I am amused at the usual suspects here suddenly being converted to trusting Gordon Brown. They weren't so keen on him in 2010.
Gordon Brown speaks only for himself. He does not speak for me on further devolution. EVFEL is the very minimum required to be mentioned, and it should be in the Queens speech even under existing arrangements.
We now have rare moment where rapid change is possible.There is cross party agreement for a federal structure-max devo in vote from the Scots the event of a No vote.
There unfortunately isn't, it's just the same reheated garbage they present months ago. The Labour plan doesn't even fully devolve Income Tax. None of the plans involve devolving all income - which is the only true plan that can be actually labelled max with any hoensty.
There were two people on the radio this morning, one from the SNP, and one for Labour. The man from the SNP said that only voting YES for independence would enable Scotland to raise taxes, and increase public spending. The man from Labour said that only voting NO for devo max would enable Scotland to raise taxes, and increase public spending.
Neither one of them acknowledged that both taxation, and public spending, are at historically and relatively high levels. It seems that whichever way the referendum vote goes, Scots will be getting their wallets lightened.
It is nonsense to suggest Scotland will not be a successful country as an independent state. We are one of the richest countries in the world and that is without oil and gas.
There are many UK ministries which have their "nuts and bolts" based in Scotland such as HMRC and pensions. They cannot just be moved. It takes years to plan and execute logistical changes on that scale. If English based organisations can outsource their entire backroom to India etc they can outsource them to Cowlairs or Cumbernauld. It will be far less expensive and far less disruptive to squabble over such minor things when so many major things will have to be decided.
We are in for a difficult enough couple of years on both sides of Hadrian's Wall if and assuming there is a YES vote next week. Politicians will be only too happy to kick much of the trivial into the long grass. Too many of them will be concentrating on keeping their jobs.
If we do vote YES next week, I suspect huge political changes will start in England. Where they will lead frankly doesn't bother me too much. I will be too busy doing my bit to make Scotland as successful as possible.
Why are we one of the richest countries in the world?
Because we have been a small part of a spectacularly successful Union giving us access to a large, stable and wealthy domestic market as well as, historically, one of the world's major empires.
This has allowed us to build a financial services industry several times larger than an independent Scotland would have managed, it has allowed our food producers certainty and ease of access making them confident about becoming export orientated, it has allowed our Universities access to research funds and projects that would have been beyond Scotland alone and it has given our children a range of opportunities that we would not have on our own.
Will we be able to survive without such great benefits? Yes, of course, but those who think that we are not giving up a great deal that will rapidly impact on our standard of living and the level of our public services are deluding themselves.
My guess is that we are in for a very difficult decade during which many of our more able an ambitious children will leave. We are better together.
I think you should be leading the NO campaign, David.
There were two people on the radio this morning, one from the SNP, and one for Labour. The man from the SNP said that only voting YES for independence would enable Scotland to raise taxes, and increase public spending. The man from Labour said that only voting NO for devo max would enable Scotland to raise taxes, and increase public spending.
Neither one of them acknowledged that both taxation, and public spending, are at historically and relatively high levels. It seems that whichever way the referendum vote goes, Scots will be getting their wallets lightened.
80% of Scots vote for left-wing parties. Higher public spending and higher taxes are what they want.
Terrible Lib Dem figures there. Will it be Clegg that lost the Union?
If it's the Lib Dems that swing it it will have been extremely close!
More likely other groups get blamed - the English born for No, the EU born for Yes.......hours, if not weeks and months of harmful vituperation.....
Never too early for a bit of mud-slinging.
Gotta love PB Tories. Such a pleasant bunch.
At least they haven't (AFAIK) mentioned battered Mars Bars this time round. There was a fascinating piece in the Herald on Sunday about a day in the life of a fish and chips fryer. He said that the only people to buy aforesaid bars were the southern tourists!!
We now have rare moment where rapid change is possible.There is cross party agreement for a federal structure-max devo in vote from the Scots the event of a No vote.
There unfortunately isn't, it's just the same reheated garbage they present months ago. The Labour plan doesn't even fully devolve Income Tax. None of the plans involve devolving all income - which is the only true plan that can be actually labelled max with any hoensty.
I'm getting to the Clarksonian point of thinking whenever if I see someone describing any of the 'more powers' guff currently being punted as Devo Max, that they should be taken out and shot.
Terrible Lib Dem figures there. Will it be Clegg that lost the Union?
If it's the Lib Dems that swing it it will have been extremely close!
More likely other groups get blamed - the English born for No, the EU born for Yes.......hours, if not weeks and months of harmful vituperation.....
Never too early for a bit of mud-slinging.
Gotta love PB Tories. Such a pleasant bunch.
At least they haven't (AFAIK) mentioned battered Mars Bars this time round. There was a fascinating piece in the Herald on Sunday about a day in the life of a fish and chips fryer. He said that the only people to buy aforesaid bars were the southern tourists!!
Might that just be because the locals who consumed them have all died?
Re Mr Hammond: the MoD one, not the DfT one, I assume, is the one being discussed as next PM.
He would seem however to have intervened in indyref and might get splattered just a bit by the brown sharny stuff in the event of a yes: consider the infamous proposal to annexe Faslane and Coulport to EWNI, and the anonymous minister, thought by some to be him, who said that the currency union refusal was all bluff in the face of the Trident issue. Or have I got the wrong chap?
Terrible Lib Dem figures there. Will it be Clegg that lost the Union?
If it's the Lib Dems that swing it it will have been extremely close!
More likely other groups get blamed - the English born for No, the EU born for Yes.......hours, if not weeks and months of harmful vituperation.....
Never too early for a bit of mud-slinging.
Gotta love PB Tories. Such a pleasant bunch.
At least they haven't (AFAIK) mentioned battered Mars Bars this time round. There was a fascinating piece in the Herald on Sunday about a day in the life of a fish and chips fryer. He said that the only people to buy aforesaid bars were the southern tourists!!
Might that just be because the locals who consumed them have all died?
We now have rare moment where rapid change is possible.There is cross party agreement for a federal structure-max devo in vote from the Scots the event of a No vote.
There unfortunately isn't, it's just the same reheated garbage they present months ago. The Labour plan doesn't even fully devolve Income Tax. None of the plans involve devolving all income - which is the only true plan that can be actually labelled max with any hoensty.
Hear hear. But of course doing anything dfferent would be illegal under the Edinburgh Agreement.
The "nuts and bolts" of HMRC are in Telford, not the call centre in East Kilbride.
As for moving, large systems like this have Disaster Recovery capability in case the building floods or catches fire. If the DR site for a system is across the border it could move over a weekend.
Exactly right, and in fact providing that type of DR capability is an offshoot of my own business.One client of mine has two identical facilities in different countries. They are exact down to the detail of if you move a filing cabinet in one you have to move it in the other to mirror the change. In the event of a disaster key staff will be working from the DR site literally within hours. Remote worker functionality can be handed across within minutes.
The days of hiring an ox-cart to head over to the next village and buy a replacement olde shoppe after yours has been burned down by Vikings have long gone.
So we have gone from the argument that Scotland will have to bankrupt itself to pay for new administrative systems to the argument that there already exist duplicate administrative infrastructure that can be operational within hours. Yeah, right.
I very much doubt that the UK government has lavished that sort of money on its administrative infrastructure.
Will you guys simply stop with the delusion that Independence will be an End of Days scenario for Scotland, but hardly noticed by England?
