"European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to join the European Union."
The Commission has been saying the same thing for a fair while. There is just no way Scotland will automatically become an EU member state upon independence.
If the BBC reporting is right he's saying more than that, he's saying that it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to join at all, because it would be hard to get all 28 members to agree to it.
@Socrates - Are you seriously suggesting that the 1979-1997 government was social democratic?
No. I'm suggesting that the social policy of the 1997-2010 was social democratic, particularly on immigration and integration matters. i.e. open borders to all and sundry and no push to adopt British values.
But the British suicide bomber grew up in this country in the 1980s and 1990s. He could only speak English. How many of the British citizens fighting in Syria are the same? Do you know?
Yet strangely, there weren't hundreds of Britons going off to fight a jihad in the 1980s and 1990s.
Do you have any evidence for that claim? Muslim British volunteers in Afghanistan in the 1980s wouldn't have been picked up by the tabloids as something to get outraged about because they'd have been fighting the Soviets which trumped all else. This reporting is from Jan 1999, before a lot of people had time to have their souls corrupted by the evil Blairite doctrine of tolerance:
A Harkut-ul-Mujahideen official said last week that it had Germans and Britons fighting for the cause, as well as Egyptians, Palestinians and Saudis. Muslims from the West as well as from the Middle East and North Africa are regularly stopped by Pakistani police on the road up the Khyber Pass heading for the camps. Hundreds get through. Afghan veterans have now joined bin Laden's al-Qaeda group.
"European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to join the European Union."
The Commission has been saying the same thing for a fair while. There is just no way Scotland will automatically become an EU member state upon independence.
I may have been wrong about Romney. I have been 100% right about this.
No you haven't, you've been saying "the momentum is with YES" and YES is going to win. You said it was a "sad but exciting time" as Scotland seceded.
With the £ ruled out and now this euro-bombshell, would you like to reiterate those remarks?
I guess not. YES looks all but impossible now, unless the Scots go totally postal and vote YES just to show everyone they won't be bullied by reality.
@Socrates - Are you seriously suggesting that the 1979-1997 government was social democratic?
No. I'm suggesting that the social policy of the 1997-2010 was social democratic, particularly on immigration and integration matters. i.e. open borders to all and sundry and no push to adopt British values.
But the British suicide bomber grew up in this country in the 1980s and 1990s. He could only speak English. How many of the British citizens fighting in Syria are the same? Do you know?
Yet strangely, there weren't hundreds of Britons going off to fight a jihad in the 1980s and 1990s.
Do you have any evidence for that claim? Muslim British volunteers in Afghanistan in the 1980s wouldn't have been picked up by the tabloids as something to get outraged about because they'd have been fighting the Soviets which trumped all else. This reporting is from Jan 1999, before a lot of people had time to have their souls corrupted by the evil Blairite doctrine of tolerance:
A Harkut-ul-Mujahideen official said last week that it had Germans and Britons fighting for the cause, as well as Egyptians, Palestinians and Saudis. Muslims from the West as well as from the Middle East and North Africa are regularly stopped by Pakistani police on the road up the Khyber Pass heading for the camps. Hundreds get through. Afghan veterans have now joined bin Laden's al-Qaeda group.
"In the early 20th Century, the high cost of travel relative to incomes meant rather few people could migrate and could thus be easily integrated"
This is not true. See mass Jewish immigration into the UK and the Aliens Act 1905. See also emigration from the UK to various parts of the Empire and the US. if you wanted to move to another country in the late 19th and early 20th century you could do so for a relatively low amount.
British people moving to Australia would have had relatively high incomes for the world population at the time. Compare them to, say, Mirpuri or Nigerian agricultural workers of the time. Russian Jews, while on lower incomes, woudl have been higher than those two groups, and also had lower distances to travel.
I am not sure that the landless Irish peasants that left the country in the wake of the famine could be described as anything other than poverty stricken. The Jews of eastern Europe coming to the UK in the late 19th century were not exactly loaded, which is why they ended up in the slums of East London.
Your claim was that:
"the high cost of travel relative to incomes meant rather few people could migrate and could thus be easily integrated"
This is just plain wrong, I'm afraid. The Aliens Act 1905 was passed as a result of serious concerns about the mass immigration of "undesirables" into the UK; while during the 19th and early 20th century millions left this country to start new lives elsewhere. They certainly did not integrate when they arrived in their new homes, which is why they speak English in places like Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
@Socrates - Are you seriously suggesting that the 1979-1997 government was social democratic?
No. I'm suggesting that the social policy of the 1997-2010 was social democratic, particularly on immigration and integration matters. i.e. open borders to all and sundry and no push to adopt British values.
But the British suicide bomber grew up in this country in the 1980s and 1990s. He could only speak English. How many of the British citizens fighting in Syria are the same? Do you know?
Yet strangely, there weren't hundreds of Britons going off to fight a jihad in the 1980s and 1990s.
Do you have any evidence for that claim? Muslim British volunteers in Afghanistan in the 1980s wouldn't have been picked up by the tabloids as something to get outraged about because they'd have been fighting the Soviets which trumped all else. This reporting is from Jan 1999, before a lot of people had time to have their souls corrupted by the evil Blairite doctrine of tolerance:
A Harkut-ul-Mujahideen official said last week that it had Germans and Britons fighting for the cause, as well as Egyptians, Palestinians and Saudis. Muslims from the West as well as from the Middle East and North Africa are regularly stopped by Pakistani police on the road up the Khyber Pass heading for the camps. Hundreds get through. Afghan veterans have now joined bin Laden's al-Qaeda group.
'They can't use in the pound with the UK, and now it turns out they can't join the EU, either. Perhaps they could'
Two of the Nats key demands demolished in a week & there's another 7 months until the vote,what's next university fees?
Border posts, not allowed to travel as passports revoked , banned from using any Enlish oxygen that drifts over the border, add any other of the standard 100 scare stories
I largely agree, but I am not sure the Have Nots outnumber the Haves in Scotland. I believe it's the third most prosperous region in the UK, after London and the SE, no?
GDP does not automatically translate to household wealth.
Best stick to you area of Scottish expertise, which is ...err...Michelin starred restaurants?
Anything to say about the £, and now the EU?
CHORTLE.
The £? Recent developments have persuaded me that now is the time to accept your bet against Yes winning for 50 UK £s, even at your capon's odds of evens. Deal?
If the Scots aren't allowed in the Euro and perhaps go for a new currency I can see hedge funds lining up to sink em...
Or, maybe not. There was a paper once written which suggested that the Scot£ could actually appreciate !
I think, in the unlikely event of a "Yes" vote, Salmond will go for exactly this. He will then play the Braveheart card ! He can't propose it now as the SNP would be shred apart. But a Scot£ is no more unlikely to succeed than any other countries currency. Denmark, Norway, Sweden have their own. Why can't the Scots ?
Ultimately, it will be the performance of the economy that will decide a currency's fate !
Scotland would need to get rid of its mega banks to south of the border. Once it had done that it would have a perfectly viable economy on which to operate a currency. That currency would be quite strong for as long as the oil lasts and potentially beyond that depending on how the economy adapts. Salmond made a huge mistake in not going down this path from the beginning.
A currency is one of the standard symbols of an independent state. I am bewildered that he did not want one.
Strangely enough, the concept of jihad did not really exist in the 80s. However, I think you'll find that it began in the early to mid-90s around the failure of the UK and other countries to intervene in Bosnia.
Not saying you're wrong, but at the very least the non-Afghan Muslim volunteers fighting with the Afghans against the Soviets were doing something similar, weren't they?
Fair enough - what I meant was the idea of travelling to foreign locations to fight holy war. This was kick-started by what happened in Bosnia and reactions to it by moslems not just in the UK but across the world.
'They can't use in the pound with the UK, and now it turns out they can't join the EU, either. Perhaps they could'
Two of the Nats key demands demolished in a week & there's another 7 months until the vote,what's next university fees?
Border posts, not allowed to travel as passports revoked , banned from using any Enlish oxygen that drifts over the border, add any other of the standard 100 scare stories
You see the political problem though, right? Pretty much every European member state with some kind of potential separatist problem, which is most of them, and the Commission, since that represents the member state governments, is going to be squirting FUD at you guys.
If it was just the British doing it then Salmond could jujitsu it into a positive, but it's going to hard to sell the idea that _everybody_ is lying to try to push Scotland around.
Not only that, even in the unlikely event that the voters believe you, you're now selling, "Let's be a small independent country, that gets pushed around by everyone"...
My wife was polled on Scottish Independence (among a large number of other topics) by phone by Ipsos Mori last night. Quite detailed questions going into all the latest currency shennanigans. It will be interesting to see what the views are when this comes out.
I can see a slight surge in YES over the currency issue, initially, on the grounds of English Bullying, but in the longer term the currency problem, and now the EU problem, are surely fatal for YES.
Doubt kills referendum campaigns which are seeking change, as everyone knows. There is now a HUGE element of doubt for any Scots considering a YES. If you were a Scottish mortgage holder, or someone with a pension, or a businessman, or basically anyone with a job north of the Border, would you risk your prosperity on the basis that Alex Salmond Knows Best and Everyone Else in the UK and Europe is Lying?
The whole SNP message seems to be that it will just be a short, simple step to independence and nothing much will change. Whatever else has happened this week, that message is no longer tenable. To be fair, it would be a huge surprise if the SNP leadership truly believed that, it's just that they have a referendum to win. What happens after a Yes is very much of secondary importance to them. However, as I think you and others have said it is pretty extraordinary that they did not anticipate these issues cropping up. It's not as if they have not been loudly trailed and clearly signposted for a very long time.
SO what is extraordinary is that anyone is stupid enough to think they did not anticipate them and are rubbing their hands given the antics of squeaky George sneaking over the border , threatening Scotland and then running away without answering any questions. Add their tame monkey from Spain lying yet again about the EU. Are these unionists really as stupid as they look or do they really want a YES vote, it looks very much like it from up here.
I think I might take issue with your use of the term "mass" there, Mr. Observer. It may have seemed a lot at the time but the total Jewish immigration into the UK in the 19th century was rather less than the numbers of immigrants let in each year in recent times.
As a percentage of the population ?
Mr, Surbiton, even as percentage of the population the Jewish immigration in the 19th century was still considerably lower than immigration in recent times.
My own forbears came over in the 1860s and in total about 150,000 Jews came from Eastern Europe in the 19th century. The peak years where the 1890s when maybe 10,000 a year arrived on average. In 1890 the population of England was, I think, about 20 million. Today its about 60 million and gross immigration is in the hundreds of thousands.
