallpaper and parties revelations in themselves are froth (although the misleading Parliament issues would have, in previous administrations had severe consequences) however taken in conjunction with repossessed homes, cars and the burgeoning use of food banks they might bite the Conservatives, under Johnson or anyone else.
Although, as the Johnsonians say on here "Boris is a lucky General"...
For Labour to win there has to be more than distrust and dislike of the Conservatives there has to be trust and enthusiasm for Labour. The Conservatives will ram a wedge into any doubts and if the economy is rocky, they will run on a safety first ticket. Labour needs a huge lead to withstand that.
In my view the events of the past month have made a victory possible, but Labour have a long way to go and a Gordian knot to untangle to avoid a close but no cigar result. How do they mitigate fear and stoke a bit of enthusiasm? They have just two years and are surrounded by enemies and have a Cobyniite fifth column who delight in failure.
A lot depends on Starmer but we have reason to be optiimistic His PMQ's performance two weeks ago was the best i've seen from an opposition leader for years. What's more I don't believe the Tories can win an election while Johnson is leader. Like Trump there are are too many voters who will vote against him come what may.
He's become toxic and a laughing stock (but not in a good way) and I cant think of an example where that combination has been reversed.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
Independent Ireland was de facto part of the pound currency union until 30 March 1979. It can be done.
The impossible trinity (also known as the impossible trilemma or the Unholy Trinity) is a concept in international economics which states that it is impossible to have all three of the following at the same time:
a fixed foreign exchange rate free capital movement (absence of capital controls) an independent monetary policy
Which did Ireland choose to sacrifice - free capital movement or an independent monetary policy? And which would Scotland sacrifice to peg the Scottish Pound to the rUK Pound?
Hopefully we will find out in the very near future
Mr. Pioneers, Scotland has a financial sector that is proportionally larger than England's.
Without a formal currency union they would require a massive sum in reserve assets to offset the potential for a banking crisis.
No British (ex-Scotland) politician is going to try and persuade the electorate south of the border that being on the hook for hundreds of billions, if not trillions, to support the recently departed Scotland's now rival financial sector is a clever idea.
I agree with this in principle. But, in the short term, the UK Gov would face a massive problem.
Everyone in England will run on the "Scottish banks". There will be whispers about RBS taking down NatWest, and BoS taking out Lloyds/Halifax. These are UK institutions, but your gammony Englishman isn't going to think like that.
we will be well shot of Nat West and halifax, we can get back to having real Scottish banks rather than them being regional offices of English banks.
If I see a Hillman Imp with a Saltaire decalled roof parked in John Finney Street outside the Clydesdale Bank, I'll know it's you
Pete, , though Clydesdale is owned by Virgin nowadays so I would not piss in the door if a branch was on fire.
Mr. Eabhal, could be wrong but I was under the impression that Halifax/BoS was currently registered in Scotland rather than England.
Correct. Lloyds is a Scottish bank...
Yes, but in the immediate aftermath of Indyref2, the rUK is going to have to work hard to keep these banks safe anyway.
There is lots of undue optimism on one side, and fear mongering on the other. There will be a short term fudge on currency and banking - it's in everyone's interest.
Whilst I understand Scotland's desire for self-determination and the growing despair with what is going on in Westminster, turning Scotland into a very small country is not the best way forward. I'm not making arguments for independence because I don't support independence - but the arguments that it would be easy or it would be ruinous are both daft.
What is needed is clear thinking south of the wall. Where does England want to be? At the moment it has chosen to have the right to have babies even though it can't have babies. Hopefully soon the foetus gestation box will be put away and recognition that it still has and will continue to have shared standards and trading needs with the EU will sink in.
Scottish independence whilst everyone was part of the EU was hard. Now that we have this absurd WE ARE ENGLAND, FUCK EM bravado as the queues on either side of the channel extend for a dozen miles, it feels absurdly hard. But I don't expect that will stay the case for long. And the longer that England's approach to not just abroad but remoaners is "fuck em" the more Scotland and NI get repelled away.
The "WE ARE ENGLAND, FUCK EM" attitude is what scares me about independence.
JRM as rUK PM with HYUFD patrolling the border. Eeeeeek.
This is a fundamental misreading of the entire situation. A secessionist Scotland is highly unlikely to encounter hostility from London, save possibly for a scenario in which an argument blows up over the apportionment of the national debt.
Put crudely, the primary reason for independence and the primary determinant of the post-independence relationship are one and the same: England is ten times the size of Scotland.
Secession is an existential issue for Scots, but an irrelevance to most of the English. Professional politicians and a minority of committed Unionists (who fret about things like nuclear weapons, security council seats and general nebulous angst about the diminution of the greatness of Britain) will worry themselves sick about it, but it wouldn't make a jot of difference to my everyday life nor that of most of my compatriots. For some of those who live very close to the border and for people tasked with managing trade across it: important. For people living three hundred miles to the South who have nothing to do with Scotland save for the occasional holiday: not so much.
Down South, we've had two decades of devolution, one decade of SNP governments in Edinburgh and a narrow defeat for an independence referendum to get used to the idea that a very large chunk of Scottish public opinion wants to leave, and that secession at some point is basically inevitable. The event is already expected: when it happens it's most likely to provoke shoulder shrugging, perhaps accompanied by some regret at the end of an era, rather than a backlash.
If the Scottish Government doesn't get everything it wants out of independence negotiations then it's not going to be because its counterpart in London is being wilfully difficult. It'll be because (a) it is motivated entirely by the welfare of its own people, (b) those people have no particular interest in doing anything to help Scotland that puts them to trouble or costs them money, and (c) Scotland has little to offer in return. That's all.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
What point? I made no point. I merely pointed out that HMQ might disagree.
Point is, you don’t have to be in the union to have HMQ as head of state. You do have to be in the union to have the pound.
I’m sure HMQ would be upset if Scotland went independent. But it’s not a big concern of mine to be honest.
Isle of Man Bailiwick of Jersey Bailiwick of Guernsey St Helena Gibraltar Falkland Islands
All have a local pound. All are not part of the United Kingdom. You keep making this point which is simply wrong.
This debate over currency feels like most of the Brexit debates. It's not going to be as bad/good as either side claims, and it's hard to explain to people. Even people with a base in economics don't really get it (me included).
The bigger question is the border. It's tangible, proven to awkward as fuck by Brexit, and Scotland is hyper vulnerable to it (see the M74 closure during the Beast from the East).
Spot on, both counts. An independent Scotland would have its own currency and central bank. This is normal. The only question is whether to peg it to Sterling. A probable subsequent move to the Euro may influence that decision.
The border might have been less hard if England hadn't chosen to leave the EU. But smaller countries don't always get the choices and have to deal with the situation that actually exists, as we are finding, or should be finding, with Brexit.
