@Carnyx "To window-smashing etiquette or the (admittedly unfortunate) ambiguity of demotic Scots? " I am not sure, does that make me a "don't know"? Apathy? Who cares?
I don't think the neighbours in the second photo of ths blog posting can be ersed either, but it will please Mr @foxinsoxuk:
Interesting chart here twitter.com/Pete_Spence/status/511477357572784128/photo/1
Me, you, and everyone on here could be making a mint working at MorganStanley... they clearly hire anyone
Yes my grandson could have drawn that up. So much for all these economic experts etc. Stick a same box, a good box and a bad box on a chart and you are done.
So does the word "bitch" but I'd still consider it inappropriate as an insult to a woman. Especially one who wasn't doing anything wrong. We have far too few women on here and this sort of abuse doesn't help.
"Afaik it is used for "door knocking" - no point in going round to the homes of people who have already voted - so it will create a list of "no" voters who have not yet voted to encourage them to do so...."
That sounds more interesting. So I will be doing my bit for the union!
Indeed!
Did you catch the Gordon Brown interview last night - worth watching - puts the current generation in the shade....
I'd forgotten about that. This morning I have been blaming the bedtime cheese for last night's amazing dream in which I found myself agreeing with Gordon Brown.
Yes - he was a man transformed on his own turf, eloquent, fluent, persuasive - very different from the brooding sulk in No 10......
LOL.........fanny alert
Fanny has more than one meaning, especially up here, and not just the unfortunate Miss Adams of Alton.
Rumours that pb.com is going to have all women threads are completely baseless...
Three weeks since the Rotherham report and still no government action.
These questions need to be answered:
1) Why has Home secretary Teresa May taken no action against a police force which has collaborated with child rapists.
2) Why has Rotherham children's services not been placed in 'special measures' instead of remaining under the control of Joyce Thacker, who has admitted to the HoC Home Affairs Committee that she knowingly allowed child rapes to continue.
3) How much did the locally well connected former Communities Minister Sayeeda Warsi know about what was taking place and why did she do nothing about it.
4) Why has Prime Minister David Cameron allowed at least three government departments to take no action.
Since the Rotherham report was published there is now likely to be five NEW child rape victims on the numbers given in it.
Can I recommend you save this, and then repost it on Monday when people will final pay attention to things other than Scotland...
I am pretty sure that as of Monday there will be a strong urge not to talk about Scotland for quite a while - unless its the Ryder Cup
Mr. 67, sometimes drivers complain, but mostly they want the information (more often than not they complain at getting messages at a tricky part of the circuit or the wrong info). Hard to say who it would help/hinder, particularly between Hamilton and Rosberg. One suspects Raikkonen won't really notice.
So does the word "bitch" but I'd still consider it inappropriate as an insult to a woman. Especially one who wasn't doing anything wrong. We have far too few women on here and this sort of abuse doesn't help.
"Afaik it is used for "door knocking" - no point in going round to the homes of people who have already voted - so it will create a list of "no" voters who have not yet voted to encourage them to do so...."
That sounds more interesting. So I will be doing my bit for the union!
Indeed!
Did you catch the Gordon Brown interview last night - worth watching - puts the current generation in the shade....
I'd forgotten about that. This morning I have been blaming the bedtime cheese for last night's amazing dream in which I found myself agreeing with Gordon Brown.
Yes - he was a man transformed on his own turf, eloquent, fluent, persuasive - very different from the brooding sulk in No 10......
LOL.........fanny alert
Fanny has more than one meaning, especially up here, and not just the unfortunate Miss Adams of Alton.
Rumours that pb.com is going to have all women threads are completely baseless...
Where does PB's most famed cross dresser, Peter the Punter, fit in there ?
Can some pb brainiac tell me how opinion pollsters deal with postal voters - i.e. those who have already voted? Are they filtered out and excluded? Are they asked what they voted and added in?
Or are they just asked what they would vote if they had a second go?
*confused in Camden*
I think they ignore the fact that they have already voted, as I don't think they ask about this. They just ask the same questions. Obviously most will just say how they have voted, as they have stuck with their decision. There may be a few that have changed their minds and they will be asked about how they would vote, if they visited a polling station on Thursday.
They struggled again to get enough young voters and C2DE demographics having to heavily up-weight these categories and down-weight the over representation from older voters and ABC1 demographics.
Seems to have been a pattern from most of these polls.
So does the word "bitch" but I'd still consider it inappropriate as an insult to a woman. Especially one who wasn't doing anything wrong. We have far too few women on here and this sort of abuse doesn't help.
"Afaik it is used for "door knocking" - no point in going round to the homes of people who have already voted - so it will create a list of "no" voters who have not yet voted to encourage them to do so...."
That sounds more interesting. So I will be doing my bit for the union!
Indeed!
Did you catch the Gordon Brown interview last night - worth watching - puts the current generation in the shade....
I'd forgotten about that. This morning I have been blaming the bedtime cheese for last night's amazing dream in which I found myself agreeing with Gordon Brown.
Yes - he was a man transformed on his own turf, eloquent, fluent, persuasive - very different from the brooding sulk in No 10......
LOL.........fanny alert
Fanny has more than one meaning, especially up here, and not just the unfortunate Miss Adams of Alton.
Rumours that pb.com is going to have all women threads are completely baseless...
Where does PB's most famed cross dresser, Peter the Punter, fit in there ?
Happy with your final ARSE prediction Jack ? No remorse that you postal voted it in a month early ?