If Mr. Observer considers the Jewish immigration can be described as a "Mass immigration", I wonder what term he would use for what the UK has been going through for the past decade or so.
"European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to join the European Union."
The Commission has been saying the same thing for a fair while. There is just no way Scotland will automatically become an EU member state upon independence.
If the BBC reporting is right he's saying more than that, he's saying that it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to join at all, because it would be hard to get all 28 members to agree to it.
And the band played believe if you like.
Malcolm, you may not like to read this. But Scotland really is not that important to the rest of Europe !
In any event, under EU law, any new entrant must join the Euro. They can't do what Sweden and Denmark did.
I know you will be saying that Scotland won't be a new entrant. But you don't make or interprate the rules..............
So Mr Salmond's grandstanding with various separatists in Europe isn't that canny. Who'd could have imagined that publicly winding up the Spaniards would have a downside ?
I agree that the small minority of Scots who really are just chain smoking benefit Bravehearts guzzling Buckie in Glasgae won't give a toss, but they are probably too stupid and drunk to even vote.
They'll vote however Scottish Labour tells them to.
On the topic of student fees, I was out for a walk this fine morning and thinking - why on earth are the Unionists so orchestrated about this?, given that the issue arises entirely from EWNI policy changes, and that there is no discrimination at present, and that discrimination is only a possibility that might arise as a secondary effect at some point in the future (as discussed yesterday)?
I did a Fermi analysis (quick and dirty multiplication of estimated subfactors which however tends to eliminate errors and be surprisingly accurate) - assuming a Yes vote, which the Unionists keep telling us won't happen (but vide Mr Hitchens in the DM recently ...).
Bear in mind I am (temporarily) putting myself in a Unionist state of mind and those probabilities are NOT what I consider real world ones
Westminster agrees that Yes means Yes - 0.1 say Scotland is allowed into the EU - 0.1 EWNI remains in the EU - 0.1 Scotland loses EU court case - 0.9 [I did say this is in the Unionist Weltanschaaung]
I'll be generous and round up to 0.001 - i.e. a tenth of a percent that we need worry about the event. That is on a par with complaining that Mr Salmond has not personally set up plans for a Scottish Space Defence Force armed with lasers to protect against zombie aliens from outer space ... if that is a serious or consistent argument against indy then I am a Vogon!!!
'"European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to join the European Union."
Surely just more bluff,bluster & bullying?
What more would you expect from the Westmin - sorry, Brussels, elite? They'll soon change their tune when Scotland votes Yes and the haggis shortage hits home in Strasbourg.
So what is Plan B for the Nats? Are there any on here to tell us? They can't use the pound with the UK, and now it turns out they can't join the EU, either. Perhaps they could confederate with Malawi and use a currency based on yams?
Perhaps if you were half as smart as you think you are you would have read it by now. The details are printed in many places including the Adam Smith Institute, the White paper , Deutsche Bank this week , etc etc. Sad little person that you are.
So what the F is it then? Sterlingisation? Dollarisation? Barter of haggis? Shortcake flavoured Francs? Fully convertible tatties? What f*cking currency are you going to use you spittle-chinned, flailing, fetch-the-tartan-straitjacket loonytoon? Have you go a clue? A scooby? Do you? What is it then? What? What is it? What currency? What? What?
And are you in the EU or out? Or not? Halfway in? Up to your sporran? Up to your ginger nuts? What? The EU President just said it would be difficult if not impossible for you to join the EU as it would need the agreement of 28 members, a point of actual fact, whether you or uniondivvie or Alex Salmond like it or not, you bunch of hapless, dribbling, girning, shouting-on-buses Caledonian gargoyles.
Is Salmond as overrated as Gordon was ? The man who saved the world turned out to be a mad spendaholic.
It would appear that Salmond has not used a dictionary to discover the real meaning of the word - 'Independence'.
To Salmond, independence is being independent in the things you want to have independence over, but having all the social, commercial and financial advantages you had before you were independent - in other words he does not want indpendence at all but a form of devo-max. So why is he just not honest and say what he means?
I would ask you to look at the dictionary ( Scots ) and you will see yourself described there under the word Baheid
I largely agree, but I am not sure the Have Nots outnumber the Haves in Scotland. I believe it's the third most prosperous region in the UK, after London and the SE, no?
GDP does not automatically translate to household wealth.
Best stick to you area of Scottish expertise, which is ...err...Michelin starred restaurants?
You surely don't expect some posh twit to know that EU membership and currency were 7th and 8th in the list of scottish voters priorities with 3% and 2% of scottish voters ranking them most important?
Ex tory MP Louise Mensch seemed to know precisely what the posh lad's prioirities were.
'They can't use in the pound with the UK, and now it turns out they can't join the EU, either. Perhaps they could'
Two of the Nats key demands demolished in a week & there's another 7 months until the vote,what's next university fees?
Border posts, not allowed to travel as passports revoked , banned from using any Enlish oxygen that drifts over the border, add any other of the standard 100 scare stories
You see the political problem though, right? Pretty much every European member state with some kind of potential separatist problem, which is most of them, and the Commission, since that represents the member state governments, is going to be squirting FUD at you guys.
If it was just the British doing it then Salmond could jujitsu it into a positive, but it's going to hard to sell the idea that _everybody_ is lying to try to push Scotland around.
Not only that, even in the unlikely event that the voters believe you, you're now selling, "Let's be a small independent country, that gets pushed around by everyone"...
But that is part of the problem EiT. In the modern world small, independent countries do get pushed around by everybody or simply ignored. When did anyone smaller than Spain last make a difference at a meeting of the Council of Ministers?
If your ambition in life stretches no further than a quiet little life in a quiet little backwater playing no part on the world stage and accepting all the times others will tell you what to do or what your laws will be then independence makes a kind of sense, I suppose. It is just such a narrow vision.
It is not going to change my vote but my guess is that if Scotland were denied membership of the EU the momentum towards rUK leaving the EU would be absolutely irresistible.
Barrosso is a Eurocrat par excellance. By definition he is therefore not to be trusted. I will be happy to use this entirely undemocratic intervention because the Union is important to me and it demostrates the absurdity of so many SNP positions but, bluntly, who the hell does he think he is?
Under EU law it's the Commission that has to deal with this issue - at least at the outset.
I know SO but that does not mean that he is not an unelected, overpaid bureaucrat who should under any system worth keeping be told what to do by democratically accountable politicians.
As I say it rounds off a really bad week for Yes which cheers me greatly but it also turns my stomach more than just a little. I said on here recently I genuinely swither about our EU membership. Interventions like this one, however helpful, push me towards the door.
I'm no fan of Barosso but, in this case, he is just simply telling the truth. Scot membership of the EU would require serious Treaty change (new MEPs in parliament, new commssioners etc) and therefore the agreement of all present member states, ratifying through parliament or referenda (plus agreement over the UK rebate breakdown, Scottish opt-outs for euro and Schengen membership)
At least one country, Spain, would present a very serious obstacle; Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Belgium would also be tricky. And you'd have to get this Treaty past ALL of these countries. Chances are it might be vetoed by at least one; certainly it would not be the easy seamless transition promised by Salmond, it could easily take a decade, with success far from guaranteed.
So Barosso may be a berk, but he is actually stating the facts.
I think they could get it through, but the countries with separatist issues would want some to force kind of humiliating concession on Scotland as a warning to their own troublemakers.
Since we're looking at the EU, here it is ranked by population. A Scotalnd of 5,400k isn't looking much like the top table. The UK would slip from thired to fourth minus Scotland and then shoot back up possibly to first by 2050 based on population projections.
Pop in '000s
Germany 81,751.6 France 65,075.3 UK 62,435.7 Italy 60,626.4 Spain 47,190.4 Poland 38,200.0 Romania 19,043.8 N'lands 16,655.8 Greece 11,325.9 Belgium 10,951.7 Portugal 10,636.9 Cz Rep 10,532.8 Hungary 9,985.7 Sweden 9,415.6 Austria 8,404.2 Bulgaria 7,504.9 Denmark 5,560.6 Slovakia 5,435.3 Finland 5,375.3 Ireland 4,480.8 Lithua 3,244.6 Latvia 2,229.6 Slovenia 2,050.1 Estonia 1,340.2 Cyprus 804.4 Lux 511.8 Malta 417.6
I think I might take issue with your use of the term "mass" there, Mr. Observer. It may have seemed a lot at the time but the total Jewish immigration into the UK in the 19th century was rather less than the numbers of immigrants let in each year in recent times.
As a percentage of the population ?
Mr, Surbiton, even as percentage of the population the Jewish immigration in the 19th century was still considerably lower than immigration in recent times.
My own forbears came over in the 1860s and in total about 150,000 Jews came from Eastern Europe in the 19th century. The peak years where the 1890s when maybe 10,000 a year arrived on average. In 1890 the population of England was, I think, about 20 million. Today its about 60 million and gross immigration is in the hundreds of thousands.
If Mr. Observer considers the Jewish immigration can be described as a "Mass immigration", I wonder what term he would use for what the UK has been going through for the past decade or so.
It was perceived as mass immigration - especially as it was so concentrated in certain parts of the country, East London especially. Hence the passage of the Aliens Act 1905.
As I have said on here many times, Labour got it horribly wrong on immigration while in power. My argument is with the notion that integration became a problem in 1997.
I am also non-plussed by Socrates' ridiculous notion that migration in the 19th and early 20th century was only for the relatively well off.
It is not going to change my vote but my guess is that if Scotland were denied membership of the EU the momentum towards rUK leaving the EU would be absolutely irresistible.
Barrosso is a Eurocrat par excellance. By definition he is therefore not to be trusted. I will be happy to use this entirely undemocratic intervention because the Union is important to me and it demostrates the absurdity of so many SNP positions but, bluntly, who the hell does he think he is?
Under EU law it's the Commission that has to deal with this issue - at least at the outset.
I know SO but that does not mean that he is not an unelected, overpaid bureaucrat who should under any system worth keeping be told what to do by democratically accountable politicians.
As I say it rounds off a really bad week for Yes which cheers me greatly but it also turns my stomach more than just a little. I said on here recently I genuinely swither about our EU membership. Interventions like this one, however helpful, push me towards the door.
I'm no fan of Barosso but, in this case, he is just simply telling the truth. Scot membership of the EU would require serious Treaty change (new MEPs in parliament, new commssioners etc) and therefore the agreement of all present member states, ratifying through parliament or referenda (plus agreement over the UK rebate breakdown, Scottish opt-outs for euro and Schengen membership)
At least one country, Spain, would present a very serious obstacle; Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Belgium would also be tricky. And you'd have to get this Treaty past ALL of these countries. Chances are it might be vetoed by at least one; certainly it would not be the easy seamless transition promised by Salmond, it could easily take a decade, with success far from guaranteed.