Mr. Pioneers, Scotland has a financial sector that is proportionally larger than England's.
Without a formal currency union they would require a massive sum in reserve assets to offset the potential for a banking crisis.
No British (ex-Scotland) politician is going to try and persuade the electorate south of the border that being on the hook for hundreds of billions, if not trillions, to support the recently departed Scotland's now rival financial sector is a clever idea.
I agree with this in principle. But, in the short term, the UK Gov would face a massive problem.
Everyone in England will run on the "Scottish banks". There will be whispers about RBS taking down NatWest, and BoS taking out Lloyds/Halifax. These are UK institutions, but your gammony Englishman isn't going to think like that.
we will be well shot of Nat West and halifax, we can get back to having real Scottish banks rather than them being regional offices of English banks.
If I see a Hillman Imp with a Saltaire decalled roof parked in John Finney Street outside the Clydesdale Bank, I'll know it's you
Pete, , though Clydesdale is owned by Virgin nowadays so I would not piss in the door if a branch was on fire.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
Independent Ireland was de facto part of the pound currency union until 30 March 1979. It can be done.
The impossible trinity (also known as the impossible trilemma or the Unholy Trinity) is a concept in international economics which states that it is impossible to have all three of the following at the same time:
a fixed foreign exchange rate free capital movement (absence of capital controls) an independent monetary policy
Which did Ireland choose to sacrifice - free capital movement or an independent monetary policy? And which would Scotland sacrifice to peg the Scottish Pound to the rUK Pound?
Hopefully we will find out in the very near future
I didn’t realise you wanted to peg to the pound. In reality I’d have thought tracking the BoE monetary policy is the only option.
As for fifth column what goes around comes around. Without aforesaid we would have had a Lab led Government in 2017.
Question. How does that work? The Tory vote increased fully 20% in 2017 vs 2015. An additional 2.3m people. I keep hearing that the Labour MPs cost Jeremy the election but in reality the Tories were really really popular. When you start with a working majority and attract 20% more votes its practically impossible to be defeated.
Arguing that Scottish independence is technically complicated or difficult isn't going to save 𝒪𝒰𝑅 𝒫𝑅𝐸𝒞𝐼𝒪𝒰𝒮 𝒰𝒩𝐼𝒪𝒩. That's just being a cover band redoing the losing Remain campaign and it'll work about as well.
There has to be a positive case for Scotland staying in the UK if any such exists.
I bet no-one can come up with one.
Scotland gains enormously from being in a Union with the rest of the UK. It gives us unrestricted access to a much larger market. It give our young opportunities that they would not otherwise have. It gives us, through the Union, some significance in the world. It allows us a degree of cross subsidy in harder times. When North Sea oil was gushing for 20 years Scottish money helped pay for the reconfigeration of the UK economy from manufacturing to services. Right now, and for the last decade or more the cross subsidy works the other way. It means we have the use of Sterling, the stability that comes with a solid monetary base, and not only access to but full participation in the largest international financial centre in the world.
I, and a significant minority of Scots, am proud to be British. This is a great country that is a little too prone to beating itself up. It is a force for good in the world and believes more deeply than almost any other country that I am aware of in fairness, decency, the rule of law and compassion. The balance to make up a majority in favour of the Union may be more pragmatic about it but I remain confident that Scotland will again choose to remain.
Would Boris poll better than Johnson? Has this been tested? I think he would be 2-3 points higher!
We can easily test that - get the Conservatives to expel Boris Johnson from the party and then see if Boris tries to form his own party (everybody tries sooner or later) and then see if he polls better than the Conservative Party.
To be fair, Nigel Farage tried it and in the spring of 2019 he was polling better than the Conservatives.
Not really the same thing. I am not wondering if Boris is more or less popular than the party, it is clear generally he has been but now is he is not. Also clear you do need a party network in the UK framework.
My question is how many people would vote for PM Boris but not PM Johnson. I think the number is non trivial, maybe as high as 3% in good times for him.
On the header, after having spent a weekend in Manchester and talking about BJ with a variety of people (admittedly a small sample), I’m more convinced that @TSE is wrong.
Both folks - who do switch their votes or just don’t vote if they don’t like anyone - said they are sticking with Boris. Their views was that the parties thing was overblown. More on topic, they both were disdainful of Starmer and Labour.
I then went out with some old friends, two definitely old school Labour (but also not woke - my school friend would be called a TERF) and one who voted for Brexit. All of them said they felt Boris was a leader whereas Starmer wasn’t. They all pointed out the importance of portraying optimism and an upbeat message, and they felt BJ had that and Starmer didn’t. Interestingly, Blair’s name came up and the women talked about how his smiling was a definite plus for them, at least at first.
That didn’t blind them to his faults nor that the Government had cocked up badly on several fronts. But they would much rather have BJ as PM than Starmer. Ironically, the one who was most anti-BJ was the Brexiteer because she didn’t want to be “ruled by toffs”.
PS enthusiasm for Rishi was low. All felt he was untrustworthy and the word ‘sneaky’ came up more than once. I’m not sure Rishi would do much for the Tories outside places like St Albans and, as pointed out, seats with large Indian populations.
More affinity bias I see but it's true - people do like people like themselves.
Here’s my view - and I realise it may be complete bollocks - but I think a key factor in determining the outcome of elections since 1979 has been how optimistic / upbeat each leader has been with their vision. When you look at the elections since 79 (Foot vs Thatcher, Major v Blair, Cameron v Brown etc, even Corbyn’s outperformance v May in 2017), that rule helps to explain the result.
Why is 1979 a cutoff point? Well, again, may be bollocks but it’s the last election when (1) the country truly had to make a serious direction in its direction of travel and (2) it might be said the existing political and economic situation was under severe stress. Sure, we have had issues since (the 2008/9 probably the most serious) but nothing like the 1970s. People therefore were more at liberty to go with whom they liked rather than swallowing harsh medicine.
Mr. Eabhal, could be wrong but I was under the impression that Halifax/BoS was currently registered in Scotland rather than England.
Correct. Lloyds is a Scottish bank...
Yes, but in the immediate aftermath of Indyref2, the rUK is going to have to work hard to keep these banks safe anyway.
There is lots of undue optimism on one side, and fear mongering on the other. There will be a short term fudge on currency and banking - it's in everyone's interest.
Whilst I understand Scotland's desire for self-determination and the growing despair with what is going on in Westminster, turning Scotland into a very small country is not the best way forward. I'm not making arguments for independence because I don't support independence - but the arguments that it would be easy or it would be ruinous are both daft.
