In a speech in East Ayrshire, the Shadow Chancellor said: "The Governor's important speech is a wake-up call to those who want to avoid discussing what the economic consequences of breaking-up the UK would be for Scotland.
"He was clear the eurozone showed currency union without fiscal union won't work. But the SNP immediately rejected fiscal union. Salmond's rejection of the key test set by the Governor makes an already flawed proposal even more unworkable," said Mr Balls.
'Balls is a terrible shadow chancellor and toxic! Listen to Balls warnings on independence as he must know what he's talking about!'
I do hope spouting labour and Balls spin doesn't leave a nasty taste in the mouth.
LOL
Good heavens! A post from you that is on topic!
Given the separatists need Labour voters to vote for separation, the views of Balls on the matter are non-trivial......now back to posting on Osbrowne, fops, Clegg, anything but Scotland with you!
True Balls is seen as a Titan in Scotland , revered no less.
It was hilarious watching Mr Salmond react to the Carney visit. The Governor of the Bank of England is, ex officio, the sort of person he likes to mock – a classic representative of Scotland’s London oppressors. But Mr Carney, a Canadian of Irish descent, doesn’t quite fit the caricature. Besides, it is essential to Mr Salmond’s mask of respectability that he defer to the Governor. After all, in his vision of an independent Scotland, Mr Carney will be his ever-indulgent bank manager. So the First Minister burbled about “technical” discussions and smiled uneasily. He had to hold back his anger at seeing his plans politely trashed.
SNP too timid to offer a new currency - thus having to rely on London for economic gravitas.
Poor planning by the SNP - too naive to forsee the Euro crisis.
a scottish asset
It's not an "asset" like Bute House or Eck's tartan trews - it's a monetary instrument, issued on behalf of the UK government by the Bank of England - and Eck keeping repeating its "an asset" isn't going to turn it into one.
Poor Carlotta is distraught that we own a part of the BofE and the pound is also ours.
Genuine question. I read in the press that Scotland can't possibly enter a currency union with the UK, such a thing couldn't work. And yet the UK is already in various forms of currency union with non-UK nations including the Isle of Man and the bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey.
In the Isle of Man (deviance! Yes!) as I understand it the Manx pound is separate from but interchangable with Sterling at a 1:1 exchange rate. The Island has sovereignty but pursues a policy to shadow Sterling, and had previously said that if the UK adopted the Euro they would follow.
So I don't get the loss of sovereignty argument when it comes to fiat currencies. Where was our sovereignty when the currency was attacked in the mid70s and early 90s and we had to do things not in the national interest because of the actions of others. Or Argentina or Turkey or South Africa's sovereignty right now as their currencies have to be propped up or collapse. When nations create pretend money there is little sovereignty anyway as their paper floats on the wind of speculation. If Scotland chose to back its currency with something of actual value such as oil or metals that might be different. But otherwise Scotland with the pound would be no different to France with the Euro.
I don't want Scotland to leave. But as scare stories go this one is stupid.
The Isle of Man and related dependencies are not independent states. Indeed, they're closer to forerunners of the position Scotland's in *now* rather than what it would be after independence.
No currency which is pegged to a much larger one has any meaningful notion of monetary independence as their rates and policies are in effect set by that larger entity, whether it be the Isle of Man and the UK, Spain and the Eurozone, or Britain and the USA under Bretton-Woods (or Britain and the EC in the ERM). Though at least with a currency union rather than a pegged rate, the members should have some influence and the decisions makers some regard to those members.
Actually, that's the main reason why I don't think Westminster will be at all keen for a currency union - continual bleating from Holyrood about their interests not being considered, their being "equal members" of the union and so on. The idea that even after independence Westminster would still be having to jump around to Scotland's beat. It's just not attractive.
Mr. Pioneers, worth mentioning that Scotland has a population of around 5m, and a proportionally larger banking sector than the UK (a figure I found very surprising, but there we are). The Isle of Man has 84,000 people on it, and the Channel Islands aren't huge either. It's not a fair comparison, because the difference in scale is enormous.
Mr. Jonathan, anyone willing to play constitutional games for a possible political advantage needs a slap with a large haddock. First up, the Labour clowns who thought they'd killed nationalism stone dead with the stupid Scottish Parliament and the unforgivable (and copied by all other major parties) failure to ask, let alone answer, the West Lothian Question.
Enjoyable piece, Mr. Herdson. I wonder if anyone recalls the excellent Mr. India sketches from Goodness Gracious Me? One or two chaps (well, Salmond, at least) sometimes sound like Mr. Scotland.
"Sterling? Scottish! Oil? Scottish! Military regiments with the word 'Scotland' in name? Scottish! Debt? Oh, that's English."
MD as quoted recently by Westminster , officially the debt is the UK's and Scotland has nothing to do with it. Do you not read the newspapers. We have graciously agreed to help out if the rats at Westminster play with a straight bat, but have no obligation if they are crooked as usual.
You keep making this claim Malcolm but all I remember seeing recently is the Treasury saying they would underwrite the debt to ensure market stability. No mention was made of Scotland not actually having any responsibility for a portion of the debt. Indeed, as I posted a few weeks ago all recent examples of such breakups made under international law have entailed both sides having responsibility for a portion of the debt - usually by proportion of population. This applied when Singapore left the Malaysian Confederation, when Bangladesh left Pakistan and when the Czech Republic and Slovakia split up.
International law is not on your side on this.
That said I do feel that with the oil wealth a debt amounting to around 10% of the total UK debt would probably be manageable by Scotland and don't think it should alter the merits (in my mind at least) of Scots Independence.
Genuine question. I read in the press that Scotland can't possibly enter a currency union with the UK, such a thing couldn't work. And yet the UK is already in various forms of currency union with non-UK nations including the Isle of Man and the bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey. .
Eck's tried the Isle of Man argument before:
“The Isle of Man is a Crown Dependency and is not in a currency union with the UK. It has no central bank and no lender of last resort. Is he honestly trying to tell the people of Scotland that it is a good idea to have no-one standing behind our banks and to have no say in how our mortgage or savings rates are set?
The UK is NOT in currency unions with the IoM or the Channel Islands - they issue their own currencies which are pegged at parity with the GBP. Carney set out the technical requirements for a successful currency union - fiscal union and transfers and political union - it's called "the United Kingdom".
Read thi sand weep, I prefer ladbrokes intelligent view to your poisoned witterings. Ladbrokes latest betting
Scotland to form a currency union with the United Kingdom before the 31st of December 2015
Yes 1/100
No 50/1
Bets void if referendum outcome is 'no' to independence
The REAL question is whether it is done with agreement in a currency union or simply pegging the Scots pound to sterling, which negates all debt and Scotland can start off as a new country debt free.
if Scotland does not agree to take a negotiated share of UK debt, then the UK will not agree to Scottish independence.
Your choice then is negotiate, or UDI - in which case you can kiss goodbye to the EU and the international bond markets, Braveheart.
LOL, only you could come up with that crap, unfortunately for you when the vote is YES it is a done deal , Westminster will have no say in the matter. Also as Westminster confirmed under international law Scotland have no debt and no obligation to assume the UK's debt. Once the markets give Dave and Gideon their guidance they will be at the table signing up with few objections. We can survive with no debt , I think the rump with its £1.4T will be in a bit worse shape come the day. Little Englanders like you will be shocked.
If that is the attitude the Scots take, it'll be a case of you and whose army? Expect admission to all international bodies to be blocked. Expect all Scottish financial institutions to lose all backing from the BoE. Expect massive resentment from the remainder of the UK - Scotland will be the easy scapegoat for public and politicians alike.
Ok I get the IOM argument (as I said, it was a genuine question).
As to the other half of my argument, about fiscal sovereignty. Membership of the Euro cedes sovereignty to the ECB, as has been made clear few states have any real influence over a monetary policy which has been bad for everyone. So sovereignty is a red herring as other currency unions cope ok with that sort of arrangement.
Nor do I see much sovereignty with many of the world's currencies. Scotland in essence has a choice of paper it can issue as currency, all have issues around stability and control which is no different to its membership of Sterling at the moment. Unless someone wants to suggest with a straight face that UK monetary policy has always been influenced by and executed in the best interests of Scotland.
If the no camp thing this will scare floating voters, I'm not convinced.
It's a complete red herring. Scotland will keep the pound in a currency union on the terms set out by the rUK until Scotland decides it no longer wishes to abide by those terms and plumps for either the Euro or its own currency. It suits neither side to admit this. No, because it would involve conceding the Yes side is right; Yes, because it would mean conceding the No side is right.
It's very easy to confuse pre-vote rhetoric with post-vote reality.
Mr. Pioneers, worth mentioning that Scotland has a population of around 5m, and a proportionally larger banking sector than the UK (a figure I found very surprising, but there we are). The Isle of Man has 84,000 people on it, and the Channel Islands aren't huge either. It's not a fair comparison, because the difference in scale is enormous.
Mr. Jonathan, anyone willing to play constitutional games for a possible political advantage needs a slap with a large haddock. First up, the Labour clowns who thought they'd killed nationalism stone dead with the stupid Scottish Parliament and the unforgivable (and copied by all other major parties) failure to ask, let alone answer, the West Lothian Question.
Ireland had a currency union with the UK for 50 years post independence, of course. And IIRC Luxembourg had one with (one of, I forget which) Belgium or the Netherlands.
It is not impossible to have one, but it has to be to the advantage of both players.
Exactly. The rUK will not agree to a deal that fails to safeguard its interests. An independent Scotland will need a deal. It won't be a long negotiation: rUK will say these are our terms, Scotland will say OK. And that will be that.
SO , I am not so sure it will be that simple, rump UK will also need a deal by that time and will not be able to demand what they want. If they had been adult and sorted it out intelligently beforehand I would agree but there will be a few shocks on the 19th September when YES victory is announced. Rump UK will need certainty quickly and will not be able to afford to dither for long or the markets will crucify them. As we get closer and it is even more obvious that NO is a busted flush things will start to heat up. The flow is all one way at present.
Mr. Pioneers, worth mentioning that Scotland has a population of around 5m, and a proportionally larger banking sector than the UK (a figure I found very surprising, but there we are). The Isle of Man has 84,000 people on it, and the Channel Islands aren't huge either. It's not a fair comparison, because the difference in scale is enormous.
Mr. Jonathan, anyone willing to play constitutional games for a possible political advantage needs a slap with a large haddock. First up, the Labour clowns who thought they'd killed nationalism stone dead with the stupid Scottish Parliament and the unforgivable (and copied by all other major parties) failure to ask, let alone answer, the West Lothian Question.
Ireland had a currency union with the UK for 50 years post independence,
Did it? I may be mistaken, but I thought they had their own currency and a parity peg with Sterling - the BoE was not LOLR afaik.
Given the size of its banking sector, Scotland needs a LOLR and that LOLR will want to supervise its banks.....
As you well know , the LOLR is where the trade is so like it or lump it England has 90% at least of the UK banks liabilities, they cannot avoid it. Also would hope they did a better job supervising than they have done to date, methinks it would be better to have Scottish Government do the supervising, less likely to have another crash that way.
The REAL question is whether it is done with agreement in a currency union or simply pegging the Scots pound to sterling, which negates all debt and Scotland can start off as a new country debt free.
if Scotland does not agree to take a negotiated share of UK debt, then the UK will not agree to Scottish independence.
Your choice then is negotiate, or UDI - in which case you can kiss goodbye to the EU and the international bond markets, Braveheart.
LOL, only you could come up with that crap, unfortunately for you when the vote is YES it is a done deal , Westminster will have no say in the matter. Also as Westminster confirmed under international law Scotland have no debt and no obligation to assume the UK's debt. Once the markets give Dave and Gideon their guidance they will be at the table signing up with few objections. We can survive with no debt , I think the rump with its £1.4T will be in a bit worse shape come the day. Little Englanders like you will be shocked.
If that is the attitude the Scots take, it'll be a case of you and whose army? Expect admission to all international bodies to be blocked. Expect all Scottish financial institutions to lose all backing from the BoE. Expect massive resentment from the remainder of the UK - Scotland will be the easy scapegoat for public and politicians alike.
David, I sometimes wonder if you are out of primary school yet. I poresume it is just a Tory trait to be absolutely deluded. Perhaps you should read up on Scotland and the Scottish plans , the White Paper is online. There you can read adult mature positions on reality , not the yah boo sucks from Westminster pygmies.
Mr. G, is your avatar Robert the Bruce? There's a similar sort of statue in Leeds of Edward of Woodstock (the Black Prince). It's rather nice, actually.
