Just to add that surely it would be far easier to cut the number of Scottish MPs at Westminster. This was actually done post-devolution but in that case it was simply about reducing them so that Scotland was no long over-represented but in line with England on a population basis.
Irregardless of reasoning or belief, I simply do not see how doing a protest march to the BBC in Glasgow is positive or showing Yes in a bright light?
I don't watch the BBC hardly ever (only on when my wife watches Eastenders). I love Sky Sports most of the time; Boxing and Golf nut.
Anyway, protest march is a massive turn off, IMO.
They're utterly mad -Last time I visited Wings Over Scotland I saw it said that they think the BBC created/fostered UKIP! Like seriously -the most left wing saturated public body this side of DPRK.
The astounding bravery and courage of the three men who are about to to be decapitated magnifies the absolute cowardice of their killers..Does Allah really want such low life to enter into his kingdom..
Whilst I find Alex Jones to be on edge of lunacy at times, he did give a lot of prominence to the unfashionable subject of ClimateGate.
I applaud him for that. It needed saying Big Time. And for those of us who are very familiar with the subject - it was a God send to have a very mouthy man with a microphone, when the MSM were cringing.
Whoever's side we're on, and whether you agree with this article or not, can we at least agree that there is a bigger geopolitical strategy at play here than simply 'the civillians' or 'the war on terror'?
What's frustrating about this is that not only is there this huge media taboo on talking about the strategic reasons for wars until about 30 years after the wars are over meaning there's hardly anything from "mainstream" sources, most of the non-mainstream people who do talk about them are nuts.
I think Alex Jones and that sort of stream are, perhaps not nuts, but idiots. But others whom I cite, I don't think are nuts -I think they have a very anti-US editorial stance, and therefore are portrayed as nuts. It's ridiculous that our debate consists of 'is Sam Cam making him do it' 'Is it his Eton background' and other such superficial guff, when there's actually a serious East/West geopolitical conflict being played out both in Eastern Europe and the ME, and it doesn't appear in our media, so even on forums like this with a very intelligent audience, people aren't aware.
Here's some truth for people: We are not trying to stop ISIS. Even as Cameron tries to convince us to bomb (helped by the latest ISIS home movie), we have not asked Turkey to close their border, we have not agreed to coordinate with Assad, we have not done anything about KSAs funding and radicalisation, we have not tried to cut off their ability to sell oil on the international market.
LOL, that from the mob that beat up 80 year olds and bottle young girls
Please don't cherry pick individual 'events' to try and and muddy the waters and create some kind of equivalence. The entire tone of the yes campaign is stridently obnoxious. 'No' don't have a 'convince a granny' strategy where vile people try and browbeat the elderly into changing their vote (which they may be doing to try and protect their pensions), 'No' don't have a frogmarch to freedom strategy to get people to the polling stations etc etc etc.
LOL, so you just make something up in your fevered imagination , vague bullshit innuendo and I give you real violent occurences and you start wittering on about cherry picking. Just because YES people will go happily to vote and want a carnival atmosphere does not make BT's doom and gloom dread laden drudgery what everyone should aspire to. You are sad losers , losing sadly and some of you will trudge sadly to vote on Thursday , many others will whinge for years about imaginary intimidation making it impossible for them to try and vote their country down. No hope versus ambition and vision.
I'm afraid you're completely failing (as an entire campaign) to see yourselves as others see you. All these websites talking to each other and becoming pickled in your own views -it's not surprising. A yes voter in my office the other day (the only one trying to convince everyone with her loud passive aggressive opining for yes -every office has one) was saying how angry she was that old people might get no over the line, and that they shouldn't be so selfish because they only had 15 years or so left to live. She couldn't see (and no one told her) what an utterly callous cow she was being. Every standard is subsumed in 'yes'.
Least compelling anecdote I have ever seen in print. I thought we weren't meant to be "cherry picking individual events", someone said?
I also don't see anything callous about her remark, it's just rather dim (old people have descendants...)