What is needed is clear thinking south of the wall. Where does England want to be? At the moment it has chosen to have the right to have babies even though it can't have babies. Hopefully soon the foetus gestation box will be put away and recognition that it still has and will continue to have shared standards and trading needs with the EU will sink in.
Scottish independence whilst everyone was part of the EU was hard. Now that we have this absurd WE ARE ENGLAND, FUCK EM bravado as the queues on either side of the channel extend for a dozen miles, it feels absurdly hard. But I don't expect that will stay the case for long. And the longer that England's approach to not just abroad but remoaners is "fuck em" the more Scotland and NI get repelled away.
The "WE ARE ENGLAND, FUCK EM" attitude is what scares me about independence.
JRM as rUK PM with HYUFD patrolling the border. Eeeeeek.
This is a fundamental misreading of the entire situation. A secessionist Scotland is highly unlikely to encounter hostility from London, save possibly for a scenario in which an argument blows up over the apportionment of the national debt.
Put crudely, the primary reason for independence and the primary determinant of the post-independence relationship are one and the same: England is ten times the size of Scotland.
Secession is an existential issue for Scots, but an irrelevance to most of the English. Professional politicians and a minority of committed Unionists (who fret about things like nuclear weapons, security council seats and general nebulous angst about the diminution of the greatness of Britain) will worry themselves sick about it, but it wouldn't make a jot of difference to my everyday life nor that of most of my compatriots. For some of those who live very close to the border and for people tasked with managing trade across it: important. For people living three hundred miles to the South who have nothing to do with Scotland save for the occasional holiday: not so much.
Down South, we've had two decades of devolution, one decade of SNP governments in Edinburgh and a narrow defeat for an independence referendum to get used to the idea that a very large chunk of Scottish public opinion wants to leave, and that secession at some point is basically inevitable. The event is already expected: when it happens it's most likely to provoke shoulder shrugging, perhaps accompanied by some regret at the end of an era, rather than a backlash.
If the Scottish Government doesn't get everything it wants out of independence negotiations then it's not going to be because its counterpart in London is being wilfully difficult. It'll be because (a) it is motivated entirely by the welfare of its own people, (b) those people have no particular interest in doing anything to help Scotland that puts them to trouble or costs them money, and (c) Scotland has little to offer in return. That's all.
Mr. Eabhal, could be wrong but I was under the impression that Halifax/BoS was currently registered in Scotland rather than England.
Correct. Lloyds is a Scottish bank...
Yes, but in the immediate aftermath of Indyref2, the rUK is going to have to work hard to keep these banks safe anyway.
There is lots of undue optimism on one side, and fear mongering on the other. There will be a short term fudge on currency and banking - it's in everyone's interest.
Whilst I understand Scotland's desire for self-determination and the growing despair with what is going on in Westminster, turning Scotland into a very small country is not the best way forward. I'm not making arguments for independence because I don't support independence - but the arguments that it would be easy or it would be ruinous are both daft.
What is needed is clear thinking south of the wall. Where does England want to be? At the moment it has chosen to have the right to have babies even though it can't have babies. Hopefully soon the foetus gestation box will be put away and recognition that it still has and will continue to have shared standards and trading needs with the EU will sink in.
Scottish independence whilst everyone was part of the EU was hard. Now that we have this absurd WE ARE ENGLAND, FUCK EM bravado as the queues on either side of the channel extend for a dozen miles, it feels absurdly hard. But I don't expect that will stay the case for long. And the longer that England's approach to not just abroad but remoaners is "fuck em" the more Scotland and NI get repelled away.
The "WE ARE ENGLAND, FUCK EM" attitude is what scares me about independence.
JRM as rUK PM with HYUFD patrolling the border. Eeeeeek.
This is a fundamental misreading of the entire situation. A secessionist Scotland is highly unlikely to encounter hostility from London, save possibly for a scenario in which an argument blows up over the apportionment of the national debt.
Put crudely, the primary reason for independence and the primary determinant of the post-independence relationship are one and the same: England is ten times the size of Scotland.
Secession is an existential issue for Scots, but an irrelevance to most of the English. Professional politicians and a minority of committed Unionists (who fret about things like nuclear weapons, security council seats and general nebulous angst about the diminution of the greatness of Britain) will worry themselves sick about it, but it wouldn't make a jot of difference to my everyday life nor that of most of my compatriots. For some of those who live very close to the border and for people tasked with managing trade across it: important. For people living three hundred miles to the South who have nothing to do with Scotland save for the occasional holiday: not so much.
Down South, we've had two decades of devolution, one decade of SNP governments in Edinburgh and a narrow defeat for an independence referendum to get used to the idea that a very large chunk of Scottish public opinion wants to leave, and that secession at some point is basically inevitable. The event is already expected: when it happens it's most likely to provoke shoulder shrugging, perhaps accompanied by some regret at the end of an era, rather than a backlash.
If the Scottish Government doesn't get everything it wants out of independence negotiations then it's not going to be because its counterpart in London is being wilfully difficult. It'll be because (a) it is motivated entirely by the welfare of its own people, (b) those people have no particular interest in doing anything to help Scotland that puts them to trouble or costs them money, and (c) Scotland has little to offer in return. That's all.
Given the attitude in the present Government to the EU, and the views among the public that it's encouraging, I don't think the second sentence in para 1 is by any means a given!
Given both the Conservative Party and Boris Johnson are now more unpopular than the Labour Party and Keir Starmer, the idea just replacing Boris with a generic Conservative alternative will win the Conservatives another general election is absurd. Indeed as the polling shows Boris has often been more popular than his Party anyway.
With the Opinium polling last night showing a Labour lead over the Tories of just 5% and only a hung parliament, Boris remains safe for now
Mason Greenwood's girlfriend accuses him of attacking her in shocking Instagram post
WARNING - DISTRESSING CONTENT: Harriet Robson has posted a series of Instagram posts that she claims show the effects of the physical abuse suffered by her at the hands of Manchester United star Mason Greenwood
On the header, after having spent a weekend in Manchester and talking about BJ with a variety of people (admittedly a small sample), I’m more convinced that @TSE is wrong.
Both folks - who do switch their votes or just don’t vote if they don’t like anyone - said they are sticking with Boris. Their views was that the parties thing was overblown. More on topic, they both were disdainful of Starmer and Labour.
I then went out with some old friends, two definitely old school Labour (but also not woke - my school friend would be called a TERF) and one who voted for Brexit. All of them said they felt Boris was a leader whereas Starmer wasn’t. They all pointed out the importance of portraying optimism and an upbeat message, and they felt BJ had that and Starmer didn’t. Interestingly, Blair’s name came up and the women talked about how his smiling was a definite plus for them, at least at first.
That didn’t blind them to his faults nor that the Government had cocked up badly on several fronts. But they would much rather have BJ as PM than Starmer. Ironically, the one who was most anti-BJ was the Brexiteer because she didn’t want to be “ruled by toffs”.