Mr. G, it's comments like that, crowing about the debt (due largely to Scottish banks and chancellors) you'll be leaving behind and mocking 'Little Englanders' which make Salmond's claim that, post-independence, England and Scotland will be 'best pals' so incredible.
I do fear any break-up could be more acrimonious than many hope it will be.
MD, I was not crowing , I was stating the legal facts. Scotland will pay a fair share of the UK debts if it is treated fairly , ie it gets a fair share of the assets. It works both ways. It has been publicly stated by the government many times. The crowing and negativity are all from Westminster I am afraid.
Mr. Pioneers, worth mentioning that Scotland has a population of around 5m, and a proportionally larger banking sector than the UK (a figure I found very surprising, but there we are). The Isle of Man has 84,000 people on it, and the Channel Islands aren't huge either. It's not a fair comparison, because the difference in scale is enormous.
Mr. Jonathan, anyone willing to play constitutional games for a possible political advantage needs a slap with a large haddock. First up, the Labour clowns who thought they'd killed nationalism stone dead with the stupid Scottish Parliament and the unforgivable (and copied by all other major parties) failure to ask, let alone answer, the West Lothian Question.
Ireland had a currency union with the UK for 50 years post independence, of course. And IIRC Luxembourg had one with (one of, I forget which) Belgium or the Netherlands.
It is not impossible to have one, but it has to be to the advantage of both players.
Exactly. The rUK will not agree to a deal that fails to safeguard its interests. An independent Scotland will need a deal. It won't be a long negotiation: rUK will say these are our terms, Scotland will say OK. And that will be that.
SO , I am not so sure it will be that simple, rump UK will also need a deal by that time and will not be able to demand what they want. If they had been adult and sorted it out intelligently beforehand I would agree but there will be a few shocks on the 19th September when YES victory is announced. Rump UK will need certainty quickly and will not be able to afford to dither for long or the markets will crucify them. As we get closer and it is even more obvious that NO is a busted flush things will start to heat up. The flow is all one way at present.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that. The currency union would only kick in once Scotland became independent, which won't be the day after the referendum. In any case, whatever happens, the rUK will keep the pound. The issue is whether it will stand surety for Scotland's use of it. If the rUK says it will not, then it is not the rUK that will have a problem. However, I have absolutely no doubt at all that a deal will be done.
The REAL question is whether it is done with agreement in a currency union or simply pegging the Scots pound to sterling, which negates all debt and Scotland can start off as a new country debt free.
if Scotland does not agree to take a negotiated share of UK debt, then the UK will not agree to Scottish independence.
Your choice then is negotiate, or UDI - in which case you can kiss goodbye to the EU and the international bond markets, Braveheart.
Westminster will have no say in the matter.
Just as the EU will have "no say in the matter" on Scottish Membership of the EU, Westminster will have no say on Currency Union?
If that is the attitude the Scots take, it'll be a case of you and whose army? Expect admission to all international bodies to be blocked. Expect all Scottish financial institutions to lose all backing from the BoE. Expect massive resentment from the remainder of the UK - Scotland will be the easy scapegoat for public and politicians alike.
David, I sometimes wonder if you are out of primary school yet. I poresume it is just a Tory trait to be absolutely deluded. Perhaps you should read up on Scotland and the Scottish plans , the White Paper is online. There you can read adult mature positions on reality , not the yah boo sucks from Westminster pygmies.
Yeah well, I think that post speaks for itself.
But be in no doubt: if Scotland just walked away from a fair share of UK debt (not least after Gordon Brown built it up so high), the extent of ill-will from those lumped with it towards those partying off into the sunset would be deep and lasting. And there would be political and practical consequences.
The REAL question is whether it is done with agreement in a currency union or simply pegging the Scots pound to sterling, which negates all debt and Scotland can start off as a new country debt free.
if Scotland does not agree to take a negotiated share of UK debt, then the UK will not agree to Scottish independence.
Your choice then is negotiate, or UDI - in which case you can kiss goodbye to the EU and the international bond markets, Braveheart.
LOL, only you could come up with that crap, unfortunately for you when the vote is YES it is a done deal , Westminster will have no say in the matter. Also as Westminster confirmed under international law Scotland have no debt and no obligation to assume the UK's debt. Once the markets give Dave and Gideon their guidance they will be at the table signing up with few objections. We can survive with no debt , I think the rump with its £1.4T will be in a bit worse shape come the day. Little Englanders like you will be shocked.
If that is the attitude the Scots take, it'll be a case of you and whose army? Expect admission to all international bodies to be blocked. Expect all Scottish financial institutions to lose all backing from the BoE. Expect massive resentment from the remainder of the UK - Scotland will be the easy scapegoat for public and politicians alike.
It's not going to happen. The Yes side - or those running it - are not fools. They understand the realities. But they have a vote to win. Should they be successful, we will see a much more pragmatic approach to the independence negotiations than the White Paper might currently indicate. And it will not be in the rUK's interests to deliberately rile our closest neighbour. Obviously, we can always so No to stuff that does not suit us, but I doubt it will come to that.
SNP too timid to offer a new currency - thus having to rely on London for economic gravitas.
Poor planning by the SNP - too naive to forsee the Euro crisis.
a scottish asset
It's not an "asset" like Bute House or Eck's tartan trews - it's a monetary instrument, issued on behalf of the UK government by the Bank of England - and Eck keeping repeating its "an asset" isn't going to turn it into one.
Poor Carlotta is distraught that we own a part of the BofE and the pound is also ours.
Fox, probably not in the short term as it will take time to unravel the union , so as everybody knows it will be a sterling union for the short term at least. It is vital for both sides short term so not a real question and dangerous for westminster given the recent wobble where their stupid positioning on debt had spooked the markets and they were forced to give the real position. They do not seem to learn or be bale to act like adults or maybe they are just caught between a rock and a hard place. Their scare stories unravel daily up here.
I find this faintly hilarious: "The government is ousting non-Conservative supporters from key public body posts, according to the outgoing chair of schools inspectorate Ofsted.
Baroness Sally Morgan told the BBC she was the victim of a "determined effort from Number 10" to appoint more Tories.
The Labour peer has not had her term of office renewed and will step down in the autumn."
If that is the attitude the Scots take, it'll be a case of you and whose army? Expect admission to all international bodies to be blocked. Expect all Scottish financial institutions to lose all backing from the BoE. Expect massive resentment from the remainder of the UK - Scotland will be the easy scapegoat for public and politicians alike.
David, I sometimes wonder if you are out of primary school yet. I poresume it is just a Tory trait to be absolutely deluded. Perhaps you should read up on Scotland and the Scottish plans , the White Paper is online. There you can read adult mature positions on reality , not the yah boo sucks from Westminster pygmies.
Yeah well, I think that post speaks for itself.
But be in no doubt: if Scotland just walked away from a fair share of UK debt (not least after Gordon Brown built it up so high), the extent of ill-will from those lumped with it towards those partying off into the sunset would be deep and lasting. And there would be political and practical consequences.
Scotland cannot walk away from anything. And Scotland would not want to. To walk away would be to declare independence unilaterally - very dubious in international law and utterly catastrophic on any number of levels in practice.
Scotland would not need a LOLR if the Scottish banks moved their headquarters south of the border, and continued to use Sterling without a currency union,
Mr. Pioneers, worth mentioning that Scotland has a population of around 5m, and a proportionally larger banking sector than the UK (a figure I found very surprising, but there we are). The Isle of Man has 84,000 people on it, and the Channel Islands aren't huge either. It's not a fair comparison, because the difference in scale is enormous.
Mr. Jonathan, anyone willing to play constitutional games for a possible political advantage needs a slap with a large haddock. First up, the Labour clowns who thought they'd killed nationalism stone dead with the stupid Scottish Parliament and the unforgivable (and copied by all other major parties) failure to ask, let alone answer, the West Lothian Question.
Ireland had a currency union with the UK for 50 years post independence,
Did it? I may be mistaken, but I thought they had their own currency and a parity peg with Sterling - the BoE was not LOLR afaik.
Given the size of its banking sector, Scotland needs a LOLR and that LOLR will want to supervise its banks.....
As you well know , the LOLR is where the trade is so like it or lump it England has 90% at least of the UK banks liabilities, they cannot avoid it. Also would hope they did a better job supervising than they have done to date, methinks it would be better to have Scottish Government do the supervising, less likely to have another crash that way.
Enjoyable piece, Mr. Herdson. I wonder if anyone recalls the excellent Mr. India sketches from Goodness Gracious Me? One or two chaps (well, Salmond, at least) sometimes sound like Mr. Scotland.
"Sterling? Scottish! Oil? Scottish! Military regiments with the word 'Scotland' in name? Scottish! Debt? Oh, that's English."
MD as quoted recently by Westminster , officially the debt is the UK's and Scotland has nothing to do with it. Do you not read the newspapers. We have graciously agreed to help out if the rats at Westminster play with a straight bat, but have no obligation if they are crooked as usual.
You keep making this claim Malcolm but all I remember seeing recently is the Treasury saying they would underwrite the debt to ensure market stability. No mention was made of Scotland not actually having any responsibility for a portion of the debt. Indeed, as I posted a few weeks ago all recent examples of such breakups made under international law have entailed both sides having responsibility for a portion of the debt - usually by proportion of population. This applied when Singapore left the Malaysian Confederation, when Bangladesh left Pakistan and when the Czech Republic and Slovakia split up.
International law is not on your side on this.
That said I do feel that with the oil wealth a debt amounting to around 10% of the total UK debt would probably be manageable by Scotland and don't think it should alter the merits (in my mind at least) of Scots Independence.
Richard it was clearly stated at the time that the bonds were issued in the name of the UK and as the successor state they would need to be paid back by the UK. If Scotland was to be obligated then the bonds would need to be scrapped and reissued to the 2 states.
Mr. G, that's not the case on debt. The UK could retain the debt as is, but then 10% (or suchlike) of the value (£140bn, ish) could then be owed by Scotland to the UK.
The REAL question is whether it is done with agreement in a currency union or simply pegging the Scots pound to sterling, which negates all debt and Scotland can start off as a new country debt free.
if Scotland does not agree to take a negotiated share of UK debt, then the UK will not agree to Scottish independence.
Your choice then is negotiate, or UDI - in which case you can kiss goodbye to the EU and the international bond markets, Braveheart.
Westminster will have no say in the matter.
Just as the EU will have "no say in the matter" on Scottish Membership of the EU, Westminster will have no say on Currency Union?
The Ladybird Salmond guide to negotiation....
dear dear , down to trying to misquote my words now. You know exactly what was meant and stated, teh markets will decide.
Enjoyable piece, Mr. Herdson. I wonder if anyone recalls the excellent Mr. India sketches from Goodness Gracious Me? One or two chaps (well, Salmond, at least) sometimes sound like Mr. Scotland.
"Sterling? Scottish! Oil? Scottish! Military regiments with the word 'Scotland' in name? Scottish! Debt? Oh, that's English."
MD as quoted recently by Westminster , officially the debt is the UK's and Scotland has nothing to do with it. Do you not read the newspapers. We have graciously agreed to help out if the rats at Westminster play with a straight bat, but have no obligation if they are crooked as usual.
You keep making this claim Malcolm but all I remember seeing recently is the Treasury saying they would underwrite the debt to ensure market stability. No mention was made of Scotland not actually having any responsibility for a portion of the debt. Indeed, as I posted a few weeks ago all recent examples of such breakups made under international law have entailed both sides having responsibility for a portion of the debt - usually by proportion of population. This applied when Singapore left the Malaysian Confederation, when Bangladesh left Pakistan and when the Czech Republic and Slovakia split up.
International law is not on your side on this.
That said I do feel that with the oil wealth a debt amounting to around 10% of the total UK debt would probably be manageable by Scotland and don't think it should alter the merits (in my mind at least) of Scots Independence.
Richard it was clearly stated at the time that the bonds were issued in the name of the UK and as the successor state they would need to be paid back by the UK. If Scotland was to be obligated then the bonds would need to be scrapped and reissued to the 2 states.
Nope. All previous cases have shown that the two parties in any split are assumed to have equal responsibility for the debt. As I say this has been seen on a number of previous occasions and there is absolutely no reason to believe this time would be any different.
The REAL question is whether it is done with agreement in a currency union or simply pegging the Scots pound to sterling, which negates all debt and Scotland can start off as a new country debt free.
if Scotland does not agree to take a negotiated share of UK debt, then the UK will not agree to Scottish independence.