So Barosso may be a berk, but he is actually stating the facts.
When you've got Barosso, Farage, Ed Balls, George Osborne, Mark Carney, George Galloway on (almost) the same page regarding Scotland - not natural political allies...There is probably a truth in there that isn't pleasent for the Nats. It may encourage a bunker mentality or it may destroy YES completely - we shall see.
If the Scots aren't allowed in the Euro and perhaps go for a new currency I can see hedge funds lining up to sink em...
Or, maybe not. There was a paper once written which suggested that the Scot£ could actually appreciate !
I think, in the unlikely event of a "Yes" vote, Salmond will go for exactly this. He will then play the Braveheart card ! He can't propose it now as the SNP would be shred apart. But a Scot£ is no more unlikely to succeed than any other countries currency. Denmark, Norway, Sweden have their own. Why can't the Scots ?
Ultimately, it will be the performance of the economy that will decide a currency's fate !
heresy , the frothers on here believe Salmond has never thought of these type of things. When they see that rump UK refuses to share assets and so Scotland is left destitute with no debts and having to form its own currency , they will be buoyed by the fact that they knew Salmond was stupid. None of these turkeys have read the foreign press this week , which was unanimous that England were threatening Scotland if it choose its democratic right to independence.
Strangely enough, the concept of jihad did not really exist in the 80s. However, I think you'll find that it began in the early to mid-90s around the failure of the UK and other countries to intervene in Bosnia.
Not saying you're wrong, but at the very least the non-Afghan Muslim volunteers fighting with the Afghans against the Soviets were doing something similar, weren't they?
Fair enough - what I meant was the idea of travelling to foreign locations to fight holy war. This was kick-started by what happened in Bosnia and reactions to it by moslems not just in the UK but across the world.
and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad is also known as the 'Liberation Army for Holy Sites', which by its nature means *outside* of Egypt as well as inside.
Or the 'Afghan Arabs', some organised by a guy who became rather infamous:
Many Muslims from other countries assisted the various mujahideen groups in Afghanistan. Some groups of these veterans became significant players in later conflicts in and around the Muslim world. Osama bin Laden, originally from a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia, was a prominent organizer and financier of an all-Arab Islamist group of foreign volunteers; his Maktab al-Khadamat funnelled money, arms, and Muslim fighters from around the Muslim world into Afghanistan, with the assistance and support of the Saudi and Pakistani governments. These foreign fighters became known as "Afghan Arabs" and their efforts were coordinated by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam.
Politicians should stop trying to reform schools and the NHS Agree 41% Disagree 39%
Schools and hospitals need to be reformed if high standards are to be achieved or maintained Agree 62% Disagree 19%
These views can only be reconciled if people believe that high standards are for some reason a bad thing. I suspect the difference is attributable to the word "politicians" (boo hiss) in the first question and the words "high standards" (hooray!) in the second.
The sample was taken on Wed/Thur, so not affected by any impact of the by-election (which I don't think there will be, but anyway...). The Opinium poll showing a 9-point Labour lead was taking Mon-Thur. Thus only YouGov is post-by-election (and shows no significant movement at all).
First let's say that it is a very rare occurrence. Only Major after Black Wednesday, Hague and Brown have been behind in the polls for that long and actually survived to fight a general election. Of course all three lost. Margaret Thatcher did not hold a lead (the Tories were level three times) in the 18 months up to her down fall suggesting it only happens where there is no chance of a recovery from the position. However, between June 1979 and February 1982 the Tories were not behind in only one poll which they led by 0.5% (so well within margin of error) yet in the following year they won a landslide.
Looking at the Mirror article though it seems this is nothing more than cheap dishonest propaganda because firstly they seem to be conflating an individual pollster (in their case their own pollster) with all polls. If you consider it from an individual pollster perspective the 1979-81 Thatcher experience disproves that as clearly there were individual pollsters who had the Tories behind for longer than two years yet they went on to win and if you are considering all polls then this Government hasn't been behind for two years.
The last poll that the Coalition led in was 18th March 2012 so that immediately dismisses the assertion but also the Coalition has been level as late as October 2013 (Mori 15/10/13). Sadly it seems at best a case of premature ejaculation by the Mirror.
'They can't use in the pound with the UK, and now it turns out they can't join the EU, either. Perhaps they could'
Two of the Nats key demands demolished in a week & there's another 7 months until the vote,what's next university fees?
Border posts, not allowed to travel as passports revoked , banned from using any Enlish oxygen that drifts over the border, add any other of the standard 100 scare stories
You see the political problem though, right? Pretty much every European member state with some kind of potential separatist problem, which is most of them, and the Commission, since that represents the member state governments, is going to be squirting FUD at you guys.
If it was just the British doing it then Salmond could jujitsu it into a positive, but it's going to hard to sell the idea that _everybody_ is lying to try to push Scotland around.
Not only that, even in the unlikely event that the voters believe you, you're now selling, "Let's be a small independent country, that gets pushed around by everyone"...
But that is part of the problem EiT. In the modern world small, independent countries do get pushed around by everybody or simply ignored. When did anyone smaller than Spain last make a difference at a meeting of the Council of Ministers?
If your ambition in life stretches no further than a quiet little life in a quiet little backwater playing no part on the world stage and accepting all the times others will tell you what to do or what your laws will be then independence makes a kind of sense, I suppose. It is just such a narrow vision.
I think you are getting a bit confused. You mean 'union' rather than 'independence' in your last sentence, surely. Independence would be an improvement in domestic policy, for a start ...
"European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to join the European Union."
DEAL. And no quibbling over the definition of "UK £s".
In fact, let's stop arsing about and make it £500.
Golly, you really are over compensating for something, aint you? I don't think I'd trust anyone as unstable as you at more than £100, so £100 it is. You can drop Peter the Punter a line, or leave it as a gentleman's agreement, which ever you prefer.
We all know that gullible tory Eurosceptics should definitely play up issues such as the EU as the May EU elections get ever closer. For reasons of comedy if nothing else.
If the Scots aren't allowed in the Euro and perhaps go for a new currency I can see hedge funds lining up to sink em...
Or, maybe not. There was a paper once written which suggested that the Scot£ could actually appreciate !
I think, in the unlikely event of a "Yes" vote, Salmond will go for exactly this. He will then play the Braveheart card ! He can't propose it now as the SNP would be shred apart. But a Scot£ is no more unlikely to succeed than any other countries currency. Denmark, Norway, Sweden have their own. Why can't the Scots ?
Ultimately, it will be the performance of the economy that will decide a currency's fate !
Scotland would need to get rid of its mega banks to south of the border. Once it had done that it would have a perfectly viable economy on which to operate a currency. That currency would be quite strong for as long as the oil lasts and potentially beyond that depending on how the economy adapts. Salmond made a huge mistake in not going down this path from the beginning.
A currency is one of the standard symbols of an independent state. I am bewildered that he did not want one.
David, that old chestnut, the banks are no issue , the bail outs are done where the business is and so as 90% is in England it would be funded by rumpUK as they did with Irish banks and why the Fed bankrolled Barclays , etc , etc. Sure Nat West will be resurrected and Halifax, we will retain the good bits that are being dragged down. For an intelligent person you are very blinkered and use propaganda a bit freely, stick to the truth even if you are a Tory and find it very difficult.
@malcolmg - If stating that becoming independent will not be as easy and hassle-free as the SNP claims is going to produce a wave of people switching to the Yes side, there is clearly no point in the UK staying together. So from my perspective, events this week are very good news - they are going to get the Scots thinking seriously about the future. And maybe they'll vote Yes as a result. That would be absolutely fair enough. At least they'll be doing so with their eyes wide open, which means we'll have a much better opportunity to deal with the consequences in a more grown up way.
DEAL. And no quibbling over the definition of "UK £s".
In fact, let's stop arsing about and make it £500.
Golly, you really are over compensating for something, aint you? I don't think I'd trust anyone as unstable as you at more than £100, so £100 it is. You can drop Peter the Punter a line, or leave it as a gentleman's agreement, which ever you prefer.
You sure you don't want the amusingly brave Gildas to oversee it as the posh lad tries to weasel out of it?
It is not going to change my vote but my guess is that if Scotland were denied membership of the EU the momentum towards rUK leaving the EU would be absolutely irresistible.
Barrosso is a Eurocrat par excellance. By definition he is therefore not to be trusted. I will be happy to use this entirely undemocratic intervention because the Union is important to me and it demostrates the absurdity of so many SNP positions but, bluntly, who the hell does he think he is?
Under EU law it's the Commission that has to deal with this issue - at least at the outset.
I know SO but that does not mean that he is not an unelected, overpaid bureaucrat who should under any system worth keeping be told what to do by democratically accountable politicians.
As I say it rounds off a really bad week for Yes which cheers me greatly but it also turns my stomach more than just a little. I said on here recently I genuinely swither about our EU membership. Interventions like this one, however helpful, push me towards the door.
I'm no fan of Barosso but, in this case, he is just simply telling the truth. Scot membership of the EU would require serious Treaty change (new MEPs in parliament, new commssioners etc) and therefore the agreement of all present member states, ratifying through parliament or referenda (plus agreement over the UK rebate breakdown, Scottish opt-outs for euro and Schengen membership)
At least one country, Spain, would present a very serious obstacle; Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Belgium would also be tricky. And you'd have to get this Treaty past ALL of these countries. Chances are it might be vetoed by at least one; certainly it would not be the easy seamless transition promised by Salmond, it could easily take a decade, with success far from guaranteed.
So Barosso may be a berk, but he is actually stating the facts.
I think they could get it through, but the countries with separatist issues would want some to force kind of humiliating concession on Scotland as a warning to their own troublemakers.
Yes, I agree. I reckon they'd drag it out for years to make it very unpleasant for Scotland, pour encourager les Basques et les Catalans. Then they'd insist on euro membership and no rebate etc etc.
The Spanish will not begin to move until their own separatist issues are resolved. Then they will. But you are looking at least five to 10 years down the line.
'"European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to join the European Union."
Surely just more bluff,bluster & bullying?
What more would you expect from the Westmin - sorry, Brussels, elite? They'll soon change their tune when Scotland votes Yes and the haggis shortage hits home in Strasbourg.
So what is Plan B for the Nats? Are there any on here to tell us? They can't use the pound with the UK, and now it turns out they can't join the EU, either. Perhaps they could confederate with Malawi and use a currency based on yams?
Perhaps if you were half as smart as you think you are you would have read it by now. The details are printed in many places including the Adam Smith Institute, the White paper , Deutsche Bank this week , etc etc. Sad little person that you are.