Re Mr Hammond: the MoD one, not the DfT one, I assume, is the one being discussed as next PM.
He would seem however to have intervened in indyref and might get splattered just a bit by the brown sharny stuff in the event of a yes: consider the infamous proposal to annexe Faslane and Coulport to EWNI, and the anonymous minister, thought by some to be him, who said that the currency union refusal was all bluff in the face of the Trident issue. Or have I got the wrong chap?
One crumb of comfort in all this is that if the proverbial does hit the fan, armed services destroyer Hammond will be nowhere near the running to take over, and if he's the best successor the Cameron regime hope to put in place, they really are f.....d.
I wonder if in an independent Scotland the Scottish will become less overtly Scottish. We have all seen a sort of joke english, a made up fantasy of english written in a Dundee accent. And the accent itself! I have a friend in a village outside Edinburgh who speakes well, his wife speakes well, his daughter speakes well - his boys are incomprehensible. Is there another people that goes to the trouble of learning the lingua franca and makes it a barrier? Not the Welsh or the Irish, or the people of any other country in the world.
That's not joke English - it is Scots (heavily infiltrated with SE), in its local variety. Have you been to the area around Aberdeen? That is different again, and again in the Borders. You can really spot the Danish and Friesian/Dutch links respectively in the latter case. A friend of mine from the Borders went out to SA and found that if he relaxed and pretended he was at home, he could understand the Afrikaners to a degree which would have horrified them, especially when they were talking about hi in his presence ...
The degree to which one uses Scots rather than English is very heavily mediated by social context and occasion. I have a friend who speaks almost standard English but reverts to her far northern Scots accent when she is with her sister. I almost wondered for a moment if your friends' boys are deliberately using Scots as a joke when you are around.
Edit: there will also be an influx of modern and urban slang, and, in Lothian, Romany in the more informal contexts. Gadgie for instance.
We now have rare moment where rapid change is possible.There is cross party agreement for a federal structure-max devo in vote from the Scots the event of a No vote.
There unfortunately isn't, it's just the same reheated garbage they present months ago. The Labour plan doesn't even fully devolve Income Tax. None of the plans involve devolving all income - which is the only true plan that can be actually labelled max with any hoensty.
Hear hear. But of course doing anything dfferent would be illegal under the Edinburgh Agreement.
Hear hear. But of course doing anything dfferent would be illegal under the Edinburgh Agreement.
And what legal force does the so-called "Edinburgh Agreement" have?
A good question, I'm beginning to wonder. What value can one place in an agreement signed by the PM of the UK agreeing that Scottish electoral law will apply for the purposes of the referendum on both sides of the border?
It is nonsense to suggest Scotland will not be a successful country as an independent state. We are one of the richest countries in the world and that is without oil and gas.
There are many UK ministries which have their "nuts and bolts" based in Scotland such as HMRC and pensions. They cannot just be moved. It takes years to plan and execute logistical changes on that scale. If English based organisations can outsource their entire backroom to India etc they can outsource them to Cowlairs or Cumbernauld. It will be far less expensive and far less disruptive to squabble over such minor things when so many major things will have to be decided.
We are in for a difficult enough couple of years on both sides of Hadrian's Wall if and assuming there is a YES vote next week. Politicians will be only too happy to kick much of the trivial into the long grass. Too many of them will be concentrating on keeping their jobs.
If we do vote YES next week, I suspect huge political changes will start in England. Where they will lead frankly doesn't bother me too much. I will be too busy doing my bit to make Scotland as successful as possible.
Why are we one of the richest countries in the world?
Because we have been a small part of a spectacularly successful Union giving us access to a large, stable and wealthy domestic market as well as, historically, one of the world's major empires.
This has allowed us to build a financial services industry several times larger than an independent Scotland would have managed, it has allowed our food producers certainty and ease of access making them confident about becoming export orientated, it has allowed our Universities access to research funds and projects that would have been beyond Scotland alone and it has given our children a range of opportunities that we would not have on our own.
Will we be able to survive without such great benefits? Yes, of course, but those who think that we are not giving up a great deal that will rapidly impact on our standard of living and the level of our public services are deluding themselves.
My guess is that we are in for a very difficult decade during which many of our more able an ambitious children will leave. We are better together.
Terrible Lib Dem figures there. Will it be Clegg that lost the Union?
If it's the Lib Dems that swing it it will have been extremely close!
More likely other groups get blamed - the English born for No, the EU born for Yes.......hours, if not weeks and months of harmful vituperation.....
Never too early for a bit of mud-slinging.
Gotta love PB Tories. Such a pleasant bunch.
At least they haven't (AFAIK) mentioned battered Mars Bars this time round. There was a fascinating piece in the Herald on Sunday about a day in the life of a fish and chips fryer. He said that the only people to buy aforesaid bars were the southern tourists!!
My son & his mates persuaded their local Chinese chippie (in north London) to deep-fry a Mars Bar. Couldn't persuade the Chippie to do the same to a meat pie, though.
I am amused at the usual suspects here suddenly being converted to trusting Gordon Brown. They weren't so keen on him in 2010.
Well I've not seen any - Are we reading the same thread?
I certainly would have no trust in any 'deal' created by Gordon Brown. I suspect that a close No vote now would be awful - far better to let Scotland go their own way - and good luck to them. Then there'd be the difficult, but easier task of reconstructing the political system for the rest of the UK. I suspect that there'll need to be big changes for both left and right-wing parties but I think there's a better chance of consensus without Scotland than with, given the current state of play. The nonsense about Scotland being ruled by a party it didn't vote for is just that, but it seems to have a strange credence there lacking in say southern England which has accepted a similar situation for many years without too much rancour. Under those circumstances - time to lance the boil.
Someone in the Guardian said something to the effect that for Scots voters at the moment it was rather like ringing up to cancel your mobile contract and being offered a free upgrade and texts.
I wonder if in an independent Scotland the Scottish will become less overtly Scottish. We have all seen a sort of joke english, a made up fantasy of english written in a Dundee accent. And the accent itself! I have a friend in a village outside Edinburgh who speakes well, his wife speakes well, his daughter speakes well - his boys are incomprehensible. Is there another people that goes to the trouble of learning the lingua franca and makes it a barrier? Not the Welsh or the Irish, or the people of any other country in the world.
Just remembered something that bears on your question, which is an interesting one. There is a linguistic boundary on the border at the River Tweed at Coldstream and Cornhill. IT used to be more of a continuum from the Scots counties over the Border southwards. But it has sharpened up in recent years - pull from Scotland vs England. You can find Billy Kay's 'The Mither Tongue' online on Google Books and it's got an interesting section on that (as well as Scots more generally).
I'm not sure how much indy would affect it - Eastenders (presumably) would continue to affect Scots slang as much as Rab C. Nesbitt. Though there might be some shift in what is considered socially superor accents. Fascinating research project for linguists there.
Will you guys simply stop with the delusion that Independence will be an End of Days scenario for Scotland, but hardly noticed by England?
Nowhere have I said that, but the fantasy that iScotland would not need to build it's own new government IT systems because of an existing call centre in East Kilbride must be challenged.
There will be costs on both sides, but they will overwhelmingly fall on the side of a separate Scotland. You can't wish it away.
Terrible Lib Dem figures there. Will it be Clegg that lost the Union?
If it's the Lib Dems that swing it it will have been extremely close!
More likely other groups get blamed - the English born for No, the EU born for Yes.......hours, if not weeks and months of harmful vituperation.....