Your choice then is negotiate, or UDI - in which case you can kiss goodbye to the EU and the international bond markets, Braveheart.
LOL, only you could come up with that crap, unfortunately for you when the vote is YES it is a done deal , Westminster will have no say in the matter. Also as Westminster confirmed under international law Scotland have no debt and no obligation to assume the UK's debt. Once the markets give Dave and Gideon their guidance they will be at the table signing up with few objections. We can survive with no debt , I think the rump with its £1.4T will be in a bit worse shape come the day. Little Englanders like you will be shocked.
If that is the attitude the Scots take, it'll be a case of you and whose army? Expect admission to all international bodies to be blocked. Expect all Scottish financial institutions to lose all backing from the BoE. Expect massive resentment from the remainder of the UK - Scotland will be the easy scapegoat for public and politicians alike.
It's not going to happen. The Yes side - or those running it - are not fools. They understand the realities. But they have a vote to win. Should they be successful, we will see a much more pragmatic approach to the independence negotiations than the White Paper might currently indicate. And it will not be in the rUK's interests to deliberately rile our closest neighbour. Obviously, we can always so No to stuff that does not suit us, but I doubt it will come to that.
Salmond on Sterling; "The sterling, well, it really depends on the financial circumstances of the time. We would tend to stay within the sterling area until such time as it is to our advantage to join the Euro and then we would only do it with the consent of the people." Salmond is unreliable, he can't be trusted on serious matters.
The REAL question is whether it is done with agreement in a currency union or simply pegging the Scots pound to sterling, which negates all debt and Scotland can start off as a new country debt free.
if Scotland does not agree to take a negotiated share of UK debt, then the UK will not agree to Scottish independence.
Your choice then is negotiate, or UDI - in which case you can kiss goodbye to the EU and the international bond markets, Braveheart.
LOL, only you could come up with that crap, unfortunately for you when the vote is YES it is a done deal , Westminster will have no say in the matter. Also as Westminster confirmed under international law Scotland have no debt and no obligation to assume the UK's debt. Once the markets give Dave and Gideon their guidance they will be at the table signing up with few objections. We can survive with no debt , I think the rump with its £1.4T will be in a bit worse shape come the day. Little Englanders like you will be shocked.
If that is the attitude the Scots take, it'll be a case of you and whose army? Expect admission to all international bodies to be blocked. Expect all Scottish financial institutions to lose all backing from the BoE. Expect massive resentment from the remainder of the UK - Scotland will be the easy scapegoat for public and politicians alike.
It's not going to happen. The Yes side - or those running it - are not fools. They understand the realities. But they have a vote to win. Should they be successful, we will see a much more pragmatic approach to the independence negotiations than the White Paper might currently indicate. And it will not be in the rUK's interests to deliberately rile our closest neighbour. Obviously, we can always so No to stuff that does not suit us, but I doubt it will come to that.
In the meantime however nothing is guaranteed to be more 'helpful' to the No campaign than tories making blustering threats every five minutes.
Why it's almost as if labour have tried to keep the tories well away from the Independence debate for a very good reason. As dire as much of SLAB high command are there is even worse waiting in the wings wearing a blue rosette and convinced that a dose of right wing tory 'common sense' is just what the Independence campaign needs.
Enjoyable piece, Mr. Herdson. I wonder if anyone recalls the excellent Mr. India sketches from Goodness Gracious Me? One or two chaps (well, Salmond, at least) sometimes sound like Mr. Scotland.
"Sterling? Scottish! Oil? Scottish! Military regiments with the word 'Scotland' in name? Scottish! Debt? Oh, that's English."
MD as quoted recently by Westminster , officially the debt is the UK's and Scotland has nothing to do with it. Do you not read the newspapers. We have graciously agreed to help out if the rats at Westminster play with a straight bat, but have no obligation if they are crooked as usual.
You keep making this claim Malcolm but all I remember seeing recently is the Treasury saying they would underwrite the debt to ensure market stability. No mention was made of Scotland not actually having any responsibility for a portion of the debt. Indeed, as I posted a few weeks ago all recent examples of such breakups made under international law have entailed both sides having responsibility for a portion of the debt - usually by proportion of population. This applied when Singapore left the Malaysian Confederation, when Bangladesh left Pakistan and when the Czech Republic and Slovakia split up.
International law is not on your side on this.
That said I do feel that with the oil wealth a debt amounting to around 10% of the total UK debt would probably be manageable by Scotland and don't think it should alter the merits (in my mind at least) of Scots Independence.
A reasonable parallel may be when a holding company separates one of its subsidiaries the appropriate level of debt for each entity is negotiated.
MalcolmG - regardless of the "rights" or "wrongs" the best kind of negotiation is where both sides feel a little bit of pain, but both feel they have got an ok deal. It's not in Scotland's long-term interests to have a pissed off England - even if you are independent we are going to end up having plenty of bilateral agreements and other arrangements.
If that is the attitude the Scots take, it'll be a case of you and whose army? Expect admission to all international bodies to be blocked. Expect all Scottish financial institutions to lose all backing from the BoE. Expect massive resentment from the remainder of the UK - Scotland will be the easy scapegoat for public and politicians alike.
David, I sometimes wonder if you are out of primary school yet. I poresume it is just a Tory trait to be absolutely deluded. Perhaps you should read up on Scotland and the Scottish plans , the White Paper is online. There you can read adult mature positions on reality , not the yah boo sucks from Westminster pygmies.
Yeah well, I think that post speaks for itself.
But be in no doubt: if Scotland just walked away from a fair share of UK debt (not least after Gordon Brown built it up so high), the extent of ill-will from those lumped with it towards those partying off into the sunset would be deep and lasting. And there would be political and practical consequences.
David, As has been stated many many times , Scotland will take a share of the UK debt even though it did not incur it. Do you agree that if rump UK try to cheat Scotland of its fair share of all UK assets that it will be an international pariah or is that different. And there would be political and practical consequences of that also. More likely that UK will try to cheat Scotland than Scotland not taking share of the debt.
Enjoyable piece, Mr. Herdson. I wonder if anyone recalls the excellent Mr. India sketches from Goodness Gracious Me? One or two chaps (well, Salmond, at least) sometimes sound like Mr. Scotland.
"Sterling? Scottish! Oil? Scottish! Military regiments with the word 'Scotland' in name? Scottish! Debt? Oh, that's English."
MD as quoted recently by Westminster , officially the debt is the UK's and Scotland has nothing to do with it. Do you not read the newspapers. We have graciously agreed to help out if the rats at Westminster play with a straight bat, but have no obligation if they are crooked as usual.
You keep making this claim Malcolm but all I remember seeing recently is the Treasury saying they would underwrite the debt to ensure market stability. No mention was made of Scotland not actually having any responsibility for a portion of the debt. Indeed, as I posted a few weeks ago all recent examples of such breakups made under international law have entailed both sides having responsibility for a portion of the debt - usually by proportion of population. This applied when Singapore left the Malaysian Confederation, when Bangladesh left Pakistan and when the Czech Republic and Slovakia split up.
International law is not on your side on this.
That said I do feel that with the oil wealth a debt amounting to around 10% of the total UK debt would probably be manageable by Scotland and don't think it should alter the merits (in my mind at least) of Scots Independence.
Richard it was clearly stated at the time that the bonds were issued in the name of the UK and as the successor state they would need to be paid back by the UK. If Scotland was to be obligated then the bonds would need to be scrapped and reissued to the 2 states.
Wrong.
The Treasury said an independent Scotland would have to pay for a “fair and proportionate share” of UK liabilities but that the amount would be worked out as a separate compensation scheme. But a “share of the outstanding stock of debt instruments that have been issued by the UK would not be transferred to Scotland”.
Mr. Pioneers, worth mentioning that Scotland has a population of around 5m, and a proportionally larger banking sector than the UK (a figure I found very surprising, but there we are). The Isle of Man has 84,000 people on it, and the Channel Islands aren't huge either. It's not a fair comparison, because the difference in scale is enormous.
Mr. Jonathan, anyone willing to play constitutional games for a possible political advantage needs a slap with a large haddock. First up, the Labour clowns who thought they'd killed nationalism stone dead with the stupid Scottish Parliament and the unforgivable (and copied by all other major parties) failure to ask, let alone answer, the West Lothian Question.
Ireland had a currency union with the UK for 50 years post independence,
Did it? I may be mistaken, but I thought they had their own currency and a parity peg with Sterling - the BoE was not LOLR afaik.
Given the size of its banking sector, Scotland needs a LOLR and that LOLR will want to supervise its banks.....
As you well know , the LOLR is where the trade is so like it or lump it England has 90% at least of the UK banks liabilities, they cannot avoid it. Also would hope they did a better job supervising than they have done to date, methinks it would be better to have Scottish Government do the supervising, less likely to have another crash that way.
Sure - but the consequence of that is that all the Edinburgh based banks (RBS - Lloyds I think - and quite possibly NAB) will move their headquarters south of the border. You may not care about that, but the people of Edinburgh will.
RBS alone is c. 3,000 well paid jobs (of course not all of those will go, and not immediately, but you could see 2,000+ over a period of years. And RBS being rebranded NatWest I suspect... (except for their small Scottish subsidiary)
I think there is a remarkable lack of real politic about the discussions involving the currency and the LOLR.
The reality is this. Over the last 25 years Edinburgh in particular has built up a very successful financial services industry that has large funds invested and employs enough people to give Edinburgh the highest ratio of private school kids in the UK. That industry is regulated by London and is essentially a branch or satillite of the huge London market.
Whilst Scotland is in the UK this is a good thing and everyone is very relaxed about it most of the time although RBS proved a bit of a disappointment. If Scotland went independent the position would be very different. Politicians in the rUK would then think that they might want to attract 10s of thousands of highly paid jobs and the low billions of tax revenues to the people that would actually vote for them.
What would it take? It would be embarrassingly easy. Even hinting that the BoE might not be the LOLR for the Scottish Finance industry has everyone making contingency plans. Following through on it would move the vast bulk of the jobs and taxes south in a heart beat as all of these institutions need to have recognition and approval by a respected regulator if they are to trade internationally as they do.
London is greedy and ruthless. Ask its competitors in Paris and Frankfurt (if you can find them, I suggest you try Kensington). The idea that everything would simply carry on as before is completely naive. Case after case has shown that trade between countries that separate collapses. This would just be the start.
Would Scotland survive? Of course. But we already have an economy which is overweighted to the public sector, closer to France than the rest of the UK. The loss of such a major industry would be a terrible blow and make the financial constraints that rUK would impose on spending and borrowing as a condition of using the currency extremely hard to bear.
The Labour peer has not had her term of office renewed and will step down in the autumn.
...
She told Radio 4's Today programme: "I really do think it's just I am the latest of a fairly long list of people now who are non-Conservative supporters who are not being re-appointed."
Baroness Morgan, a former close aide to Tony Blair, said there was "absolutely a pattern", adding: "I think it's extremely worrying."
The REAL question is whether it is done with agreement in a currency union or simply pegging the Scots pound to sterling, which negates all debt and Scotland can start off as a new country debt free.
if Scotland does not agree to take a negotiated share of UK debt, then the UK will not agree to Scottish independence.
Your choice then is negotiate, or UDI - in which case you can kiss goodbye to the EU and the international bond markets, Braveheart.
LOL, only you could come up with that crap, unfortunately for you when the vote is YES it is a done deal , Westminster will have no say in the matter. Also as Westminster confirmed under international law Scotland have no debt and no obligation to assume the UK's debt. Once the markets give Dave and Gideon their guidance they will be at the table signing up with few objections. We can survive with no debt , I think the rump with its £1.4T will be in a bit worse shape come the day. Little Englanders like you will be shocked.
If that is the attitude the Scots take, it'll be a case of you and whose army? Expect admission to all international bodies to be blocked. Expect all Scottish financial institutions to lose all backing from the BoE. Expect massive resentment from the remainder of the UK - Scotland will be the easy scapegoat for public and politicians alike.
It's not going to happen. The Yes side - or those running it - are not fools. They understand the realities. But they have a vote to win. Should they be successful, we will see a much more pragmatic approach to the independence negotiations than the White Paper might currently indicate. And it will not be in the rUK's interests to deliberately rile our closest neighbour. Obviously, we can always so No to stuff that does not suit us, but I doubt it will come to that.
Salmond on Sterling; "The sterling, well, it really depends on the financial circumstances of the time. We would tend to stay within the sterling area until such time as it is to our advantage to join the Euro and then we would only do it with the consent of the people." Salmond is unreliable, he can't be trusted on serious matters.