So what the F is it then? Sterlingisation? Dollarisation? Barter of haggis? Shortcake flavoured Francs? Fully convertible tatties? What f*cking currency are you going to use you spittle-chinned, flailing, fetch-the-tartan-straitjacket loonytoon? Have you go a clue? A scooby? Do you? What is it then? What? What is it? What currency? What? What?
And are you in the EU or out? Or not? Halfway in? Up to your sporran? Up to your ginger nuts? What? The EU President just said it would be difficult if not impossible for you to join the EU as it would need the agreement of 28 members, a point of actual fact, whether you or uniondivvie or Alex Salmond like it or not, you bunch of hapless, dribbling, girning, shouting-on-buses Caledonian gargoyles.
Since you are unable to read:
1. Sterling Currency union 2. Sterling 3. Scottish Currency 4. Euro 5. USD
Take your pick from those , whatever is the best option come 2016, but plenty of choice and strangely enough having published these last year , idiots on here still believe that Alex Salmond never anticipated treachery from Westminster. Given past history it would have been his first and foremost thought. Trot on.
PS. Your imitation of an incontinent 5 year old with puerile insults does not help your argument.
DEAL. And no quibbling over the definition of "UK £s".
In fact, let's stop arsing about and make it £500.
Golly, you really are over compensating for something, aint you? I don't think I'd trust anyone as unstable with you at more than £100, so £100 it is. You can drop Peter the Punter a line, or leave it as a gentleman's agreement, which ever you prefer.
No. £500. Deal or no deal. Come on, show us yer tatties.
So you whine on endlessly about me not taking a £50 bet at odds more than a third less than the best odds available with the bookies, and then when I accept the bet at double the stake, you bluster those stakes up to £500? I always knew you were a betting buffoon.
Nah, take the £100 or giruy, as we say in the salons of Glasgow.
'They can't use in the pound with the UK, and now it turns out they can't join the EU, either. Perhaps they could'
Two of the Nats key demands demolished in a week & there's another 7 months until the vote,what's next university fees?
Border posts, not allowed to travel as passports revoked , banned from using any Enlish oxygen that drifts over the border, add any other of the standard 100 scare stories
You see the political problem though, right? Pretty much every European member state with some kind of potential separatist problem, which is most of them, and the Commission, since that represents the member state governments, is going to be squirting FUD at you guys.
If it was just the British doing it then Salmond could jujitsu it into a positive, but it's going to hard to sell the idea that _everybody_ is lying to try to push Scotland around.
Not only that, even in the unlikely event that the voters believe you, you're now selling, "Let's be a small independent country, that gets pushed around by everyone"...
We will survive OK if EU are stupid enough to say NO, we have more to offer them than they have to offer us. When Spanish fleet is sent packing to the dole queue we will see how Macho Blowbag Barosso is.
The Spanish will not begin to move until their own separatist issues are resolved. Then they will. But you are looking at least five to 10 years down the line.
What with the Euro, UK EU membership and the Spanish response all up in the air, the only sensible answer to the independence question is, "I don't know yet, ask me again in 2024". Maybe the voters should just write "2024" in.
If the Scots aren't allowed in the Euro and perhaps go for a new currency I can see hedge funds lining up to sink em...
Or, maybe not. There was a paper once written which suggested that the Scot£ could actually appreciate !
I think, in the unlikely event of a "Yes" vote, Salmond will go for exactly this. He will then play the Braveheart card ! He can't propose it now as the SNP would be shred apart. But a Scot£ is no more unlikely to succeed than any other countries currency. Denmark, Norway, Sweden have their own. Why can't the Scots ?
Ultimately, it will be the performance of the economy that will decide a currency's fate !
Scotland would need to get rid of its mega banks to south of the border. Once it had done that it would have a perfectly viable economy on which to operate a currency. That currency would be quite strong for as long as the oil lasts and potentially beyond that depending on how the economy adapts. Salmond made a huge mistake in not going down this path from the beginning.
A currency is one of the standard symbols of an independent state. I am bewildered that he did not want one.
David, that old chestnut, the banks are no issue , the bail outs are done where the business is and so as 90% is in England it would be funded by rumpUK as they did with Irish banks and why the Fed bankrolled Barclays , etc , etc. Sure Nat West will be resurrected and Halifax, we will retain the good bits that are being dragged down. For an intelligent person you are very blinkered and use propaganda a bit freely, stick to the truth even if you are a Tory and find it very difficult.
Malcolm that is tosh. The place where the bank is based is responsible. That is why the UK and the Netherlands sued Iceland. Central banks elsewhere might choose to assist banks registered there but owned by foreigners as the Fed did but that is in their discretion. They are not the lenders of last resort for those banks although they still have responsibility for systemic stability in their own jurisdiction.
Scotland cannot be the LOLR for RBS or BoS, they are simply too big. So they would need to go south with the head office jobs. It really is that simple.
Scotland could of course (with its own currency) be a LOLR for the small retail banks that would be left. But at the moment our financial sector is way out of proportion to our GDP and it would be fatal to an independent Scotland to maintain the status quo. Or would you want a currency that went up and down with the RBS share price?
And finding the good bits of the RBS is looking a bit of a challenge. People have been looking for years.
"European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to join the European Union."
The Commission has been saying the same thing for a fair while. There is just no way Scotland will automatically become an EU member state upon independence.
If the BBC reporting is right he's saying more than that, he's saying that it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to join at all, because it would be hard to get all 28 members to agree to it.
And the band played believe if you like.
Malcolm, you may not like to read this. But Scotland really is not that important to the rest of Europe !
In any event, under EU law, any new entrant must join the Euro. They can't do what Sweden and Denmark did.
I know you will be saying that Scotland won't be a new entrant. But you don't make or interprate the rules..............
same old horse manure, you have to pass 5 tests to get in Euro, as per other countries we would likely never do that and so would not be allowed to , if we really really wanted to we just meet the criteria and we are in. Given they take any basket case country in and that Scotland would be a net contributor do you seriously think they are going to say no. They are many things but not stupid.
At least Clegg's had a good week following his chum Cammie looking incompetent over the floods crisis and Osborne's 'master strategy' of posturing to a scottish public that regards him with massive affection.
I am not sure that the landless Irish peasants that left the country in the wake of the famine could be described as anything other than poverty stricken. The Jews of eastern Europe coming to the UK in the late 19th century were not exactly loaded, which is why they ended up in the slums of East London.
Your claim was that:
"the high cost of travel relative to incomes meant rather few people could migrate and could thus be easily integrated"
This is just plain wrong, I'm afraid. The Aliens Act 1905 was passed as a result of serious concerns about the mass immigration of "undesirables" into the UK; while during the 19th and early 20th century millions left this country to start new lives elsewhere. They certainly did not integrate when they arrived in their new homes, which is why they speak English in places like Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
Just "plain wrong"? Seriously? For someone so sensible about a whole bunch of things, you can be guilty of terribly cloudy thinking sometimes. You really think the trip from Dublin to Boston, a ship across the Atlantic should be compared to those going from India via Cape Horn? Clearly one was more affordable because it was much, much shorter trip. Plus, as much as those that don't know much about development economics like to just categorise one group of global "poor", or those "not exactly loaded", this can actually mean people with very different incomes. The poor in Europe, a land of the industrial revolution, in the late 19th, early 20th century were still a lot wealthier than the rural masses in the Indian subcontinent, who had been bled dry by punitive taxation and monopsonies for their products for centuries. The reality of what was called "mass immigration" in 1905 was a tiny fraction of the numbers of what is considered standard immigration these days. 150,000 Jews from Russia came over the course of a decade or so. Now four times as many immigrants come every year. The results speak for themselves: one seventh of the UK population is foreign born today. We've never had anything like that ever before. It's preposterous to pretend otherwise.
I think I might take issue with your use of the term "mass" there, Mr. Observer. It may have seemed a lot at the time but the total Jewish immigration into the UK in the 19th century was rather less than the numbers of immigrants let in each year in recent times.
As a percentage of the population ?
Mr, Surbiton, even as percentage of the population the Jewish immigration in the 19th century was still considerably lower than immigration in recent times.
My own forbears came over in the 1860s and in total about 150,000 Jews came from Eastern Europe in the 19th century. The peak years where the 1890s when maybe 10,000 a year arrived on average. In 1890 the population of England was, I think, about 20 million. Today its about 60 million and gross immigration is in the hundreds of thousands.
If Mr. Observer considers the Jewish immigration can be described as a "Mass immigration", I wonder what term he would use for what the UK has been going through for the past decade or so.
It was perceived as mass immigration - especially as it was so concentrated in certain parts of the country, East London especially. Hence the passage of the Aliens Act 1905.
As I have said on here many times, Labour got it horribly wrong on immigration while in power. My argument is with the notion that integration became a problem in 1997.
I am also non-plussed by Socrates' ridiculous notion that migration in the 19th and early 20th century was only for the relatively well off.
Fair enough, Mr. Observer. I would like to stay and perhaps discuss how much the change in HMG policy to multi-culturism removed the idea of integration and the social effect of that and lots of other issues that could be learned from the 19th century Jewish immigration. However, we now seem to be back to a Scottish thread so I am off.
As Chancellor George Osborne tells MPs it's in Britain's interest to take part in the Irish bailout, the Irish Premier promises an election in the New Year.
A protestor following clashes with police officers after breaking through the gates of Government Buildings in Dublin, after details of the bailout for Ireland are revealed (credit:Reuters)
Mr Osborne told the Commons: "The United Kingdom, alongside the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the eurozone and other member states is participating in the international financial assistance package for Ireland announced last night.
He said it was "overwhelmingly in Britain's national interest" for Ireland to have a stable economy. The country was a major trading partner with an "interconnected" banking system with the UK.
Our Political Editor, Gary Gibbon, says the total amount of British support across three separate loan packages could reach £9billion - although most of this would be required only should Ireland default.
'They can't use in the pound with the UK, and now it turns out they can't join the EU, either. Perhaps they could'
Two of the Nats key demands demolished in a week & there's another 7 months until the vote,what's next university fees?
Border posts, not allowed to travel as passports revoked , banned from using any Enlish oxygen that drifts over the border, add any other of the standard 100 scare stories
You see the political problem though, right? Pretty much every European member state with some kind of potential separatist problem, which is most of them, and the Commission, since that represents the member state governments, is going to be squirting FUD at you guys.
If it was just the British doing it then Salmond could jujitsu it into a positive, but it's going to hard to sell the idea that _everybody_ is lying to try to push Scotland around.