There is anyway an obvious problem with simplistic EV4EL/English Parliament suggestions. That is that devolution in the UK isn't currently equal. The Welsh parliament doesn't have the same powers as the Scottish Parliament or the NI parliament or the GLA etc etc. Create an English Parliament on the same basis as the Scottish one, and you would be forced to give exactly the same powers to the others. Otherwise you might have Welsh only laws being voted on at Westminster! But (and considering the devolution to eg London complicating things) i don't think you could easily come up with a system of Federal parliaments all with equal powers. Because the powers for some might be inappropriate with the powers for others.
Control over income tax (as proposed in DevoMax) is especially complicated. Because levels of income tax raised are influenced by levels of Govt spending. Govt puts a large agency in Glasgow - income tax in Scotland rises. Said agency is moved to Wales - income tax in Wales rises (and falls in Scotland). It's a dog's breakfast.
Uncharacteristically humble piece from Rentoul (the Indy is definitely the most sh!t of all the mainstream news sites).
'Scottish independence vote: The fun has gone out of my referendum sweepstake Why I plead guilty to being no good at election predictions, and living in the Westminster bubble'
The bank account protection policy: Is it £85k per bank or per account or TOTAL ?
I bank with RBS.
Per bank
It's complicated because of mergers - usually it's per merged bank (so e.g. Britannia was part of the Co-op, IIRC, and you had to watch if you had accounts in both). But there are certain exceptions. Which or the FSA are probably the best websites to check.
You are protected up to £85,000 for deposits held within an entity that holds a banking authorisation from the Prudential Regulation Authority... This is usually a single bank but not necessarily so as some banks, building societies or credit unions actually share a banking authorisation for one of a number of reasons. Basically, look at your bank and check it's PRA authorisation number and that is different from that of any other bank with which you hold a deposit. The £85,000 protection is per individual, so a joint account of £170,000 is protected.
LOL, that from the mob that beat up 80 year olds and bottle young girls
Please don't cherry pick individual 'events' to try and and muddy the waters and create some kind of equivalence. The entire tone of the yes campaign is stridently obnoxious. 'No' don't have a 'convince a granny' strategy where vile people try and browbeat the elderly into changing their vote (which they may be doing to try and protect their pensions), 'No' don't have a frogmarch to freedom strategy to get people to the polling stations etc etc etc.
LOL, so you just make something up in your fevered imagination , vague bullshit innuendo and I give you real violent occurences and you start wittering on about cherry picking. Just because YES people will go happily to vote and want a carnival atmosphere does not make BT's doom and gloom dread laden drudgery what everyone should aspire to. You are sad losers , losing sadly and some of you will trudge sadly to vote on Thursday , many others will whinge for years about imaginary intimidation making it impossible for them to try and vote their country down. No hope versus ambition and vision.
I'm afraid you're completely failing (as an entire campaign) to see yourselves as others see you. All these websites talking to each other and becoming pickled in your own views -it's not surprising. A yes voter in my office the other day (the only one trying to convince everyone with her loud passive aggressive opining for yes -every office has one) was saying how angry she was that old people might get no over the line, and that they shouldn't be so selfish because they only had 15 years or so left to live. She couldn't see (and no one told her) what an utterly callous cow she was being. Every standard is subsumed in 'yes'.
Least compelling anecdote I have ever seen in print. I thought we weren't meant to be "cherry picking individual events", someone said?
I also don't see anything callous about her remark, it's just rather dim (old people have descendants...)
If you think essentially saying that old people should shut up and die isn't callous, that's your affair, as is whether you felt compelled by my anecdote or not.
It had an unweighted YES lead of 0.9% which became a weighted YES lead of 7%
But the main anomaly seems to be female voters. Almost every other poll, as far as I know, has women mildly or firmly NO.
This one has women in favour of YES - 45 Y/42 N.
Hmm.
Well, that's enough evidence for me to dismiss it. (Reading between the lines, Prof. Curtice seemed to be hinting it was cobblers yesterday, but refrained from doing so out of professional decorum.)
Mr. Booth, obsession? I want equality for England. Why should we alone be deprived of self-governance?
Mr. Alex, the rise of UKIP and enthusiasm of its supporters would suggest otherwise.
It is very easy for populist politicians outside of power to attract a sizeable minority of the electorate (especially at a time of Govt discontent, where the Govt occupies a similar part of the political spectrum). The main parties cannot ignore them, but equally cannot adopt their political platform (because it is never enough to attract an election winning proportion of the electorate!). All they can do is finesse some of their concerns and hope that they manage to gain some power somewhere without doing much damage before the implode from the contradictions within their support.