The rUK will ensure that any deal will protect its interests. I think we have decent enough lawyers to overcome any fears on that front.
There is a real chance that the people will vote Yes assuming they can keep the Pound only to find this is not the case after they have voted.
Patrick, there is absolutely no question: the Scots can continue to use the pound if they like.
What they can't be certain of is that it will be as part of a formal currency union and that they would be represented on the MPC et al.
Unlike Ladbroks who will most definitely know almost as much about gambling as your good self Charles , though as a banker I have my doubts.
I really don't understand that answer.
Perhaps you can explain?
(I haven't read the Ladbrooke's bet terms - although am happy to take Neil's word for it - because I rarely bet and then only for fun or to prove a point).
Is Saving the City worth reading? It's about the 1914 banking crisis at the start of the Great War.
I have no idea of whether the book's worth reading but the crisis is very much worth understanding given the similarities between them and those of 2008.
Curious how this 'little distraction' seems to be all over the news. Pay it no heed Cameroons. If you pretend it isn't happening it will surely go away all by itself. Just like Cammie's EU referendum Bill.
Mr. Scrapheap, the BBC's reporting can be bloody dense, or outright biased. When the Jesus and Mo issue was reported on Newsnight there was less than a minute about freedom of expression, the rest of it was about the 'offence' implictly being sufficient to make the cartoon evil in itself (no mention of the fact, either, that the cartoonist isn't a Muslim and isn't bound by the customs of Islam).
Can anyone trumpeting the Ladbrokes odds on currency union post a link to the actual bet, not to a report of the press release? It doesn't seem to exist on their website...
Junior: Password reset? What is the phrase that the cow-dung of the Southern Netherlands use...?
On-topic:
Look at the Euro:
Germany does well (as it is at-or-about parity with the $PPP) but the rest suffer. If Scotland is so 'rich' why should the "rUK" be penalised by an economic monetary policy that does not seek to redress the Service-Account deficit.
The facts are: Scotland is off-to-the-unknown. Why the Scots people wish to dictate to the English on how post-independence will factor-out is somewhat 'Eugène Terre'Blanche'....
Enjoyable piece, Mr. Herdson. I wonder if anyone recalls the excellent Mr. India sketches from Goodness Gracious Me? One or two chaps (well, Salmond, at least) sometimes sound like Mr. Scotland.
"Sterling? Scottish! Oil? Scottish! Military regiments with the word 'Scotland' in name? Scottish! Debt? Oh, that's English."
MD as quoted recently by Westminster , officially the debt is the UK's and Scotland has nothing to do with it. Do you not read the newspapers. We have graciously agreed to help out if the rats at Westminster play with a straight bat, but have no obligation if they are crooked as usual.
You keep making this claim Malcolm but all I remember seeing recently is the Treasury saying they would underwrite the debt to ensure market stability. No mention was made of Scotland not actually having any responsibility for a portion of the debt. Indeed, as I posted a few weeks ago all recent examples of such breakups made under international law have entailed both sides having responsibility for a portion of the debt - usually by proportion of population. This applied when Singapore left the Malaysian Confederation, when Bangladesh left Pakistan and when the Czech Republic and Slovakia split up.
International law is not on your side on this.
That said I do feel that with the oil wealth a debt amounting to around 10% of the total UK debt would probably be manageable by Scotland and don't think it should alter the merits (in my mind at least) of Scots Independence.
Richard it was clearly stated at the time that the bonds were issued in the name of the UK and as the successor state they would need to be paid back by the UK. If Scotland was to be obligated then the bonds would need to be scrapped and reissued to the 2 states.
Nope. All previous cases have shown that the two parties in any split are assumed to have equal responsibility for the debt. As I say this has been seen on a number of previous occasions and there is absolutely no reason to believe this time would be any different.
And that's probably the crucial point. Whatever the legalities, which can no doubt be argued both ways (that's what lawyers are for, isn't it?), if it was believed that Scotland had unilaterally walked away from its share of the debt I'm sure that markets and credit ratings agencies would consider it as having a whiff of default about it and price newly issued Scottish debt accordingly.
In reality, yes, an agreement probably will be reached but will it be one with formal currency union institutions between Scotland and rUK? I doubt it - it's just not in rUK's interests.
I think there is a remarkable lack of real politic about the discussions involving the currency and the LOLR.
The reality is this. Over the last 25 years Edinburgh in particular has built up a very successful financial services industry that has large funds invested and employs enough people to give Edinburgh the highest ratio of private school kids in the UK. That industry is regulated by London and is essentially a branch or satillite of the huge London market.
Whilst Scotland is in the UK this is a good thing and everyone is very relaxed about it most of the time although RBS proved a bit of a disappointment. If Scotland went independent the position would be very different. Politicians in the rUK would then think that they might want to attract 10s of thousands of highly paid jobs and the low billions of tax revenues to the people that would actually vote for them.
What would it take? It would be embarrassingly easy. Even hinting that the BoE might not be the LOLR for the Scottish Finance industry has everyone making contingency plans. Following through on it would move the vast bulk of the jobs and taxes south in a heart beat as all of these institutions need to have recognition and approval by a respected regulator if they are to trade internationally as they do.
London is greedy and ruthless. Ask its competitors in Paris and Frankfurt (if you can find them, I suggest you try Kensington). The idea that everything would simply carry on as before is completely naive. Case after case has shown that trade between countries that separate collapses. This would just be the start.
Would Scotland survive? Of course. But we already have an economy which is overweighted to the public sector, closer to France than the rest of the UK. The loss of such a major industry would be a terrible blow and make the financial constraints that rUK would impose on spending and borrowing as a condition of using the currency extremely hard to bear.
TBF, the Edinburgh fund management industry is quite independent of the London market with a number of significant and very proud institutions - Standard Life, Aberdeen, Baillie Gifford, etc. It's common practice to schlep up to Edinburgh when you are trying to place equity.
Certainly the banks would move south because of the LoLR issue, but I don't think the FM companies necessarily would (possibly SL because of the insurance regulations, but that's outside my area of expertise). They would need to tweak their mandates to allow them to treat London as a "domestic" rather than a "international" market for investment purposes, but that's just an administrative hassle.
p.s. the French are in South Kensington, the Germans in Richmond (with the Swedes) and Chelsea (with the Italians). Kensington is largely Russians, Ukrainians and Americans these days ;-)
Curious how this 'little distraction' seems to be all over the news.
After your hundred laps of honour on this thread Mick, I think most of us are happy to concede the tories lost this round.
It would appear that this is not the end of the matter, however. The Guardian reports that Cameron intends to use the parliament act on this.
Ah, yes. Let us not forget that hilarity. You mean he's made a Cast Iron Pledge to try and use the parliament act. Fair enough. His word is his bond and tory rebels will know he can be implicitly trusted on such matters.
If that is the attitude the Scots take, it'll be a case of you and whose army? Expect admission to all international bodies to be blocked. Expect all Scottish financial institutions to lose all backing from the BoE. Expect massive resentment from the remainder of the UK - Scotland will be the easy scapegoat for public and politicians alike.
David, I sometimes wonder if you are out of primary school yet. I poresume it is just a Tory trait to be absolutely deluded. Perhaps you should read up on Scotland and the Scottish plans , the White Paper is online. There you can read adult mature positions on reality , not the yah boo sucks from Westminster pygmies.
Yeah well, I think that post speaks for itself.
But be in no doubt: if Scotland just walked away from a fair share of UK debt (not least after Gordon Brown built it up so high), the extent of ill-will from those lumped with it towards those partying off into the sunset would be deep and lasting. And there would be political and practical consequences.
Scotland of its fair share of all UK assets
The problem is that Salmond is labouring under the misapprehension that Sterling is somehow an "asset" and not a monetary instrument of the UK government.
It's pretty basic stuff - and once again, his bluff has been called......cue more bluster.....
Or is England going to get 90% of Edinburgh Castle - is that how it will work?
The point about financial services is that it is just a simple and obvious example of the new realities. rUK politicians would have no interest in the financial success or well being of Scotland and it simply would not factor into their plans at all. Why should it?
So when you look at the currency situation you have to ask not what Scotland wants or needs but what is in it for rUK? That is a much more difficult question to answer. Unless some good answers are found it is not going to happen.
Southam Observer and others say that it would be in rUK's interest to keep the disruption to a minimum. I again ask why? If rUK was competing for inward investment, for example, which it would be, why is it in their interests to minimise the difficulties of a competitor? The UK receives by far the largest level of inward investment in the EU (it is partly a mirror of our horrible trade deficit). Why would rUK want to share that? Hinting that there might be bumps on the road in EU membership or in the currency would really put Scotland out of the game. Once again it is too easy for any politician no longer concerned with Scotland's welfare to resist.
Using the £ would be horrible for Scotland. Each year there would have to be approval of their budget and spending plans by the Treasury and the BoE. Each year there would be disagreements and they would say no on various points. No Scottish government could tolerate that for more than a brief transitional period. Ask the Greeks or the Portuguese how that feels. rUK having that level of control would not feel like or be independence. It would simply not be sustainable.
I was looking at Lighthouse recently, and saw they had teamed up with Birthstar for a new IFA-focused auto-enrollment product. Would be great to get your views if you had a moment ;-)
Scotland would not need a LOLR if the Scottish banks moved their headquarters south of the border, and continued to use Sterling without a currency union,
Mr. Pioneers, worth mentioning that Scotland has a population of around 5m, and a proportionally larger banking sector than the UK (a figure I found very surprising, but there we are). The Isle of Man has 84,000 people on it, and the Channel Islands aren't huge either. It's not a fair comparison, because the difference in scale is enormous.
Mr. Jonathan, anyone willing to play constitutional games for a possible political advantage needs a slap with a large haddock. First up, the Labour clowns who thought they'd killed nationalism stone dead with the stupid Scottish Parliament and the unforgivable (and copied by all other major parties) failure to ask, let alone answer, the West Lothian Question.
Ireland had a currency union with the UK for 50 years post independence,
Did it? I may be mistaken, but I thought they had their own currency and a parity peg with Sterling - the BoE was not LOLR afaik.
Given the size of its banking sector, Scotland needs a LOLR and that LOLR will want to supervise its banks.....
As you well know , the LOLR is where the trade is so like it or lump it England has 90% at least of the UK banks liabilities, they cannot avoid it. Also would hope they did a better job supervising than they have done to date, methinks it would be better to have Scottish Government do the supervising, less likely to have another crash that way.
Be best for us if the English parts of the banks went south and we were left with the real Scottish banks. We certainly do not need banks that size that take all their decisions in London in any case. It will require real Scottish banks going forward.
rUK politicians would have no interest in the financial success or well being of Scotland and it simply would not factor into their plans at all. Why should it?
Have you considered applying to "better together" as a spokesperson for No? Your arguments are 'compelling' indeed and I feel sure they would be better served by getting a far bigger airing to the scottish public at large.
Enjoyable piece, Mr. Herdson. I wonder if anyone recalls the excellent Mr. India sketches from Goodness Gracious Me? One or two chaps (well, Salmond, at least) sometimes sound like Mr. Scotland.
"Sterling? Scottish! Oil? Scottish! Military regiments with the word 'Scotland' in name? Scottish! Debt? Oh, that's English."
MD as quoted recently by Westminster , officially the debt is the UK's and Scotland has nothing to do with it. Do you not read the newspapers. We have graciously agreed to help out if the rats at Westminster play with a straight bat, but have no obligation if they are crooked as usual.
You keep making this claim Malcolm but all I remember seeing recently is the Treasury saying they would underwrite the debt to ensure market stability. No mention was made of Scotland not actually having any responsibility for a portion of the debt. Indeed, as I posted a few weeks ago all recent examples of such breakups made under international law have entailed both sides having responsibility for a portion of the debt - usually by proportion of population. This applied when Singapore left the Malaysian Confederation, when Bangladesh left Pakistan and when the Czech Republic and Slovakia split up.
International law is not on your side on this.
That said I do feel that with the oil wealth a debt amounting to around 10% of the total UK debt would probably be manageable by Scotland and don't think it should alter the merits (in my mind at least) of Scots Independence.
A reasonable parallel may be when a holding company separates one of its subsidiaries the appropriate level of debt for each entity is negotiated.
MalcolmG - regardless of the "rights" or "wrongs" the best kind of negotiation is where both sides feel a little bit of pain, but both feel they have got an ok deal. It's not in Scotland's long-term interests to have a pissed off England - even if you are independent we are going to end up having plenty of bilateral agreements and other arrangements.