Not only that, even in the unlikely event that the voters believe you, you're now selling, "Let's be a small independent country, that gets pushed around by everyone"...
But that is part of the problem EiT. In the modern world small, independent countries do get pushed around by everybody or simply ignored. When did anyone smaller than Spain last make a difference at a meeting of the Council of Ministers?
If your ambition in life stretches no further than a quiet little life in a quiet little backwater playing no part on the world stage and accepting all the times others will tell you what to do or what your laws will be then independence makes a kind of sense, I suppose. It is just such a narrow vision.
Yes we see all those small countries like Norway , Sweden , Denmark , Switzerland getting pushed around every day , oooooooooooh wait who are the richest , healthiest and happiest countries in the world. Spain with all its debt , unemployment etc ( and France , etc , etc ) is really pushing all these small countries about, bring it on please.
Come on, it's just £500. It's not gonna break the Royal Bank of Scotland, er, uhm, you know what I mean.
Come on... you must be tempted...
8 minutes.
Are you an idiot? I can log on to several bookmakers accounts and put on a third of the stake for a bigger return. I'll pay the 'prick a Britnat' surcharge for a £100 but not £500.
It is not going to change my vote but my guess is that if Scotland were denied membership of the EU the momentum towards rUK leaving the EU would be absolutely irresistible.
Barrosso is a Eurocrat par excellance. By definition he is therefore not to be trusted. I will be happy to use this entirely undemocratic intervention because the Union is important to me and it demostrates the absurdity of so many SNP positions but, bluntly, who the hell does he think he is?
Under EU law it's the Commission that has to deal with this issue - at least at the outset.
I know SO but that does not mean that he is not an unelected, overpaid bureaucrat who should under any system worth keeping be told what to do by democratically accountable politicians.
As I say it rounds off a really bad week for Yes which cheers me greatly but it also turns my stomach more than just a little. I said on here recently I genuinely swither about our EU membership. Interventions like this one, however helpful, push me towards the door.
I'm no fan of Barosso but, in this case, he is just simply telling the truth. Scot membership of the EU would require serious Treaty change (new MEPs in parliament, new commssioners etc) and therefore the agreement of all present member states, ratifying through parliament or referenda (plus agreement over the UK rebate breakdown, Scottish opt-outs for euro and Schengen membership)
At least one country, Spain, would present a very serious obstacle; Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Belgium would also be tricky. And you'd have to get this Treaty past ALL of these countries. Chances are it might be vetoed by at least one; certainly it would not be the easy seamless transition promised by Salmond, it could easily take a decade, with success far from guaranteed.
So Barosso may be a berk, but he is actually stating the facts.
When you've got Barosso, Farage, Ed Balls, George Osborne, Mark Carney, George Galloway on (almost) the same page regarding Scotland - not natural political allies...There is probably a truth in there that isn't pleasent for the Nats. It may encourage a bunker mentality or it may destroy YES completely - we shall see.
You lie about Carney , he stated facts and nothing else, and also said it was perfectly feasible to have a currency union. The rest are a bunch of arses and you know you are winning when such a gang of non entities are in cahoots.
"European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said it would be "extremely difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to join the European Union."
The Commission has been saying the same thing for a fair while. There is just no way Scotland will automatically become an EU member state upon independence.
If the BBC reporting is right he's saying more than that, he's saying that it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to join at all, because it would be hard to get all 28 members to agree to it.
And the band played believe if you like.
Malcolm, you may not like to read this. But Scotland really is not that important to the rest of Europe !
In any event, under EU law, any new entrant must join the Euro. They can't do what Sweden and Denmark did.
I know you will be saying that Scotland won't be a new entrant. But you don't make or interprate the rules..............
same old horse manure, you have to pass 5 tests to get in Euro, as per other countries we would likely never do that and so would not be allowed to , if we really really wanted to we just meet the criteria and we are in. Given they take any basket case country in and that Scotland would be a net contributor do you seriously think they are going to say no. They are many things but not stupid.
You haven't taken into account the staggering gullibility of those who believed Cammie's Cast Iron Pledges over Lisbon, the Veto flounce, the EU referendum Bill and all the other blatantly obvious Referendum posturing he has done over the years to fool gullible tory Eurosceptics.
Why on earth should they question the posturing and blustering from Cammie and the toxic Osbrowne? Some of the most stupid thought EU posturing would win the election for Cammie.
It is not going to change my vote but my guess is that if Scotland were denied membership of the EU the momentum towards rUK leaving the EU would be absolutely irresistible.
Barrosso is a Eurocrat par excellance. By definition he is therefore not to be trusted. I will be happy to use this entirely undemocratic intervention because the Union is important to me and it demostrates the absurdity of so many SNP positions but, bluntly, who the hell does he think he is?
Under EU law it's the Commission that has to deal with this issue - at least at the outset.
I know SO but that does not mean that he is not an unelected, overpaid bureaucrat who should under any system worth keeping be told what to do by democratically accountable politicians.
As I say it rounds off a really bad week for Yes which cheers me greatly but it also turns my stomach more than just a little. I said on here recently I genuinely swither about our EU membership. Interventions like this one, however helpful, push me towards the door.
I'm no fan of Barosso but, in this case, he is just simply telling the truth. Scot membership of the EU would require serious Treaty change (new MEPs in parliament, new commssioners etc) and therefore the agreement of all present member states, ratifying through parliament or referenda (plus agreement over the UK rebate breakdown, Scottish opt-outs for euro and Schengen membership)
At least one country, Spain, would present a very serious obstacle; Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Belgium would also be tricky. And you'd have to get this Treaty past ALL of these countries. Chances are it might be vetoed by at least one; certainly it would not be the easy seamless transition promised by Salmond, it could easily take a decade, with success far from guaranteed.
So Barosso may be a berk, but he is actually stating the facts.
When you've got Barosso, Farage, Ed Balls, George Osborne, Mark Carney, George Galloway on (almost) the same page regarding Scotland - not natural political allies...There is probably a truth in there that isn't pleasent for the Nats. It may encourage a bunker mentality or it may destroy YES completely - we shall see.
You lie about Carney , he stated facts and nothing else, and also said it was perfectly feasible to have a currency union. The rest are a bunch of arses and you know you are winning when such a gang of non entities are in cahoots.
Barosso, Farage, Ed Balls, George Osborne, George Galloway ALL in cahoots ? I think you've lost it !
I am not sure that the landless Irish peasants that left the country in the wake of the famine could be described as anything other than poverty stricken. The Jews of eastern Europe coming to the UK in the late 19th century were not exactly loaded, which is why they ended up in the slums of East London.
Your claim was that:
"the high cost of travel relative to incomes meant rather few people could migrate and could thus be easily integrated"
This is just plain wrong, I'm afraid. The Aliens Act 1905 was passed as a result of serious concerns about the mass immigration of "undesirables" into the UK; while during the 19th and early 20th century millions left this country to start new lives elsewhere. They certainly did not integrate when they arrived in their new homes, which is why they speak English in places like Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
Just "plain wrong"? Seriously? For someone so sensible about a whole bunch of things, you can be guilty of terribly cloudy thinking sometimes. You really think the trip from Dublin to Boston, a ship across the Atlantic should be compared to those going from India via Cape Horn? Clearly one was more affordable because it was much, much shorter trip. Plus, as much as those that don't know much about development economics like to just categorise one group of global "poor", or those "not exactly loaded", this can actually mean people with very different incomes. The poor in Europe, a land of the industrial revolution, in the late 19th, early 20th century were still a lot wealthier than the rural masses in the Indian subcontinent, who had been bled dry by punitive taxation and monopsonies for their products for centuries. The reality of what was called "mass immigration" in 1905 was a tiny fraction of the numbers of what is considered standard immigration these days. 150,000 Jews from Russia came over the course of a decade or so. Now four times as many immigrants come every year. The results speak for themselves: one seventh of the UK population is foreign born today. We've never had anything like that ever before. It's preposterous to pretend otherwise.
I am not pretending otherwise. I am merely stating that, contrary to your assertion, migration in the 19th and early 20th century was not restricted to the relatively well off. A lot of very poor British and Irish emigrants certainly did make the trip round the horn to Australia and New Zealand. The poverty stricken of Europe had the opportunity to emigrate in the 19th century, which is why so many of them did. Those in Asia and Africa did not.
The reality of mass immigration in the early 20th century may have been different to what we have now. But the perception clearly wasn't - hence the Alien Act 1905.
@malcolmg - If stating that becoming independent will not be as easy and hassle-free as the SNP claims is going to produce a wave of people switching to the Yes side, there is clearly no point in the UK staying together. So from my perspective, events this week are very good news - they are going to get the Scots thinking seriously about the future. And maybe they'll vote Yes as a result. That would be absolutely fair enough. At least they'll be doing so with their eyes wide open, which means we'll have a much better opportunity to deal with the consequences in a more grown up way.
SO, the politics will remain but anyone who thinks it will be simple is not thinking about it , however balanced against the guaranteed continued downward spiral if ruled by Westminster then most people will see that Hope is better than NO Hope. It really is a WIN WIN voting yes , we cannot be worse off than we will be under the current Neo Liberal Westminster mob.
It is not going to change my vote but my guess is that if Scotland were denied membership of the EU the momentum towards rUK leaving the EU would be absolutely irresistible.
Barrosso is a Eurocrat par excellance. By definition he is therefore not to be trusted. I will be happy to use this entirely undemocratic intervention because the Union is important to me and it demostrates the absurdity of so many SNP positions but, bluntly, who the hell does he think he is?
Under EU law it's the Commission that has to deal with this issue - at least at the outset.
I know SO but that does not mean that he is not an unelected, overpaid bureaucrat who should under any system worth keeping be told what to do by democratically accountable politicians.
As I say it rounds off a really bad week for Yes which cheers me greatly but it also turns my stomach more than just a little. I said on here recently I genuinely swither about our EU membership. Interventions like this one, however helpful, push me towards the door.
I'm no fan of Barosso but, in this case, he is just simply telling the truth. Scot membership of the EU would require serious Treaty change (new MEPs in parliament, new commssioners etc) and therefore the agreement of all present member states, ratifying through parliament or referenda (plus agreement over the UK rebate breakdown, Scottish opt-outs for euro and Schengen membership)
At least one country, Spain, would present a very serious obstacle; Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Belgium would also be tricky. And you'd have to get this Treaty past ALL of these countries. Chances are it might be vetoed by at least one; certainly it would not be the easy seamless transition promised by Salmond, it could easily take a decade, with success far from guaranteed.
So Barosso may be a berk, but he is actually stating the facts.