Irregardless of reasoning or belief, I simply do not see how doing a protest march to the BBC in Glasgow is positive or showing Yes in a bright light?
I don't watch the BBC hardly ever (only on when my wife watches Eastenders). I love Sky Sports most of the time; Boxing and Golf nut.
Anyway, protest march is a massive turn off, IMO.
They're utterly mad -Last time I visited Wings Over Scotland I saw it said that they think the BBC created/fostered UKIP! Like seriously -the most left wing saturated public body this side of DPRK.
How odd. I wonder what on earth the logic was too link UKIP with the BBC?!
Mr. Alex, indeed, Labour's moronically short-sighted idiotic attempt to build itself some little Celtic fiefdoms was monstrously ill-planned. But maintaining the present injustice is not acceptable.
It had an unweighted YES lead of 0.9% which became a weighted YES lead of 7%
But the main anomaly seems to be female voters. Almost every other poll, as far as I know, has women mildly or firmly NO.
This one has women in favour of YES - 45 Y/42 N.
Hmm.
Well, that's enough evidence for me to dismiss it. (Reading between the lines, Prof. Curtice seemed to be hinting it was cobblers yesterday, but refrained from doing so out of professional decorum.)
Added to that; Boon himself said to call it an 'outlier'.
Irregardless of reasoning or belief, I simply do not see how doing a protest march to the BBC in Glasgow is positive or showing Yes in a bright light?
I don't watch the BBC hardly ever (only on when my wife watches Eastenders). I love Sky Sports most of the time; Boxing and Golf nut.
Anyway, protest march is a massive turn off, IMO.
They're utterly mad -Last time I visited Wings Over Scotland I saw it said that they think the BBC created/fostered UKIP! Like seriously -the most left wing saturated public body this side of DPRK.
How odd. I wonder what on earth the logic was too link UKIP with the BBC?!
hmm I wouldn't spend too much time looking for logic on a site run by a gamer pretending to be a pastor in Scotland but who actually lives in Somerset
Irregardless of reasoning or belief, I simply do not see how doing a protest march to the BBC in Glasgow is positive or showing Yes in a bright light?
I don't watch the BBC hardly ever (only on when my wife watches Eastenders). I love Sky Sports most of the time; Boxing and Golf nut.
Anyway, protest march is a massive turn off, IMO.
They're utterly mad -Last time I visited Wings Over Scotland I saw it said that they think the BBC created/fostered UKIP! Like seriously -the most left wing saturated public body this side of DPRK.
How odd. I wonder what on earth the logic was too link UKIP with the BBC?!
hmm I wouldn't spend too much time looking for logic on a site run by a gamer pretending to be a pastor in Scotland but who actually lives in Somerset
Aye, fair point.
Any thoughts of trying to wonder how that worked, are now gone.
I will continue to admire the left hand of Anthony Joshua instead.
Mr. Booth, quite right to suggest post-No the spotlight would shift as much to England as Scotland. People don't want weak-kneed bedwetting regional assemblies (unless you're Nick Clegg, of course). We want an English Parliament, or at least English votes for English laws.
It could be the key to UKIP getting many more seats than they otherwise would.
An English parliament would surely be the beginning of the end of the UK. If people believe in this then let them say so honestly. I can't understand this EVFEL obsession. I certainly wouldn't favour it if I was a Tory. greater powers for Scotland whilst Labour governments would be no less likely to be formed in London. They just might not be able to pass many laws. But they would still be governing across all areas.
Whatever happens now, the UK in its old form is gone forever. And probably a good thing too. If by some miracle the No side wins, a looser federation is probably where we are going to end up with a further level of devolved powers in England to regional/city level. If, as I expect, Yes wins - the rUK is also going to have look very closely at its constitution.
The astounding bravery and courage of the three men who are about to to be decapitated magnifies the absolute cowardice of their killers..Does Allah really want such low life to enter into his kingdom..
I don't believe that these men thought they were about to die. Either because: a) they weren't about to die and the videos are fake, or b) they were about to die, but thought it was play acting.