Charles, I am pretty certain that is what will happen , once defeated Westminster will accept reality and start acting like adults. Certainly at first there will not be major changes to anything , it will be a long time before we are really untangled.
MD as quoted recently by Westminster , officially the debt is the UK's and Scotland has nothing to do with it. Do you not read the newspapers. We have graciously agreed to help out if the rats at Westminster play with a straight bat, but have no obligation if they are crooked as usual.
You keep making this claim Malcolm but all I remember seeing recently is the Treasury saying they would underwrite the debt to ensure market stability. No mention was made of Scotland not actually having any responsibility for a portion of the debt. Indeed, as I posted a few weeks ago all recent examples of such breakups made under international law have entailed both sides having responsibility for a portion of the debt - usually by proportion of population. This applied when Singapore left the Malaysian Confederation, when Bangladesh left Pakistan and when the Czech Republic and Slovakia split up.
International law is not on your side on this.
That said I do feel that with the oil wealth a debt amounting to around 10% of the total UK debt would probably be manageable by Scotland and don't think it should alter the merits (in my mind at least) of Scots Independence.
Richard it was clearly stated at the time that the bonds were issued in the name of the UK and as the successor state they would need to be paid back by the UK. If Scotland was to be obligated then the bonds would need to be scrapped and reissued to the 2 states.
Wrong.
The Treasury said an independent Scotland would have to pay for a “fair and proportionate share” of UK liabilities but that the amount would be worked out as a separate compensation scheme. But a “share of the outstanding stock of debt instruments that have been issued by the UK would not be transferred to Scotland”.
The Debt Management Office wisely decided that having UK interest rates driven up by posturing and tantrums from Edinburgh was unwise...
Malcolm is right that existing debt has been issued by the UK and in this case given the relative sizes of the UK and Scotland, and the international significance of Sterling, would be best repaid by the UK. The question is how to do that while ensuring a fair sharing of legacy debt.
Probably the best solution I've heard of is for the independent Scotland to issue new debt over a period of, say, five years, specifically to buy up its share of previously-issued UK debt. That way, there's no need to divide existing bonds or to allocate those already issued to the market to either government.
Enjoyable piece, Mr. Herdson. I wonder if anyone recalls the excellent Mr. India sketches from Goodness Gracious Me? One or two chaps (well, Salmond, at least) sometimes sound like Mr. Scotland.
"Sterling? Scottish! Oil? Scottish! Military regiments with the word 'Scotland' in name? Scottish! Debt? Oh, that's English."
MD as quoted recently by Westminster , officially the debt is the UK's and Scotland has nothing to do with it. Do you not read the newspapers. We have graciously agreed to help out if the rats at Westminster play with a straight bat, but have no obligation if they are crooked as usual.
You keep making this claim Malcolm but all I remember seeing recently is the Treasury saying they would underwrite the debt to ensure market stability. No mention was made of Scotland not actually having any responsibility for a portion of the debt. Indeed, as I posted a few weeks ago all recent examples of such breakups made under international law have entailed both sides having responsibility for a portion of the debt - usually by proportion of population. This applied when Singapore left the Malaysian Confederation, when Bangladesh left Pakistan and when the Czech Republic and Slovakia split up.
International law is not on your side on this.
That said I do feel that with the oil wealth a debt amounting to around 10% of the total UK debt would probably be manageable by Scotland and don't think it should alter the merits (in my mind at least) of Scots Independence.
A reasonable parallel may be when a holding company separates one of its subsidiaries the appropriate level of debt for each entity is negotiated.
MalcolmG - regardless of the "rights" or "wrongs" the best kind of negotiation is where both sides feel a little bit of pain, but both feel they have got an ok deal. It's not in Scotland's long-term interests to have a pissed off England - even if you are independent we are going to end up having plenty of bilateral agreements and other arrangements.
Charles, I am pretty certain that is what will happen , once defeated Westminster will accept reality and start acting like adults. Certainly at first there will not be major changes to anything , it will be a long time before we are really untangled.
Indeed. But there's also bluster and assumption on the Scottish side...
Assuming 'Yes' wins and currency union happens,Scotland will have a Governor from a foreign country controlling Scotland's monetary policy & a foreign Chancellor controlling Scotland's fiscal policy.
Enjoyable piece, Mr. Herdson. I wonder if anyone recalls the excellent Mr. India sketches from Goodness Gracious Me? One or two chaps (well, Salmond, at least) sometimes sound like Mr. Scotland.
"Sterling? Scottish! Oil? Scottish! Military regiments with the word 'Scotland' in name? Scottish! Debt? Oh, that's English."
MD as quoted recently by Westminster , officially the debt is the UK's and Scotland has nothing to do with it. Do you not read the newspapers. We have graciously agreed to help out if the rats at Westminster play with a straight bat, but have no obligation if they are crooked as usual.
You keep making this claim Malcolm but all I remember seeing recently is the Treasury saying they would underwrite the debt to ensure market stability. No mention was made of Scotland not actually having any responsibility for a portion of the debt. Indeed, as I posted a few weeks ago all recent examples of such breakups made under international law have entailed both sides having responsibility for a portion of the debt - usually by proportion of population. This applied when Singapore left the Malaysian Confederation, when Bangladesh left Pakistan and when the Czech Republic and Slovakia split up.
International law is not on your side on this.
That said I do feel that with the oil wealth a debt amounting to around 10% of the total UK debt would probably be manageable by Scotland and don't think it should alter the merits (in my mind at least) of Scots Independence.
Richard it was clearly stated at the time that the bonds were issued in the name of the UK and as the successor state they would need to be paid back by the UK. If Scotland was to be obligated then the bonds would need to be scrapped and reissued to the 2 states.
Nope. All previous cases have shown that the two parties in any split are assumed to have equal responsibility for the debt. As I say this has been seen on a number of previous occasions and there is absolutely no reason to believe this time would be any different.
Richard I doubt "ALL" , many yes as you would expect and in those cases I expect that assets were also shared. It is moot now as UK has been forced to accept the debt through stupidity and posturing.
Enjoyable piece, Mr. Herdson. I wonder if anyone recalls the excellent Mr. India sketches from Goodness Gracious Me? One or two chaps (well, Salmond, at least) sometimes sound like Mr. Scotland.
"Sterling? Scottish! Oil? Scottish! Military regiments with the word 'Scotland' in name? Scottish! Debt? Oh, that's English."
Was he not Pakistani? * Conflating a Scotsman and a Pakistani gives you a Yorkshire lawyer, no...?
:correlation-is-not-equal-to-causation:
* You may be speaking of the Sikh guy. Amritsar put paid to that....
Poor old gullible tory Eurosceptics. Will they ever learn?
So far, labour and the libs have managed to kill the referendum bill quietly. You're right that lobby obsessed news correspondents have concentrated on the splits rather than the politics and it is that which has made the news.
Cameron wants them to kill the bill noisily, in full view of an electorate than poll after poll says wants a referendum. Just ahead of an election.
He wants to make sure Ed is going into 2015 wearing a no referendum T shirt, rather than hiding behind a fudge.
Mr. Pioneers, worth mentioning that Scotland has a population of around 5m, and a proportionally larger banking sector than the UK (a figure I found very surprising, but there we are). The Isle of Man has 84,000 people on it, and the Channel Islands aren't huge either. It's not a fair comparison, because the difference in scale is enormous.
Mr. Jonathan, anyone willing to play constitutional games for a possible political advantage needs a slap with a large haddock. First up, the Labour clowns who thought they'd killed nationalism stone dead with the stupid Scottish Parliament and the unforgivable (and copied by all other major parties) failure to ask, let alone answer, the West Lothian Question.
Ireland had a currency union with the UK for 50 years post independence,
Did it? I may be mistaken, but I thought they had their own currency and a parity peg with Sterling - the BoE was not LOLR afaik.
Given the size of its banking sector, Scotland needs a LOLR and that LOLR will want to supervise its banks.....
As you well know , the LOLR is where the trade is so like it or lump it England has 90% at least of the UK banks liabilities, they cannot avoid it. Also would hope they did a better job supervising than they have done to date, methinks it would be better to have Scottish Government do the supervising, less likely to have another crash that way.
Sure - but the consequence of that is that all the Edinburgh based banks (RBS - Lloyds I think - and quite possibly NAB) will move their headquarters south of the border. You may not care about that, but the people of Edinburgh will.
RBS alone is c. 3,000 well paid jobs (of course not all of those will go, and not immediately, but you could see 2,000+ over a period of years. And RBS being rebranded NatWest I suspect... (except for their small Scottish subsidiary)
Charles, that would be no bad thing and would mean we could have a real Scottish bank in Scotland rather than the carpetbaggers we have at present. I can only hope you are correct. I also think that the jobs would be replaced by real Scottish banking jobs as we would need that after the UK banks pulled out. Unless you believe that they could still hope to have branches and business in Scotland.
It's really not. You think both campaigns don't know exactly where the scottish public rate certain issues as a priority they want more information on to decide how to vote? They do. Currency is rated 8th. Only ahead of the monarchy and the BBC as topics.
MD as quoted recently by Westminster , officially the debt is the UK's and Scotland has nothing to do with it. Do you not read the newspapers. We have graciously agreed to help out if the rats at Westminster play with a straight bat, but have no obligation if they are crooked as usual.
International law is not on your side on this.
That said I do feel that with the oil wealth a debt amounting to around 10% of the total UK debt would probably be manageable by Scotland and don't think it should alter the merits (in my mind at least) of Scots Independence.
Richard it was clearly stated at the time that the bonds were issued in the name of the UK and as the successor state they would need to be paid back by the UK. If Scotland was to be obligated then the bonds would need to be scrapped and reissued to the 2 states.
Wrong.
The Treasury said an independent Scotland would have to pay for a “fair and proportionate share” of UK liabilities but that the amount would be worked out as a separate compensation scheme. But a “share of the outstanding stock of debt instruments that have been issued by the UK would not be transferred to Scotland”.
The Debt Management Office wisely decided that having UK interest rates driven up by posturing and tantrums from Edinburgh was unwise...
Malcolm is right that existing debt has been issued by the UK and in this case given the relative sizes of the UK and Scotland, and the international significance of Sterling, would be best repaid by the UK. The question is how to do that while ensuring a fair sharing of legacy debt.
Probably the best solution I've heard of is for the independent Scotland to issue new debt over a period of, say, five years, specifically to buy up its share of previously-issued UK debt. That way, there's no need to divide existing bonds or to allocate those already issued to the market to either government.
Malcolm is wrong to assert, as he and Salmond both do, that "no currency union = no debt liability" - it's really very simple, without agreement on debt, there will be no agreement on independence, with all that entails......
Enjoyable piece, Mr. Herdson. I wonder if anyone recalls the excellent Mr. India sketches from Goodness Gracious Me? One or two chaps (well, Salmond, at least) sometimes sound like Mr. Scotland.
"Sterling? Scottish! Oil? Scottish! Military regiments with the word 'Scotland' in name? Scottish! Debt? Oh, that's English."
MD as quoted recently by Westminster , officially the debt is the UK's and Scotland has nothing to do with it. Do you not read the newspapers. We have graciously agreed to help out if the rats at Westminster play with a straight bat, but have no obligation if they are crooked as usual.
You keep making this claim Malcolm but all I remember seeing recently is the Treasury saying they would underwrite the debt to ensure market stability. No mention was made of Scotland not actually having any responsibility for a portion of the debt. Indeed, as I posted a few weeks ago all recent examples of such breakups made under international law have entailed both sides having responsibility for a portion of the debt - usually by proportion of population. This applied when Singapore left the Malaysian Confederation, when Bangladesh left Pakistan and when the Czech Republic and Slovakia split up.
International law is not on your side on this.
That said I do feel that with the oil wealth a debt amounting to around 10% of the total UK debt would probably be manageable by Scotland and don't think it should alter the merits (in my mind at least) of Scots Independence.
A reasonable parallel may be when a holding company separates one of its subsidiaries the appropriate level of debt for each entity is negotiated.
MalcolmG - regardless of the "rights" or "wrongs" the best kind of negotiation is where both sides feel a little bit of pain, but both feel they have got an ok deal. It's not in Scotland's long-term interests to have a pissed off England - even if you are independent we are going to end up having plenty of bilateral agreements and other arrangements.
Charles, I am pretty certain that is what will happen , once defeated Westminster will accept reality and start acting like adults. Certainly at first there will not be major changes to anything , it will be a long time before we are really untangled.
Indeed. But there's also bluster and assumption on the Scottish side...