When you've got Barosso, Farage, Ed Balls, George Osborne, Mark Carney, George Galloway on (almost) the same page regarding Scotland - not natural political allies...There is probably a truth in there that isn't pleasent for the Nats. It may encourage a bunker mentality or it may destroy YES completely - we shall see.
You lie about Carney , he stated facts and nothing else, and also said it was perfectly feasible to have a currency union. The rest are a bunch of arses and you know you are winning when such a gang of non entities are in cahoots.
Clearly it's feasible to have a sterling currency union.
You lie about Carney , he stated facts and nothing else, and also said it was perfectly feasible to have a currency union. The rest are a bunch of arses and you know you are winning when such a gang of non entities are in cahoots.
Farage, Ed Balls, George Osborne, George Galloway ALL oppose scottish Independence are unionists and support a No vote ? What a ridiculous conspiracy?? I think you've lost it !
uniondivvie. You have clearly changed your mind and now believe that the evens bet on Yes is a winner; therefore you obviously, and logically, would welcome a chance to make even more money from me, no?
I'm generously giving you that chance. 500 of my English pounds say that No will prevail.
That's the one and only offer. I'm off to the shops in ten minutes, if you haven't acceded by then, I shall presume you have declined the wager, due to a fatal lack of cullions.
He would be far better and safer taking over £1500 from a bookmaker
As Chancellor George Osborne tells MPs it's in Britain's interest to take part in the Irish bailout, the Irish Premier promises an election in the New Year.
A protestor following clashes with police officers after breaking through the gates of Government Buildings in Dublin, after details of the bailout for Ireland are revealed (credit:Reuters)
Mr Osborne told the Commons: "The United Kingdom, alongside the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the eurozone and other member states is participating in the international financial assistance package for Ireland announced last night.
He said it was "overwhelmingly in Britain's national interest" for Ireland to have a stable economy. The country was a major trading partner with an "interconnected" banking system with the UK.
Our Political Editor, Gary Gibbon, says the total amount of British support across three separate loan packages could reach £9billion - although most of this would be required only should Ireland default.
Come on, it's just £500. It's not gonna break the Royal Bank of Scotland, er, uhm, you know what I mean.
Come on... you must be tempted...
8 minutes.
Are you an idiot? I can log on to several bookmakers accounts and put on a third of the stake for a bigger return. I'll pay the 'prick a Britnat' surcharge for a £100 but not £500.
Then why the swithering Feck are you offering me £100. Surely that makes you the idiot.
No?
lol.
You have all the classic symptoms of a whining welcher, £100 is all I'm willing to risk on being wrong about that.
Sorry not convinced this is correctly interpreted. The question was Do you support Scotland using the pound. This is not the same as supporting a currency union and shouldn't be conflated with it.
I am fully supportive of an independent scotland using the pound
I am strongly against a currency union with an independent scotland.
I would because of the first statement be recorded as a support therefore
58% of people in England and Wales now oppose allowing an independent Scotland to continue to use the pound, up 15 points from late November
Following a week of sniping between Westminster and the Scottish National Party over the matter of whether Scotland could retain the pound as its currency if it became independent, a new YouGov poll finds a majority of the public in England and Wales now oppose allowing an independent Scotland to use the pound.
When the question was last asked in late November last year, people in England and Wales only narrowly opposed a currency union, by 43% to 38% in support. But now, opposition is at 58% and support is at just 23%.
Come on, it's just £500. It's not gonna break the Royal Bank of Scotland, er, uhm, you know what I mean.
Come on... you must be tempted...
8 minutes.
Are you an idiot? I can log on to several bookmakers accounts and put on a third of the stake for a bigger return. I'll pay the 'prick a Britnat' surcharge for a £100 but not £500.
The posh lad is bottling it again.
I haven't seen him this terrified since OGH tweeted about his bluster on PB over some clickbait article that didn't make it to print.
It is not going to change my vote but my guess is that if Scotland were denied membership of the EU the momentum towards rUK leaving the EU would be absolutely irresistible.
Barrosso is a Eurocrat par excellance. By definition he is therefore not to be trusted. I will be happy to use this entirely undemocratic intervention because the Union is important to me and it demostrates the absurdity of so many SNP positions but, bluntly, who the hell does he think he is?
Under EU law it's the Commission that has to deal with this issue - at least at the outset.
At least one country, Spain, would present a very serious obstacle; Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Belgium would also be tricky. And you'd have to get this Treaty past ALL of these countries. Chances are it might be vetoed by at least one; certainly it would not be the easy seamless transition promised by Salmond, it could easily take a decade, with success far from guaranteed.
So Barosso may be a berk, but he is actually stating the facts.
When you've got Barosso, Farage, Ed Balls, George Osborne, Mark Carney, George Galloway on (almost) the same page regarding Scotland - not natural political allies...There is probably a truth in there that isn't pleasent for the Nats. It may encourage a bunker mentality or it may destroy YES completely - we shall see.
You lie about Carney , he stated facts and nothing else, and also said it was perfectly feasible to have a currency union. The rest are a bunch of arses and you know you are winning when such a gang of non entities are in cahoots.
Barosso, Farage, Ed Balls, George Osborne, George Galloway ALL in cahoots ? I think you've lost it !
Well name any other topic on the planet that the same bunch of troughing losers agree on. All will have their troughing affected by the decision and is the only reason they are in cahoots, or to make it simple for you , pontificating on Scotland. None have any part to play in the referendum but they just cannot keep their big beaks out when it suits. The only thing they have in common is that the truth is a stranger to all of them.
It is not going to change my vote but my guess is that if Scotland were denied membership of the EU the momentum towards rUK leaving the EU would be absolutely irresistible.
Barrosso is a Eurocrat par excellance. By definition he is therefore not to be trusted. I will be happy to use this entirely undemocratic intervention because the Union is important to me and it demostrates the absurdity of so many SNP positions but, bluntly, who the hell does he think he is?
Under EU law it's the Commission that has to deal with this issue - at least at the outset.
I know SO but that does not mean that he is not an unelected, overpaid bureaucrat who should under any system worth keeping be told what to do by democratically accountable politicians.
As I say it rounds off a really bad week for Yes which cheers me greatly but it also turns my stomach more than just a little. I said on here recently I genuinely swither about our EU membership. Interventions like this one, however helpful, push me towards the door.
So Barosso may be a berk, but he is actually stating the facts.
When you've got Barosso, Farage, Ed Balls, George Osborne, Mark Carney, George Galloway on (almost) the same page regarding Scotland - not natural political allies...There is probably a truth in there that isn't pleasent for the Nats. It may encourage a bunker mentality or it may destroy YES completely - we shall see.
You lie about Carney , he stated facts and nothing else, and also said it was perfectly feasible to have a currency union. The rest are a bunch of arses and you know you are winning when such a gang of non entities are in cahoots.
Clearly it's feasible to have a sterling currency union.
If only the participants would all agree ....
Has the sterling penny dropped yet ?!?
I think I can read unlike many on here who claim Carney ruled out a currency union. He merely pointed out the obvious in that both parties need to agree. It is far from certain that the Westminster Yellow Bellies will not agree once reality bites , they are well known for lies and u-turns. So it is perfectly reasonable to have as your plan A , a currency union. Unionists seem unable to grasp what Carney really said and continually say he ruled out a currency union, as in arrogant guys like yourself coming out with the drivel above. Stick to UKIP.
Although a Kipper, I disagree with Farage on Scottish independence. I say let them have it! If they want it, they will vote for it; and if they don't, they won't.
An independent Scotland will cast the Labour party adrift, as it will lose a stronghold that has proved - until now - hard to breach. It will destroy what remains of the L/Dems but strengthen the right in the England and Wales.
Sorry not convinced this is correctly interpreted. The question was Do you support Scotland using the pound. This is not the same as supporting a currency union and shouldn't be conflated with it.
I am fully supportive of an independent scotland using the pound
I am strongly against a currency union with an independent scotland.
I would because of the first statement be recorded as a support therefore
58% of people in England and Wales now oppose allowing an independent Scotland to continue to use the pound, up 15 points from late November
Following a week of sniping between Westminster and the Scottish National Party over the matter of whether Scotland could retain the pound as its currency if it became independent, a new YouGov poll finds a majority of the public in England and Wales now oppose allowing an independent Scotland to use the pound.
When the question was last asked in late November last year, people in England and Wales only narrowly opposed a currency union, by 43% to 38% in support. But now, opposition is at 58% and support is at just 23%.
Come on, it's just £500. It's not gonna break the Royal Bank of Scotland, er, uhm, you know what I mean.
Come on... you must be tempted...
8 minutes.
Are you an idiot? I can log on to several bookmakers accounts and put on a third of the stake for a bigger return. I'll pay the 'prick a Britnat' surcharge for a £100 but not £500.
Then why the swithering Feck are you offering me £100. Surely that makes you the idiot.
No?
lol.
You have all the classic symptoms of a whining welcher, £100 is all I'm willing to risk on being wrong about that.
As Chancellor George Osborne tells MPs it's in Britain's interest to take part in the Irish bailout, the Irish Premier promises an election in the New Year.
A protestor following clashes with police officers after breaking through the gates of Government Buildings in Dublin, after details of the bailout for Ireland are revealed (credit:Reuters)
Mr Osborne told the Commons: "The United Kingdom, alongside the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the eurozone and other member states is participating in the international financial assistance package for Ireland announced last night.
He said it was "overwhelmingly in Britain's national interest" for Ireland to have a stable economy. The country was a major trading partner with an "interconnected" banking system with the UK.
Our Political Editor, Gary Gibbon, says the total amount of British support across three separate loan packages could reach £9billion - although most of this would be required only should Ireland default.
Mick, LOL , even that will not convince a diehard Tory like David, he would rather believe in fantasy powers in Westminster
Malcolm, that whole episode really makes my point. Eire had allowed its banks to grow beyond the point that its domestic economy could cope with (although at their worst their ratios were not as high as they would be for Scotland). As a result they faced bankruptcy and default. Its neighbours, including us, thought that was not in their own interests and offered to help.
Is that really the plan? That Scotland will depend on the charity and self-interest of others to bail ourselves out if we get into difficulty? Seriously? Have you not seen what a price Eire has had to pay for that support and intervention?
Come on, it's just £500. It's not gonna break the Royal Bank of Scotland, er, uhm, you know what I mean.
Come on... you must be tempted...
8 minutes.
Are you an idiot? I can log on to several bookmakers accounts and put on a third of the stake for a bigger return. I'll pay the 'prick a Britnat' surcharge for a £100 but not £500.
Then why the swithering Feck are you offering me £100. Surely that makes you the idiot.
No?
lol.
You have all the classic symptoms of a whining welcher, £100 is all I'm willing to risk on being wrong about that.
