Fraud must have gone up a lot for everything else to be down 14%.
The "value" of many other crimes has collapsed. Cars are harder and harder to steal, without the keys. Personal possessions have fallen massively, in terms of saleable value. Apart from phones and laptops, the contents of even a rich persons home isn't worth much on the second hand market. And even for phone and laptops it's a pittance.
Jewellery of the kind that has major re-sale value has dropped out of fashion, for most people.
The value is on your credit cards.
Not to mention no bugger carries cash anymore.
Good luck shopping round here if you don't have cash.
For anyone thinking of seeing the film Moonfall, first of all do so because it's hilarious in that 'not sure this is intentional' Roland Emmerich way, and second, remarkably it actually makes more sense than 2012 (which is far from saying it makes sense).
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
I know there is no fund.
Why is this any different from someone who moves to, say, Spain or Australia receiving their partial pensions from UK coffers (as is the case now)?
Because that's an individual or a few people, it's not 900,000 people
And it's not attached to 7% of the UK population leaving to form a new country.
This would be the Max Hastings who, despite knowing of Boris's unsuitability, unreliability and dishonesty, nonetheless continued employing him. That Max Hastings?
Does the excoriating piece contain a profound apology from Max Hastings for his part in allowing this individual to continue plying his trade, an apology for teaching him the most important - and for the rest of us, disastrous - lesson: namely that he could do all these bad things and still suffer no adverse consequences?
Fraud must have gone up a lot for everything else to be down 14%.
The "value" of many other crimes has collapsed. Cars are harder and harder to steal, without the keys. Personal possessions have fallen massively, in terms of saleable value. Apart from phones and laptops, the contents of even a rich persons home isn't worth much on the second hand market. And even for phone and laptops it's a pittance.
Jewellery of the kind that has major re-sale value has dropped out of fashion, for most people.
The value is on your credit cards.
Not to mention no bugger carries cash anymore.
Good luck shopping round here if you don't have cash.
Truly, the life of a Gentleman of the Road is hard. Not enough pickings from London stagecoach to keep one in port, let alone powder and shot......
SNP reverse their line on pensions from 2014 and make outrageously misleading claims - robust response from those who care about this kind of disinformation is labelled a coordinated unionist conspiracy by nationalists’ pretendy “media monitoring” account
Fraud must have gone up a lot for everything else to be down 14%.
The "value" of many other crimes has collapsed. Cars are harder and harder to steal, without the keys. Personal possessions have fallen massively, in terms of saleable value. Apart from phones and laptops, the contents of even a rich persons home isn't worth much on the second hand market. And even for phone and laptops it's a pittance.
Jewellery of the kind that has major re-sale value has dropped out of fashion, for most people.
The value is on your credit cards.
Not to mention no bugger carries cash anymore.
You sound disappointed. Income from muggings not so good these days?
No. Been a bastard for the homeless mind. Which does depress me.
Fraud must have gone up a lot for everything else to be down 14%.
The "value" of many other crimes has collapsed. Cars are harder and harder to steal, without the keys. Personal possessions have fallen massively, in terms of saleable value. Apart from phones and laptops, the contents of even a rich persons home isn't worth much on the second hand market. And even for phone and laptops it's a pittance.
Jewellery of the kind that has major re-sale value has dropped out of fashion, for most people.
The value is on your credit cards.
Not to mention no bugger carries cash anymore.
Good luck shopping round here if you don't have cash.
Truly, the life of a Gentleman of the Road is hard. Not enough pickings from London stagecoach to keep one in port, let alone powder and shot......
Good luck shopping for port round here as well. They can spell it but they can't pronounce it...
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
Those who leave UK to a newly independent Scotland would have a preserved entitlement to the UK state pension up the point of the creation of the new Scottish state. Entitlement to future build-up would cease at this point (as they are no longer in the UK) which would mean a partial entitlement to the UK state pension - depending on each individual's number of years of UK NI contributions - payable when each person achieves UK state retirement age.
At the same time each person would start to accrue brand new entitlement from a zero start to a Scottish state pension.
So on retirement, each person would receive part preserved UK pension and part Scot pension. It is possible that these would start at different ages depending on whether the Scots have the same or a different state pension age.
The part UK pension would be unlikely to index-linked each year - it would be a partial entitlement to the state pension at the monetary amount applicable when Scotland left the union. The reason for this is that leaving to another country only attracts indexation if there is a reciprocal agreement between the UK and the other country (e.g. USA). A reciprocal agreement with Scotland would be unlikely because Scotland would have nothing to reciprocate.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because by voting to leave the Union they would have voted to leave the shared polity that collectively decides what level the pension should be paid at, how it is to be funded, etc, and have decided to make those choices themselves, and so they would have to bear the financial cost of those choices themselves.
There is no equivalence between an individual retaining some entitlement to a British state pension after emigrating, and an entire country of people retaining their entitlement after voting to secede. The scenarios are different.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
No. They may have thought that they were paying NI contributions in exchange for a pension, but they were actually paying tax.
You're making the fundamental mistake of confusing private sector pensions (in which there exists a contractual obligation for the employer or provider to whom the contributions are being made to stump up on retirement) and the state pension (which is a social security benefit paid to citizens with a specific characteristic, no different at all in its fundamentals to child benefit or JSA, for example, and which the Government can amend, and could theoretically decide to withdraw or replace entirely, at any time.)
Many British voters labour under the false assumption that national insurance payments all go into a massive pot to pay out contributory pensions to them, personally. Many British politicians have found it convenient from time to time to harp on about the contributory principle. But, to borrow a phrase, it's all rhubarb.
Therefore, whilst there are indeed pension complexities to be resolved (e.g. in respect of occupational pensions paid to UK state employees, or in cases where people have lived and worked for some time on both sides of the border,) for the majority of Scots who have never lived or worked outside of Scotland, the entire liability for funding their social security benefits - including state pensions - will be assumed by the Scottish Government upon independence. Nothing else makes any sense at all.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
I know there is no fund.
Why is this any different from someone who moves to, say, Spain or Australia receiving their partial pensions from UK coffers (as is the case now)?
Because that's an individual or a few people, it's not 900,000 people
And it's not attached to 7% of the UK population leaving to form a new country.
That doesn't override principle and consistency. They will lose any future build-up and indexation at least - as I have argued - so it will be a smaller (and dwindling) liability than many may realise.
This would be the Max Hastings who, despite knowing of Boris's unsuitability, unreliability and dishonesty, nonetheless continued employing him. That Max Hastings?
Does the excoriating piece contain a profound apology from Max Hastings for his part in allowing this individual to continue plying his trade, an apology for teaching him the most important - and for the rest of us, disastrous - lesson: namely that he could do all these bad things and still suffer no adverse consequences?
The problem with accountability is that once you start applying it to other people.... They might apply it to you.
Hence the phenomenon of the new Upper 10,000 - a mutual system of no-accountability.
Who float above accountability in the way that in various bits of science fiction, The Rulers live above the clouds...
Fraud must have gone up a lot for everything else to be down 14%.
The "value" of many other crimes has collapsed. Cars are harder and harder to steal, without the keys. Personal possessions have fallen massively, in terms of saleable value. Apart from phones and laptops, the contents of even a rich persons home isn't worth much on the second hand market. And even for phone and laptops it's a pittance.
Jewellery of the kind that has major re-sale value has dropped out of fashion, for most people.
The value is on your credit cards.
Not to mention no bugger carries cash anymore.
You sound disappointed. Income from muggings not so good these days?
No. Been a bastard for the homeless mind. Which does depress me.
Yes, good point. Some of the homeless down my way now take card payments. But most are accepting food rather than cash, which is for some beneficial.
Fraud must have gone up a lot for everything else to be down 14%.
The "value" of many other crimes has collapsed. Cars are harder and harder to steal, without the keys. Personal possessions have fallen massively, in terms of saleable value. Apart from phones and laptops, the contents of even a rich persons home isn't worth much on the second hand market. And even for phone and laptops it's a pittance.
Jewellery of the kind that has major re-sale value has dropped out of fashion, for most people.
The value is on your credit cards.
Not to mention no bugger carries cash anymore.
Good luck shopping round here if you don't have cash.
Truly, the life of a Gentleman of the Road is hard. Not enough pickings from London stagecoach to keep one in port, let alone powder and shot......
Good luck shopping for port round here as well. They can spell it but they can't pronounce it...
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
» show previous quotes They don’t have a currency, central bank or reserves, for starters.
You fool we have the Bank of England at present as Central bank , it stores our reserves at £ for £ for all Scottish pounds and we use pounds Sterling, what planet are you on. PS: It appears you have Borisitis, an inability to tell the truth.
The Scottish pound was officially abolished in 1707 and converted to sterling on a 12;1 basis. In practice it was still used in Scotland for another 70 years, although by 1755 it was rated at the worth of a shilling in Sterling.
Do we have Scottish pound notes at preset and do we have reserves lodged in our central bank at present though, no bollox squirrels about the Roman's will be accepted.
Not quite, you have Scottish Bank (and Northern Irish Bank) notes. They belong to and are issued by the bank not the region.
Most entertainment I've had in years was getting the Danske Bank counter at Copenhagen Airport to change some Northern Irish Danske Bank notes to Danish Krona - Danske had just introduced the polymer £10 note so it really did look and feel like toy money to the Danish workers.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
No. They may have thought that they were paying NI contributions in exchange for a pension, but they were actually paying tax.
You're making the fundamental mistake of confusing private sector pensions (in which there exists a contractual obligation for the employer or provider to whom the contributions are being made to stump up on retirement) and the state pension (which is a social security benefit, no different at all to child benefit or JSA, for example, and which the Government can amend, and could theoretically decide to withdraw or replace entirely, at any time.)
Many British voters labour under the false assumption that national insurance payments all go into a massive pot to pay out contributory pensions to them, personally. Many British politicians have found it convenient from time to time to harp on about the contributory principle. But, to borrow a phrase, it's all rhubarb.