True , but it is Westminster that is refusing to discuss anything. I believe that is a mistake. NO campaign so far has been pathetic and disjointed, depite starting with all teh advantages.
I think there is a remarkable lack of real politic about the discussions involving the currency and the LOLR.
London is greedy and ruthless. Ask its competitors in Paris and Frankfurt (if you can find them, I suggest you try Kensington). The idea that everything would simply carry on as before is completely naive. Case after case has shown that trade between countries that separate collapses. This would just be the start.
Would Scotland survive? Of course. But we already have an economy which is overweighted to the public sector, closer to France than the rest of the UK. The loss of such a major industry would be a terrible blow and make the financial constraints that rUK would impose on spending and borrowing as a condition of using the currency extremely hard to bear.
TBF, the Edinburgh fund management industry is quite independent of the London market with a number of significant and very proud institutions - Standard Life, Aberdeen, Baillie Gifford, etc. It's common practice to schlep up to Edinburgh when you are trying to place equity.
Certainly the banks would move south because of the LoLR issue, but I don't think the FM companies necessarily would (possibly SL because of the insurance regulations, but that's outside my area of expertise). They would need to tweak their mandates to allow them to treat London as a "domestic" rather than a "international" market for investment purposes, but that's just an administrative hassle.
p.s. the French are in South Kensington, the Germans in Richmond (with the Swedes) and Chelsea (with the Italians). Kensington is largely Russians, Ukrainians and Americans these days ;-)
At the moment rUK is not competing for those jobs and revenue streams. That would no longer be the situation. They would either move themselves or be bought up and have their funds moved south. It would be inevitable. At the moment they all have accreditation with regulators that (despite the past failures) are recognised as amongst the most sophisticated and reliable in the world backed by the FSCS and other provisions. Their business would suffer greatly if they lost that.
I'll take your word on the geography of our various immigrant investment communities. Where would you suggest the Scots go?
Exactly. The rUK will not agree to a deal that fails to safeguard its interests. An independent Scotland will need a deal. It won't be a long negotiation: rUK will say these are our terms, Scotland will say OK. And that will be that.
I think there is a remarkable lack of real politic about the discussions involving the currency and the LOLR.
The reality is this. Over the last 25 years Edinburgh in particular has built up a very successful financial services industry that has large funds invested and employs enough people to give Edinburgh the highest ratio of private school kids in the UK. That industry is regulated by London and is essentially a branch or satillite of the huge London market.
Whilst Scotland is in the UK this is a good thing and everyone is very relaxed about it most of the time although RBS proved a bit of a disappointment. If Scotland went independent the position would be very different. Politicians in the rUK would then think that they might want to attract 10s of thousands of highly paid jobs and the low billions of tax revenues to the people that would actually vote for them.
What would it take? It would be embarrassingly easy. Even hinting that the BoE might not be the LOLR for the Scottish Finance industry has everyone making contingency plans. Following through on it would move the vast bulk of the jobs and taxes south in a heart beat as all of these institutions need to have recognition and approval by a respected regulator if they are to trade internationally as they do.
London is greedy and ruthless. Ask its competitors in Paris and Frankfurt (if you can find them, I suggest you try Kensington). The idea that everything would simply carry on as before is completely naive. Case after case has shown that trade between countries that separate collapses. This would just be the start.
Would Scotland survive? Of course. But we already have an economy which is overweighted to the public sector, closer to France than the rest of the UK. The loss of such a major industry would be a terrible blow and make the financial constraints that rUK would impose on spending and borrowing as a condition of using the currency extremely hard to bear.
David, quoting bollocks again, it has been well shown that we have little or no more public sector than England. We will need financial institutions in Scotland when independent an dif the English ones move out it will be a good opportunity for new Scottish companies, so as per devolution going to impoverish us , the Torie shave the same old mantra on independence. Do you never question why we have more Pandas than Tory MP's.
Scotland would not need a LOLR if the Scottish banks moved their headquarters south of the border, and continued to use Sterling without a currency union,
Mr. Pioneers, worth mentioning that Scotland has a population of around 5m, and a proportionally larger banking sector than the UK (a figure I found very surprising, but there we are). The Isle of Man has 84,000 people on it, and the Channel Islands aren't huge either. It's not a fair comparison, because the difference in scale is enormous.
Mr. Jonathan, anyone willing to play constitutional games for a possible political advantage needs a slap with a large haddock. First up, the Labour clowns who thought they'd killed nationalism stone dead with the stupid Scottish Parliament and the unforgivable (and copied by all other major parties) failure to ask, let alone answer, the West Lothian Question.
Ireland had a currency union with the UK for 50 years post independence,
Did it? I may be mistaken, but I thought they had their own currency and a parity peg with Sterling - the BoE was not LOLR afaik.
Given the size of its banking sector, Scotland needs a LOLR and that LOLR will want to supervise its banks.....
As you well know , the LOLR is where the trade is so like it or lump it England has 90% at least of the UK banks liabilities, they cannot avoid it. Also would hope they did a better job supervising than they have done to date, methinks it would be better to have Scottish Government do the supervising, less likely to have another crash that way.
Be best for us if the English parts of the banks went south and we were left with the real Scottish banks. We certainly do not need banks that size that take all their decisions in London in any case. It will require real Scottish banks going forward.
The big 'Scottish' banks are presently regulated in London and operate mostly south of the border (80% or so?) so a split, at least in terms of regulation, coverage, etc. would seem inevitable wherever the nominal HQ(s) of the banking group(s) is or are in the end (which is why Mr Carney's claim that Scottish banks are 12 x the GDP is so odd - no such thing just now as a Scottish bank in a legal sense surely except where it is and who gets the business rates).
Enjoyable piece, Mr. Herdson. I wonder if anyone recalls the excellent Mr. India sketches from Goodness Gracious Me? One or two chaps (well, Salmond, at least) sometimes sound like Mr. Scotland.
"Sterling? Scottish! Oil? Scottish! Military regiments with the word 'Scotland' in name? Scottish! Debt? Oh, that's English."
MD as quoted recently by Westminster , officially the debt is the UK's and Scotland has nothing to do with it. Do you not read the newspapers. We have graciously agreed to help out if the rats at Westminster play with a straight bat, but have no obligation if they are crooked as usual.
and Slovakia split up.
International law is not on your side on this.
That said I do feel that with the oil wealth a debt amounting to around 10% of the total UK debt would probably be manageable by Scotland and don't think it should alter the merits (in my mind at least) of Scots Independence.
A reasonable parallel may be when a holding company separates one of its subsidiaries the appropriate level of debt for each entity is negotiated.
MalcolmG - regardless of the "rights" or "wrongs" the best kind of negotiation is where both sides feel a little bit of pain, but both feel they have got an ok deal. It's not in Scotland's long-term interests to have a pissed off England - even if you are independent we are going to end up having plenty of bilateral agreements and other arrangements.
Charles, I am pretty certain that is what will happen , once defeated Westminster will accept reality and start acting like adults. Certainly at first there will not be major changes to anything , it will be a long time before we are really untangled.
Indeed. But there's also bluster and assumption on the Scottish side...
NO campaign so far has been pathetic and disjointed,
I guess that's why they've sacked all their directors.....
There is a real chance that the people will vote Yes assuming they can keep the Pound only to find this is not the case after they have voted.
Patrick, there is absolutely no question: the Scots can continue to use the pound if they like.
What they can't be certain of is that it will be as part of a formal currency union and that they would be represented on the MPC et al.
Unlike Ladbroks who will most definitely know almost as much about gambling as your good self Charles , though as a banker I have my doubts.
I really don't understand that answer.
Perhaps you can explain?
(I haven't read the Ladbrooke's bet terms - although am happy to take Neil's word for it - because I rarely bet and then only for fun or to prove a point).
Charles , they have put the odds of a currency union at 1/100 and NO currency union at 50/1. In other words a racing certainty.
There is a real chance that the people will vote Yes assuming they can keep the Pound only to find this is not the case after they have voted.
Patrick, there is absolutely no question: the Scots can continue to use the pound if they like.
What they can't be certain of is that it will be as part of a formal currency union and that they would be represented on the MPC et al.
Unlike Ladbroks who will most definitely know almost as much about gambling as your good self Charles , though as a banker I have my doubts.
I really don't understand that answer.
Perhaps you can explain?
(I haven't read the Ladbrooke's bet terms - although am happy to take Neil's word for it - because I rarely bet and then only for fun or to prove a point).
Charles , they have put the odds of a currency union at 1/100 and NO currency union at 50/1. In other words a racing certainty.
WHERE?!? Please give us a link to the actual bet....
Can anyone trumpeting the Ladbrokes odds on currency union post a link to the actual bet, not to a report of the press release? It doesn't seem to exist on their website...
I would imagine you could phone them and place a bet. I doubt they will be expecting many bets on it.
There is a real chance that the people will vote Yes assuming they can keep the Pound only to find this is not the case after they have voted.
Patrick, there is absolutely no question: the Scots can continue to use the pound if they like.
What they can't be certain of is that it will be as part of a formal currency union and that they would be represented on the MPC et al.
Unlike Ladbroks who will most definitely know almost as much about gambling as your good self Charles , though as a banker I have my doubts.
I really don't understand that answer.
Perhaps you can explain?
(I haven't read the Ladbrooke's bet terms - although am happy to take Neil's word for it - because I rarely bet and then only for fun or to prove a point).
Charles , they have put the odds of a currency union at 1/100 and NO currency union at 50/1. In other words a racing certainty.
And Ladbrokes are a much better informed and authoritative figure on the requirements for a successful currency union than Carney.....
If I were you I certainly wouldn't repeat that too loudly despite it being the truth. You do realise Cammie was forced into this Bill in the first place by panicking tory Eurosceptics after the May local elections? He guaranteed them it would happen and thus all their deep mistrust about whether he actually intended to hold any referendum would be answered. Doesn't matter who he blames now. This was his desperate get-out clause to offer to panicking tory rebels to calm them all down and now it looks like it's going to blow up in his face. Tory Eurosceptics will hardly be inclined to trust Cammie more if this all falls apart now and they could barely trust him as it is. They don't care about Ed's pledges on a referendum. Little Ed wasn't the one who promised them all an EU referendum Bill, Cammie was
If he can't deliver this why would they believe he can deliver an actual EU referendum?
Can anyone trumpeting the Ladbrokes odds on currency union post a link to the actual bet, not to a report of the press release? It doesn't seem to exist on their website...
I would imagine you could phone them and place a bet. I doubt they will be expecting many bets on it.
From what I can see on google it was on their website and the terms were different from what you're quoting; the 1/100 was on Scotland using GBP on 1/1/16, NOT on there being a currency union.
The victimization attitude of the scots on here against the "hated english" quite appals me. I'm very happy for the scottish people to find their own way - to stay in the UK or leave. But given the hate and bitterness expressed so often here and the likely financial instability that follows I will be transferring my pension assets away from the current scottish financial management firm I am with; I won't trust it to be safe.
You can't do business with people who express such irrational hatred; you let them stew in their own juices.
Oh - and you lowland scots with your invective and bile, watch out for the shetland islands declaring UDI or joining Norway. Whose oil will it be then?
"A Yes vote will only be won through the actions of people across the political spectrum, and through the support of those with no affiliation," he said. "The SNP 'government' will have no more right to decide on currency issues than others within the Yes coalition who take a different point of view. Crucially, those others will be in a majority." This raises the possibility that an independent Scotland could enter talks with the UK with a group of negotiators split on whether to keep the pound. Colin Fox, a Yes Scotland advisory board member and Scottish Socialist Party leader, said last night that it is "democratically correct that the wide coalition should be represented at those negotiations".
If that is the attitude the Scots take, it'll be a case of you and whose army? Expect admission to all international bodies to be blocked. Expect all Scottish financial institutions to lose all backing from the BoE. Expect massive resentment from the remainder of the UK - Scotland will be the easy scapegoat for public and politicians alike.
David, I sometimes wonder if you are out of primary school yet. I poresume it is just a Tory trait to be absolutely deluded. Perhaps you should read up on Scotland and the Scottish plans , the White Paper is online. There you can read adult mature positions on reality , not the yah boo sucks from Westminster pygmies.
Yeah well, I think that post speaks for itself.
But be in no doubt: if Scotland just walked away from a fair share of UK debt (not least after Gordon Brown built it up so high), the extent of ill-will from those lumped with it towards those partying off into the sunset would be deep and lasting. And there would be political and practical consequences.
Scotland of its fair share of all UK assets
The problem is that Salmond is labouring under the misapprehension that Sterling is somehow an "asset" and not a monetary instrument of the UK government.