PS enthusiasm for Rishi was low. All felt he was untrustworthy and the word ‘sneaky’ came up more than once. I’m not sure Rishi would do much for the Tories outside places like St Albans and, as pointed out, seats with large Indian populations.
OMG A vox-pop anecdote alert.
Whereas your witnesses may well think Starmer isn't presidential enough for them, the anecdotal evidence I am seeing in RedWall Wales is "one rule for Boris, another for the little people" and I see no hostility yet to a CofE that gave us all free money for a year.
I did point out at the beginning it was a small number and that it was a personal view, not an authoritative source.
If you can’t get past your bias of seeing “Tory voter alert!” and discarding anything that contradicts the Holy Gospel of St SKS winning the next election, that’s your problem.
Mr. Pioneers, Scotland has a financial sector that is proportionally larger than England's.
Without a formal currency union they would require a massive sum in reserve assets to offset the potential for a banking crisis.
No British (ex-Scotland) politician is going to try and persuade the electorate south of the border that being on the hook for hundreds of billions, if not trillions, to support the recently departed Scotland's now rival financial sector is a clever idea.
I agree with this in principle. But, in the short term, the UK Gov would face a massive problem.
Everyone in England will run on the "Scottish banks". There will be whispers about RBS taking down NatWest, and BoS taking out Lloyds/Halifax. These are UK institutions, but your gammony Englishman isn't going to think like that.
we will be well shot of Nat West and halifax, we can get back to having real Scottish banks rather than them being regional offices of English banks.
Malcolm, you might want to think about why those amalgamations took place in the first place. It massively increased the capital available to the Scottish banks and their ability to trade and lend. It gave the management the opportunities to earn obscene sums of money and this trickled, more like poured actually, into Edinburgh, keeping the private schools going and the tax take way higher than it was before. From Scotland's point of view, it gave us some home grown international businesses again. Once upon a time many Scottish businesses transversed the globe but we now have an almost exclusively branch economy with all the problems that brings.
David, it was just another con to enrich Hooray Henry's , mainly English but Scottish versions as well. It did noth ing much for Scotland other than the fancy new office block. They did wreck good banks that had been doing fine for hundreds of years and making them so large just made us dependent on others. We have branch economy because that is what Westminster forces on us, it all has to be centred on London. Where those supposed Scottish banks were run from indeed.
Have you ever been around the Gyle Malcolm? It gave Edinburgh in particular thousands of well paid jobs that funded and created the demand for the housebuilding in south Fife, Lothian and Livingston. The businesses that serviced these behemoths thrived too. It was too good to last but the benefit for Scotland was immense and is still large, if somewhat diminished.
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
What point? I made no point. I merely pointed out that HMQ might disagree.
Point is, you don’t have to be in the union to have HMQ as head of state. You do have to be in the union to have the pound.
I’m sure HMQ would be upset if Scotland went independent. But it’s not a big concern of mine to be honest.
Isle of Man Bailiwick of Jersey Bailiwick of Guernsey St Helena Gibraltar Falkland Islands
All have a local pound. All are not part of the United Kingdom. You keep making this point which is simply wrong.
These are minuscule bailiwicks. They can use sterling because (a) they're dependencies and, more to the point, (b) they're so tiny that their behaviour poses no conceivable risk to the financial stability of the United Kingdom. The comparison between the circumstances of, for example, St Helena (a remote rock in the South Atlantic with the population of a large village) and a sovereign Scotland (a significant European state about the size of Norway) is therefore risible.
Putting it succinctly, in the event of a split the English taxpayer will not be standing as backstop/milch cow/lender of last resort for Scotland. The prospect of a formal currency union after secession is nil.
To borrow a phrase, post-independence Scotland won't get to cherry pick all the parts of the dead Union that it still likes. Its options are to adopt somebody else's money (ours, the Euro, the Dollar, whatever) or to establish a central bank and print its own. To pretend otherwise is to adopt a Johnsonian attitude to obvious realities.
In practice I think the choice would be between adopting the Euro (and possibly seeking membership of the EU) or establishing a Scottish central bank creating a Scottish pound that would mirror Sterling. This is precisely what an independent Ireland did between 1928 and 1979 when Irish membership of the ERM finally broke the link.
I assume Scotland would choose the option that is most in its interests both from a trading point of view (probably favouring Sterling) and in the case of maintaining parity with Sterling, by the cost of a higher Scottish interest rate to offset investor perceived risk (thus probably favouring the Euro).
I suspect they will choose the Euro. It will be interesting to see.
On Scottish independence, to me <10% of the posts from either side are in any way constructive, which is even lower than the Brexit rehashes.
So in the interests of moving it on, how about a referendum, agreed now but held in 2030 and based on a framework exit agreement rather than a stay/leave or yes/no?
Arguing that Scottish independence is technically complicated or difficult isn't going to save 𝒪𝒰𝑅 𝒫𝑅𝐸𝒞𝐼𝒪𝒰𝒮 𝒰𝒩𝐼𝒪𝒩. That's just being a cover band redoing the losing Remain campaign and it'll work about as well.
There has to be a positive case for Scotland staying in the UK if any such exists.
I bet no-one can come up with one.
Scotland gains enormously from being in a Union with the rest of the UK. It gives us unrestricted access to a much larger market. It give our young opportunities that they would not otherwise have. It gives us, through the Union, some significance in the world. It allows us a degree of cross subsidy in harder times. When North Sea oil was gushing for 20 years Scottish money helped pay for the reconfigeration of the UK economy from manufacturing to services. Right now, and for the last decade or more the cross subsidy works the other way. It means we have the use of Sterling, the stability that comes with a solid monetary base, and not only access to but full participation in the largest international financial centre in the world.
I, and a significant minority of Scots, am proud to be British. This is a great country that is a little too prone to beating itself up. It is a force for good in the world and believes more deeply than almost any other country that I am aware of in fairness, decency, the rule of law and compassion. The balance to make up a majority in favour of the Union may be more pragmatic about it but I remain confident that Scotland will again choose to remain.
Nothing there David that we could not do independent. We were in EU so that argument is false People have opportunities all over the world so false Just laugh at the next one Just say Norway to next one Every country has a currency and most are stable
Mr. Dickson, one country. I can see why a Scottish separatist would approve of such terms).
I'm English and don't believe in the union. The four countries all have distinct histories and cultures and the union is an artificial device often used in subjugation and oppression.
I think each of the four nations should, if they wish, be separate.
Do you consider the Barnett Formula to be oppressive?
FWIW I couldn’t care less about the Union. But first and foremost it is a currency union. Walk away from the union and you walk away from the pound.