Therefore, whilst there are indeed pension complexities to be resolved (e.g. in respect of occupational pensions paid to UK state employees, or in cases where people have lived and worked for some time on both sides of the border,) for the majority of Scots who have never lived or worked outside of Scotland, the entire liability for funding their social security benefits - including state pensions - will be assumed by the Scottish Government upon independence. Nothing else makes any sense at all.
No, you are making the mistake. It makes no difference whether there is a pot or not *unless the paying party goes broke.* The UK cannot go broke.
NI contributions are effectively a contract under which UK has existing obligations which are not abrogated by Scindy. What is rhubarb, is saying that they are not contributions, they are just a thing which the naive and uninitiated might be misled into thinking were contributions, because of their slightly misleading name "contributions." Even if there were merit in the argument, which there isn't, would you be proud to live in a country which took such an unbelievably shitty point against poor, elderly individuals?
Fraud must have gone up a lot for everything else to be down 14%.
The "value" of many other crimes has collapsed. Cars are harder and harder to steal, without the keys. Personal possessions have fallen massively, in terms of saleable value. Apart from phones and laptops, the contents of even a rich persons home isn't worth much on the second hand market. And even for phone and laptops it's a pittance.
Jewellery of the kind that has major re-sale value has dropped out of fashion, for most people.
The value is on your credit cards.
Not to mention no bugger carries cash anymore.
Good luck shopping round here if you don't have cash.
Truly, the life of a Gentleman of the Road is hard. Not enough pickings from London stagecoach to keep one in port, let alone powder and shot......
Good luck shopping for port round here as well. They can spell it but they can't pronounce it...
I blame DfE and OFSTED.
In fairness 'Cockburn' is a funny one. You wonder if it will eventually go the way of Shrewsbury and end up being pronounced as it's spelled not as it's traditionally spoken.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
» show previous quotes They don’t have a currency, central bank or reserves, for starters.
You fool we have the Bank of England at present as Central bank , it stores our reserves at £ for £ for all Scottish pounds and we use pounds Sterling, what planet are you on. PS: It appears you have Borisitis, an inability to tell the truth.
Sindy will not have the BoE as it’s central bank and rUK will not enter into a currency union with it.
the SNP's current currency position is to unofficially continue to use sterling outside the formal sterling area, much in the same way Montenegro uses the euro without the agreement of the eurozone or the European Central Bank. It is envisaged this 'sterlingisation' arrangement will last a considerable period. The SNP would then plan to launch a new Scottish currency if the economic conditions merited it.
McCrone sees the danger in this. Figures show that an independent Scotland would start life with a classic twin deficits problem. The country would be importing more than it is exporting and spending more money than it is generating in tax. It would therefore have unsustainably large current account and budget deficits.
'In the short term, even if taxes were raised or public expenditure cut, Scotland would have to borrow to finance both of these deficits,' notes McCrone. But as a new borrower with no long record of credibility like the UK, Scotland would 'have to pay considerably more on its borrowing'.
'Interest rates would be in danger of constantly increasing in a vicious circle, resulting in eventual collapse,' he warns.
Can you read, I am talking about the present situation, once independent we will have A Scottish Central Bank with all our reserves transferred and it will be the Scottish pound or whatever interim currency they use till joining the Euro.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Look at the £26bn that goes on welfare payments in Scotland and ask where the money for that will come from let alone everything else the Government would need to spend money on.
It's awkward to say this as MalcolmG and others will attack me but it's very hard to see how any Independent Scotland works without massive reductions in Government Expenditure.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Voting for Indy by a narrow margin? You think that would be easy? It would be a case of 'be careful what you wish for.' Brexit on acid by a tiny majority could easily be disastrous for Scotland.
Whichever side wins the next referendum if it's not to cause endless trouble it needs to be decisive.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
She will not get it or perhaps I should say does not want to get it, an employee of the Better Together mob and will put out any untruth to prove their false premise.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Look at the £26bn that goes on welfare payments in Scotland and ask where the money for that will come from let alone everything else the Government would need to spend money on.
It's awkward to say this as MalcolmG and others will attack me but it's very hard to see how any Independent Scotland works without massive reductions in Government Expenditure.
That's making a case against independence, not making a case that the SNP are against independence. The first is something I will take seriously, the second, I'm sorry, is not.
I would imagine that low level petty fraud is difficult to prosecute and consumes a lot of police resources in doing so. The test of 'beyond reasonable doubt' is a high one to pass. I would imagine it is easy for a defendent to construct a plausible denial which would derail a prosecution. Its not like a violent crime where someone was caught on CCTV.
If other crime, including violence, is actually going down 14%, then the government surely do deserve some credit for that. It shows that despite lots of high profile cases, the country is not an unsafe place when compared against recent history and other comparable countries.
Kwarteng is correct in that people generally want the police to tackle crimes against the person. I would also imagine that the government want the banks to sort out fraud, not the police.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
I know there is no fund.
Why is this any different from someone who moves to, say, Spain or Australia receiving their partial pensions from UK coffers (as is the case now)?
Because that's an individual or a few people, it's not 900,000 people
And it's not attached to 7% of the UK population leaving to form a new country.
Over a million pensioners receiving the state pension abroad so it is more than 900,000.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Voting for Indy by a narrow margin? You think that would be easy? It would be a case of 'be careful what you wish for.' Brexit on acid by a tiny majority could easily be disastrous for Scotland.
Whichever side wins the next referendum if it's not to cause endless trouble it needs to be decisive.
I agree with that as a neutral. But if you offered the SNP a 51-49 win or a 49-51 defeat in a referendum, obviously they'd take the win.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Voting for Indy by a narrow margin? You think that would be easy? It would be a case of 'be careful what you wish for.' Brexit on acid by a tiny majority could easily be disastrous for Scotland.
Whichever side wins the next referendum if it's not to cause endless trouble it needs to be decisive.
The only way it will be decisive is for the separatists to win - they will never accept a defeat of any size.
Some might argue that quantitative easing is the biggest fraud of all.
It is the modern equivalent of debasement of the coinage. We are all victims of it.
Not sure about that. If, as seems to be the case, QE has helped maintain demand and contributed significantly to attenuating unemployment and preventing underutilisation of resources, then we are better off than we would have been without it.
At the moment I am in the middle of a proof where a family who speak little to no English lost their deposit for their house (their life's savings) when someone sent a false email claiming the bank details of their solicitors had been changed. Neither the bank nor the police showed any interest. An IT investigator instructed by the solicitor made some progress but was hampered by the lack of warrants etc. He gave what he had to the police. They remained uninterested. In the witness box the wife was distraught and sobbed. It was painful to see. She had been let down so badly by a system that just doesn't seem to care.
I am having a hard time understanding many things today, and this is yet another poser. This is an example of a fraud where money has been obtained by deception. There is a paper trail for the act of deception, and, at least initially, for the movement of the money. The police should be all over this. They could have well-established procedures for working with the banks and investigating this crime.
This sort of thing comes up time and again on all sorts of consumer affairs columns, money programmes, etc - why is nothing being done, except for a bunch of emails piling up in my inbox from my bank telling me what I have to do to avoid falling a victim to this crime?
» show previous quotes They don’t have a currency, central bank or reserves, for starters.
You fool we have the Bank of England at present as Central bank , it stores our reserves at £ for £ for all Scottish pounds and we use pounds Sterling, what planet are you on. PS: It appears you have Borisitis, an inability to tell the truth.
Sindy will not have the BoE as it’s central bank and rUK will not enter into a currency union with it.
the SNP's current currency position is to unofficially continue to use sterling outside the formal sterling area, much in the same way Montenegro uses the euro without the agreement of the eurozone or the European Central Bank. It is envisaged this 'sterlingisation' arrangement will last a considerable period. The SNP would then plan to launch a new Scottish currency if the economic conditions merited it.
McCrone sees the danger in this. Figures show that an independent Scotland would start life with a classic twin deficits problem. The country would be importing more than it is exporting and spending more money than it is generating in tax. It would therefore have unsustainably large current account and budget deficits.
'In the short term, even if taxes were raised or public expenditure cut, Scotland would have to borrow to finance both of these deficits,' notes McCrone. But as a new borrower with no long record of credibility like the UK, Scotland would 'have to pay considerably more on its borrowing'.
'Interest rates would be in danger of constantly increasing in a vicious circle, resulting in eventual collapse,' he warns.
Can you read, I am talking about the present situation, once independent we will have A Scottish Central Bank with all our reserves transferred and it will be the Scottish pound or whatever interim currency they use till joining the Euro.
That's not SNP policy, which is to continue using the GBP - which will be tough as they spend more than they tax and import more than they export. But apart from that - great plan!
What is remarkable is the claim it isn't discussed on the doorstep. Fishing emails, strange phone calls seems to be a popular conversation with all the oldies in my life.
The one that annoys me is how the landline is now 100% scam calls for me, how did operators allowed that to happen.
MrB
Indeed, we are giving serious consideration to simply cancelling our land line. The only people who use it anymore are fraudsters. Quite of number of the calls, and calls increasingly to my mobile, seem to come from call centres in Cardiff and Liverpool. How on earth can these crooks be allowed to operate from call centres? Each time I get one of these calls I block that number on my phone but they seem to have a plethora of numbers. How hard can this be?
Apparently it is still ridiculously easy to spoof a phone number, and the simple step of blocking this has not yet been taken.
But I'm expected to give my date of birth to confirm my identity to anyone phoning up and claiming to be my bank/energy supplier/etc.
» show previous quotes They don’t have a currency, central bank or reserves, for starters.
You fool we have the Bank of England at present as Central bank , it stores our reserves at £ for £ for all Scottish pounds and we use pounds Sterling, what planet are you on. PS: It appears you have Borisitis, an inability to tell the truth.