It's pretty basic stuff - and once again, his bluff has been called......cue more bluster.....
Or is England going to get 90% of Edinburgh Castle - is that how it will work?
Dear dear, Alex Salmond knows that short term it is better to keep Sterling. I doubt we will be swapping parts of castles either way or digging up motorways to send to Scotland, but there will be assets that need shared, ie all the gold in BofE and our share of the QE money printed.
Re Saving the City - haven't read it - would like to.
Re Morgan bleating to the media. Was she any good at what she did. I would have liked to have seen that wretch at the EC kicked out, but her contract was renewed. All parties have been too keen to see compliant placemen and women in the quangos. Power of patronage stinks.
The point about financial services is that it is just a simple and obvious example of the new realities. rUK politicians would have no interest in the financial success or well being of Scotland and it simply would not factor into their plans at all. Why should it?
So when you look at the currency situation you have to ask not what Scotland wants or needs but what is in it for rUK? That is a much more difficult question to answer. Unless some good answers are found it is not going to happen.
Southam Observer and others say that it would be in rUK's interest to keep the disruption to a minimum. I again ask why? If rUK was competing for inward investment, for example, which it would be, why is it in their interests to minimise the difficulties of a competitor? The UK receives by far the largest level of inward investment in the EU (it is partly a mirror of our horrible trade deficit). Why would rUK want to share that? Hinting that there might be bumps on the road in EU membership or in the currency would really put Scotland out of the game. Once again it is too easy for any politician no longer concerned with Scotland's welfare to resist.
Using the £ would be horrible for Scotland. Each year there would have to be approval of their budget and spending plans by the Treasury and the BoE. Each year there would be disagreements and they would say no on various points. No Scottish government could tolerate that for more than a brief transitional period. Ask the Greeks or the Portuguese how that feels. rUK having that level of control would not feel like or be independence. It would simply not be sustainable.
David, for an intelligent person you do not half spout some bollocks. Rump UK will be too busy worrying about its debt mountain and fact that it being well over 100% of GDP is liable to put it down the swanee.
Assuming 'Yes' wins and currency union happens,Scotland will have a Governor from a foreign country controlling Scotland's monetary policy & a foreign Chancellor controlling Scotland's fiscal policy.
Where's the independence?
You mean like Germany , France , Italy , Spain , etc etc ad infinitum
Is Saving the City worth reading? It's about the 1914 banking crisis at the start of the Great War.
I have no idea of whether the book's worth reading but the crisis is very much worth understanding given the similarities between them and those of 2008.
The point about financial services is that it is just a simple and obvious example of the new realities. rUK politicians would have no interest in the financial success or well being of Scotland and it simply would not factor into their plans at all. Why should it?
So when you look at the currency situation you have to ask not what Scotland wants or needs but what is in it for rUK? That is a much more difficult question to answer. Unless some good answers are found it is not going to happen.
Southam Observer and others say that it would be in rUK's interest to keep the disruption to a minimum. I again ask why? If rUK was competing for inward investment, for example, which it would be, why is it in their interests to minimise the difficulties of a competitor? The UK receives by far the largest level of inward investment in the EU (it is partly a mirror of our horrible trade deficit). Why would rUK want to share that? Hinting that there might be bumps on the road in EU membership or in the currency would really put Scotland out of the game. Once again it is too easy for any politician no longer concerned with Scotland's welfare to resist.
Using the £ would be horrible for Scotland. Each year there would have to be approval of their budget and spending plans by the Treasury and the BoE. Each year there would be disagreements and they would say no on various points. No Scottish government could tolerate that for more than a brief transitional period. Ask the Greeks or the Portuguese how that feels. rUK having that level of control would not feel like or be independence. It would simply not be sustainable.
David, for an intelligent person you do not half spout some bollocks. Rump UK will be too busy worrying about its debt mountain and fact that it being well over 100% of GDP is liable to put it down the swanee.
And you think that that is going to make them easier to deal with Malcolm? It's a point of view I suppose.
MD as quoted recently by Westminster , officially the debt is the UK's and Scotland has nothing to do with it. Do you not read the newspapers. We have graciously agreed to help out if the rats at Westminster play with a straight bat, but have no obligation if they are crooked as usual.
Independence.
Richard it was clearly stated at the time that the bonds were issued in the name of the UK and as the successor state they would need to be paid back by the UK. If Scotland was to be obligated then the bonds would need to be scrapped and reissued to the 2 states.
Wrong.
The Treasury said an independent Scotland would have to pay for a “fair and proportionate share” of UK liabilities but that the amount would be worked out as a separate compensation scheme. But a “share of the outstanding stock of debt instruments that have been issued by the UK would not be transferred to Scotland”.
The Debt Management Office wisely decided that having UK interest rates driven up by posturing and tantrums from Edinburgh was unwise...
Malcolm is right that existing debt has been issued by the UK and in this case given the relative sizes of the UK and Scotland, and the international significance of Sterling, would be best repaid by the UK. The question is how to do that while ensuring a fair sharing of legacy debt.
Probably the best solution I've heard of is for the independent Scotland to issue new debt over a period of, say, five years, specifically to buy up its share of previously-issued UK debt. That way, there's no need to divide existing bonds or to allocate those already issued to the market to either government.
David, I doubt that will be the case , more likely it will service the existing debt at current terms till it matures.
The closest I can find to the actual wording of the Ladbrokes bet is this, though the link now doesn't go to the bet itself so presumably they've withdrawn it...
"Originally Posted by Rolfe No, that's not right. It's "Scotland to form a currency union with the United Kingdom before the 31st of December 2015". Well on their website it looks like a much simpler question
Quote: Scottish Currency
Selection
Odds
Scotland to still be using GBP on Jan 1st 2016 1/100
Poor old gullible tory Eurosceptics. Will they ever learn?
So far, labour and the libs have managed to kill the referendum bill quietly. You're right that lobby obsessed news correspondents have concentrated on the splits rather than the politics and it is that which has made the news.
Cameron wants them to kill the bill noisily, in full view of an electorate than poll after poll says wants a referendum. Just ahead of an election.
He wants to make sure Ed is going into 2015 wearing a no referendum T shirt, rather than hiding behind a fudge.
It's not going to happen. The timings, as Dave knows, are all wrong. First of all, you have to get the legislation in the form of a private members bill through the Commons; then the Parliament Act only kicks in after 12 months. That is, if the government can invoke the act at all with regards to non-government legislation.
And, of course, only 130 Tory peers voted for the bill. There are 209 of them, If the Tories were really serious about this there may have been more of their supporters around to back it.
Cameron is posturing. And no more. What a surprise.
Assuming 'Yes' wins and currency union happens,Scotland will have a Governor from a foreign country controlling Scotland's monetary policy & a foreign Chancellor controlling Scotland's fiscal policy.
Where's the independence?
You mean like Germany , France , Italy , Spain , etc etc ad infinitum
To an extent. But lessons will also have been learned from what happened in the Eurozone when a crisis did erupt. These will be reflected in the final agreement.
I think there is a remarkable lack of real politic about the discussions involving the currency and the LOLR.
London is greedy and ruthless. Ask its competitors in Paris and Frankfurt (if you can find them, I suggest you try Kensington). The idea that everything would simply carry on as before is completely naive. Case after case has shown that trade between countries that separate collapses. This would just be the start.
Would Scotland survive? Of course. But we already have an economy which is overweighted to the public sector, closer to France than the rest of the UK. The loss of such a major industry would be a terrible blow and make the financial constraints that rUK would impose on spending and borrowing as a condition of using the currency extremely hard to bear.
David, quoting bollocks again, it has been well shown that we have little or no more public sector than England. We will need financial institutions in Scotland when independent an dif the English ones move out it will be a good opportunity for new Scottish companies, so as per devolution going to impoverish us , the Torie shave the same old mantra on independence. Do you never question why we have more Pandas than Tory MP's.
"There were 2,549,000 people employed in Scotland in Q3 2013, an increase of 74,600 (3.0%) over the year. In Q3 2013 public sector employment accounted for 22.7% of total employment, down from 23.5% in the previous year and the lowest proportion seen since the series began in 1999."
In the UK as a whole there are now just over 30m employed with just over 5m working in the public sector, so approximately 17%. We are going in the right direction but there is a long way to go and we are chasing a moving target.
If there was a shred of doubt the world is totally insane, this will remove it. Only Divine intervention can restore us to sanity.
Pythagoras’ Theorem: …………………….24 words. Lord’s Prayer: …………………………………… 66 words. Archimedes’ Principle: ……………………………67 words. Ten Commandments: ………………………………….179 words. Gettysburg Address: …………………………………………286 words. US Declaration of Independence : …………………………1,300 words. US Constitution with all 27 Amendments: ……………………7,818 words. EU Regulations on the Sale of CABBAGES: ……………26,911 words
Poor old gullible tory Eurosceptics. Will they ever learn?
So far, labour and the libs have managed to kill the referendum bill quietly. You're right that lobby obsessed news correspondents have concentrated on the splits rather than the politics and it is that which has made the news.
Cameron wants them to kill the bill noisily, in full view of an electorate than poll after poll says wants a referendum. Just ahead of an election.
He wants to make sure Ed is going into 2015 wearing a no referendum T shirt, rather than hiding behind a fudge.
It's not going to happen. The timings, as Dave knows, are all wrong. First of all, you have to get the legislation in the form of a private members bill through the Commons; then the Parliament Act only kicks in after 12 months. That is, if the government can invoke the act at all with regards to non-government legislation.
And, of course, only 130 Tory peers voted for the bill. There are 209 of them, If the Tories were really serious about this there may have been more of their supporters around to back it.
Cameron is posturing. And no more. What a surprise.
You would think all the tory Eurosceptics would have caught on by now. Some have and won't give a damn what Cammie says anymore but the truth is most of them want to be fooled. They want to believe so badly every time they get marched up to the top of the hill. This time the posturing and Cast Iron Pledges will see off Farage and the kippers. Then they can finally get back to ranting about the EU and immigration without Farage spoiling it all by upstaging them and laughing at their puny efforts every single time.
It's tragic to see their eager little faces crushed when reality eventually and inevitably dawns on them and the words turn to dust. Funny yes, but still tragic.
If there was a shred of doubt the world is totally insane, this will remove it. Only Divine intervention can restore us to sanity.
Pythagoras’ Theorem: …………………….24 words. Lord’s Prayer: …………………………………… 66 words. Archimedes’ Principle: ……………………………67 words. Ten Commandments: ………………………………….179 words. Gettysburg Address: …………………………………………286 words. US Declaration of Independence : …………………………1,300 words. US Constitution with all 27 Amendments: ……………………7,818 words. EU Regulations on the Sale of CABBAGES: ……………26,911 words
If there be a better example of the seizure of our lives by self-justifying bureaucrats I haven't seen it.
Comments
Surely a separate Scottish pound is wise for an independent Scotland not to be overshadowed by its much larger neighbor?
No currency which is pegged to a much larger one has any meaningful notion of monetary independence as their rates and policies are in effect set by that larger entity, whether it be the Isle of Man and the UK, Spain and the Eurozone, or Britain and the USA under Bretton-Woods (or Britain and the EC in the ERM). Though at least with a currency union rather than a pegged rate, the members should have some influence and the decisions makers some regard to those members.
Actually, that's the main reason why I don't think Westminster will be at all keen for a currency union - continual bleating from Holyrood about their interests not being considered, their being "equal members" of the union and so on. The idea that even after independence Westminster would still be having to jump around to Scotland's beat. It's just not attractive.
International law is not on your side on this.
That said I do feel that with the oil wealth a debt amounting to around 10% of the total UK debt would probably be manageable by Scotland and don't think it should alter the merits (in my mind at least) of Scots Independence.
Ladbrokes latest betting
Scotland to form a currency union with the United Kingdom before the 31st of December 2015
Yes 1/100
No 50/1
Bets void if referendum outcome is 'no' to independence
Referendum outcome
Yes 7/2
No 1/5
It's very easy to confuse pre-vote rhetoric with post-vote reality.
As we get closer and it is even more obvious that NO is a busted flush things will start to heat up. The flow is all one way at present.
Also would hope they did a better job supervising than they have done to date, methinks it would be better to have Scottish Government do the supervising, less likely to have another crash that way.
The Ladybird Salmond guide to negotiation....
But be in no doubt: if Scotland just walked away from a fair share of UK debt (not least after Gordon Brown built it up so high), the extent of ill-will from those lumped with it towards those partying off into the sunset would be deep and lasting. And there would be political and practical consequences.