Never too early for a bit of mud-slinging.
Gotta love PB Tories. Such a pleasant bunch.
At least they haven't (AFAIK) mentioned battered Mars Bars this time round. There was a fascinating piece in the Herald on Sunday about a day in the life of a fish and chips fryer. He said that the only people to buy aforesaid bars were the southern tourists!!
My son & his mates persuaded their local Chinese chippie (in north London) to deep-fry a Mars Bar. Couldn't persuade the Chippie to do the same to a meat pie, though.
Terrible Lib Dem figures there. Will it be Clegg that lost the Union?
If it's the Lib Dems that swing it it will have been extremely close!
More likely other groups get blamed - the English born for No, the EU born for Yes.......hours, if not weeks and months of harmful vituperation.....
Never too early for a bit of mud-slinging.
Gotta love PB Tories. Such a pleasant bunch.
At least they haven't (AFAIK) mentioned battered Mars Bars this time round. There was a fascinating piece in the Herald on Sunday about a day in the life of a fish and chips fryer. He said that the only people to buy aforesaid bars were the southern tourists!!
My son & his mates persuaded their local Chinese chippie (in north London) to deep-fry a Mars Bar. Couldn't persuade the Chippie to do the same to a meat pie, though.
I rolled my eyes at the title, but he makes some fair points. Labour have spent four years massively exaggerating the impact of austerity but yet have no vision for how to address that.
The "nuts and bolts" of HMRC are in Telford, not the call centre in East Kilbride.
As for moving, large systems like this have Disaster Recovery capability in case the building floods or catches fire. If the DR site for a system is across the border it could move over a weekend.
Exactly right, and in fact providing that type of DR capability is an offshoot of my own business.One client of mine has two identical facilities in different countries. They are exact down to the detail of if you move a filing cabinet in one you have to move it in the other to mirror the change. In the event of a disaster key staff will be working from the DR site literally within hours. Remote worker functionality can be handed across within minutes.
The days of hiring an ox-cart to head over to the next village and buy a replacement olde shoppe after yours has been burned down by Vikings have long gone.
So we have gone from the argument that Scotland will have to bankrupt itself to pay for new administrative systems to the argument that there already exist duplicate administrative infrastructure that can be operational within hours. Yeah, right.
I very much doubt that the UK government has lavished that sort of money on its administrative infrastructure.
Will you guys simply stop with the delusion that Independence will be an End of Days scenario for Scotland, but hardly noticed by England?
Actually I was merely reinforcing Scott_P's assertion that all of this is perfectly standard technology. I see it every day. Any large office with good contingency planning should be able to suffer catastrophic building failure, for example, and continue to function almost seamlessly. Their customers should only realise what's happened when they see it on the news.
You assume that the govt have not spent in this area and i am pretty certain that in most sectors you are correct. Where privatisation has occured then this important provision has been rightly given more attention and more money - the DR solution for NATS is a great example.
However the blanket "you guys" statement is hardly fair. I was making a technical point rather than a political one. And you appear to think I am a NO supporter too.
I rolled my eyes at the title, but he makes some fair points. Labour have spent four years massively exaggerating the impact of austerity but yet have no vision for how to address that.
Well, I’m wildly unlikely to vote Conservative, but apart from tribalism I can see no reason to vote Labour! At present
I rolled my eyes at the title, but he makes some fair points. Labour have spent four years massively exaggerating the impact of austerity but yet have no vision for how to address that.
Austerity ? I thought we are borrowing about £80 billion a year atm. UK growth at 3% looks less impressive when we're borrowing the eqivalent of 5% of GDP.
Not too bright are you , What a turnip. a thick lying Tory like you LOL, you really are stupid You are one real thick sad sack, you moron.
The standard of debate has really risen since malcolmg woke up.
You described yourself perfectly there, but you better be careful if I thought they were directed at me , litigation would be likely. I have Perry Mason on standby.
You are incapable od displaying a single argument in favour of your supposed cause. Not least what currency you would use or where your central bank would come from. All conveniently forgotten in your rabid froth.
It really ought to be pretty clear to everyone that your cause is not so much scottish independence but hatred of everyone south of Gretna Green. You have a sad inadequate chip on your shoulder and are a poor advert for Scotland. The worry for an independent Scotland of course is that once they have no excuse to hate anyone from outside they will turn on each other. Its started already.
Scott, thousands of workers cannot just be moved at short notice and indeed if as the BBC discovered with its move to Salford (on a much smaller scale) they refuse to move, the London government would have to recruit and train thousands of workers. Where would they be housed? It would be less expensive for London to buy entirely new computer systems and storage systems than physically remove and transfer those in Scotland. Even though e.g. HMRC is now largely online, there are still tens of millions of paper files in use, all the tax returns from 2008-2012 for a start as these were almost all paper returns.
So we're talking about 2 slightly different things then.
The 'system' is in England, and will remain so. HMG could 'outsource' document scanning to a foreign country. Or, like the BBC, they could say to current HMG staff in Scotland "your job is now in Liverpool if you still want it"
What a dumpling , the system is not just in England.
I am amused at the usual suspects here suddenly being converted to trusting Gordon Brown. They weren't so keen on him in 2010.
Gordon Brown speaks only for himself. He does not speak for me on further devolution. EVFEL is the very minimum required to be mentioned, and it should be in the Queens speech even under existing arrangements.
He is not speaking on devolution , he is talking about a timetable for a talking shop that will decide to do nothing for Scotland
I rolled my eyes at the title, but he makes some fair points. Labour have spent four years massively exaggerating the impact of austerity but yet have no vision for how to address that.
Austerity ? I thought we are borrowing about £80 billion a year atm. UK growth at 3% looks less impressive when we're borrowing the eqivalent of 5% of GDP.
Yes, but the deficit is getting smaller and on the current course we'll begin to pay down debt come 2017 (unless PM Miliband changes plans).
Someone in the Guardian said something to the effect that for Scots voters at the moment it was rather like ringing up to cancel your mobile contract and being offered a free upgrade and texts.
Yes but they are not guaranteed , just you may get them after you sign up we will have a meeting and decide how little you pay and how much extra you get.
Given he is wrong about pretty much everything, maybe we really are about to feel the hand of history on our shoulders! Him and Brown in the No camp, strongly suggests that Yes is the right way to vote.
Actually I genuinely don't care, but am getting the popcorn in anyway.
Not too bright are you , What a turnip. a thick lying Tory like you LOL, you really are stupid You are one real thick sad sack, you moron.
The standard of debate has really risen since malcolmg woke up.
You described yourself perfectly there, but you better be careful if I thought they were directed at me , litigation would be likely. I have Perry Mason on standby.
You are incapable od displaying a single argument in favour of your supposed cause. Not least what currency you would use or where your central bank would come from. All conveniently forgotten in your rabid froth.
It really ought to be pretty clear to everyone that your cause is not so much scottish independence but hatred of everyone south of Gretna Green. You have a sad inadequate chip on your shoulder and are a poor advert for Scotland. The worry for an independent Scotland of course is that once they have no excuse to hate anyone from outside they will turn on each other. Its started already.
You really are a sad sack , it is the POUND you turnip. It is very simple such that even a cretin like you will understand It is better for people in Scotland to decide how to spend Scotland's money rather than people in Westminster.