HMQ might have opinions about it being first and foremost a currency union. Her realms were brought under one monarch in 1603, whereas the monetary union was implemented post-1707. She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
The Barnett Formula is a classic Whitehall “fix”: it’s implementation got rid of the annual squabbling.
She is monarch of many countries, few of which share a currency.
That completely undermines your point. An independent Scotland can keep HMQ as head of state. They can’t remain part of the pound currency union.
What point? I made no point. I merely pointed out that HMQ might disagree.
Point is, you don’t have to be in the union to have HMQ as head of state. You do have to be in the union to have the pound.
I’m sure HMQ would be upset if Scotland went independent. But it’s not a big concern of mine to be honest.
Isle of Man Bailiwick of Jersey Bailiwick of Guernsey St Helena Gibraltar Falkland Islands
All have a local pound. All are not part of the United Kingdom. You keep making this point which is simply wrong.
I don’t believe Guernsey orJersey money is accepted in UK shops though, while Scottish and Ulster notes are. @CarlottaVance would know
No you cannot. At Guernsey airport they ask if you want your change in Guernsey or English notes. The idea that a currency regime that works for a population smaller than Paisley’s could work for the whole country is laughable
Kosovo, Montenegro and Andorra all use the € despite not being in the EU (FWIW). In Switzerland the € is de facto accepted almost everywhere at an exchange rate of 1.
It’s possible - Panama does it with the dollar I believe - but that’s not what the SNP are demanding.
On the header, after having spent a weekend in Manchester and talking about BJ with a variety of people (admittedly a small sample), I’m more convinced that @TSE is wrong.
Both folks - who do switch their votes or just don’t vote if they don’t like anyone - said they are sticking with Boris. Their views was that the parties thing was overblown. More on topic, they both were disdainful of Starmer and Labour.
I then went out with some old friends, two definitely old school Labour (but also not woke - my school friend would be called a TERF) and one who voted for Brexit. All of them said they felt Boris was a leader whereas Starmer wasn’t. They all pointed out the importance of portraying optimism and an upbeat message, and they felt BJ had that and Starmer didn’t. Interestingly, Blair’s name came up and the women talked about how his smiling was a definite plus for them, at least at first.
That didn’t blind them to his faults nor that the Government had cocked up badly on several fronts. But they would much rather have BJ as PM than Starmer. Ironically, the one who was most anti-BJ was the Brexiteer because she didn’t want to be “ruled by toffs”.
PS enthusiasm for Rishi was low. All felt he was untrustworthy and the word ‘sneaky’ came up more than once. I’m not sure Rishi would do much for the Tories outside places like St Albans and, as pointed out, seats with large Indian populations.
If you look at the poll posted by Stuart it looks like you've bumped into the only surviving Boris supporters not holed up in his bunker.
And in Manchester!
Where such a sighting is rarer than the Loch Ness Monster
Fulham announce death of fan who suffered a cardiac arrest in the stands during their Championship clash against Blackpool... and thank those who used flags to give the stricken supporter privacy when the match was stopped.
Something very odd is happening and I can’t work out what. From time to time you would hear that someone had died at a football match, but it was rare.
This season, not a match day goes by without a game being stopped because of someone being taken ill in the stands. Perhaps this always happened, and the players just played on but now that’s not considered acceptable. But it all seems very strange.
I was at a match as a teenager in the 90s and an elderly gentleman collapsed just after kick-off but the game started as normal.
You always do this, using that term. You really are grotesque.
It's not funny, it's not clever, it's boorish.
Don’t be such a snowflake.
No it says a lot about you that you think it's okay to use derogatory terms of an entire nation and then label anyone disagreeing as a snowflake.
It's very disagreeable. Grow up and move on and stop tarring an entire nation with a silly, childish, outdated adjective.
It is a joke. I have no problem with POME or Le Rosbif either.
Little Englanders always say that.
Out of interest, if somebody who wants Britain to leave the EU is a 'little Englander,' are supporters of Scottish independence (like yourself) 'little Scotlanders?'
Are supporters of Welsh Independence 'Little Walers' ??
Mr. Pioneers, Scotland has a financial sector that is proportionally larger than England's.
Without a formal currency union they would require a massive sum in reserve assets to offset the potential for a banking crisis.
No British (ex-Scotland) politician is going to try and persuade the electorate south of the border that being on the hook for hundreds of billions, if not trillions, to support the recently departed Scotland's now rival financial sector is a clever idea.
I agree with this in principle. But, in the short term, the UK Gov would face a massive problem.
Everyone in England will run on the "Scottish banks". There will be whispers about RBS taking down NatWest, and BoS taking out Lloyds/Halifax. These are UK institutions, but your gammony Englishman isn't going to think like that.
we will be well shot of Nat West and halifax, we can get back to having real Scottish banks rather than them being regional offices of English banks.
Funny that it was Scottish banks buying English ones and messing them up
Mr. Eabhal, could be wrong but I was under the impression that Halifax/BoS was currently registered in Scotland rather than England.
Correct. Lloyds is a Scottish bank...
Yes, but in the immediate aftermath of Indyref2, the rUK is going to have to work hard to keep these banks safe anyway.
There is lots of undue optimism on one side, and fear mongering on the other. There will be a short term fudge on currency and banking - it's in everyone's interest.
Whilst I understand Scotland's desire for self-determination and the growing despair with what is going on in Westminster, turning Scotland into a very small country is not the best way forward. I'm not making arguments for independence because I don't support independence - but the arguments that it would be easy or it would be ruinous are both daft.
What is needed is clear thinking south of the wall. Where does England want to be? At the moment it has chosen to have the right to have babies even though it can't have babies. Hopefully soon the foetus gestation box will be put away and recognition that it still has and will continue to have shared standards and trading needs with the EU will sink in.
Scottish independence whilst everyone was part of the EU was hard. Now that we have this absurd WE ARE ENGLAND, FUCK EM bravado as the queues on either side of the channel extend for a dozen miles, it feels absurdly hard. But I don't expect that will stay the case for long. And the longer that England's approach to not just abroad but remoaners is "fuck em" the more Scotland and NI get repelled away.
The "WE ARE ENGLAND, FUCK EM" attitude is what scares me about independence.
JRM as rUK PM with HYUFD patrolling the border. Eeeeeek.
This is a fundamental misreading of the entire situation. A secessionist Scotland is highly unlikely to encounter hostility from London, save possibly for a scenario in which an argument blows up over the apportionment of the national debt.
Put crudely, the primary reason for independence and the primary determinant of the post-independence relationship are one and the same: England is ten times the size of Scotland.