Their scare stories unravel daily up here.
"The government is ousting non-Conservative supporters from key public body posts, according to the outgoing chair of schools inspectorate Ofsted.
Baroness Sally Morgan told the BBC she was the victim of a "determined effort from Number 10" to appoint more Tories.
The Labour peer has not had her term of office renewed and will step down in the autumn."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25997102
"Baroness Morgan, whose three-year term of office ends this month..." - 3 years? So... she was appointed by this government as well?
Come on Cameroons. Don't let Cammie's earlier humiliation by his own MPs stop you now.
Is Saving the City worth reading? It's about the 1914 banking crisis at the start of the Great War.
"The sterling, well, it really depends on the financial circumstances of the time. We would tend to stay within the sterling area until such time as it is to our advantage to join the Euro and then we would only do it with the consent of the people."
Salmond is unreliable, he can't be trusted on serious matters.
Why it's almost as if labour have tried to keep the tories well away from the Independence debate for a very good reason. As dire as much of SLAB high command are there is even worse waiting in the wings wearing a blue rosette and convinced that a dose of right wing tory 'common sense' is just what the Independence campaign needs.
MalcolmG - regardless of the "rights" or "wrongs" the best kind of negotiation is where both sides feel a little bit of pain, but both feel they have got an ok deal. It's not in Scotland's long-term interests to have a pissed off England - even if you are independent we are going to end up having plenty of bilateral agreements and other arrangements.
More likely that UK will try to cheat Scotland than Scotland not taking share of the debt.
The Treasury said an independent Scotland would have to pay for a “fair and proportionate share” of UK liabilities but that the amount would be worked out as a separate compensation scheme. But a “share of the outstanding stock of debt instruments that have been issued by the UK would not be transferred to Scotland”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10569415/Scottish-independence-UKs-credit-rating-could-be-threatened-as-Treasury-guarantees-Scotlands-debt.html
The Debt Management Office wisely decided that having UK interest rates driven up by posturing and tantrums from Edinburgh was unwise...
RBS alone is c. 3,000 well paid jobs (of course not all of those will go, and not immediately, but you could see 2,000+ over a period of years. And RBS being rebranded NatWest I suspect... (except for their small Scottish subsidiary)
The reality is this. Over the last 25 years Edinburgh in particular has built up a very successful financial services industry that has large funds invested and employs enough people to give Edinburgh the highest ratio of private school kids in the UK. That industry is regulated by London and is essentially a branch or satillite of the huge London market.
Whilst Scotland is in the UK this is a good thing and everyone is very relaxed about it most of the time although RBS proved a bit of a disappointment. If Scotland went independent the position would be very different. Politicians in the rUK would then think that they might want to attract 10s of thousands of highly paid jobs and the low billions of tax revenues to the people that would actually vote for them.
What would it take? It would be embarrassingly easy. Even hinting that the BoE might not be the LOLR for the Scottish Finance industry has everyone making contingency plans. Following through on it would move the vast bulk of the jobs and taxes south in a heart beat as all of these institutions need to have recognition and approval by a respected regulator if they are to trade internationally as they do.
London is greedy and ruthless. Ask its competitors in Paris and Frankfurt (if you can find them, I suggest you try Kensington). The idea that everything would simply carry on as before is completely naive. Case after case has shown that trade between countries that separate collapses. This would just be the start.
Would Scotland survive? Of course. But we already have an economy which is overweighted to the public sector, closer to France than the rest of the UK. The loss of such a major industry would be a terrible blow and make the financial constraints that rUK would impose on spending and borrowing as a condition of using the currency extremely hard to bear.
Ofsted chair Sally Morgan accuses No 10 of ousting non-Tories from posts
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25997102
The Labour peer has not had her term of office renewed and will step down in the autumn.
...
She told Radio 4's Today programme: "I really do think it's just I am the latest of a fairly long list of people now who are non-Conservative supporters who are not being re-appointed."
Baroness Morgan, a former close aide to Tony Blair, said there was "absolutely a pattern", adding: "I think it's extremely worrying."
Perhaps you can explain?
(I haven't read the Ladbrooke's bet terms - although am happy to take Neil's word for it - because I rarely bet and then only for fun or to prove a point).
Pay it no heed Cameroons. If you pretend it isn't happening it will surely go away all by itself. Just like Cammie's EU referendum Bill.
After your hundred laps of honour on this thread Mick, I think most of us are happy to concede the tories lost this round.
It would appear that this is not the end of the matter, however. The Guardian reports that Cameron intends to use the parliament act on this.
Junior: Password reset? What is the phrase that the cow-dung of the Southern Netherlands use...?
On-topic:
Look at the Euro:
Germany does well (as it is at-or-about parity with the $PPP) but the rest suffer. If Scotland is so 'rich' why should the "rUK" be penalised by an economic monetary policy that does not seek to redress the Service-Account deficit.
The facts are: Scotland is off-to-the-unknown. Why the Scots people wish to dictate to the English on how post-independence will factor-out is somewhat 'Eugène Terre'Blanche'....
[P.S. You are an Orange.... ]
In reality, yes, an agreement probably will be reached but will it be one with formal currency union institutions between Scotland and rUK? I doubt it - it's just not in rUK's interests.
Certainly the banks would move south because of the LoLR issue, but I don't think the FM companies necessarily would (possibly SL because of the insurance regulations, but that's outside my area of expertise). They would need to tweak their mandates to allow them to treat London as a "domestic" rather than a "international" market for investment purposes, but that's just an administrative hassle.
p.s. the French are in South Kensington, the Germans in Richmond (with the Swedes) and Chelsea (with the Italians). Kensington is largely Russians, Ukrainians and Americans these days ;-)
It's pretty basic stuff - and once again, his bluff has been called......cue more bluster.....
Or is England going to get 90% of Edinburgh Castle - is that how it will work?
So when you look at the currency situation you have to ask not what Scotland wants or needs but what is in it for rUK? That is a much more difficult question to answer. Unless some good answers are found it is not going to happen.
Southam Observer and others say that it would be in rUK's interest to keep the disruption to a minimum. I again ask why? If rUK was competing for inward investment, for example, which it would be, why is it in their interests to minimise the difficulties of a competitor? The UK receives by far the largest level of inward investment in the EU (it is partly a mirror of our horrible trade deficit). Why would rUK want to share that? Hinting that there might be bumps on the road in EU membership or in the currency would really put Scotland out of the game. Once again it is too easy for any politician no longer concerned with Scotland's welfare to resist.
Using the £ would be horrible for Scotland. Each year there would have to be approval of their budget and spending plans by the Treasury and the BoE. Each year there would be disagreements and they would say no on various points. No Scottish government could tolerate that for more than a brief transitional period. Ask the Greeks or the Portuguese how that feels. rUK having that level of control would not feel like or be independence. It would simply not be sustainable.
I think you're a middle-market focused IFA right?
I was looking at Lighthouse recently, and saw they had teamed up with Birthstar for a new IFA-focused auto-enrollment product. Would be great to get your views if you had a moment ;-)
http://www.birthstarfunds.co.uk/why-birthstar/
(feel free to tell me I'm being cheeky...)
Your arguments are 'compelling' indeed and I feel sure they would be better served by getting a far bigger airing to the scottish public at large.
Probably the best solution I've heard of is for the independent Scotland to issue new debt over a period of, say, five years, specifically to buy up its share of previously-issued UK debt. That way, there's no need to divide existing bonds or to allocate those already issued to the market to either government.
Assuming 'Yes' wins and currency union happens,Scotland will have a Governor from a foreign country controlling Scotland's monetary policy & a foreign Chancellor controlling Scotland's fiscal policy.
Where's the independence?
It is moot now as UK has been forced to accept the debt through stupidity and posturing.
:correlation-is-not-equal-to-causation:
* You may be speaking of the Sikh guy. Amritsar put paid to that....
So far, labour and the libs have managed to kill the referendum bill quietly. You're right that lobby obsessed news correspondents have concentrated on the splits rather than the politics and it is that which has made the news.
Cameron wants them to kill the bill noisily, in full view of an electorate than poll after poll says wants a referendum. Just ahead of an election.
He wants to make sure Ed is going into 2015 wearing a no referendum T shirt, rather than hiding behind a fudge.
I'll take your word on the geography of our various immigrant investment communities. Where would you suggest the Scots go?
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/scottish-independence-blog/2014/jan/27/scottish-independence-yesscotland
Oh......
You do realise Cammie was forced into this Bill in the first place by panicking tory Eurosceptics after the May local elections? He guaranteed them it would happen and thus all their deep mistrust about whether he actually intended to hold any referendum would be answered. Doesn't matter who he blames now. This was his desperate get-out clause to offer to panicking tory rebels to calm them all down and now it looks like it's going to blow up in his face. Tory Eurosceptics will hardly be inclined to trust Cammie more if this all falls apart now and they could barely trust him as it is. They don't care about Ed's pledges on a referendum. Little Ed wasn't the one who promised them all an EU referendum Bill, Cammie was
If he can't deliver this why would they believe he can deliver an actual EU referendum?
You can't do business with people who express such irrational hatred; you let them stew in their own juices.
Oh - and you lowland scots with your invective and bile, watch out for the shetland islands declaring UDI or joining Norway. Whose oil will it be then?
"The SNP 'government' will have no more right to decide on currency issues than others within the Yes coalition who take a different point of view. Crucially, those others will be in a majority."
This raises the possibility that an independent Scotland could enter talks with the UK with a group of negotiators split on whether to keep the pound.
Colin Fox, a Yes Scotland advisory board member and Scottish Socialist Party leader, said last night that it is "democratically correct that the wide coalition should be represented at those negotiations".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10611596/Back-the-Union-to-keep-the-pound-says-Ed-Balls.html
ie all the gold in BofE and our share of the QE money printed.
Re Morgan bleating to the media. Was she any good at what she did. I would have liked to have seen that wretch at the EC kicked out, but her contract was renewed. All parties have been too keen to see compliant placemen and women in the quangos. Power of patronage stinks.
*chortle*
And you think that that is going to make them easier to deal with Malcolm? It's a point of view I suppose.
No wonder SLAB wish the tories would just vanish from the independence debate, and they lost a landslide election so they know toxic when they see it.
matures.
"Originally Posted by Rolfe
No, that's not right. It's "Scotland to form a currency union with the United Kingdom before the 31st of December 2015".
Well on their website it looks like a much simpler question
Quote:
Scottish Currency
Selection
Odds
Scotland to still be using GBP on Jan 1st 2016
1/100
Scotland to be using a different currency on Jan 1st 2016
50/1
http://sports.ladbrokes.com/en-gb/po...um.-e213511048
"
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=9804512
And, of course, only 130 Tory peers voted for the bill. There are 209 of them, If the Tories were really serious about this there may have been more of their supporters around to back it.
Cameron is posturing. And no more. What a surprise.
It says:
"There were 2,549,000 people employed in Scotland in Q3 2013, an increase of 74,600 (3.0%) over the year. In Q3 2013 public sector employment accounted for 22.7% of total employment, down from 23.5% in the previous year and the lowest proportion seen since the series began in 1999."
In the UK as a whole there are now just over 30m employed with just over 5m working in the public sector, so approximately 17%. We are going in the right direction but there is a long way to go and we are chasing a moving target.
From a correspondent:
If there was a shred of doubt the world is totally insane, this will remove it. Only Divine intervention can restore us to sanity.
Pythagoras’ Theorem: …………………….24 words.
Lord’s Prayer: …………………………………… 66 words.
Archimedes’ Principle: ……………………………67 words.
Ten Commandments: ………………………………….179 words.
Gettysburg Address: …………………………………………286 words.
US Declaration of Independence : …………………………1,300 words.
US Constitution with all 27 Amendments: ……………………7,818 words.
EU Regulations on the Sale of CABBAGES: ……………26,911 words
They want to believe so badly every time they get marched up to the top of the hill. This time the posturing and Cast Iron Pledges will see off Farage and the kippers. Then they can finally get back to ranting about the EU and immigration without Farage spoiling it all by upstaging them and laughing at their puny efforts every single time.
It's tragic to see their eager little faces crushed when reality eventually and inevitably dawns on them and the words turn to dust. Funny yes, but still tragic.
138 Labour peers, 67 Liberal Democrats and three Conservatives on one side
One Labour peer, no Liberal Democrats and 147 Conservatives on the other
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/eureferendum/10596410/EU-referendum-Bill-branded-dead-parrot-after-Lords-vote.html
There are 221 Conservative peers
http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/lords/composition-of-the-lords/