Contrary to some on here, I suspect that in the event of a YES vote on September 18th, the Friday will see all sides desperately trying to calm, soothe and mollify. The rhetoric will be switched off and the air will be filled with the sound of sweet reason and compromise.
David Cameron and Alex Salmond will meet within a day or so to promote the general sense of geniality, bonhomie and the notion that it's business as usual and life goes on. Neither will want to be hubristic, euphoric or rub the other's nose in the result (that can happen on places like this which don't matter).
Above all, the aim will be to convince the markets and investors that everything has been planned for and everyting is under control.
As to what will happen at the Party Conferences and especially at fringe meetings - well, as always, that's the most interesting part of all the Conferences.
There were two people on the radio this morning, one from the SNP, and one for Labour. The man from the SNP said that only voting YES for independence would enable Scotland to raise taxes, and increase public spending. The man from Labour said that only voting NO for devo max would enable Scotland to raise taxes, and increase public spending.
Neither one of them acknowledged that both taxation, and public spending, are at historically and relatively high levels. It seems that whichever way the referendum vote goes, Scots will be getting their wallets lightened.
80% of Scots vote for left-wing parties. Higher public spending and higher taxes are what they want.
Which is why they need Independence to follow the yellow brick road past the magic money trees to the socialist paradise that was Eastern Europe under Russsia.
Not too bright are you , What a turnip. a thick lying Tory like you LOL, you really are stupid You are one real thick sad sack, you moron.
The standard of debate has really risen since malcolmg woke up.
You described yourself perfectly there, but you better be careful if I thought they were directed at me , litigation would be likely. I have Perry Mason on standby.
You are incapable od displaying a single argument in favour of your supposed cause. Not least what currency you would use or where your central bank would come from. All conveniently forgotten in your rabid froth.
It really ought to be pretty clear to everyone that your cause is not so much scottish independence but hatred of everyone south of Gretna Green. You have a sad inadequate chip on your shoulder and are a poor advert for Scotland. The worry for an independent Scotland of course is that once they have no excuse to hate anyone from outside they will turn on each other. Its started already.
You really are a sad sack , it is the POUND you turnip. It is very simple such that even a cretin like you will understand It is better for people in Scotland to decide how to spend Scotland's money rather than people in Westminster.
Yes, the pound, but without a lender of last resort to back it.
The "nuts and bolts" of HMRC are in Telford, not the call centre in East Kilbride.
As for moving, large systems like this have Disaster Recovery capability in case the building floods or catches fire. If the DR site for a system is across the border it could move over a weekend.
There were two people on the radio this morning, one from the SNP, and one for Labour. The man from the SNP said that only voting YES for independence would enable Scotland to raise taxes, and increase public spending. The man from Labour said that only voting NO for devo max would enable Scotland to raise taxes, and increase public spending.
Neither one of them acknowledged that both taxation, and public spending, are at historically and relatively high levels. It seems that whichever way the referendum vote goes, Scots will be getting their wallets lightened.
80% of Scots vote for left-wing parties. Higher public spending and higher taxes are what they want.
The Scots don't have very different views on either welfare or support for industry than the English:
It's just the way the cookie crumbles with where their votes go. It's like Lib Dem voters shifting to UKIP and suddenly turning from left wing votes to right wing votes.
Scottish voters need to ignore the desperate, desperate wailing from the rest of the British establishment about £ v $ and any short term fluctuations in share prices. Don't let them scare you.
In 2009 the £ touched below $1.40 and the FTSE was languising in the mid 4000s. The world didn't end.
Make your mind up based on what you want for your future and that of your children, grandchildren etc, be that Yes or No. Don't be bullied.
A good question, I'm beginning to wonder. What value can one place in an agreement signed by the PM of the UK agreeing that Scottish electoral law will apply for the purposes of the referendum on both sides of the border?
All that was agreed was that a draft Order in Council under section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998 would be promoted by both governments. That Order was subsequently submitted to HM in Council, and modified the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament to provide that a referendum on Scottish independence was, subject to certain conditions, not outwith the legislative competence of that Parliament. It was agreed in the memorandum to the agreement that the referendum should be subject to rules akin to those set out in Part 7 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The campaign rules governing publications are set out Part 4 of Schedule 4 to the Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013, which has no effect in England and Wales, or Northern Ireland. The rules concerning publications by central and local government apply only to:
(a) the Scottish Ministers or any other part of the Scottish Administration, (b)the SPCB, or (c)any Scottish public authority with mixed functions or no reserved functions (within the meaning of the Scotland Act 1998).
That means that they have no application to a Minister of the Crown in respect of reserved functions.
OGH's point on Kinnock prompts an observation. In the 30 years since Michael Foot was the Labour Leader, we have in Ed Miliband the only permanent English born Leader of Labour. The English could be said to have had less influence in the Leadership of the Labour party than the Welsh (9 years Kinnock) or Scotland (almost 5 years Smith and Brown). Blair was born and schooled in Scotland - he just came across to the English as one of them. Adding Blair's years to the Scottish number shows how dominated England has been from people born outside England. With very little complaint or protest.
The real problem for Labour is how SLAB voters have turned their backs on the English Leader of the Labour party. Miliband's ratings in Scotland are simply appallingly bad. Faced with a GE next year, Scottish voters seem unenthused by the choice of the main parties all having an English born Leader.
I rolled my eyes at the title, but he makes some fair points. Labour have spent four years massively exaggerating the impact of austerity but yet have no vision for how to address that.
Austerity ? I thought we are borrowing about £80 billion a year atm. UK growth at 3% looks less impressive when we're borrowing the eqivalent of 5% of GDP.
Yes, but the deficit is getting smaller and on the current course we'll begin to pay down debt come 2017 (unless PM Miliband changes plans).
last time I looked Osborne was missing his targets so 2018, 2019 who knows ?
There were two people on the radio this morning, one from the SNP, and one for Labour. The man from the SNP said that only voting YES for independence would enable Scotland to raise taxes, and increase public spending. The man from Labour said that only voting NO for devo max would enable Scotland to raise taxes, and increase public spending.
Neither one of them acknowledged that both taxation, and public spending, are at historically and relatively high levels. It seems that whichever way the referendum vote goes, Scots will be getting their wallets lightened.
80% of Scots vote for left-wing parties. Higher public spending and higher taxes are what they want.
The Scots don't have very different views on either welfare or support for industry than the English:
It's just the way the cookie crumbles with where their votes go. It's like Lib Dem voters shifting to UKIP and suddenly turning from left wing votes to right wing votes.
I think it's as much a myth as the 'natural' left-wing majority in the UK (lab + lib dem) we heard so much about up until around 2009-2011. Now, UKIP + Tory have that majority.
Plenty of Scots don't vote Tory because they see it as the English party. Quite a few SNP voters are centre-right (including Stuart Dickson of this parish)
I think Ashcroft found 16% of Scots are Tory and a further 10% lean Labour but prefer Cameron as PM. But they tactically vote SNP or Labour depending on local circumstances. Furthermore, almost 1/3rd of voters admitted having voted Tory at some point in the past.
I imagine an independent centre-right party in an independent Scotland would start with a working base of 25% and potentially be able to take it from there into a governing coalition.
Silly quesdtion . Given that the three Westminster parties don’t agree, other than in principle, on “what do about Scotland” is there legislative time to sort out something before this Parliament closes down for the May General Election?
I realise that where’s there a will, but in my experience, where there’s a will someone is very discontented!
Those who think that a major IT system can't be either shifted or replicated within either a day or two or at worst in a month is kidding themselves.