Secession is an existential issue for Scots, but an irrelevance to most of the English. Professional politicians and a minority of committed Unionists (who fret about things like nuclear weapons, security council seats and general nebulous angst about the diminution of the greatness of Britain) will worry themselves sick about it, but it wouldn't make a jot of difference to my everyday life nor that of most of my compatriots. For some of those who live very close to the border and for people tasked with managing trade across it: important. For people living three hundred miles to the South who have nothing to do with Scotland save for the occasional holiday: not so much.
Down South, we've had two decades of devolution, one decade of SNP governments in Edinburgh and a narrow defeat for an independence referendum to get used to the idea that a very large chunk of Scottish public opinion wants to leave, and that secession at some point is basically inevitable. The event is already expected: when it happens it's most likely to provoke shoulder shrugging, perhaps accompanied by some regret at the end of an era, rather than a backlash.
If the Scottish Government doesn't get everything it wants out of independence negotiations then it's not going to be because its counterpart in London is being wilfully difficult. It'll be because (a) it is motivated entirely by the welfare of its own people, (b) those people have no particular interest in doing anything to help Scotland that puts them to trouble or costs them money, and (c) Scotland has little to offer in return. That's all.
Of course it would encounter a hardline attitude. If Scotland voted for independence the remaining government of rUK would take at least as hard a line with Edinburgh as the EU did with London after the Brexit vote.
English voters would demand no concessions whatsoever to the Nationalists and to ensure as much of the oil, armed forces etc remained on the English side of the border not the Scottish side and that not a penny more was ever sent north of the border by English taxpayers to Scotland ever again. English fishermen would also demand restrictions on Scottish fishermens access to English fishing grounds.
That would especially very true of a Tory government but even an English Labour government would also have to do so or risk losing English voters to the Tories. Though of course only a Labour minority government reliant on the SNP would allow an indyref2 anyway
On the header, after having spent a weekend in Manchester and talking about BJ with a variety of people (admittedly a small sample), I’m more convinced that @TSE is wrong.
Both folks - who do switch their votes or just don’t vote if they don’t like anyone - said they are sticking with Boris. Their views was that the parties thing was overblown. More on topic, they both were disdainful of Starmer and Labour.
I then went out with some old friends, two definitely old school Labour (but also not woke - my school friend would be called a TERF) and one who voted for Brexit. All of them said they felt Boris was a leader whereas Starmer wasn’t. They all pointed out the importance of portraying optimism and an upbeat message, and they felt BJ had that and Starmer didn’t. Interestingly, Blair’s name came up and the women talked about how his smiling was a definite plus for them, at least at first.
That didn’t blind them to his faults nor that the Government had cocked up badly on several fronts. But they would much rather have BJ as PM than Starmer. Ironically, the one who was most anti-BJ was the Brexiteer because she didn’t want to be “ruled by toffs”.
PS enthusiasm for Rishi was low. All felt he was untrustworthy and the word ‘sneaky’ came up more than once. I’m not sure Rishi would do much for the Tories outside places like St Albans and, as pointed out, seats with large Indian populations.
OMG A vox-pop anecdote alert.
Whereas your witnesses may well think Starmer isn't presidential enough for them, the anecdotal evidence I am seeing in RedWall Wales is "one rule for Boris, another for the little people" and I see no hostility yet to a CofE that gave us all free money for a year.
I did point out at the beginning it was a small number and that it was a personal view, not an authoritative source.
If you can’t get past your bias of seeing “Tory voter alert!” and discarding anything that contradicts the Holy Gospel of St SKS winning the next election, that’s your problem.
Instinctively I believe the Conservatives will win the next election. I am struggling to find any tangible evidence to support that notion other than from history, that tells us with a few exceptions, only Conservatives win UK GEs.
And as everyone on here agrees, Johnson is a lucky General. Hopefully he will be wearing the costume astride his tank in Ukraine later this week to confirm that point.
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WARNING - DISTRESSING CONTENT: Harriet Robson has posted a series of Instagram posts that she claims show the effects of the physical abuse suffered by her at the hands of Manchester United star Mason Greenwood
Here’s my view - and I realise it may be complete bollocks - but I think a key factor in determining the outcome of elections since 1979 has been how optimistic / upbeat each leader has been with their vision. When you look at the elections since 79 (Foot vs Thatcher, Major v Blair, Cameron v Brown etc, even Corbyn’s outperformance v May in 2017), that rule helps to explain the result.
Why is 1979 a cutoff point? Well, again, may be bollocks but it’s the last election when (1) the country truly had to make a serious direction in its direction of travel and (2) it might be said the existing political and economic situation was under severe stress. Sure, we have had issues since (the 2008/9 probably the most serious) but nothing like the 1970s. People therefore were more at liberty to go with whom they liked rather than swallowing harsh medicine.
Again, may be bollocks but let’s see.
I agree inasmuch as optimism will always be more popular then pessimism/realism and it clearly worked for Johnson in December 2019 but a lot has happened since then and I suspect his upbeat message won't have the resonance it did last time. He is tainted and tarnished by his own failings.
Oddly enough, in the post-Covid world, an upbeat mood would work even better. Some have compared where we are to the early 1920s after the Spanish Flu though I remind them that analogy didn't end well and the image of the "Roaring Twenties" might have been fine for the rich and the young but it wasn't such a good decade for everyone.
Starmer's advantage currently is for all he lacks the levitas of Johnson, he's got gravitas in spades and competent managerialism ("you get on with the governing and leave us alone to have a good time") may sell very well. If I were Starmer, I wouldn't go strong on the personal failings of Johnson but I would go strong on the failings of the Government (wither "Levelling Up" for example?) and, pace Blair, run on the "we'll actually deliver what Johnson promised and won't bother you doing it" platform.
I'm not suggesting masterly inactivity (though that's not without its merits) but I suspect promising a period of quiet Government (getting on with the job so to speak) would be a strong platform.
Those who love Boris as an antidote to all other politicians are going to die in the ditch with him - your friends might, there's half a dozen or more on here who clearly will. As with Trump supporters, there's nothing you can do or say to persuade them but while they are a significant minority, that's all they are. When the object of their affection leaves the stage, they will either be lost to politics completely ("no one's as good as Maggie was") or will drift back to the mainstream.
Comments
So that’s just the common travel, customs and currency unions then…..
And my point was that technicalities like where a bank is registered, currency etc just don't matter to most of the population. I'm reminded of this every time I go on the stupendously popular Daily Mail website.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0013sxj
I was simply pointing out that a one-sided union for non-UK entities already exists, so it was incorrect to say it couldn't happen. It would be stupid and damaging and against Scotland's interests, but it could happen.
There is lots of undue optimism on one side, and fear mongering on the other. There will be a short term fudge on currency and banking - it's in everyone's interest.