Sindy will not have the BoE as it’s central bank and rUK will not enter into a currency union with it.
the SNP's current currency position is to unofficially continue to use sterling outside the formal sterling area, much in the same way Montenegro uses the euro without the agreement of the eurozone or the European Central Bank. It is envisaged this 'sterlingisation' arrangement will last a considerable period. The SNP would then plan to launch a new Scottish currency if the economic conditions merited it.
McCrone sees the danger in this. Figures show that an independent Scotland would start life with a classic twin deficits problem. The country would be importing more than it is exporting and spending more money than it is generating in tax. It would therefore have unsustainably large current account and budget deficits.
'In the short term, even if taxes were raised or public expenditure cut, Scotland would have to borrow to finance both of these deficits,' notes McCrone. But as a new borrower with no long record of credibility like the UK, Scotland would 'have to pay considerably more on its borrowing'.
'Interest rates would be in danger of constantly increasing in a vicious circle, resulting in eventual collapse,' he warns.
Can you read, I am talking about the present situation, once independent we will have A Scottish Central Bank with all our reserves transferred and it will be the Scottish pound or whatever interim currency they use till joining the Euro.
Once Scotland achieves independence you'll have a massive period where the goodwill of others shapes your future nation.
Much of that good-will has to come from the rest of the UK.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Voting for Indy by a narrow margin? You think that would be easy? It would be a case of 'be careful what you wish for.' Brexit on acid by a tiny majority could easily be disastrous for Scotland.
Whichever side wins the next referendum if it's not to cause endless trouble it needs to be decisive.
I agree with that as a neutral. But if you offered the SNP a 51-49 win or a 49-51 defeat in a referendum, obviously they'd take the win.
Yes, I am sure they would, emotionally. But in practical terms, they know that would be disastrous for them.
At least, I can't make sense of their behaviour over the last two years in any other way.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
No. They may have thought that they were paying NI contributions in exchange for a pension, but they were actually paying tax.
You're making the fundamental mistake of confusing private sector pensions (in which there exists a contractual obligation for the employer or provider to whom the contributions are being made to stump up on retirement) and the state pension (which is a social security benefit, no different at all to child benefit or JSA, for example, and which the Government can amend, and could theoretically decide to withdraw or replace entirely, at any time.)
Many British voters labour under the false assumption that national insurance payments all go into a massive pot to pay out contributory pensions to them, personally. Many British politicians have found it convenient from time to time to harp on about the contributory principle. But, to borrow a phrase, it's all rhubarb.
Therefore, whilst there are indeed pension complexities to be resolved (e.g. in respect of occupational pensions paid to UK state employees, or in cases where people have lived and worked for some time on both sides of the border,) for the majority of Scots who have never lived or worked outside of Scotland, the entire liability for funding their social security benefits - including state pensions - will be assumed by the Scottish Government upon independence. Nothing else makes any sense at all.
No, you are making the mistake. It makes no difference whether there is a pot or not *unless the paying party goes broke.* The UK cannot go broke.
NI contributions are effectively a contract under which UK has existing obligations which are not abrogated by Scindy. What is rhubarb, is saying that they are not contributions, they are just a thing which the naive and uninitiated might be misled into thinking were contributions, because of their slightly misleading name "contributions." Even if there were merit in the argument, which there isn't, would you be proud to live in a country which took such an unbelievably shitty point against poor, elderly individuals?
The settlement between twhe two parties should deal with assets and liabilities. Independent Scotland can then decide to pay whatever pension to whoever it wants. Voting indy gives the new government authority to set new pension rates. The offer from the old UK government of pension entitlements dies with the act of a new nation state taking power. The UK contributes a % of net assets for use by the new independent nation. They choose to use those assets as they wish.
- Cases are heading down again. R is constantly below 1 across all regions. R is below 1 for the older groups. - Hospital admissions are down - R is solidly below 1 - MV Beds down - In hospital down - Deaths down
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
No. They may have thought that they were paying NI contributions in exchange for a pension, but they were actually paying tax.
You're making the fundamental mistake of confusing private sector pensions (in which there exists a contractual obligation for the employer or provider to whom the contributions are being made to stump up on retirement) and the state pension (which is a social security benefit, no different at all to child benefit or JSA, for example, and which the Government can amend, and could theoretically decide to withdraw or replace entirely, at any time.)
Many British voters labour under the false assumption that national insurance payments all go into a massive pot to pay out contributory pensions to them, personally. Many British politicians have found it convenient from time to time to harp on about the contributory principle. But, to borrow a phrase, it's all rhubarb.
Therefore, whilst there are indeed pension complexities to be resolved (e.g. in respect of occupational pensions paid to UK state employees, or in cases where people have lived and worked for some time on both sides of the border,) for the majority of Scots who have never lived or worked outside of Scotland, the entire liability for funding their social security benefits - including state pensions - will be assumed by the Scottish Government upon independence. Nothing else makes any sense at all.
NI contributions are effectively a contract
"Effectively a contract" and "a contract" are not the same things.
The government can increase, decrease or end pensions - ask WASPI women who complain of being "denied a pension they were due" - did they sue the government for breach of contract?
I would imagine that low level petty fraud is difficult to prosecute and consumes a lot of police resources in doing so. The test of 'beyond reasonable doubt' is a high one to pass. I would imagine it is easy for a defendent to construct a plausible denial which would derail a prosecution. Its not like a violent crime where someone was caught on CCTV.
If other crime, including violence, is actually going down 14%, then the government surely do deserve some credit for that. It shows that despite lots of high profile cases, the country is not an unsafe place when compared against recent history and other comparable countries.
Kwarteng is correct in that people generally want the police to tackle crimes against the person. I would also imagine that the government want the banks to sort out fraud, not the police.
If you think banks either will - or can - sort out fraud, think again.
» show previous quotes They don’t have a currency, central bank or reserves, for starters.
You fool we have the Bank of England at present as Central bank , it stores our reserves at £ for £ for all Scottish pounds and we use pounds Sterling, what planet are you on. PS: It appears you have Borisitis, an inability to tell the truth.
Sindy will not have the BoE as it’s central bank and rUK will not enter into a currency union with it.
the SNP's current currency position is to unofficially continue to use sterling outside the formal sterling area, much in the same way Montenegro uses the euro without the agreement of the eurozone or the European Central Bank. It is envisaged this 'sterlingisation' arrangement will last a considerable period. The SNP would then plan to launch a new Scottish currency if the economic conditions merited it.
McCrone sees the danger in this. Figures show that an independent Scotland would start life with a classic twin deficits problem. The country would be importing more than it is exporting and spending more money than it is generating in tax. It would therefore have unsustainably large current account and budget deficits.
'In the short term, even if taxes were raised or public expenditure cut, Scotland would have to borrow to finance both of these deficits,' notes McCrone. But as a new borrower with no long record of credibility like the UK, Scotland would 'have to pay considerably more on its borrowing'.
'Interest rates would be in danger of constantly increasing in a vicious circle, resulting in eventual collapse,' he warns.
Can you read, I am talking about the present situation, once independent we will have A Scottish Central Bank with all our reserves transferred and it will be the Scottish pound or whatever interim currency they use till joining the Euro.
Re; William Glenn's earlier post, here's the Queen of Scotland herself, pride of the people, hero to the masses. Never mind the beauty of the Bond trailers, I must say I never realised how beautful she is herself.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Voting for Indy by a narrow margin? You think that would be easy? It would be a case of 'be careful what you wish for.' Brexit on acid by a tiny majority could easily be disastrous for Scotland.
Whichever side wins the next referendum if it's not to cause endless trouble it needs to be decisive.
I would imagine that low level petty fraud is difficult to prosecute and consumes a lot of police resources in doing so. The test of 'beyond reasonable doubt' is a high one to pass. I would imagine it is easy for a defendent to construct a plausible denial which would derail a prosecution. Its not like a violent crime where someone was caught on CCTV.
If other crime, including violence, is actually going down 14%, then the government surely do deserve some credit for that. It shows that despite lots of high profile cases, the country is not an unsafe place when compared against recent history and other comparable countries.
Kwarteng is correct in that people generally want the police to tackle crimes against the person. I would also imagine that the government want the banks to sort out fraud, not the police.
Call me an anti-government cynic, but I'm not totally convinced that reducing in-person acquisitive and violent crime by 14% in a period which included long periods where the whole population were LOCKED IN THEIR HOUSES AND UNABLE TO GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT BEING NOTICED is quite the achievement you suggest.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Voting for Indy by a narrow margin? You think that would be easy? It would be a case of 'be careful what you wish for.' Brexit on acid by a tiny majority could easily be disastrous for Scotland.
Whichever side wins the next referendum if it's not to cause endless trouble it needs to be decisive.
I agree with that as a neutral. But if you offered the SNP a 51-49 win or a 49-51 defeat in a referendum, obviously they'd take the win.
Yes, I am sure they would, emotionally. But in practical terms, they know that would be disastrous for them.
At least, I can't make sense of their behaviour over the last two years in any other way.
I can, it's really easy. There's been a pandemic on. It would be bad politics to be talking about any kind of radical change in the middle of a wave of sickness and death.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
No. They may have thought that they were paying NI contributions in exchange for a pension, but they were actually paying tax.
You're making the fundamental mistake of confusing private sector pensions (in which there exists a contractual obligation for the employer or provider to whom the contributions are being made to stump up on retirement) and the state pension (which is a social security benefit, no different at all to child benefit or JSA, for example, and which the Government can amend, and could theoretically decide to withdraw or replace entirely, at any time.)
Many British voters labour under the false assumption that national insurance payments all go into a massive pot to pay out contributory pensions to them, personally. Many British politicians have found it convenient from time to time to harp on about the contributory principle. But, to borrow a phrase, it's all rhubarb.