Indeed. The whole point of disaster recovery is that the system is up and running in hours, possibly minutes. Having helped set up DR systems I know how it works.
A good question, I'm beginning to wonder. What value can one place in an agreement signed by the PM of the UK agreeing that Scottish electoral law will apply for the purposes of the referendum on both sides of the border?
All that was agreed was that a draft Order in Council under section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998 would be promoted by both governments. That Order was subsequently submitted to HM in Council, and modified the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament to provide that a referendum on Scottish independence was, subject to certain conditions, not outwith the legislative competence of that Parliament. It was agreed in the memorandum to the agreement that the referendum should be subject to rules akin to those set out in Part 7 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The campaign rules governing publications are set out Part 4 of Schedule 4 to the Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013, which has no effect in England and Wales, or Northern Ireland. The rules concerning publications by central and local government apply only to:
(a) the Scottish Ministers or any other part of the Scottish Administration, (b)the SPCB, or (c)any Scottish public authority with mixed functions or no reserved functions (within the meaning of the Scotland Act 1998).
That means that they have no application to a Minister of the Crown in respect of reserved functions.
Thank you. What then puzzles me is that, as much discussed elsewhere recently, the Agreement itself specifies (I refer especially to the last sentence in this para):
Government activity during the 28 days before the referendum 29. It is customary for there to be a period before elections in the UK, during which Ministers and other public bodies refrain from publishing material that would have a bearing on the election. Section 125 of PPERA sets out the restrictions that apply to Ministers and public bodies in the 28 days preceding referendums held under that Act. Both governments recognise the importance of respecting the 28-day period prior to a referendum, in the same way that both governments already respect each other’s pre-election period for Parliamentary elections. The Scottish Government will set out details of restricted behaviour for Scottish Ministers and devolved public bodies in the Referendum Bill to be introduced into the Scottish Parliament. These details will be based on the restrictions set out in PPERA. The UK Government has committed to act according to the same PPERA-based rules during the 28 day period.
Am I missing something?
Presumably Mr Brown and Labour hardly qualify as part of the UK Gmt, though their cooperation with UK Gmt is hardly n the spirit of the agreement even now.
"My daughters employers, looked at the possibilities of moving south in the event of a yes vote. They have now decided to do so, not because of the possibility of a yes vote, but because of the terms being offered to attract them to the north east of England. What it amounts to is security for the foreseeable future."
Silly quesdtion . Given that the three Westminster parties don’t agree, other than in principle, on “what do about Scotland” is there legislative time to sort out something before this Parliament closes down for the May General Election?
I realise that where’s there a will, but in my experience, where there’s a will someone is very discontented!
The House of Lords would be well within its rights to reject any constitutional Bill, or at least insist that it had sufficient time to scrutinise it in committee and on report, which no longer exists. As we are in the last session of the current Parliament, no Bill introduced in this session may be passed under the provisions of section 2 of the Parliament Act 1911. In short, it would be madness to try and pass a constitutional bill before the next general election to the House of Commons.
"My daughters employers, looked at the possibilities of moving south in the event of a yes vote. They have now decided to do so, not because of the possibility of a yes vote, but because of the terms being offered to attract them to the north east of England. What it amounts to is security for the foreseeable future."
Short-termist self-interested moronic meddling from Labour has led us to this point. Blaming Cameron is like blaming a captain for the ship sinking when his predecessor cut several fetching holes in the hull halfway through crossing the Atlantic.
OGH's point on Kinnock prompts an observation. In the 30 years since Michael Foot was the Labour Leader, we have in Ed Miliband the only permanent English born Leader of Labour. The English could be said to have had less influence in the Leadership of the Labour party than the Welsh (9 years Kinnock) or Scotland (almost 5 years Smith and Brown). Blair was born and schooled in Scotland - he just came across to the English as one of them. Adding Blair's years to the Scottish number shows how dominated England has been from people born outside England. With very little complaint or protest.
The real problem for Labour is how SLAB voters have turned their backs on the English Leader of the Labour party. Miliband's ratings in Scotland are simply appallingly bad. Faced with a GE next year, Scottish voters seem unenthused by the choice of the main parties all having an English born Leader.
Many Scots complain about being ruled from Westminster but in fact they were being ruled by Scots who also managed to trash the UK economy!
The real problem for Labour is how SLAB voters have turned their backs on the English Leader of the Labour party.
Labour viewed Scotland as it's own personal fiefdom.
If the Union breaks (still an if, just) the bulk of the blame lies with Labour.
Which is why Cameron must resign. Obviously.
I don't think Cameron wants to go, or understands why he should (I didn't until recently) but I now think the pressure for him to go will be overwhelming if Scotland votes YES.
His bluff will have been called on the question/timing and his hands-off/apathetic 'meh' approach to campaigning will have still lost it, and both of these are decisions he took for which he will have to take responsibility.
Quite. Those who think that a major IT system can't be either shifted or replicated within either a day or two or at worst in a month is kidding themselves. Training additional bods to operate the front end system will take a bit longer - but it's not exactly *hard* or complex - like building a bypass.
The "nuts and bolts" of HMRC are in Telford, not the call centre in East Kilbride. As for moving, large systems like this have Disaster Recovery capability in case the building floods or catches fire. If the DR site for a system is across the border it could move over a weekend.
True. Copying an existing system to a new office can be done well within 6 months if the office space is available.
Thank you. What then puzzles me is that, as much discussed elsewhere recently, the Agreement itself specifies (I refer especially to the last sentence in this para): ...
The UK Government has committed to act according to the same PPERA-based rules during the 28 day period.
Am I missing something?
Presumably Mr Brown and Labour hardly qualify as part of the UK Gmt, though their cooperation with UK Gmt is hardly n the spirit of the agreement even now.
Mr Brown, thankfully, is no longer a Minister of the Crown, and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats may, if they so choose, lend him such support in his endeavours as they choose. The position in law is, however, clear. The Scottish Government is bound by law (the 2013 Act) in respect of its publications during the referendum period. Her Majesty's Government is bound only by convention, and could, if it wanted to, publish a White Paper on Scottish devolution tomorrow.
80% of Scots vote for left-wing parties. Higher public spending and higher taxes are what they want.
That's true, but remember that at the moment they are spending someone else's money. I suspect that Scots will take a rather different view if and when public spending increases impact directly on their own wallets. As I've said before, if Scotland does become independent, there will be a Thatcherite shock of readjustment, but I think that after a while the Scots will recover their historic virtues of thrift, hard-work, and sound finances. It may well be quite painful for a while, though.
80% of Scots vote for left-wing parties. Higher public spending and higher taxes are what they want.
That's true, but remember that at the moment they are spending someone else's money. I suspect that Scots will take a rather different view if and when public spending increases impact directly on their own wallets. As I've said before, if Scotland does become independent, there will be a Thatcherite shock of readjustment, but I think that after a while the Scots will recover their historic virtues of thrift, hard-work, and sound finances. It may well be quite painful for a while, though.
It took the Irish about 60 years to wake up to economic realities after independence.
Not sure 1992 really applies to this. Funny as it is to think Kinnock's victory rally blew it, wasn't it more a case that the Tories were pretty much ALWAYS on course to win, it was just that the polling companies were getting their methodologies wrong?
When ICM started hindcasting their polls with a spiral of silence adjustment, the outcome of most polls was stunningly close to the actual result. And the rest is rock and roll...