I am a firm believer in "Governments lose elections, opposition parties don't win them", but you are right Labour need to start setting out their stall for Government, not in fully costed detail, but some pointers as to the direction of travel. Closer to the election which is as you say is only 2 years away, we will need everything set out in black and white.
I too remember 1992 and it still weighs heavy on the mind. As it stands, my main hope is the replacement of Johnson sooner rather than later. That should be the priority for the nation, get rid of this awful excuse for a Prime Minister. A Conservative victory in 2024 without the threat of a further 5 years of the gurning clown sweetens the bitter pill
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/carry-out-international-road-haulage
and
https://www.gov.uk/transport-goods-from-uk-by-road
Why would it make any difference to me if you’re on my side since it changes the situation not a whit? I’m not entirely convinced that people who want to get rid of Scotland because they see it as a parasite sucking in honest, hard earned English pounds without showing sufficient gratitude as on my side in any case.
Mr. Eabhal, while still not a fan of such terms, my apologies for the (slight) misreading of your comment.
HMG has already confirmed they will honour Scotland's share of the debt no matter what, the quid pro quo of that for the banks nominally registered in Scotland but with an English & Welsh registered office it should be easy.
The benefit of English regional assembly would be a new Barnett type arrangement for the NE in particular - actual levelling up.
The benefit of the Scottish Parliament is we have a very strong advocate for fiscal support.
What is needed is clear thinking south of the wall. Where does England want to be? At the moment it has chosen to have the right to have babies even though it can't have babies. Hopefully soon the foetus gestation box will be put away and recognition that it still has and will continue to have shared standards and trading needs with the EU will sink in.
Scottish independence whilst everyone was part of the EU was hard. Now that we have this absurd WE ARE ENGLAND, FUCK EM bravado as the queues on either side of the channel extend for a dozen miles, it feels absurdly hard. But I don't expect that will stay the case for long. And the longer that England's approach to not just abroad but remoaners is "fuck em" the more Scotland and NI get repelled away.
It would take about six minutes before you have demagogues in poorer parts demanding equal spending compared to richer parts, and demagogues in richer parts demanding to keep more of 'their own' money.
Holyrood has not exactly served to diminish the independence movement.
Its like the stuff about Scottish independence being SNP being Scottish independence - not true. If we did end up with a Scottish state there would not be one party rule, same with an English Federal Parliament not being Tory forever in a reformed UK.
JRM as rUK PM with HYUFD patrolling the border. Eeeeeek.
When the Mail print titles are prioritising “save Boris” over an actually compelling story, something is wrong. I’m starting to agree with those who say the returning Dacre has lost his touch.
But you're right. Labour won stunningly under the political genius Blair when people were enthused about his alternative, while the deeply mediocre Cameron failed to win a majority against Brown because he didn't have the same level of support behind him.
Jeez. That would finally be the nail in the coffin. They'd all be off. And years of chaos as the transition is undertaken.
And English parliament would need to spend actual money outside the SE. Some areas remain pretty crummy and now that the European Regional Development Fund has gone (and shockingly enough isn't being replaced by UK government money) the iniquity will get worse.
The model has to be what great cities like Manchester did when industrialising. Build the infrastructure - in their case pneumatic systems and centralised power generation for machinery - and offer big subsidies for new companies to start up.
What is needed is a 25 year investment plan of the kind that no government wants to bother with here but so many European governments have always done. Don't consider short term profitability, look to the long term strategic needs and spend money now for big returns later.
EDIT - like Big Ben Houchen has said with regards to the South Tees Development Corporation. You know, the "publicly owned" long term redevlopment of Redcar steelworks that has mysteriously ended up 90% owned by donors and patrons for their short-term profits...
Both folks - who do switch their votes or just don’t vote if they don’t like anyone - said they are sticking with Boris. Their views was that the parties thing was overblown. More on topic, they both were disdainful of Starmer and Labour.
I then went out with some old friends, two definitely old school Labour (but also not woke - my school friend would be called a TERF) and one who voted for Brexit. All of them said they felt Boris was a leader whereas Starmer wasn’t. They all pointed out the importance of portraying optimism and an upbeat message, and they felt BJ had that and Starmer didn’t. Interestingly, Blair’s name came up and the women talked about how his smiling was a definite plus for them, at least at first.
That didn’t blind them to his faults nor that the Government had cocked up badly on several fronts. But they would much rather have BJ as PM than Starmer. Ironically, the one who was most anti-BJ was the Brexiteer because she didn’t want to be “ruled by toffs”.
PS enthusiasm for Rishi was low. All felt he was untrustworthy and the word ‘sneaky’ came up more than once. I’m not sure Rishi would do much for the Tories outside places like St Albans and, as pointed out, seats with large Indian populations.
Qualities required
Able to unify
Requires Charisma
Requires ability to develop popular policy.
Current leader fails miserably on all counts.
As for fifth column what goes around comes around. Without aforesaid we would have had a Lab led Government in 2017.
Publish the Gray report in full says the man who has failed to do so with the equally important Forde report into racism and deliberate self harm in Labour
But nationalisation would not bring years of chaos. They'd not "all be off" (to where?).
If there is a shortage of GPs, it is because so many doctors now work part-time. 90 per cent of salaried (ie not partners) GPs work part-time. Ninety per cent.
Telephone appointments are fine for me because I know what I want. Trouble is if the doctor can't actually see me, they won't notice I'm a bit green about the gills or am wheezing slightly.
One thing I would mention is that while dentists and opticians have lots of shiny new tech kit, you could walk into many GPs surgeries and not notice much change since the 1950s, except that the doctor uses a keyboard rather than a fountain pen and has plastic not rubber tubes on their stethoscope.
Whereas your witnesses may well think Starmer isn't presidential enough for them, the anecdotal evidence I am seeing in RedWall Wales is "one rule for Boris, another for the little people" and I see no hostility yet to a CofE that gave us all free money for a year.
It massively increased the capital available to the Scottish banks and their ability to trade and lend.
It gave the management the opportunities to earn obscene sums of money and this trickled, more like poured actually, into Edinburgh, keeping the private schools going and the tax take way higher than it was before.
From Scotland's point of view, it gave us some home grown international businesses again. Once upon a time many Scottish businesses transversed the globe but we now have an almost exclusively branch economy with all the problems that brings.
The impossible trinity (also known as the impossible trilemma or the Unholy Trinity) is a concept in international economics which states that it is impossible to have all three of the following at the same time:
a fixed foreign exchange rate
free capital movement (absence of capital controls)
an independent monetary policy
Which did Ireland choose to sacrifice - free capital movement or an independent monetary policy? And which would Scotland sacrifice to peg the Scottish Pound to the rUK Pound?
There has to be a positive case for Scotland staying in the UK if any such exists.