Therefore, whilst there are indeed pension complexities to be resolved (e.g. in respect of occupational pensions paid to UK state employees, or in cases where people have lived and worked for some time on both sides of the border,) for the majority of Scots who have never lived or worked outside of Scotland, the entire liability for funding their social security benefits - including state pensions - will be assumed by the Scottish Government upon independence. Nothing else makes any sense at all.
No, you are making the mistake. It makes no difference whether there is a pot or not *unless the paying party goes broke.* The UK cannot go broke.
NI contributions are effectively a contract under which UK has existing obligations which are not abrogated by Scindy. What is rhubarb, is saying that they are not contributions, they are just a thing which the naive and uninitiated might be misled into thinking were contributions, because of their slightly misleading name "contributions." Even if there were merit in the argument, which there isn't, would you be proud to live in a country which took such an unbelievably shitty point against poor, elderly individuals?
The settlement between twhe two parties should deal with assets and liabilities. Independent Scotland can then decide to pay whatever pension to whoever it wants. Voting indy gives the new government authority to set new pension rates. The offer from the old UK government of pension entitlements dies with the act of a new nation state taking power. The UK contributes a % of net assets for use by the new independent nation. They choose to use those assets as they wish.
Exactly right. Total assets and total liabilities set on a percentage of population basis. This of course means that if Scotland gets more oil reserves than the rest of the UK, then the UK gets more assets in other categories.
At the moment I am in the middle of a proof where a family who speak little to no English lost their deposit for their house (their life's savings) when someone sent a false email claiming the bank details of their solicitors had been changed. Neither the bank nor the police showed any interest. An IT investigator instructed by the solicitor made some progress but was hampered by the lack of warrants etc. He gave what he had to the police. They remained uninterested. In the witness box the wife was distraught and sobbed. It was painful to see. She had been let down so badly by a system that just doesn't seem to care.
I am having a hard time understanding many things today, and this is yet another poser. This is an example of a fraud where money has been obtained by deception. There is a paper trail for the act of deception, and, at least initially, for the movement of the money. The police should be all over this. They could have well-established procedures for working with the banks and investigating this crime.
This sort of thing comes up time and again on all sorts of consumer affairs columns, money programmes, etc - why is nothing being done, except for a bunch of emails piling up in my inbox from my bank telling me what I have to do to avoid falling a victim to this crime?
Sadly the perpetrators are not as naive as the victims, and the paper trail is extremely unlikely to lead anywhere very useful, either in terms of finding someone to prosecute or recovering funds.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Voting for Indy by a narrow margin? You think that would be easy? It would be a case of 'be careful what you wish for.' Brexit on acid by a tiny majority could easily be disastrous for Scotland.
Whichever side wins the next referendum if it's not to cause endless trouble it needs to be decisive.
It only needs 50%+1 of those voting.
Ah, so the 2014 referendum was decisive after all.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
No. They may have thought that they were paying NI contributions in exchange for a pension, but they were actually paying tax.
You're making the fundamental mistake of confusing private sector pensions (in which there exists a contractual obligation for the employer or provider to whom the contributions are being made to stump up on retirement) and the state pension (which is a social security benefit, no different at all to child benefit or JSA, for example, and which the Government can amend, and could theoretically decide to withdraw or replace entirely, at any time.)
Many British voters labour under the false assumption that national insurance payments all go into a massive pot to pay out contributory pensions to them, personally. Many British politicians have found it convenient from time to time to harp on about the contributory principle. But, to borrow a phrase, it's all rhubarb.
Therefore, whilst there are indeed pension complexities to be resolved (e.g. in respect of occupational pensions paid to UK state employees, or in cases where people have lived and worked for some time on both sides of the border,) for the majority of Scots who have never lived or worked outside of Scotland, the entire liability for funding their social security benefits - including state pensions - will be assumed by the Scottish Government upon independence. Nothing else makes any sense at all.
NI contributions are effectively a contract
"Effectively a contract" and "a contract" are not the same things.
The government can increase, decrease or end pensions - ask WASPI women who complain of being "denied a pension they were due" - did they sue the government for breach of contract?
So what? Any contract with government is only effectively a contract because government can alter its obligations at will by primary legislation. Are you seriously arguing that government should therefore be at liberty to take money on the basis of promises and not fulfill those promises?
I would imagine that low level petty fraud is difficult to prosecute and consumes a lot of police resources in doing so. The test of 'beyond reasonable doubt' is a high one to pass. I would imagine it is easy for a defendent to construct a plausible denial which would derail a prosecution. Its not like a violent crime where someone was caught on CCTV.
If other crime, including violence, is actually going down 14%, then the government surely do deserve some credit for that. It shows that despite lots of high profile cases, the country is not an unsafe place when compared against recent history and other comparable countries.
Kwarteng is correct in that people generally want the police to tackle crimes against the person. I would also imagine that the government want the banks to sort out fraud, not the police.
Call me an anti-government cynic, but I'm not totally convinced that reducing in-person acquisitive and violent crime by 14% in a period which included long periods where the whole population were LOCKED IN THEIR HOUSES AND UNABLE TO GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT BEING NOTICED is quite the achievement you suggest.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Look at the £26bn that goes on welfare payments in Scotland and ask where the money for that will come from let alone everything else the Government would need to spend money on.
It's awkward to say this as MalcolmG and others will attack me but it's very hard to see how any Independent Scotland works without massive reductions in Government Expenditure.
Awkward my arse, it will come out of Scotland's money that is currently used by Westminster to apy all these things. We don't get any freebies and supposedly we borrow all the money. You claim to be intelligent but cannot grasp that we have a GDP and could live on that and borrow a small amount like every other country. You surely are not deluded enough to think that you are funding Scotland. People woul donly comment ( not attack) because it is such obvious hogwash. Ask yourself , how do all other countries pay their welfare budgets, how will England do it after independence. Try to think.
Anyway, according to the answer to an FoI request, the Scottish government currently has twice as many civil servants working on GRA issues as on a Scottish independence referendum.
Don't get too excited. The numbers are 4 and 2 respectively.
Perhaps they anticipate winning the referendum with the votes of Scottish transsexuals? All those men/women/prefernottosay wearing kilts etc ......
** pulls out pin and retires to a safe distance **
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Look at the £26bn that goes on welfare payments in Scotland and ask where the money for that will come from let alone everything else the Government would need to spend money on.
It's awkward to say this as MalcolmG and others will attack me but it's very hard to see how any Independent Scotland works without massive reductions in Government Expenditure.
Awkward my arse, it will come out of Scotland's money that is currently used by Westminster to apy all these things. We don't get any freebies and supposedly we borrow all the money. You claim to be intelligent but cannot grasp that we have a GDP and could live on that and borrow a small amount like every other country. You surely are not deluded enough to think that you are funding Scotland. People woul donly comment ( not attack) because it is such obvious hogwash. Ask yourself , how do all other countries pay their welfare budgets, how will England do it after independence. Try to think.
But you do get freebies. Under the Scottish government's own numbers, there is a subsidy from the rest of the UK.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
No. They may have thought that they were paying NI contributions in exchange for a pension, but they were actually paying tax.
You're making the fundamental mistake of confusing private sector pensions (in which there exists a contractual obligation for the employer or provider to whom the contributions are being made to stump up on retirement) and the state pension (which is a social security benefit, no different at all to child benefit or JSA, for example, and which the Government can amend, and could theoretically decide to withdraw or replace entirely, at any time.)
Many British voters labour under the false assumption that national insurance payments all go into a massive pot to pay out contributory pensions to them, personally. Many British politicians have found it convenient from time to time to harp on about the contributory principle. But, to borrow a phrase, it's all rhubarb.
Therefore, whilst there are indeed pension complexities to be resolved (e.g. in respect of occupational pensions paid to UK state employees, or in cases where people have lived and worked for some time on both sides of the border,) for the majority of Scots who have never lived or worked outside of Scotland, the entire liability for funding their social security benefits - including state pensions - will be assumed by the Scottish Government upon independence. Nothing else makes any sense at all.
NI contributions are effectively a contract
"Effectively a contract" and "a contract" are not the same things.
The government can increase, decrease or end pensions - ask WASPI women who complain of being "denied a pension they were due" - did they sue the government for breach of contract?
So what? Any contract with government is only effectively a contract because government can alter its obligations at will by primary legislation. Are you seriously arguing that government should therefore be at liberty to take money on the basis of promises and not fulfill those promises?
WASPI women argue (wrongly, in my view) that they already have. Did they sue for breach of contract and win?
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Look at the £26bn that goes on welfare payments in Scotland and ask where the money for that will come from let alone everything else the Government would need to spend money on.
It's awkward to say this as MalcolmG and others will attack me but it's very hard to see how any Independent Scotland works without massive reductions in Government Expenditure.
Awkward my arse, it will come out of Scotland's money that is currently used by Westminster to apy all these things. We don't get any freebies and supposedly we borrow all the money. You claim to be intelligent but cannot grasp that we have a GDP and could live on that and borrow a small amount like every other country. You surely are not deluded enough to think that you are funding Scotland. People woul donly comment ( not attack) because it is such obvious hogwash. Ask yourself , how do all other countries pay their welfare budgets, how will England do it after independence. Try to think.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
No. They may have thought that they were paying NI contributions in exchange for a pension, but they were actually paying tax.
You're making the fundamental mistake of confusing private sector pensions (in which there exists a contractual obligation for the employer or provider to whom the contributions are being made to stump up on retirement) and the state pension (which is a social security benefit, no different at all to child benefit or JSA, for example, and which the Government can amend, and could theoretically decide to withdraw or replace entirely, at any time.)
Many British voters labour under the false assumption that national insurance payments all go into a massive pot to pay out contributory pensions to them, personally. Many British politicians have found it convenient from time to time to harp on about the contributory principle. But, to borrow a phrase, it's all rhubarb.