Course, given the unique circumstances of this referendum, they could all be getting their polls wrong again... But that's not necessarily good news for NO and bad news for YES...
Silly quesdtion . Given that the three Westminster parties don’t agree, other than in principle, on “what do about Scotland” is there legislative time to sort out something before this Parliament closes down for the May General Election?
I realise that where’s there a will, but in my experience, where there’s a will someone is very discontented!
The House of Lords would be well within its rights to reject any constitutional Bill, or at least insist that it had sufficient time to scrutinise it in committee and on report, which no longer exists. As we are in the last session of the current Parliament, no Bill introduced in this session may be passed under the provisions of section 2 of the Parliament Act 1911. In short, it would be madness to try and pass a constitutional bill before the next general election to the House of Commons.
Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat. Or something like that!
80% of Scots vote for left-wing parties. Higher public spending and higher taxes are what they want.
That's true, but remember that at the moment they are spending someone else's money. I suspect that Scots will take a rather different view if and when public spending increases impact directly on their own wallets. As I've said before, if Scotland does become independent, there will be a Thatcherite shock of readjustment, but I think that after a while the Scots will recover their historic virtues of thrift, hard-work, and sound finances. It may well be quite painful for a while, though.
how are they spending someone else's money any more than say the Midlands or the South West ? On balance all the Uk is spending someone else's money as we're borrowing £80 billion a year. Scotland at least is in the paying its own way column.
Thank you. What then puzzles me is that, as much discussed elsewhere recently, the Agreement itself specifies (I refer especially to the last sentence in this para): ...
The UK Government has committed to act according to the same PPERA-based rules during the 28 day period.
Am I missing something?
Presumably Mr Brown and Labour hardly qualify as part of the UK Gmt, though their cooperation with UK Gmt is hardly n the spirit of the agreement even now.
Mr Brown, thankfully, is no longer a Minister of the Crown, and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats may, if they so choose, lend him such support in his endeavours as they choose. The position in law is, however, clear. The Scottish Government is bound by law (the 2013 Act) in respect of its publications during the referendum period. Her Majesty's Government is bound only by convention, and could, if it wanted to, publish a White Paper on Scottish devolution tomorrow.
80% of Scots vote for left-wing parties. Higher public spending and higher taxes are what they want.
That's true, but remember that at the moment they are spending someone else's money. I suspect that Scots will take a rather different view if and when public spending increases impact directly on their own wallets. As I've said before, if Scotland does become independent, there will be a Thatcherite shock of readjustment, but I think that after a while the Scots will recover their historic virtues of thrift, hard-work, and sound finances. It may well be quite painful for a while, though.
It took the Irish about 60 years to wake up to economic realities after independence.
they're in the euro, some might say they still haven't.
It took the Irish about 60 years to wake up to economic realities after independence.
The Scottish separatists are not as messianic as the Irish nationalists were, and it is highly unlikely that the first 50 years of independent Scottish politics will be dominated by the question of which side the participants fought in during the civil war. In any event, the world has changed. If Scotland tried to emulate the protectionist popish backwater that existed in the Irish Republic before it joined the EEC, it would go bust in days.
His bluff will have been called on the question/timing and his hands-off/apathetic 'meh' approach to campaigning will have still lost it, and both of these are decisions he took for which he will have to take responsibility.
The question was not his decision. The timing was not his decision.
Are you really claiming an Etonian Tory campaigning in Scotland would have swung votes away from Yes?
The Watcher, I hadn't realised just how quick off the line the English regions would be to grab business and jobs from Scotland. It is going to be like a small woodland animal being torn to pieces by wolves.
Mr. Royale, if Cameron (or Miliband) had been prominent it would've made things easier for Yes.
I think that's a cop-out. Depends how the campaigning had been done (of course it'd have had to be conducted with skill) but it equally looks like the UK PM doesn't really give a toss about Scotland.
It's not like a general election, and the betting money is right still to be on NO. Compare it more with the Quebec referendum in 1995, when YES went in with a 7% lead in the polls and lost by 1%.
Don't underestimate Scottish canniness, or the propensity of people to get undhirunk and ask themselves what's safest for their pockets. I think NO will win in Scotland by 5-10%.
Didn't someone say that YouGov weighted by voting percentages in the 2011 Scottish GE? If so, that's ridiculous. They might have arrived at a better figure if they weighted by that election, then by the 2010 GE results in Scotland, and then calculated figures that were on the other side of 2010 GE from 2011 SGE and the same distance. Why do I say that? Because of turnout and interest. The SNP did very well in 2011 because the SGE is a big local election, perceived as an excellent occasion for sending a disapproving message to the (British) government. SImilarly UKIP won in this year's Euros. The SNP got far fewer votes in the 2010 GE, and turnout was much higher, because people in Scotland see the UKGE as more important than the SGE. And they don't vote to send a message to anyone, which some people do do when answering pollsters. Think of the SNP or YeSNP as like UKIP even if they're in office in Holyrood.
And as I said, the referendum is on the other side of the UKGE from the SGE. Turnout figures will show that. So will the fall in the YES percentage from whatever the polls on the eve of the referendum predict.
it is highly unlikely that the first 50 years of independent Scottish politics will be dominated by the question of which side the participants fought in during the civil war.
On the contrary, I expect vast numbers of people wailing "I didn't vote for this!" for years to come.
how are they spending someone else's money any more than say the Midlands or the South West ? On balance all the Uk is spending someone else's money as we're borrowing £80 billion a year. Scotland at least is in the paying its own way column.
The Midlands and the South West don't have separate assemblies promising freebies and blaming evil Tories for not giving them out.
The Watcher, I hadn't realised just how quick of the line the English regions would be to grab business and jobs from Scotland. It is going to be like a small woodland animal being torn to pieces by wolves.
It's a no brainer for the North East, and others. Did none of the Scots see this coming, regardless of the referendum outcome?
It is nonsense to suggest Scotland will not be a successful country as an independent state. We are one of the richest countries in the world and that is without oil and gas.
There are many UK ministries which have their "nuts and bolts" based in Scotland such as HMRC and pensions. They cannot just be moved. It takes years to plan and execute logistical changes on that scale. If English based organisations can outsource their entire backroom to India etc they can outsource them to Cowlairs or Cumbernauld. It will be far less expensive and far less disruptive to squabble over such minor things when so many major things will have to be decided.
We are in for a difficult enough couple of years on both sides of Hadrian's Wall if and assuming there is a YES vote next week. Politicians will be only too happy to kick much of the trivial into the long grass. Too many of them will be concentrating on keeping their jobs.
If we do vote YES next week, I suspect huge political changes will start in England. Where they will lead frankly doesn't bother me too much. I will be too busy doing my bit to make Scotland as successful as possible.
Well said.
DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND
Everything will be brought back to England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as soon as possible. Everything.
Politics = votes = jobs for the boys. No politician in England stands a chance of being elected unless he or she promises to bring home every government job from Scotland, and give those jobs to FUK voters. Any MP that says "Oh let's help Scotland, keep these jobs in a foreign country" will be laughed to scorn, and thrown out of parliament.
You say we don't understand the mood up there. You are surely right. But you don't understand the mood down here. The English feel they are being dumped by an ungrateful, disloyal partner, for no good reason, and they feel - correctly - that this absurd flounce will cause economic pain for us all. We want you to stay, even now, but if you don't?