Why wouldn't you run away and get shot in the back? Preferable to a knife in the throat. Why read the whole speech? No signs whatever of mistreatment either.
I'm not watching the video, but I have read this Scottish guy's script -it could have been written by someone wanting to sign the UK up to bomb. It's virtually word for word a 'war sceptic' statement -meaning anyone who makes those arguments will now be making 'ISIS' arguments. It even has a nice PR bit for Tony Blair about him attacking Al Qaeda (which he never did).
But even the price of sending a letter from one address in Edinburgh to another address in Edinburgh will soar if there is to be a single-rate universal delivery service in iScotland.
ooooooooooh we are trembling at the thought of being 20p out of pocket.
That's it, have a good scoff.
In Scotland the average cost of delivering an inland letter (Scotland to Scotland) is probably about 3-4 times what it is for Britain as a whole.
Will you scoff at the absence of a bank deposit protection scheme at the rUK (~EU) level too?
And at higher prices, as predicted by the CEO of John Lewis, citing reasons almost everyone can understand?
The Yes campaign seems intoxicated. Alec Salmond's pronunciation this morning that we intending No voters are just delayed supporters of Yes supports this assessment. Getting a handle on it from another direction, you could also call it similar to a short-lived religious movement.
Yes activists from outside of the SNP who have donated time and money really believe that they are going to be in the driving seat after a Yes win. Taken seriously by politicians. The 'Scottish people' in control. They don't realise they've been used. They're like Jehovah's Witnesses believing they'll be saved when the rest of us perish in the imminent end of the world. Except the end of the world doesn't come, and most of them get burnt out. If Yes wins, most activists will probably be sent emails saying "thanks", sent from a "no-reply-to" address. Poor souls.
Most people in Scotland will be financially worse off in if Yes win - in ways that range from the short term to the long term, from the small to the sizeable. There are all sorts of relative benefits that we enjoy by being in the union rather than independent, and sure, Malcolm, have a good scoff at all of them.
LOL, so you just make something up in your fevered imagination , vague bullshit innuendo and I give you real violent occurences and you start wittering on about cherry picking. Just because YES people will go happily to vote and want a carnival atmosphere does not make BT's doom and gloom dread laden drudgery what everyone should aspire to. You are sad losers , losing sadly and some of you will trudge sadly to vote on Thursday , many others will whinge for years about imaginary intimidation making it impossible for them to try and vote their country down. No hope versus ambition and vision.
I'm afraid you're completely failing (as an entire campaign) to see yourselves as others see you. All these websites talking to each other and becoming pickled in your own views -it's not surprising. A yes voter in my office the other day (the only one trying to convince everyone with her loud passive aggressive opining for yes -every office has one) was saying how angry she was that old people might get no over the line, and that they shouldn't be so selfish because they only had 15 years or so left to live. She couldn't see (and no one told her) what an utterly callous cow she was being. Every standard is subsumed in 'yes'.
Least compelling anecdote I have ever seen in print. I thought we weren't meant to be "cherry picking individual events", someone said?
I also don't see anything callous about her remark, it's just rather dim (old people have descendants...)
There are tens of thousands or activists out there. And you think this anecdote is not cherry picking? Gie's peace. How about the right-wing No campaigning nutter who kicked a pregnant women in the stomach? Or the attack on No campaigners outside the football stadium? An old Yes voting man with a broken arm? The key flashpoints have all been aggressive Unionists albeit on the extremes. Your example is about freedom of speech this is violent intimidation!
But then bullying underpins the No campaign. Chiefs in banks and supermarkets intimated by Downing Street into terrifying voters with scaremongering stories. And blatant propaganda by the BBC run by an ex-banker being sued for laundering. The coverage is pure intimidation.
London steal it all currently and make us pay for their failures , so win-win for us, we will get some money and no liabilities.
Actually the London Government borrows a lot of money every year at the moment (£2bn a week supposedly) of which £100m or so finds its way back to Scotland.
How will the Scottish Government make up that money to keep services going...
eek, we will not be funding wars , trident , London infrasructure to name just a few, we will save far more than that. Ireland gets BBC crap for 21M and we get stung 320M for that alone. We will not pay for the pig swill trough , HOL, champagne guzzling FO lackeys etc. I could go on all day.