Therefore, whilst there are indeed pension complexities to be resolved (e.g. in respect of occupational pensions paid to UK state employees, or in cases where people have lived and worked for some time on both sides of the border,) for the majority of Scots who have never lived or worked outside of Scotland, the entire liability for funding their social security benefits - including state pensions - will be assumed by the Scottish Government upon independence. Nothing else makes any sense at all.
No, you are making the mistake. It makes no difference whether there is a pot or not *unless the paying party goes broke.* The UK cannot go broke.
NI contributions are effectively a contract under which UK has existing obligations which are not abrogated by Scindy. What is rhubarb, is saying that they are not contributions, they are just a thing which the naive and uninitiated might be misled into thinking were contributions, because of their slightly misleading name "contributions." Even if there were merit in the argument, which there isn't, would you be proud to live in a country which took such an unbelievably shitty point against poor, elderly individuals?
The settlement between twhe two parties should deal with assets and liabilities. Independent Scotland can then decide to pay whatever pension to whoever it wants. Voting indy gives the new government authority to set new pension rates. The offer from the old UK government of pension entitlements dies with the act of a new nation state taking power. The UK contributes a % of net assets for use by the new independent nation. They choose to use those assets as they wish.
Exactly right. Total assets and total liabilities set on a percentage of population basis. This of course means that if Scotland gets more oil reserves than the rest of the UK, then the UK gets more assets in other categories.
So in a post-independence settlement, is the power output from the London Array wind farm counted as a shared asset?
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Look at the £26bn that goes on welfare payments in Scotland and ask where the money for that will come from let alone everything else the Government would need to spend money on.
It's awkward to say this as MalcolmG and others will attack me but it's very hard to see how any Independent Scotland works without massive reductions in Government Expenditure.
Awkward my arse, it will come out of Scotland's money that is currently used by Westminster to apy all these things. We don't get any freebies and supposedly we borrow all the money. You claim to be intelligent but cannot grasp that we have a GDP and could live on that and borrow a small amount like every other country. You surely are not deluded enough to think that you are funding Scotland. People woul donly comment ( not attack) because it is such obvious hogwash. Ask yourself , how do all other countries pay their welfare budgets, how will England do it after independence. Try to think.
But you do get freebies. Under the Scottish government's own numbers, there is a subsidy from the rest of the UK.
Utter bollox , we send down a shedload and get around 40% back , the rest is spaffed up a wall by Westminster and they then claim we borrowed a fortune. GERS have been ridiculed for years, last one had 167 estimated numbers, total fiction.
I would imagine that low level petty fraud is difficult to prosecute and consumes a lot of police resources in doing so. The test of 'beyond reasonable doubt' is a high one to pass. I would imagine it is easy for a defendent to construct a plausible denial which would derail a prosecution. Its not like a violent crime where someone was caught on CCTV.
If other crime, including violence, is actually going down 14%, then the government surely do deserve some credit for that. It shows that despite lots of high profile cases, the country is not an unsafe place when compared against recent history and other comparable countries.
Kwarteng is correct in that people generally want the police to tackle crimes against the person. I would also imagine that the government want the banks to sort out fraud, not the police.
Call me an anti-government cynic, but I'm not totally convinced that reducing in-person acquisitive and violent crime by 14% in a period which included long periods where the whole population were LOCKED IN THEIR HOUSES AND UNABLE TO GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT BEING NOTICED is quite the achievement you suggest.
DV?
Increased quite a bit I think (haven't seen the figures) - and it would be equally unfair to insist that an increase was a government failing without giving the context.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Look at the £26bn that goes on welfare payments in Scotland and ask where the money for that will come from let alone everything else the Government would need to spend money on.
It's awkward to say this as MalcolmG and others will attack me but it's very hard to see how any Independent Scotland works without massive reductions in Government Expenditure.
I think the only way to achieve the necessary cuts in expenditure would be by a large dose of inflation, perhaps kicked off by a large depreciation in a new currency, which enabled large real-terms cuts in public sector pay, and some other items of expenditure. It would be a pretty horrific initial shock, but then Scotland would be independent, so a price worth paying for some, and it's possible that, if the country is well-run, it will have repaired the damage 30-50 years later.
Ireland had a very difficult few decades at first, after leaving the Union, but they aren't doing too badly now. It took them about six or seven decades to turn the corner economically, but I think they made a few mistakes along the way which an independent Scotland could avoid, and Scotland starts in a better state too.
It's not quite the promise of being immediately better off that the SNP want to sell, but there is a positive long-term future that is conceivable.
A nice knock on impact if the Scots ever stop being scared of going their own way would be the needs of England finally moving up the agenda. The UK government would face overwhelming democratic demand to screw the Scots as hard as possible, and given even a 'fair' deal with leave Scotland with a fiscal position similar to Greece on day 1, no wonder they tell so many porkies about the economics of it all.
The Sunday Times @thesundaytimes NEW: Carrie Johnson has accused “bitter ex-officials” of trying to discredit her with explosive claims that her meddling in government has contributed to the chaos engulfing her husband’s premiership
I would imagine that low level petty fraud is difficult to prosecute and consumes a lot of police resources in doing so. The test of 'beyond reasonable doubt' is a high one to pass. I would imagine it is easy for a defendent to construct a plausible denial which would derail a prosecution. Its not like a violent crime where someone was caught on CCTV.
If other crime, including violence, is actually going down 14%, then the government surely do deserve some credit for that. It shows that despite lots of high profile cases, the country is not an unsafe place when compared against recent history and other comparable countries.
Kwarteng is correct in that people generally want the police to tackle crimes against the person. I would also imagine that the government want the banks to sort out fraud, not the police.
Call me an anti-government cynic, but I'm not totally convinced that reducing in-person acquisitive and violent crime by 14% in a period which included long periods where the whole population were LOCKED IN THEIR HOUSES AND UNABLE TO GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT BEING NOTICED is quite the achievement you suggest.
I dunno. It proves correct the Tory mantra back to Howard that locking more people up reduces crime.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Voting for Indy by a narrow margin? You think that would be easy? It would be a case of 'be careful what you wish for.' Brexit on acid by a tiny majority could easily be disastrous for Scotland.
Whichever side wins the next referendum if it's not to cause endless trouble it needs to be decisive.
It only needs 50%+1 of those voting.
Ah, so the 2014 referendum was decisive after all.
So why are we even talking about this?
They are scared as they know another one is on its way and they are shi**ing their pants that teh result will be different. I personally don't care at present but will not just accept blatant lies and stupidity on the topic by half witted frothing unionists who know nothing of Scotland.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
No. They may have thought that they were paying NI contributions in exchange for a pension, but they were actually paying tax.
You're making the fundamental mistake of confusing private sector pensions (in which there exists a contractual obligation for the employer or provider to whom the contributions are being made to stump up on retirement) and the state pension (which is a social security benefit, no different at all to child benefit or JSA, for example, and which the Government can amend, and could theoretically decide to withdraw or replace entirely, at any time.)
Many British voters labour under the false assumption that national insurance payments all go into a massive pot to pay out contributory pensions to them, personally. Many British politicians have found it convenient from time to time to harp on about the contributory principle. But, to borrow a phrase, it's all rhubarb.
Therefore, whilst there are indeed pension complexities to be resolved (e.g. in respect of occupational pensions paid to UK state employees, or in cases where people have lived and worked for some time on both sides of the border,) for the majority of Scots who have never lived or worked outside of Scotland, the entire liability for funding their social security benefits - including state pensions - will be assumed by the Scottish Government upon independence. Nothing else makes any sense at all.
No, you are making the mistake. It makes no difference whether there is a pot or not *unless the paying party goes broke.* The UK cannot go broke.
NI contributions are effectively a contract under which UK has existing obligations which are not abrogated by Scindy. What is rhubarb, is saying that they are not contributions, they are just a thing which the naive and uninitiated might be misled into thinking were contributions, because of their slightly misleading name "contributions." Even if there were merit in the argument, which there isn't, would you be proud to live in a country which took such an unbelievably shitty point against poor, elderly individuals?
Point 1: No they're not, they're just another form of tax. The Government may choose, for the sake of some loosely defined concept of fairness, to vary the payment of some benefits according to the NI contribution histories of individuals, but fundamentally it hands out what it sees fit - hence the fact that, over time, entirely arbitrary decisions have been made about different benefits that are nominally claimed to be funded by NI.
Maternity allowance, for example, doesn't have a triple or even a double lock to inflation-proof it. Unemployment benefit was abolished and replace by JSA. The benefit cap, which can be used to deny people payments to which they were previously entitled - even if they had a full NI contribution history - was introduced simply to save the Government money. In short, there is no contractual arrangement between the NI payer and the Government for provision of any benefit at all - indeed, in future, some or all of these entitlements may be subsumed into Universal Credit, or some as yet to be devised system like a Universal Basic Income, offered under different conditions and payable at different rates, because the Government of the day decides that this would be preferable.
Also, on a point of order, is it your contention that the rUK taxpayer should be on the hook for JSA, employment and support allowance, maternity allowance and bereavement support payments in post-independence Scotland, in addition to the entire state pension system?
Point 2: If and when the Scottish people vote to depart from the British state then their own government will look after its own elderly (Scotland is a rich place, it's perfectly capable of doing the job.) The poor tragic olds won't starve to death because of independence; if they end up getting paid a bit less, as happened in the Irish precedent, or a bit more, then that would be a matter for the Scottish Parliament only. This position should not be controversial.
The Sunday Times @thesundaytimes NEW: Carrie Johnson has accused “bitter ex-officials” of trying to discredit her with explosive claims that her meddling in government has contributed to the chaos engulfing her husband’s premiership
When contacted by City A.M. today, John Nolan, Meta’s London-based tech media and advertising communications leader, did not deny or play down the reports.
Instead, he shared a statement from Nick Clegg, Meta’s VP of Global Affairs and Communications.
Clegg warned that “a lack of safe, secure and legal international data transfers would damage the economy and hamper the growth of data-driven businesses in the EU, just as we seek a recovery from Covid-19.”