*tears of laughter etc.*
You're also going to be able to quote that back endlessly on PB. These posh lads don't seem to be too bright, do they?
uniondivvie, come on old boy: £500 evens. And I'll give you ten more minutes to decide.
Feel the temptation. The chance to humiliate a "Britnat" AND make half a grand (now you believe you're gonna win) is surely irresistible? yes yes yes you can get better odds elsewhere, but it won't be remotely as satisfying, emotionally, as taking all that cash off me, will it?
Or are you actually just blowing it out yer kilt?
Ten minutes. I'll check the thread when I'm in the queue at Marks and Sparks.
£100 at evens - I'll be backing No all day at those odds. If @SeanT doesn't want your money I'll take it, @TheUniondivvie.
I'm not a high roller like @SeanT though so £100 will be my limit.
Sorry Pulpstar, you're not (afaik) a blustering Britnat, so no icing if I win the bet. I'll offer 9/4 for Yes which tim took (and still a lot better than the bookies).
Although a Kipper, I disagree with Farage on Scottish independence. I say let them have it! If they want it, they will vote for it; and if they don't, they won't.
An independent Scotland will cast the Labour party adrift, as it will lose a stronghold that has proved - until now - hard to breach. It will destroy what remains of the L/Dems but strengthen the right in the England and Wales.
For me and many Ukippers, what's not to like?
Rich Kippers like Jackw do not seem to agree with you though Mike
Surely, if the main British political parties say they don't want a currency union with an independent Scotland, and one of the top men in the EU says that it would be very difficult for Scotland to remain in the EU if it splits from the rest of the UK, the SNP has to take those comments seriously? Also, if polling does suggest that we don't want the Scots to have a currency union, the Nats can't complain if rUK politicians takes heed? Scots Indy is certainly only for Scots to decide on, but you can't expect us to not want a say in how it affects the rest of us.
uniondivvie, come on old boy: £500 evens. And I'll give you ten more minutes to decide.
Feel the temptation. The chance to humiliate a "Britnat" AND make half a grand (now you believe you're gonna win) is surely irresistible? yes yes yes you can get better odds elsewhere, but it won't be remotely as satisfying, emotionally, as taking all that cash off me, will it?
Or are you actually just blowing it out yer kilt?
Ten minutes. I'll check the thread when I'm in the queue at Marks and Sparks.
Hasta la later.
Someone real has accepted the bet.
Who ? @SeanT is a real person and he's a loaded poster who isn't going to risk his reputation for a measly £500. I couldn't think of anyone better to bet £500 with actually.
Although a Kipper, I disagree with Farage on Scottish independence. I say let them have it! If they want it, they will vote for it; and if they don't, they won't.
An independent Scotland will cast the Labour party adrift, as it will lose a stronghold that has proved - until now - hard to breach. It will destroy what remains of the L/Dems but strengthen the right in the England and Wales.
For me and many Ukippers, what's not to like?
Rich Kippers like Jackw do not seem to agree with you though Mike
Although a Kipper, I disagree with Farage on Scottish independence. I say let them have it! If they want it, they will vote for it; and if they don't, they won't.
An independent Scotland will cast the Labour party adrift, as it will lose a stronghold that has proved - until now - hard to breach. It will destroy what remains of the L/Dems but strengthen the right in the England and Wales.
For me and many Ukippers, what's not to like?
Rich Kippers like Jackw do not seem to agree with you though Mike
As Chancellor George Osborne tells MPs it's in Britain's interest to take part in the Irish bailout, the Irish Premier promises an election in the New Year.
A protestor following clashes with police officers after breaking through the gates of Government Buildings in Dublin, after details of the bailout for Ireland are revealed (credit:Reuters)
Mr Osborne told the Commons: "The United Kingdom, alongside the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the eurozone and other member states is participating in the international financial assistance package for Ireland announced last night.
He said it was "overwhelmingly in Britain's national interest" for Ireland to have a stable economy. The country was a major trading partner with an "interconnected" banking system with the UK.
Our Political Editor, Gary Gibbon, says the total amount of British support across three separate loan packages could reach £9billion - although most of this would be required only should Ireland default.
Mick, LOL , even that will not convince a diehard Tory like David, he would rather believe in fantasy powers in Westminster
Malcolm, that whole episode really makes my point. Eire had allowed its banks to grow beyond the point that its domestic economy could cope with (although at their worst their ratios were not as high as they would be for Scotland). As a result they faced bankruptcy and default. Its neighbours, including us, thought that was not in their own interests and offered to help.
Is that really the plan? That Scotland will depend on the charity and self-interest of others to bail ourselves out if we get into difficulty? Seriously? Have you not seen what a price Eire has had to pay for that support and intervention?
david, we agree on that point , but your position on bailout is flawed as we have seen , Fed < UK , IMF , etc have all bailed out countries , it is where the trade and the contagion is that is affected , so Scotland would never have to bail out in the way you say. What would be required is proper banking regulation to ensure it could not happen again which is an entirely different subject.
As Chancellor George Osborne tells MPs it's in Britain's interest to take part in the Irish bailout, the Irish Premier promises an election in the New Year.
A protestor following clashes with police officers after breaking through the gates of Government Buildings in Dublin, after details of the bailout for Ireland are revealed (credit:Reuters)
Mr Osborne told the Commons: "The United Kingdom, alongside the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the eurozone and other member states is participating in the international financial assistance package for Ireland announced last night.
He said it was "overwhelmingly in Britain's national interest" for Ireland to have a stable economy. The country was a major trading partner with an "interconnected" banking system with the UK.
Our Political Editor, Gary Gibbon, says the total amount of British support across three separate loan packages could reach £9billion - although most of this would be required only should Ireland default.
Mick, LOL , even that will not convince a diehard Tory like David, he would rather believe in fantasy powers in Westminster
Malcolm, that whole episode really makes my point. Eire had allowed its banks to grow beyond the point that its domestic economy could cope with (although at their worst their ratios were not as high as they would be for Scotland). As a result they faced bankruptcy and default. Its neighbours, including us, thought that was not in their own interests and offered to help.
Is that really the plan? That Scotland will depend on the charity and self-interest of others to bail ourselves out if we get into difficulty? Seriously? Have you not seen what a price Eire has had to pay for that support and intervention?
david, we agree on that point , but your position on bailout is flawed as we have seen , Fed < UK , IMF , etc have all bailed out countries , it is where the trade and the contagion is that is affected , so Scotland would never have to bail out in the way you say. What would be required is proper banking regulation to ensure it could not happen again which is an entirely different subject.
PS. Would also add that both Eire and Iceland seem to be recovering a lot better than Scotland, we just pay Westminster for the bail out of their debt.
£100 at evens - I'll be backing No all day at those odds. If @SeanT doesn't want your money I'll take it, @TheUniondivvie.
I'm not a high roller like @SeanT though so £100 will be my limit.
Sorry Pulpstar, you're not (afaik) a blustering Britnat, so no icing if I win the bet. I'll offer 9/4 for Yes which tim took (and still a lot better than the bookies).
I could go on about the implied point of my money not being as good as @SeanT's - I assure you it is even though I have less of it - Anyway onto your offer
Come on, it's just £500. It's not gonna break the Royal Bank of Scotland, er, uhm, you know what I mean.
Come on... you must be tempted...
8 minutes.
Are you an idiot? I can log on to several bookmakers accounts and put on a third of the stake for a bigger return. I'll pay the 'prick a Britnat' surcharge for a £100 but not £500.
Then why the swithering Feck are you offering me £100. Surely that makes you the idiot.
No?
lol.
You have all the classic symptoms of a whining welcher, £100 is all I'm willing to risk on being wrong about that.
£99 too much in my opinion.
Must we harp on about who is or is not trustworthy with a bet on PB? Oh, that's right. It was SeanT who caused all this hilarity. Good move from the posh lad.
The SNP's position is entirely ridiculous. Imagine UKIP demanding to leave the EU but insisting on having the Euro as the UK's currency. Salmond is a dangerous joke.
Surely, if the main British political parties say they don't want a currency union with an independent Scotland, and one of the top men in the EU says that it would be very difficult for Scotland to remain in the EU if it splits from the rest of the UK, the SNP has to take those comments seriously? Also, if polling does suggest that we don't want the Scots to have a currency union, the Nats can't complain if rUK politicians takes heed? Scots Indy is certainly only for Scots to decide on, but you can't expect us to not want a say in how it affects the rest of us.
You have to be joking , they are politicians, you count your fingers after shaking hands with them. They would lie and sell their granny if there was self benefit in it. They have more faces than the town clock. Real opinions are welcome, you are unlike many of the frothers on here who just post drivel on the topic.
uniondivvie, come on old boy: £500 evens. And I'll give you ten more minutes to decide.
Feel the temptation. The chance to humiliate a "Britnat" AND make half a grand (now you believe you're gonna win) is surely irresistible? yes yes yes you can get better odds elsewhere, but it won't be remotely as satisfying, emotionally, as taking all that cash off me, will it?
Or are you actually just blowing it out yer kilt?
Ten minutes. I'll check the thread when I'm in the queue at Marks and Sparks.
Hasta la later.
Someone real has accepted the bet.
Who ? @SeanT is a real person and he's a loaded poster who isn't going to risk his reputation for a measly £500. I couldn't think of anyone better to bet £500 with actually.
The SNP's position is entirely ridiculous. Imagine UKIP demanding to leave the EU but insisting on having the Euro as the UK's currency. Salmond is a dangerous joke.
Poor Monica does not even know what currency the UK currently uses , when did we change to the Euro.
'You have to be joking , they are politicians, you count your fingers after shaking hands with them. They would lie and sell their granny if there was self benefit in it.'
Although a Kipper, I disagree with Farage on Scottish independence. I say let them have it! If they want it, they will vote for it; and if they don't, they won't.
An independent Scotland will cast the Labour party adrift, as it will lose a stronghold that has proved - until now - hard to breach. It will destroy what remains of the L/Dems but strengthen the right in the England and Wales.
For me and many Ukippers, what's not to like?
I have no emotional attachment to the union but there are clear issues with losing Scotland. It causes a national security, crime and immigration headache we can do without. After all do we seriously expect an independent Scotland to have the wherewithal to police their borders as well as they could as part of the UK? We therefore have the headache of managing a land border with England for the first time with all the implications and cost that that brings with it.
Beyond that there is all the cost of disentangling ourselves from Scotland at a time when elsewhere (other than Foreign Aid) austerity is the watch word. If the Scots vote for independence fine that's their right but I don't actively want it because it does have overheads for UKr and few if any real benefits.