The English won't want revenge, as such, but we will chase you all the way through the divorce courts. And we can afford better lawyers.
You forgot to add don't give us any of that joint currency bollocks either. :-)
It is nonsense to suggest Scotland will not be a successful country as an independent state. We are one of the richest countries in the world and that is without oil and gas.
There are many UK ministries which have their "nuts and bolts" based in Scotland such as HMRC and pensions. They cannot just be moved. It takes years to plan and execute logistical changes on that scale. If English based organisations can outsource their entire backroom to India etc they can outsource them to Cowlairs or Cumbernauld. It will be far less expensive and far less disruptive to squabble over such minor things when so many major things will have to be decided.
We are in for a difficult enough couple of years on both sides of Hadrian's Wall if and assuming there is a YES vote next week. Politicians will be only too happy to kick much of the trivial into the long grass. Too many of them will be concentrating on keeping their jobs.
If we do vote YES next week, I suspect huge political changes will start in England. Where they will lead frankly doesn't bother me too much. I will be too busy doing my bit to make Scotland as successful as possible.
Well said.
DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND
Everything will be brought back to England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as soon as possible. Everything.
Politics = votes = jobs for the boys. No politician in England stands a chance of being elected unless he or she promises to bring home every government job from Scotland, and give those jobs to FUK voters. Any MP that says "Oh let's help Scotland, keep these jobs in a foreign country" will be laughed to scorn, and thrown out of parliament.
You say we don't understand the mood up there. You are surely right. But you don't understand the mood down here. The English feel they are being dumped by an ungrateful, disloyal partner, for no good reason, and they feel - correctly - that this absurd flounce will cause economic pain for us all. We want you to stay, even now, but if you don't?
The English won't want revenge, as such, but we will chase you all the way through the divorce courts. And we can afford better lawyers.
All true, but you assume Cameron has a backbone. He's crap at negotiations and leading so he could just as easily cave in to his civil servants and give Salmond everything he wants in the name of 'stability'.
80% of Scots vote for left-wing parties. Higher public spending and higher taxes are what they want.
That's true, but remember that at the moment they are spending someone else's money. I suspect that Scots will take a rather different view if and when public spending increases impact directly on their own wallets. As I've said before, if Scotland does become independent, there will be a Thatcherite shock of readjustment, but I think that after a while the Scots will recover their historic virtues of thrift, hard-work, and sound finances. It may well be quite painful for a while, though.
Richard, yes that is what will happen, eventually, but it may take more than 5 years to max out lending sources unless there was a major drop in the price of oil.
Thank goodness there are no impending threats to UK's exporting capacity.
Scotland leaving would just be a change in how the numbers are measured. It doesn't mean rUK exports any less or that people would be poorer as a result.
In fact, if you actually think about practical changes from independence, less oil exports would mean a weaker pound, which would mean more competitive manufacturing exports, which would mean rUK actually would export more than it currently does.
Looking at the polls I would say the Nats have won and independence is certain.
They may not win this referendum, but it looks like the margin of defeat or victory will be small so that even a win for "NO" will simply fire up Nat enthusiasm for further referenda until they get the "right" result.
The fall out from the whole process is how businesses and investors will see Scotland from this point forward. If this referendum business is going to continue then I would think that medium to long term investment in Scotland is going to drop. The MOD would certainly be in a tricky position because how could they place long term orders in a country where indy refs are happening every few years?
As for comments about things like HMRC, I have not sent them any paper for a couple of years now - everything is electronic and all payments just go via BACS so moving HMRC's systems is not all that tricky. The harder stuff will be things that require infrastructure such as Douneray or Faslane.
I cannot see how Scotland cannot be damaged by this whole process. Somehow a line needs to be drawn under this whole affair. Either no more indy referenda for 25 years or go independent, but the uncertainty has to stop because it helps no one.
Comments
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11081953/Scottish-independence-a-defining-moment-for-England-too.html
Mind you, Vernon's partly responsible - wasn't he Cameron's tutor at Oxford? :-)
Neither one of them acknowledged that both taxation, and public spending, are at historically and relatively high levels. It seems that whichever way the referendum vote goes, Scots will be getting their wallets lightened.
He would seem however to have intervened in indyref and might get splattered just a bit by the brown sharny stuff in the event of a yes: consider the infamous proposal to annexe Faslane and Coulport to EWNI, and the anonymous minister, thought by some to be him, who said that the currency union refusal was all bluff in the face of the Trident issue. Or have I got the wrong chap?
I see Britain's Worst Pundit (tm) has waded in with his usual flair:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100285693/if-scotland-votes-to-leave-it-will-be-self-serving-labours-fault/
Beyond parody.
I very much doubt that the UK government has lavished that sort of money on its administrative infrastructure.
Will you guys simply stop with the delusion that Independence will be an End of Days scenario for Scotland, but hardly noticed by England?
The degree to which one uses Scots rather than English is very heavily mediated by social context and occasion. I have a friend who speaks almost standard English but reverts to her far northern Scots accent when she is with her sister. I almost wondered for a moment if your friends' boys are deliberately using Scots as a joke when you are around.
Edit: there will also be an influx of modern and urban slang, and, in Lothian, Romany in the more informal contexts. Gadgie for instance.
I certainly would have no trust in any 'deal' created by Gordon Brown. I suspect that a close No vote now would be awful - far better to let Scotland go their own way - and good luck to them. Then there'd be the difficult, but easier task of reconstructing the political system for the rest of the UK. I suspect that there'll need to be big changes for both left and right-wing parties but I think there's a better chance of consensus without Scotland than with, given the current state of play. The nonsense about Scotland being ruled by a party it didn't vote for is just that, but it seems to have a strange credence there lacking in say southern England which has accepted a similar situation for many years without too much rancour. Under those circumstances - time to lance the boil.
I'm not sure how much indy would affect it - Eastenders (presumably) would continue to affect Scots slang as much as Rab C. Nesbitt. Though there might be some shift in what is considered socially superor accents. Fascinating research project for linguists there.
How many people in SLAB think the Union is worth saving, even if a Conservative government is in charge, after 2015?
There will be costs on both sides, but they will overwhelmingly fall on the side of a separate Scotland. You can't wish it away.
"I see Britain's Worst Pundit (tm) has waded in with his usual flair:"
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100285693/if-scotland-votes-to-leave-it-will-be-self-serving-labours-fault/
At least he's consistant....
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100258639/what-will-the-eurosceptics-and-scottish-nationalists-do-once-theyve-been-defeated/
Easterross 57% of 16-18 year olds when last polled are voting No http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11074886/Young-voters-could-tip-the-balance-in-Scottish-independence-referendum.html
You assume that the govt have not spent in this area and i am pretty certain that in most sectors you are correct. Where privatisation has occured then this important provision has been rightly given more attention and more money - the DR solution for NATS is a great example.
However the blanket "you guys" statement is hardly fair. I was making a technical point rather than a political one. And you appear to think I am a NO supporter too.
twitter.com/blairmcdougall/status/91611845969985536
It really ought to be pretty clear to everyone that your cause is not so much scottish independence but hatred of everyone south of Gretna Green.
You have a sad inadequate chip on your shoulder and are a poor advert for Scotland. The worry for an independent Scotland of course is that once they have no excuse to hate anyone from outside they will turn on each other. Its started already.
Incidentally how are the shares in Scots based firms doing today?
Given he is wrong about pretty much everything, maybe we really are about to feel the hand of history on our shoulders! Him and Brown in the No camp, strongly suggests that Yes is the right way to vote.