“The impact would be felt by businesses large and small, across multiple sectors,” he continued.
“Businesses need clear, global rules, underpinned by the strong rule of law, to protect transatlantic data flows over the long term.”
“In the worst case scenario, this could mean that a small tech start up in Germany would no longer be able to use a US-based cloud provider. A Spanish product development company could no longer be able to run an operation across multiple time zones.”
“A French retailer may find they can no longer maintain a call centre in Morocco,” Clegg stressed. He added: “While policymakers are working towards a sustainable, long-term solution, we urge regulators to adopt a proportionate and pragmatic approach to minimise disruption to the many thousands of businesses who, like Facebook, have been relying on these mechanisms in good faith to transfer data in a safe and secure way.”
Congratulations to Sir Nick, for understanding exactly what sorts of activities the EU are trying to prevent with this legislation.
John Swinney here with a pension guarantee, making it clear that if Scotland was independent, the Scottish Government would be responsible for paying Scottish pensions.
A nice knock on impact if the Scots ever stop being scared of going their own way would be the needs of England finally moving up the agenda. The UK government would face overwhelming democratic demand to screw the Scots as hard as possible, and given even a 'fair' deal with leave Scotland with a fiscal position similar to Greece on day 1, no wonder they tell so many porkies about the economics of it all.
I'm looking at the lot that are currently in charge in London and wondering whether it's England that would end up like Greece by the end of negotiations. Still, you could always get some better politicians... at some point... maybe.
I would imagine that low level petty fraud is difficult to prosecute and consumes a lot of police resources in doing so. The test of 'beyond reasonable doubt' is a high one to pass. I would imagine it is easy for a defendent to construct a plausible denial which would derail a prosecution. Its not like a violent crime where someone was caught on CCTV.
If other crime, including violence, is actually going down 14%, then the government surely do deserve some credit for that. It shows that despite lots of high profile cases, the country is not an unsafe place when compared against recent history and other comparable countries.
Kwarteng is correct in that people generally want the police to tackle crimes against the person. I would also imagine that the government want the banks to sort out fraud, not the police.
Call me an anti-government cynic, but I'm not totally convinced that reducing in-person acquisitive and violent crime by 14% in a period which included long periods where the whole population were LOCKED IN THEIR HOUSES AND UNABLE TO GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT BEING NOTICED is quite the achievement you suggest.
That's right - I imagine criminals will have felt fraud was an easier crime during lockdown and burglary was harder. In addition, not all crimes are either personal assault or fraud. merely extracting one particular type of crime that went up a lot and then quoting the rest as "crime" without qualification is sleight of hand.
It's possible that this was a slip of the tongue. More likely, though, it was a deliberate omission, on the basis that if we start arguing about it then we're arguing about something people potentially like, whatever the reason - that last year fewer people were burgled. It's a sort of Unconscious Cat strategy - everyone starts examining the cat to see what can be done.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Look at the £26bn that goes on welfare payments in Scotland and ask where the money for that will come from let alone everything else the Government would need to spend money on.
It's awkward to say this as MalcolmG and others will attack me but it's very hard to see how any Independent Scotland works without massive reductions in Government Expenditure.
Awkward my arse, it will come out of Scotland's money that is currently used by Westminster to apy all these things. We don't get any freebies and supposedly we borrow all the money. You claim to be intelligent but cannot grasp that we have a GDP and could live on that and borrow a small amount like every other country. You surely are not deluded enough to think that you are funding Scotland. People woul donly comment ( not attack) because it is such obvious hogwash. Ask yourself , how do all other countries pay their welfare budgets, how will England do it after independence. Try to think.
But you do get freebies. Under the Scottish government's own numbers, there is a subsidy from the rest of the UK.
Utter bollox , we send down a shedload and get around 40% back , the rest is spaffed up a wall by Westminster and they then claim we borrowed a fortune. GERS have been ridiculed for years, last one had 167 estimated numbers, total fiction.
Complete Noddy-econimics. I'm sorry Malcolm, but Scotand gets a big subsidy from the rest of the UK.
(It is true though that had Scotland been independent in the past they's likely be quite rich - like Norway)
I would imagine that low level petty fraud is difficult to prosecute and consumes a lot of police resources in doing so. The test of 'beyond reasonable doubt' is a high one to pass. I would imagine it is easy for a defendent to construct a plausible denial which would derail a prosecution. Its not like a violent crime where someone was caught on CCTV.
If other crime, including violence, is actually going down 14%, then the government surely do deserve some credit for that. It shows that despite lots of high profile cases, the country is not an unsafe place when compared against recent history and other comparable countries.
Kwarteng is correct in that people generally want the police to tackle crimes against the person. I would also imagine that the government want the banks to sort out fraud, not the police.
If you think banks either will - or can - sort out fraud, think again.
I don't have any real knowledge in this area. But I just suspect that this is how the government and police see the problem. I have been doing a lot of high value transactions over the last year or so and the bank always flag them up as potentially fraudulent and put a bar on the account whilst checking out the situation with me. The KYC checks that I have to go through when doing any kind of business are obviously taken very seriously and are similarly a recent phenomenon seemingly prompted by fraud concerns.
What is remarkable is the claim it isn't discussed on the doorstep. Fishing emails, strange phone calls seems to be a popular conversation with all the oldies in my life.
The one that annoys me is how the landline is now 100% scam calls for me, how did operators allowed that to happen.
MrB
Indeed, we are giving serious consideration to simply cancelling our land line. The only people who use it anymore are fraudsters. Quite of number of the calls, and calls increasingly to my mobile, seem to come from call centres in Cardiff and Liverpool. How on earth can these crooks be allowed to operate from call centres? Each time I get one of these calls I block that number on my phone but they seem to have a plethora of numbers. How hard can this be?
Apparently it is still ridiculously easy to spoof a phone number, and the simple step of blocking this has not yet been taken.
But I'm expected to give my date of birth to confirm my identity to anyone phoning up and claiming to be my bank/energy supplier/etc.
It has been made easy by a level of disinterest by the providers. What baffles me is they have paid to dig up roads, build mobile towers etc yet they are letting their own product be render worthless.
My mobile is always on silent now during the working day and if it goes off and I don't know the number I never answer. WhatsApp / signal replacing most voice calls.
As others on hear have said financial fraud can be life changing stuff, and very personal. It can rob people of their trusting side. Seems very politically ill thought out, all to protect Big Dog.
» show previous quotes They don’t have a currency, central bank or reserves, for starters.
You fool we have the Bank of England at present as Central bank , it stores our reserves at £ for £ for all Scottish pounds and we use pounds Sterling, what planet are you on. PS: It appears you have Borisitis, an inability to tell the truth.
Sindy will not have the BoE as it’s central bank and rUK will not enter into a currency union with it.
the SNP's current currency position is to unofficially continue to use sterling outside the formal sterling area, much in the same way Montenegro uses the euro without the agreement of the eurozone or the European Central Bank. It is envisaged this 'sterlingisation' arrangement will last a considerable period. The SNP would then plan to launch a new Scottish currency if the economic conditions merited it.
McCrone sees the danger in this. Figures show that an independent Scotland would start life with a classic twin deficits problem. The country would be importing more than it is exporting and spending more money than it is generating in tax. It would therefore have unsustainably large current account and budget deficits.
'In the short term, even if taxes were raised or public expenditure cut, Scotland would have to borrow to finance both of these deficits,' notes McCrone. But as a new borrower with no long record of credibility like the UK, Scotland would 'have to pay considerably more on its borrowing'.
'Interest rates would be in danger of constantly increasing in a vicious circle, resulting in eventual collapse,' he warns.
Can you read, I am talking about the present situation, once independent we will have A Scottish Central Bank with all our reserves transferred and it will be the Scottish pound or whatever interim currency they use till joining the Euro.
Once Scotland achieves independence you'll have a massive period where the goodwill of others shapes your future nation.
Much of that good-will has to come from the rest of the UK.
And you certainly know that 'reserves' = 'debt'.
Of course but the frohters on here cannot accept that and can only wish Scotland ill will and unthruths. Personally I think both countries will get on perfectly well as any sane person would expect. The nutters will howl at the moon but who cares. Like most people I have relatives living in England , family members married to English people, that will not change.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Look at the £26bn that goes on welfare payments in Scotland and ask where the money for that will come from let alone everything else the Government would need to spend money on.
It's awkward to say this as MalcolmG and others will attack me but it's very hard to see how any Independent Scotland works without massive reductions in Government Expenditure.
Awkward my arse, it will come out of Scotland's money that is currently used by Westminster to apy all these things. We don't get any freebies and supposedly we borrow all the money. You claim to be intelligent but cannot grasp that we have a GDP and could live on that and borrow a small amount like every other country. You surely are not deluded enough to think that you are funding Scotland. People woul donly comment ( not attack) because it is such obvious hogwash. Ask yourself , how do all other countries pay their welfare budgets, how will England do it after independence. Try to think.
For someone who is “robust” in argumentation, but generally quite sensible in underlying thinking, you have an enormous blind spot when it comes to Sindy
The fact is, absent the oil, indy Scotland would be fiscally fucked for about ten years (during which time you would be, maybe, awkwardly trying to negotiate EU membership, from a position of great weakness). You don’t know what currency you’d be using, you wouldn’t have a central bank, you’d be cut adrift by the markets, it would be a nightmare, even as you dispute a painful divorce from England, the much larger partner (and those of us who are Brexiteers can vouch for the punitive and vengeful power of the stronger partner)
There is no way around it. Indy Scotland would face a decade or even two decades of horrible economics, and poorer lives. I am sure in the end you would prosper, but in the short-medium term it would be pretty awful
Denying this is futile. It is no better than the mad Brexiteers who said “Brexit will be the easiest negotiation in history” or some such bollocks. They were either lying or they were mad. Brexit was always going to be as traumatic as, say, having a baby. Scots who claim similarly hopeful nonsense about Scexit - it will be a breeze - are fucking idiots
By all means espouse indy. It is an entirely just and noble cause. But don’t lie about it
Scottish deficit: 22% of GDP UK deficit: 14% of GDP
Nobody knows the real numbers, certainly not the crooks running teh show. They use fag packets to work it out. Anyone thinking otherwise is not right in the head.