PS And arguably it may not strengthen the right. It strengthens the Tories and are you so sure that is a good thing? Coz I'm not anymore.
Comments
Maybe not. That would be after USS Cole, I think.
Your claim was that:
"the high cost of travel relative to incomes meant rather few people could migrate and could thus be easily integrated"
This is just plain wrong, I'm afraid. The Aliens Act 1905 was passed as a result of serious concerns about the mass immigration of "undesirables" into the UK; while during the 19th and early 20th century millions left this country to start new lives elsewhere. They certainly did not integrate when they arrived in their new homes, which is why they speak English in places like Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
I don't know much about Kashmir or the British take on it but by 1999 I think he'd have been a borderline enemy, or at least no longer a friend.
A currency is one of the standard symbols of an independent state. I am bewildered that he did not want one.
If it was just the British doing it then Salmond could jujitsu it into a positive, but it's going to hard to sell the idea that _everybody_ is lying to try to push Scotland around.
Not only that, even in the unlikely event that the voters believe you, you're now selling, "Let's be a small independent country, that gets pushed around by everyone"...
My own forbears came over in the 1860s and in total about 150,000 Jews came from Eastern Europe in the 19th century. The peak years where the 1890s when maybe 10,000 a year arrived on average. In 1890 the population of England was, I think, about 20 million. Today its about 60 million and gross immigration is in the hundreds of thousands.
If Mr. Observer considers the Jewish immigration can be described as a "Mass immigration", I wonder what term he would use for what the UK has been going through for the past decade or so.
In any event, under EU law, any new entrant must join the Euro. They can't do what Sweden and Denmark did.
I know you will be saying that Scotland won't be a new entrant. But you don't make or interprate the rules..............
I did a Fermi analysis (quick and dirty multiplication of estimated subfactors which however tends to eliminate errors and be surprisingly accurate) - assuming a Yes vote, which the Unionists keep telling us won't happen (but vide Mr Hitchens in the DM recently ...).
Bear in mind I am (temporarily) putting myself in a Unionist state of mind and those probabilities are NOT what I consider real world ones
Westminster agrees that Yes means Yes - 0.1 say
Scotland is allowed into the EU - 0.1
EWNI remains in the EU - 0.1
Scotland loses EU court case - 0.9 [I did say this is in the Unionist Weltanschaaung]
I'll be generous and round up to 0.001 - i.e. a tenth of a percent that we need worry about the event. That is on a par with complaining that Mr Salmond has not personally set up plans for a Scottish Space Defence Force armed with lasers to protect against zombie aliens from outer space ... if that is a serious or consistent argument against indy then I am a Vogon!!!
Ex tory MP Louise Mensch seemed to know precisely what the posh lad's prioirities were.
*CHORTLE*
If your ambition in life stretches no further than a quiet little life in a quiet little backwater playing no part on the world stage and accepting all the times others will tell you what to do or what your laws will be then independence makes a kind of sense, I suppose. It is just such a narrow vision.
Since we're looking at the EU, here it is ranked by population. A Scotalnd of 5,400k isn't looking much like the top table. The UK would slip from thired to fourth minus Scotland and then shoot back up possibly to first by 2050 based on population projections.
Pop in '000s
Germany 81,751.6
France 65,075.3
UK 62,435.7
Italy 60,626.4
Spain 47,190.4
Poland 38,200.0
Romania 19,043.8
N'lands 16,655.8
Greece 11,325.9
Belgium 10,951.7
Portugal 10,636.9
Cz Rep 10,532.8
Hungary 9,985.7
Sweden 9,415.6
Austria 8,404.2
Bulgaria 7,504.9
Denmark 5,560.6
Slovakia 5,435.3
Finland 5,375.3
Ireland 4,480.8
Lithua 3,244.6
Latvia 2,229.6
Slovenia 2,050.1
Estonia 1,340.2
Cyprus 804.4
Lux 511.8
Malta 417.6
Yet more Salmond Bullshit.
As I have said on here many times, Labour got it horribly wrong on immigration while in power. My argument is with the notion that integration became a problem in 1997.
I am also non-plussed by Socrates' ridiculous notion that migration in the 19th and early 20th century was only for the relatively well off.
None of these turkeys have read the foreign press this week , which was unanimous that England were threatening Scotland if it choose its democratic right to independence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maktab_al-Khadamat
and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad is also known as the 'Liberation Army for Holy Sites', which by its nature means *outside* of Egypt as well as inside.
Or the 'Afghan Arabs', some organised by a guy who became rather infamous:
Looking at the Mirror article though it seems this is nothing more than cheap dishonest propaganda because firstly they seem to be conflating an individual pollster (in their case their own pollster) with all polls. If you consider it from an individual pollster perspective the 1979-81 Thatcher experience disproves that as clearly there were individual pollsters who had the Tories behind for longer than two years yet they went on to win and if you are considering all polls then this Government hasn't been behind for two years.
The last poll that the Coalition led in was 18th March 2012 so that immediately dismisses the assertion but also the Coalition has been level as late as October 2013 (Mori 15/10/13). Sadly it seems at best a case of premature ejaculation by the Mirror.
(UKPolling Report used as reference)
I don't think I'd trust anyone as unstable as you at more than £100, so £100 it is. You can drop Peter the Punter a line, or leave it as a gentleman's agreement, which ever you prefer.
is in England it would be funded by rumpUK as they did with Irish banks and why the Fed bankrolled Barclays , etc , etc. Sure Nat West will be resurrected and Halifax, we will retain the good bits that are being dragged down. For an intelligent person you are very blinkered and use propaganda a bit freely, stick to the truth even if you are a Tory and find it very difficult.
ROFL
1. Sterling Currency union
2. Sterling
3. Scottish Currency
4. Euro
5. USD
Take your pick from those , whatever is the best option come 2016, but plenty of choice and strangely enough having published these last year , idiots on here still believe that Alex Salmond never anticipated treachery from Westminster. Given past history it would have been his first and foremost thought.
Trot on.
PS. Your imitation of an incontinent 5 year old with puerile insults does not help your argument.
Nah, take the £100 or giruy, as we say in the salons of Glasgow.
Scotland cannot be the LOLR for RBS or BoS, they are simply too big. So they would need to go south with the head office jobs. It really is that simple.
Scotland could of course (with its own currency) be a LOLR for the small retail banks that would be left. But at the moment our financial sector is way out of proportion to our GDP and it would be fatal to an independent Scotland to maintain the status quo. Or would you want a currency that went up and down with the RBS share price?
And finding the good bits of the RBS is looking a bit of a challenge. People have been looking for years.
Three people have been killed in a blast on a tourist bus in the Sinai peninsula, Egyptian police say.
The blast took place after the bus entered Egypt from Israel.
Israeli police said they heard an explosion from the Egyptian side of the Taba border crossing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-26217380
Given they take any basket case country in and that Scotland would be a net contributor do you seriously think they are going to say no. They are many things but not stupid.
As Chancellor George Osborne tells MPs it's in Britain's interest to take part in the Irish bailout, the Irish Premier promises an election in the New Year.
A protestor following clashes with police officers after breaking through the gates of Government Buildings in Dublin, after details of the bailout for Ireland are revealed (credit:Reuters)
Mr Osborne told the Commons: "The United Kingdom, alongside the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the eurozone and other member states is participating in the international financial assistance package for Ireland announced last night.
He said it was "overwhelmingly in Britain's national interest" for Ireland to have a stable economy. The country was a major trading partner with an "interconnected" banking system with the UK.
Our Political Editor, Gary Gibbon, says the total amount of British support across three separate loan packages could reach £9billion - although most of this would be required only should Ireland default.
http://www.channel4.com/news/george-osborne-ireland-bailout-in-uks-interest
Spain with all its debt , unemployment etc ( and France , etc , etc ) is really pushing all these small countries about, bring it on please.
Why on earth should they question the posturing and blustering from Cammie and the toxic Osbrowne? Some of the most stupid thought EU posturing would win the election for Cammie.
The reality of mass immigration in the early 20th century may have been different to what we have now. But the perception clearly wasn't - hence the Alien Act 1905.
If only the participants would all agree ....
Has the sterling penny dropped yet ?!?
I am fully supportive of an independent scotland using the pound
I am strongly against a currency union with an independent scotland.
I would because of the first statement be recorded as a support therefore
I'm not a high roller like @SeanT though so £100 will be my limit.
Do you pay someone to clean your house?
Highest response comes from the LibDems at 15%, Cons are at 8%, Labour at 7% and UKIP at 6%.
I haven't seen him this terrified since OGH tweeted about his bluster on PB over some clickbait article that didn't make it to print.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZwuTo7zKM8
5 minutes, 2 minutes, ten minutes etc.
*chortle*
Unionists seem unable to grasp what Carney really said and continually say he ruled out a currency union, as in arrogant guys like yourself coming out with the drivel above.
Stick to UKIP.
An independent Scotland will cast the Labour party adrift, as it will lose a stronghold that has proved - until now - hard to breach. It will destroy what remains of the L/Dems but strengthen the right in the England and Wales.
For me and many Ukippers, what's not to like?
Malcolm, that whole episode really makes my point. Eire had allowed its banks to grow beyond the point that its domestic economy could cope with (although at their worst their ratios were not as high as they would be for Scotland). As a result they faced bankruptcy and default. Its neighbours, including us, thought that was not in their own interests and offered to help.
Is that really the plan? That Scotland will depend on the charity and self-interest of others to bail ourselves out if we get into difficulty? Seriously? Have you not seen what a price Eire has had to pay for that support and intervention?
You're also going to be able to quote that back endlessly on PB.
These posh lads don't seem to be too bright, do they?
Also, if polling does suggest that we don't want the Scots to have a currency union, the Nats can't complain if rUK politicians takes heed?
Scots Indy is certainly only for Scots to decide on, but you can't expect us to not want a say in how it affects the rest of us.
What would be required is proper banking regulation to ensure it could not happen again which is an entirely different subject.
Are you offering 4/9 on No or 9/4 on YES ?
Real opinions are welcome, you are unlike many of the frothers on here who just post drivel on the topic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7NHIHupjNs
*chortle*
'You have to be joking , they are politicians, you count your fingers after shaking hands with them. They would lie and sell their granny if there was self benefit in it.'
Exactly what Salmond is doing.
Beyond that there is all the cost of disentangling ourselves from Scotland at a time when elsewhere (other than Foreign Aid) austerity is the watch word. If the Scots vote for independence fine that's their right but I don't actively want it because it does have overheads for UKr and few if any real benefits.
PS And arguably it may not strengthen the right. It strengthens the Tories and are you so sure that is a good thing? Coz I'm not anymore.