Actually I genuinely don't care, but am getting the popcorn in anyway.
It is better for people in Scotland to decide how to spend Scotland's money rather than people in Westminster.
Contrary to some on here, I suspect that in the event of a YES vote on September 18th, the Friday will see all sides desperately trying to calm, soothe and mollify. The rhetoric will be switched off and the air will be filled with the sound of sweet reason and compromise.
David Cameron and Alex Salmond will meet within a day or so to promote the general sense of geniality, bonhomie and the notion that it's business as usual and life goes on. Neither will want to be hubristic, euphoric or rub the other's nose in the result (that can happen on places like this which don't matter).
Above all, the aim will be to convince the markets and investors that everything has been planned for and everyting is under control.
As to what will happen at the Party Conferences and especially at fringe meetings - well, as always, that's the most interesting part of all the Conferences.
It is very simple to understand.
Those who think that a major IT system can't be either shifted or replicated within either a day or two or at worst in a month is kidding themselves.
Training additional bods to operate the front end system will take a bit longer - but it's not exactly *hard* or complex - like building a bypass.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/09/the-myth-of-meritocratic-scotland/
It's just the way the cookie crumbles with where their votes go. It's like Lib Dem voters shifting to UKIP and suddenly turning from left wing votes to right wing votes.
Welcome back, Mr. C. Nice to see people returning recently, and intermittent posters back on as well.
F1: if Montezemolo gets moved and Mattiaci is promoted, could Brawn become team principal of Ferrari?
http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2014/09/09/enjoying-the-real-world/
In 2009 the £ touched below $1.40 and the FTSE was languising in the mid 4000s. The world didn't end.
Make your mind up based on what you want for your future and that of your children, grandchildren etc, be that Yes or No. Don't be bullied.
In the 30 years since Michael Foot was the Labour Leader, we have in Ed Miliband the only permanent English born Leader of Labour. The English could be said to have had less influence in the Leadership of the Labour party than the Welsh (9 years Kinnock) or Scotland (almost 5 years Smith and Brown). Blair was born and schooled in Scotland - he just came across to the English as one of them. Adding Blair's years to the Scottish number shows how dominated England has been from people born outside England. With very little complaint or protest.
The real problem for Labour is how SLAB voters have turned their backs on the English Leader of the Labour party. Miliband's ratings in Scotland are simply appallingly bad. Faced with a GE next year, Scottish voters seem unenthused by the choice of the main parties all having an English born Leader.
Plenty of Scots don't vote Tory because they see it as the English party. Quite a few SNP voters are centre-right (including Stuart Dickson of this parish)
I think Ashcroft found 16% of Scots are Tory and a further 10% lean Labour but prefer Cameron as PM. But they tactically vote SNP or Labour depending on local circumstances. Furthermore, almost 1/3rd of voters admitted having voted Tory at some point in the past.
I imagine an independent centre-right party in an independent Scotland would start with a working base of 25% and potentially be able to take it from there into a governing coalition.
I realise that where’s there a will, but in my experience, where there’s a will someone is very discontented!
BTW Plato - nice to hear from you again :-)
Thank you. What then puzzles me is that, as much discussed elsewhere recently, the Agreement itself specifies (I refer especially to the last sentence in this para):
Government activity during the 28 days before the referendum
29. It is customary for there to be a period before elections in the UK, during which Ministers and other public bodies refrain from publishing material that would have a bearing on the election. Section 125 of PPERA sets out the restrictions that apply to Ministers and public bodies in the 28 days preceding referendums held under that Act. Both governments recognise the importance of respecting the 28-day period prior to a referendum, in the same way that both governments already respect each other’s pre-election period for Parliamentary elections. The Scottish Government will set out details of restricted behaviour for Scottish Ministers and devolved public bodies in the Referendum Bill to be introduced into the Scottish Parliament. These details will be based on the restrictions set out in PPERA. The UK Government has committed to act according to the same PPERA-based rules during the 28 day period.
Am I missing something?
Presumably Mr Brown and Labour hardly qualify as part of the UK Gmt, though their cooperation with UK Gmt is hardly n the spirit of the agreement even now.
Oh dear...
If the Union breaks (still an if, just) the bulk of the blame lies with Labour.
Which is why Cameron must resign. Obviously.
Short-termist self-interested moronic meddling from Labour has led us to this point. Blaming Cameron is like blaming a captain for the ship sinking when his predecessor cut several fetching holes in the hull halfway through crossing the Atlantic.
His bluff will have been called on the question/timing and his hands-off/apathetic 'meh' approach to campaigning will have still lost it, and both of these are decisions he took for which he will have to take responsibility.
When ICM started hindcasting their polls with a spiral of silence adjustment, the outcome of most polls was stunningly close to the actual result. And the rest is rock and roll...
Course, given the unique circumstances of this referendum, they could all be getting their polls wrong again... But that's not necessarily good news for NO and bad news for YES...
Are you really claiming an Etonian Tory campaigning in Scotland would have swung votes away from Yes?
Apart from that, great point...
A leader leads.
Don't underestimate Scottish canniness, or the propensity of people to get undhirunk and ask themselves what's safest for their pockets. I think NO will win in Scotland by 5-10%.
Didn't someone say that YouGov weighted by voting percentages in the 2011 Scottish GE? If so, that's ridiculous. They might have arrived at a better figure if they weighted by that election, then by the 2010 GE results in Scotland, and then calculated figures that were on the other side of 2010 GE from 2011 SGE and the same distance. Why do I say that? Because of turnout and interest. The SNP did very well in 2011 because the SGE is a big local election, perceived as an excellent occasion for sending a disapproving message to the (British) government. SImilarly UKIP won in this year's Euros. The SNP got far fewer votes in the 2010 GE, and turnout was much higher, because people in Scotland see the UKGE as more important than the SGE. And they don't vote to send a message to anyone, which some people do do when answering pollsters. Think of the SNP or YeSNP as like UKIP even if they're in office in Holyrood.
And as I said, the referendum is on the other side of the UKGE from the SGE. Turnout figures will show that. So will the fall in the YES percentage from whatever the polls on the eve of the referendum predict.
The clever money is still going on NO.
My Latin is very poor anyway.
The Welsh will be snapping at Scottish heels too.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29122511
Thank goodness there are no impending threats to the UK's exporting capacity.
But then I'd expect a UKIP surge of course.
In fact, if you actually think about practical changes from independence, less oil exports would mean a weaker pound, which would mean more competitive manufacturing exports, which would mean rUK actually would export more than it currently does.
They may not win this referendum, but it looks like the margin of defeat or victory will be small so that even a win for "NO" will simply fire up Nat enthusiasm for further referenda until they get the "right" result.
The fall out from the whole process is how businesses and investors will see Scotland from this point forward. If this referendum business is going to continue then I would think that medium to long term investment in Scotland is going to drop. The MOD would certainly be in a tricky position because how could they place long term orders in a country where indy refs are happening every few years?
As for comments about things like HMRC, I have not sent them any paper for a couple of years now - everything is electronic and all payments just go via BACS so moving HMRC's systems is not all that tricky. The harder stuff will be things that require infrastructure such as Douneray or Faslane.
I cannot see how Scotland cannot be damaged by this whole process. Somehow a line needs to be drawn under this whole affair. Either no more indy referenda for 25 years or go independent, but the uncertainty has to stop because it helps no one.