Of course, a large part of what is called Scotland's economy in the current figures, would move over the border in the event of independance. All those nice financial services jobs are entirely dependant on BoE oversight, and any rUK Prime Minister not immediately withdrawing support for foreign FS firms would be insane.
The Sunday Times @thesundaytimes NEW: Carrie Johnson has accused “bitter ex-officials” of trying to discredit her with explosive claims that her meddling in government has contributed to the chaos engulfing her husband’s premiership
Her accusation that bitter ex-officials are trying to discredit her can be true without making their claims untrue, though one would hope there is more than rumour or hearsay to substantiate it.
I would imagine that low level petty fraud is difficult to prosecute and consumes a lot of police resources in doing so. The test of 'beyond reasonable doubt' is a high one to pass. I would imagine it is easy for a defendent to construct a plausible denial which would derail a prosecution. Its not like a violent crime where someone was caught on CCTV.
If other crime, including violence, is actually going down 14%, then the government surely do deserve some credit for that. It shows that despite lots of high profile cases, the country is not an unsafe place when compared against recent history and other comparable countries.
Kwarteng is correct in that people generally want the police to tackle crimes against the person. I would also imagine that the government want the banks to sort out fraud, not the police.
Call me an anti-government cynic, but I'm not totally convinced that reducing in-person acquisitive and violent crime by 14% in a period which included long periods where the whole population were LOCKED IN THEIR HOUSES AND UNABLE TO GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT BEING NOTICED is quite the achievement you suggest.
A police inspector round my way was trying to reassure people about a rise in burglary stats for the last year for just that reason, in that it was pretty hard to be a burglar for that period.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
And ultimately that is because the SNP don't care about the facts. The current government doesn't want a referendum. Creative tension between a pair of disgraced liars under police investigation suits both Sturgeon and Johnson rather well. It lets them play to their galleries and ignore the actual problems we have.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
It's baffling that you could actually convince yourself that the SNP's nightmare scenario is a vote for independence. You are obviously wrong and I find it strange that someone even needs to tell you that.
Look at the £26bn that goes on welfare payments in Scotland and ask where the money for that will come from let alone everything else the Government would need to spend money on.
It's awkward to say this as MalcolmG and others will attack me but it's very hard to see how any Independent Scotland works without massive reductions in Government Expenditure.
Awkward my arse, it will come out of Scotland's money that is currently used by Westminster to apy all these things. We don't get any freebies and supposedly we borrow all the money. You claim to be intelligent but cannot grasp that we have a GDP and could live on that and borrow a small amount like every other country. You surely are not deluded enough to think that you are funding Scotland. People woul donly comment ( not attack) because it is such obvious hogwash. Ask yourself , how do all other countries pay their welfare budgets, how will England do it after independence. Try to think.
But you do get freebies. Under the Scottish government's own numbers, there is a subsidy from the rest of the UK.
Utter bollox , we send down a shedload and get around 40% back , the rest is spaffed up a wall by Westminster and they then claim we borrowed a fortune. GERS have been ridiculed for years, last one had 167 estimated numbers, total fiction.
Complete Noddy-econimics. I'm sorry Malcolm, but Scotand gets a big subsidy from the rest of the UK.
(It is true though that had Scotland been independent in the past they's likely be quite rich - like Norway)
We subsidised the rUK for 50 years , and who knows what the deficit is when you remove all the money used that is nothing to do with Scotland, for sure it will be nowhere near the 22% claimed on here. There are next to no countries running surplus budgets so why would Scotland having a small deficit be any obstacle.
Of course, a large part of what is called Scotland's economy in the current figures, would move over the border in the event of independance. All those nice financial services jobs are entirely dependant on BoE oversight, and any rUK Prime Minister not immediately withdrawing support for foreign FS firms would be insane.
Of course, it's entirely possible for Scotland to create its own central bank. There would certainly be the incentive for it.
Reposting FPT, because this exquisite example of begging the question, in the traditional sense, deserves better than being left on the tail end of a dead thread.
I'm really struggling to understand the viewpoint of those who think rump UK would retain a liability to pay Scottish State Pensions. Another poster made the point quite simply when they asked: "Who would set the rate at which the Scottish State Pension was paid?"
Suppose that inflation was higher in Scotland than in the rump UK - would Scottish politicians really be happy with seeing pension payments to Scottish pensioners decline in real terms? What if Scottish politicians didn't want to increase the State Pension Retirement age as quickly as in the rump UK - would they really cede this area of policy-making to the rump UK Parliament?
And there's no way that rump UK could sign a blank cheque to pay any level of increase to a Scottish State Pension - what if Scottish politicians wanted to increase it towards the Western European average?
Scottish politicians would have to find the money for Scottish state pensions in the Scottish budget if they wanted the independence to make Scottish political decisions over what the level of the pension should be. That's the essence of the Nationalist argument for Independence anyway, so strange for them to try to argue otherwise.
In what currency would the Scottish State Pension be paid?
The currency of Scotland Doh!
Well done, Malc!
It is hard to believe how stupid these unionists get at times, makes you wonder if they are as bad as they make out or if they just get red rage when Scotland leaving is mentioned. They lose all sense of reality. Question from an emigrant as well who has no part to play in it.
I don't see why the UK would get out of funding the Scot's partial entitlements to our state pension - but I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.
Because there isn’t a “fund” of National Insurance money like there is for a private pension (not strictly true, there’s enough to cover 2 weeks worth of pensions, but that’s it) so state pensions are paid out of current taxation.
So the SNP are arguing that English tax payers would be paying for Scottish pensions.
Why?
The fund issue is a red herring. If I owe you money I owe you money, and it makes not the slightest difference whether I have a pot set aside to pay you or have to make the payment out of income. The one situation where it makes all the difference in the world is if I go bankrupt, because a simple debt gets pro rated down along with other debts whereas a specific fund may be earmarked for you in is entirety. Governments with their own currency cannot go bankrupt.
Here is how absurd the fund argument is: you say there is no fund, only an unsecured promise by the government to pay. But if you have a pension fund which you want to be as secure as possible where do you invest it? You invest it in gilts. What are gilts? They are unsecured promises by the government to pay.
Additionally it is misleading to say English taxpayers would be paying Scottish pensions. The government would be paying. The money might originate from English taxpayers, but so what? If I pay you a debt out of earned income the money originates with my employers. That doesn't mean they are paying you. I am.
Why shouldn't the Scottish Taxpayers take responsibility to pay the state pensions of Scottish Pensioners.
Would MalcolmG and co deem it fair if we offered the reverse terms to Scotland - you can have a referendum if you accept that on separation you pay the state pension of all rUK pensioners.
Because Scottish pensioners had a bargain with the UK government: they paid ni contributions in exchange for a future pension. If the UK splits and the obligation is split pro rata to size of country 95% of the obligation stays with rUK, and conversely iS is liable for 5% of e and w pensions.
or you go for the sane approach and Scotland pay 100% of all their pensioners and E&W pay 100% of the pension for those in England and Wales.
As I've pointed out before, any other solution that results in rUK tax payers sending money to Scottish Pensioners would last as far as the next election and then disappear in a Landslide.
Sure, in practice you'd do all the sums and make a one off payment rUK to iScot, after which iScot would be in charge of payment. But that in no way affects the sheer muddleheaded wrongness of the "no fund therefore no liability" claim.
Your take is correct. People aren't thinking straight with this 'no fund' and 'all paid out of current taxation' business.
» show previous quotes They don’t have a currency, central bank or reserves, for starters.
You fool we have the Bank of England at present as Central bank , it stores our reserves at £ for £ for all Scottish pounds and we use pounds Sterling, what planet are you on. PS: It appears you have Borisitis, an inability to tell the truth.
Sindy will not have the BoE as it’s central bank and rUK will not enter into a currency union with it.
the SNP's current currency position is to unofficially continue to use sterling outside the formal sterling area, much in the same way Montenegro uses the euro without the agreement of the eurozone or the European Central Bank. It is envisaged this 'sterlingisation' arrangement will last a considerable period. The SNP would then plan to launch a new Scottish currency if the economic conditions merited it.
McCrone sees the danger in this. Figures show that an independent Scotland would start life with a classic twin deficits problem. The country would be importing more than it is exporting and spending more money than it is generating in tax. It would therefore have unsustainably large current account and budget deficits.
'In the short term, even if taxes were raised or public expenditure cut, Scotland would have to borrow to finance both of these deficits,' notes McCrone. But as a new borrower with no long record of credibility like the UK, Scotland would 'have to pay considerably more on its borrowing'.
'Interest rates would be in danger of constantly increasing in a vicious circle, resulting in eventual collapse,' he warns.
Can you read, I am talking about the present situation, once independent we will have A Scottish Central Bank with all our reserves transferred and it will be the Scottish pound or whatever interim currency they use till joining the Euro.
Once Scotland achieves independence you'll have a massive period where the goodwill of others shapes your future nation.
Much of that good-will has to come from the rest of the UK.
And you certainly know that 'reserves' = 'debt'.
Of course but the frohters on here cannot accept that and can only wish Scotland ill will and unthruths. Personally I think both countries will get on perfectly well as any sane person would expect. The nutters will howl at the moon but who cares. Like most people I have relatives living in England , family members married to English people, that will not change.
(I suspect you've not read my most recent response to your comments.)
There is not the slightest chance though that the UK becomes other than some set of states that are pretty united. When the best fun to be had is jibing the opponents supporters in the rugby you know you're friends.