I know much more about the structures in pharmacy and medicine than in the other two, but it does seem to me that a total rethink of those structures could well be a Good Thing.
To be fair, Nigel Farage tried it and in the spring of 2019 he was polling better than the Conservatives.
A lot depends on Starmer but we have reason to be optiimistic His PMQ's performance two weeks ago was the best i've seen from an opposition leader for years. What's more I don't believe the Tories can win an election while Johnson is leader. Like Trump there are are too many voters who will vote against him come what may.
He's become toxic and a laughing stock (but not in a good way) and I cant think of an example where that combination has been reversed.
Put crudely, the primary reason for independence and the primary determinant of the post-independence relationship are one and the same: England is ten times the size of Scotland.
Secession is an existential issue for Scots, but an irrelevance to most of the English. Professional politicians and a minority of committed Unionists (who fret about things like nuclear weapons, security council seats and general nebulous angst about the diminution of the greatness of Britain) will worry themselves sick about it, but it wouldn't make a jot of difference to my everyday life nor that of most of my compatriots. For some of those who live very close to the border and for people tasked with managing trade across it: important. For people living three hundred miles to the South who have nothing to do with Scotland save for the occasional holiday: not so much.
Down South, we've had two decades of devolution, one decade of SNP governments in Edinburgh and a narrow defeat for an independence referendum to get used to the idea that a very large chunk of Scottish public opinion wants to leave, and that secession at some point is basically inevitable. The event is already expected: when it happens it's most likely to provoke shoulder shrugging, perhaps accompanied by some regret at the end of an era, rather than a backlash.
If the Scottish Government doesn't get everything it wants out of independence negotiations then it's not going to be because its counterpart in London is being wilfully difficult. It'll be because (a) it is motivated entirely by the welfare of its own people, (b) those people have no particular interest in doing anything to help Scotland that puts them to trouble or costs them money, and (c) Scotland has little to offer in return. That's all.
The border might have been less hard if England hadn't chosen to leave the EU. But smaller countries don't always get the choices and have to deal with the situation that actually exists, as we are finding, or should be finding, with Brexit.
Good header by the way.
It give our young opportunities that they would not otherwise have.
It gives us, through the Union, some significance in the world.
It allows us a degree of cross subsidy in harder times. When North Sea oil was gushing for 20 years Scottish money helped pay for the reconfigeration of the UK economy from manufacturing to services. Right now, and for the last decade or more the cross subsidy works the other way.
It means we have the use of Sterling, the stability that comes with a solid monetary base, and not only access to but full participation in the largest international financial centre in the world.
I, and a significant minority of Scots, am proud to be British. This is a great country that is a little too prone to beating itself up. It is a force for good in the world and believes more deeply than almost any other country that I am aware of in fairness, decency, the rule of law and compassion. The balance to make up a majority in favour of the Union may be more pragmatic about it but I remain confident that Scotland will again choose to remain.
My question is how many people would vote for PM Boris but not PM Johnson. I think the number is non trivial, maybe as high as 3% in good times for him.
Why is 1979 a cutoff point? Well, again, may be bollocks but it’s the last election when (1) the country truly had to make a serious direction in its direction of travel and (2) it might be said the existing political and economic situation was under severe stress. Sure, we have had issues since (the 2008/9 probably the most serious) but nothing like the 1970s. People therefore were more at liberty to go with whom they liked rather than swallowing harsh medicine.
Again, may be bollocks but let’s see.
With the Opinium polling last night showing a Labour lead over the Tories of just 5% and only a hung parliament, Boris remains safe for now
Mason Greenwood's girlfriend accuses him of attacking her in shocking Instagram post
WARNING - DISTRESSING CONTENT: Harriet Robson has posted a series of Instagram posts that she claims show the effects of the physical abuse suffered by her at the hands of Manchester United star Mason Greenwood
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/mason-greenwood-girlfriend-instagram-posts-26087586
If you can’t get past your bias of seeing “Tory voter alert!” and discarding anything that contradicts the Holy Gospel of St SKS winning the next election, that’s your problem.
I assume Scotland would choose the option that is most in its interests both from a trading point of view (probably favouring Sterling) and in the case of maintaining parity with Sterling, by the cost of a higher Scottish interest rate to offset investor perceived risk (thus probably favouring the Euro).
I suspect they will choose the Euro. It will be interesting to see.
So in the interests of moving it on, how about a referendum, agreed now but held in 2030 and based on a framework exit agreement rather than a stay/leave or yes/no?
Anyhow, I am off to the shops in Leeds today, so I shall report back later regarding busyness, maskyness, etc.
We were in EU so that argument is false
People have opportunities all over the world so false
Just laugh at the next one
Just say Norway to next one
Every country has a currency and most are stable
So no benefit and all the downsides
Peoples Republic?
And in Manchester!
Where such a sighting is rarer than the Loch Ness Monster
English voters would demand no concessions whatsoever to the Nationalists and to ensure as much of the oil, armed forces etc remained on the English side of the border not the Scottish side and that not a penny more was ever sent north of the border by English taxpayers to Scotland ever again. English fishermen would also demand restrictions on Scottish fishermens access to English fishing grounds.
That would especially very true of a Tory government but even an English Labour government would also have to do so or risk losing English voters to the Tories. Though of course only a Labour minority government reliant on the SNP would allow an indyref2 anyway
And as everyone on here agrees, Johnson is a lucky General. Hopefully he will be wearing the costume astride his tank in Ukraine later this week to confirm that point.
Out of caution for PB I won't say any more, but it's horrible.
Oddly enough, in the post-Covid world, an upbeat mood would work even better. Some have compared where we are to the early 1920s after the Spanish Flu though I remind them that analogy didn't end well and the image of the "Roaring Twenties" might have been fine for the rich and the young but it wasn't such a good decade for everyone.
Starmer's advantage currently is for all he lacks the levitas of Johnson, he's got gravitas in spades and competent managerialism ("you get on with the governing and leave us alone to have a good time") may sell very well. If I were Starmer, I wouldn't go strong on the personal failings of Johnson but I would go strong on the failings of the Government (wither "Levelling Up" for example?) and, pace Blair, run on the "we'll actually deliver what Johnson promised and won't bother you doing it" platform.
I'm not suggesting masterly inactivity (though that's not without its merits) but I suspect promising a period of quiet Government (getting on with the job so to speak) would be a strong platform.
Those who love Boris as an antidote to all other politicians are going to die in the ditch with him - your friends might, there's half a dozen or more on here who clearly will. As with Trump supporters, there's nothing you can do or say to persuade them but while they are a significant minority, that's all they are. When the object of their affection leaves the stage, they will either be lost to politics completely ("no one's as good as Maggie was") or will drift back to the mainstream.