Good to hear that you won't be funding wars. That's a sensible decision because you know that there's diddly squat you can do to stop the UK taking an equivalent share of Scottish assets if Scotland really does follow through on Salmond's threat not to pay Scotland's share of the UK's national debt. To make things simple, the UK could just appropriate Shetland and the territorial waters around it in perpetuity, and have done with it.
Shetland is an enclave within Scotland's EEZ and would not have any economic rights beyond the 12 nautical mile territorial limit - so no oilfields.
Comments
I applaud him for that. It needed saying Big Time. And for those of us who are very familiar with the subject - it was a God send to have a very mouthy man with a microphone, when the MSM were cringing.
I also don't see anything callous about her remark, it's just rather dim (old people have descendants...)
Mr. Alex, the rise of UKIP and enthusiasm of its supporters would suggest otherwise.
Control over income tax (as proposed in DevoMax) is especially complicated. Because levels of income tax raised are influenced by levels of Govt spending. Govt puts a large agency in Glasgow - income tax in Scotland rises. Said agency is moved to Wales - income tax in Wales rises (and falls in Scotland). It's a dog's breakfast.
'Scottish independence vote: The fun has gone out of my referendum sweepstake
Why I plead guilty to being no good at election predictions, and living in the Westminster bubble'
http://tinyurl.com/q9fub8n
Any thoughts of trying to wonder how that worked, are now gone.
I will continue to admire the left hand of Anthony Joshua instead.
a) they weren't about to die and the videos are fake, or
b) they were about to die, but thought it was play acting.
Why wouldn't you run away and get shot in the back? Preferable to a knife in the throat. Why read the whole speech? No signs whatever of mistreatment either.
As I posted before, this is Steven Sotloff:
http://friendsofsyria.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/10672238_771548192891571_7878428630419055706_n1.jpg?w=640
This is off, really off.
I'm not watching the video, but I have read this Scottish guy's script -it could have been written by someone wanting to sign the UK up to bomb. It's virtually word for word a 'war sceptic' statement -meaning anyone who makes those arguments will now be making 'ISIS' arguments. It even has a nice PR bit for Tony Blair about him attacking Al Qaeda (which he never did).
In Scotland the average cost of delivering an inland letter (Scotland to Scotland) is probably about 3-4 times what it is for Britain as a whole.
Will you scoff at the absence of a bank deposit protection scheme at the rUK (~EU) level too?
And at higher prices, as predicted by the CEO of John Lewis, citing reasons almost everyone can understand?
The Yes campaign seems intoxicated. Alec Salmond's pronunciation this morning that we intending No voters are just delayed supporters of Yes supports this assessment. Getting a handle on it from another direction, you could also call it similar to a short-lived religious movement.
Yes activists from outside of the SNP who have donated time and money really believe that they are going to be in the driving seat after a Yes win. Taken seriously by politicians. The 'Scottish people' in control. They don't realise they've been used. They're like Jehovah's Witnesses believing they'll be saved when the rest of us perish in the imminent end of the world. Except the end of the world doesn't come, and most of them get burnt out. If Yes wins, most activists will probably be sent emails saying "thanks", sent from a "no-reply-to" address. Poor souls.
Most people in Scotland will be financially worse off in if Yes win - in ways that range from the short term to the long term, from the small to the sizeable. There are all sorts of relative benefits that we enjoy by being in the union rather than independent, and sure, Malcolm, have a good scoff at all of them.
Least compelling anecdote I have ever seen in print. I thought we weren't meant to be "cherry picking individual events", someone said?
I also don't see anything callous about her remark, it's just rather dim (old people have descendants...)
There are tens of thousands or activists out there. And you think this anecdote is not cherry picking? Gie's peace. How about the right-wing No campaigning nutter who kicked a pregnant women in the stomach? Or the attack on No campaigners outside the football stadium? An old Yes voting man with a broken arm? The key flashpoints have all been aggressive Unionists albeit on the extremes. Your example is about freedom of speech this is violent intimidation!
But then bullying underpins the No campaign. Chiefs in banks and supermarkets intimated by Downing Street into terrifying voters with scaremongering stories. And blatant propaganda by the BBC run by an ex-banker being sued for laundering. The coverage is pure intimidation.
shut that door!
shut that door!