With my Scottish friends I may have questioned their ancentry and (apprently) wished them great ill yesterday evening.
John Swinney here with a pension guarantee, making it clear that if Scotland was independent, the Scottish Government would be responsible for paying Scottish pensions.
You really are obsessing bout something that is not happening, you been looking at the private polling numbers again. Have a sherry and lie down for a while.
Comments
And it's not attached to 7% of the UK population leaving to form a new country.
Does the excoriating piece contain a profound apology from Max Hastings for his part in allowing this individual to continue plying his trade, an apology for teaching him the most important - and for the rest of us, disastrous - lesson: namely that he could do all these bad things and still suffer no adverse consequences?
you have to laugh
https://twitter.com/kevverage/status/1490365130609201158?s=20&t=UZUiMCuOdP33Mqj7yxzcaw
Which does depress me.
There is no equivalence between an individual retaining some entitlement to a British state pension after emigrating, and an entire country of people retaining their entitlement after voting to secede. The scenarios are different.
You're making the fundamental mistake of confusing private sector pensions (in which there exists a contractual obligation for the employer or provider to whom the contributions are being made to stump up on retirement) and the state pension (which is a social security benefit paid to citizens with a specific characteristic, no different at all in its fundamentals to child benefit or JSA, for example, and which the Government can amend, and could theoretically decide to withdraw or replace entirely, at any time.)
Many British voters labour under the false assumption that national insurance payments all go into a massive pot to pay out contributory pensions to them, personally. Many British politicians have found it convenient from time to time to harp on about the contributory principle. But, to borrow a phrase, it's all rhubarb.
Therefore, whilst there are indeed pension complexities to be resolved (e.g. in respect of occupational pensions paid to UK state employees, or in cases where people have lived and worked for some time on both sides of the border,) for the majority of Scots who have never lived or worked outside of Scotland, the entire liability for funding their social security benefits - including state pensions - will be assumed by the Scottish Government upon independence. Nothing else makes any sense at all.
Hence the phenomenon of the new Upper 10,000 - a mutual system of no-accountability.
Who float above accountability in the way that in various bits of science fiction, The Rulers live above the clouds...
Tricky to fix. Might be solutions though - I have no idea what would happen if you let Amazon buy out the world for example.
The main problem is economists - they've been telling us for ages they know what's going on and it's never, ever been true.
I think we all know that the worst imaginable outcome for the SNP would be a further referendum with a narrow 'yes' vote. They'll pull every trick in the book to avoid that. If a referendum block in Downing Street fails, by promising the unicorns they are trying to make any winning margin as wide as possible.
And even if that's never needed, it's nice red meat to their dafter supporters and deflects awkward questions about the politicisation of the judiciary, the weakness of Scotland's education system and exactly where that £600k has gone.
NI contributions are effectively a contract under which UK has existing obligations which are not abrogated by Scindy. What is rhubarb, is saying that they are not contributions, they are just a thing which the naive and uninitiated might be misled into thinking were contributions, because of their slightly misleading name "contributions." Even if there were merit in the argument, which there isn't, would you be proud to live in a country which took such an unbelievably shitty point against poor, elderly individuals?
Remember that there seems to be only 2,526,000 tax payers https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/scottish-income-tax-outturn-statistics-2019-to-2020/scottish-income-tax-outturn-statistics-2019-to-2020#:~:text=the total number of Scottish,0.1% compared to 2018-29
It's awkward to say this as MalcolmG and others will attack me but it's very hard to see how any Independent Scotland works without massive reductions in Government Expenditure.
Whichever side wins the next referendum if it's not to cause endless trouble it needs to be decisive.
If other crime, including violence, is actually going down 14%, then the government surely do deserve some credit for that. It shows that despite lots of high profile cases, the country is not an unsafe place when compared against recent history and other comparable countries.
Kwarteng is correct in that people generally want the police to tackle crimes against the person. I would also imagine that the government want the banks to sort out fraud, not the police.
Omfg
This sort of thing comes up time and again on all sorts of consumer affairs columns, money programmes, etc - why is nothing being done, except for a bunch of emails piling up in my inbox from my bank telling me what I have to do to avoid falling a victim to this crime?
But I'm expected to give my date of birth to confirm my identity to anyone phoning up and claiming to be my bank/energy supplier/etc.
Much of that good-will has to come from the rest of the UK.
And you certainly know that 'reserves' = 'debt'.
At least, I can't make sense of their behaviour over the last two years in any other way.
Independent Scotland can then decide to pay whatever pension to whoever it wants. Voting indy gives the new government authority to set new pension rates. The offer from the old UK government of pension entitlements dies with the act of a new nation state taking power. The UK contributes a % of net assets for use by the new independent nation. They choose to use those assets as they wish.
- Cases are heading down again. R is constantly below 1 across all regions. R is below 1 for the older groups.
- Hospital admissions are down - R is solidly below 1
- MV Beds down
- In hospital down
- Deaths down
The government can increase, decrease or end pensions - ask WASPI women who complain of being "denied a pension they were due" - did they sue the government for breach of contract?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP4xXjW97ko
So why are we even talking about this?
People woul donly comment ( not attack) because it is such obvious hogwash.
Ask yourself , how do all other countries pay their welfare budgets, how will England do it after independence. Try to think.
Don't get too excited. The numbers are 4 and 2 respectively.
Perhaps they anticipate winning the referendum with the votes of Scottish transsexuals? All those men/women/prefernottosay wearing kilts etc ......
** pulls out pin and retires to a safe distance **
UK deficit: 14% of GDP
German Economy Minister Habeck says Germany must diversify away from Russian gas…yes!
https://twitter.com/apmassaro3/status/1490159116437934086?s=20&t=UZUiMCuOdP33Mqj7yxzcaw
Ireland had a very difficult few decades at first, after leaving the Union, but they aren't doing too badly now. It took them about six or seven decades to turn the corner economically, but I think they made a few mistakes along the way which an independent Scotland could avoid, and Scotland starts in a better state too.
It's not quite the promise of being immediately better off that the SNP want to sell, but there is a positive long-term future that is conceivable.
@thesundaytimes
NEW: Carrie Johnson has accused “bitter ex-officials” of trying to discredit her with explosive claims that her meddling in government has contributed to the chaos engulfing her husband’s premiership
https://twitter.com/thesundaytimes/status/1490358250902016010
I personally don't care at present but will not just accept blatant lies and stupidity on the topic by half witted frothing unionists who know nothing of Scotland.
Maternity allowance, for example, doesn't have a triple or even a double lock to inflation-proof it. Unemployment benefit was abolished and replace by JSA. The benefit cap, which can be used to deny people payments to which they were previously entitled - even if they had a full NI contribution history - was introduced simply to save the Government money. In short, there is no contractual arrangement between the NI payer and the Government for provision of any benefit at all - indeed, in future, some or all of these entitlements may be subsumed into Universal Credit, or some as yet to be devised system like a Universal Basic Income, offered under different conditions and payable at different rates, because the Government of the day decides that this would be preferable.
Also, on a point of order, is it your contention that the rUK taxpayer should be on the hook for JSA, employment and support allowance, maternity allowance and bereavement support payments in post-independence Scotland, in addition to the entire state pension system?
Point 2: If and when the Scottish people vote to depart from the British state then their own government will look after its own elderly (Scotland is a rich place, it's perfectly capable of doing the job.) The poor tragic olds won't starve to death because of independence; if they end up getting paid a bit less, as happened in the Irish precedent, or a bit more, then that would be a matter for the Scottish Parliament only. This position should not be controversial.
https://twitter.com/AgentP22/status/1490333633185464328?s=20&t=UZUiMCuOdP33Mqj7yxzcaw
It's possible that this was a slip of the tongue. More likely, though, it was a deliberate omission, on the basis that if we start arguing about it then we're arguing about something people potentially like, whatever the reason - that last year fewer people were burgled. It's a sort of Unconscious Cat strategy - everyone starts examining the cat to see what can be done.
(It is true though that had Scotland been independent in the past they's likely be quite rich - like Norway)
Rogers will be out this summer. His team has no fight.
My mobile is always on silent now during the working day and if it goes off and I don't know the number I never answer. WhatsApp / signal replacing most voice calls.
As others on hear have said financial fraud can be life changing stuff, and very personal. It can rob people of their trusting side. Seems very politically ill thought out, all to protect Big Dog.
MrB
Personally I think both countries will get on perfectly well as any sane person would expect. The nutters will howl at the moon but who cares. Like most people I have relatives living in England , family members married to English people, that will not change.
The fact is, absent the oil, indy Scotland would be fiscally fucked for about ten years (during which time you would be, maybe, awkwardly trying to negotiate EU membership, from a position of great weakness). You don’t know what currency you’d be using, you wouldn’t have a central bank, you’d be cut adrift by the markets, it would be a nightmare, even as you dispute a painful divorce from England, the much larger partner (and those of us who are Brexiteers can vouch for the punitive and vengeful power of the stronger partner)
There is no way around it. Indy Scotland would face a decade or even two decades of horrible economics, and poorer lives. I am sure in the end you would prosper, but in the short-medium term it would be pretty awful
Denying this is futile. It is no better than the mad Brexiteers who said “Brexit will be the easiest negotiation in history” or some such bollocks. They were either lying or they were mad. Brexit was always going to be as traumatic as, say, having a baby. Scots who claim similarly hopeful nonsense about Scexit - it will be a breeze - are fucking idiots
By all means espouse indy. It is an entirely just and noble cause. But don’t lie about it
😇
There are next to no countries running surplus budgets so why would Scotland having a small deficit be any obstacle.
There is not the slightest chance though that the UK becomes other than some set of states that are pretty united. When the best fun to be had is jibing the opponents supporters in the rugby you know you're friends.
With my Scottish friends I may have questioned their ancentry and (apprently) wished them great ill yesterday evening.