So does the word "bitch" but I'd still consider it inappropriate as an insult to a woman. Especially one who wasn't doing anything wrong. We have far too few women on here and this sort of abuse doesn't help.
"Afaik it is used for "door knocking" - no point in going round to the homes of people who have already voted - so it will create a list of "no" voters who have not yet voted to encourage them to do so...."
That sounds more interesting. So I will be doing my bit for the union!
Indeed!
Did you catch the Gordon Brown interview last night - worth watching - puts the current generation in the shade....
I'd forgotten about that. This morning I have been blaming the bedtime cheese for last night's amazing dream in which I found myself agreeing with Gordon Brown.
Yes - he was a man transformed on his own turf, eloquent, fluent, persuasive - very different from the brooding sulk in No 10......
LOL.........fanny alert
Fanny has more than one meaning, especially up here, and not just the unfortunate Miss Adams of Alton.
Rumours that pb.com is going to have all women threads are completely baseless...
Where does PB's most famed cross dresser, Peter the Punter, fit in there ?
You're back! Welcome back! Hopefully the old ARSE isn't giving you too much gyp!
Mr. 67, sometimes drivers complain, but mostly they want the information (more often than not they complain at getting messages at a tricky part of the circuit or the wrong info). Hard to say who it would help/hinder, particularly between Hamilton and Rosberg. One suspects Raikkonen won't really notice.
Raikkonen only uses his radio to ask for an ice cream at the next pit stop.
So does the word "bitch" but I'd still consider it inappropriate as an insult to a woman. Especially one who wasn't doing anything wrong. We have far too few women on here and this sort of abuse doesn't help.
"Afaik it is used for "door knocking" - no point in going round to the homes of people who have already voted - so it will create a list of "no" voters who have not yet voted to encourage them to do so...."
That sounds more interesting. So I will be doing my bit for the union!
Indeed!
Did you catch the Gordon Brown interview last night - worth watching - puts the current generation in the shade....
I'd forgotten about that. This morning I have been blaming the bedtime cheese for last night's amazing dream in which I found myself agreeing with Gordon Brown.
Yes - he was a man transformed on his own turf, eloquent, fluent, persuasive - very different from the brooding sulk in No 10......
LOL.........fanny alert
Fanny has more than one meaning, especially up here, and not just the unfortunate Miss Adams of Alton.
Rumours that pb.com is going to have all women threads are completely baseless...
Where does PB's most famed cross dresser, Peter the Punter, fit in there ?
Hello Jack. Trust you are well and your (Mc)ARSE in good order.
Whilst the polls are all at 52-48 the datasets are very different and had the methodologies been the same the results would have varied markedly.
The failure to see origin of person polled is an issue as Scots have 8% English and polling companies consistently poll well above that and do not weight down despite a higher percentage feeling they want to be British first and Scottish second. Scots born are a majority for YES at this time in the polls.
I said many months ago YES would win the polling day but the postals were the issue and I still see that as the problem. The fear over pensions when none exists under a strong MSM campaign which did not allay it meant the 60-40 necessary for pensioners voting NO to win overall may just have been achieved.
After all, there is no threat to pensioners who have paid in and live in Spain or Oz now so why would those who live in Scotland be any different? My guess is 51-49 to NO based on women staying with NO, which had Sturgeon run the campaign last 3 months would in my view have been worth 2 or 3% at least a la Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard.
I think you may be right about Sturgeon. At the end of the day, Alex Salmond is divisive and seems overweening - for all his talents as an outstanding retail politician. He got us to this point but may prove unable to get across the line. Women voters don't really go for that alpha male assertiveness and are probably not too keen on all the evident testosterone being pumped out at the moment.
Yes could easily win if they repealed votes for women in devo-Scotland...
They struggled again to get enough young voters and C2DE demographics having to heavily up-weight these categories and down-weight the over representation from older voters and ABC1 demographics.
Seems to have been a pattern from most of these polls.
Thank you for that spot. Most interesting. Especially in a referendum which will see lots of new youngsters, and a great effort by the Lefties and Greens to call out the C2DE mature first time voters ...
So does the word "bitch" but I'd still consider it inappropriate as an insult to a woman. Especially one who wasn't doing anything wrong. We have far too few women on here and this sort of abuse doesn't help.
"Afaik it is used for "door knocking" - no point in going round to the homes of people who have already voted - so it will create a list of "no" voters who have not yet voted to encourage them to do so...."
That sounds more interesting. So I will be doing my bit for the union!
Indeed!
Did you catch the Gordon Brown interview last night - worth watching - puts the current generation in the shade....
I'd forgotten about that. This morning I have been blaming the bedtime cheese for last night's amazing dream in which I found myself agreeing with Gordon Brown.
Yes - he was a man transformed on his own turf, eloquent, fluent, persuasive - very different from the brooding sulk in No 10......
LOL.........fanny alert
Fanny has more than one meaning, especially up here, and not just the unfortunate Miss Adams of Alton.
Rumours that pb.com is going to have all women threads are completely baseless...
Where does PB's most famed cross dresser, Peter the Punter, fit in there ?
You're back! Welcome back! Hopefully the old ARSE isn't giving you too much gyp!
It got well reamed up in Edinburgh, bet he was as popular as Dave and Ed
They struggled again to get enough young voters and C2DE demographics having to heavily up-weight these categories and down-weight the over representation from older voters and ABC1 demographics.
Seems to have been a pattern from most of these polls.
Thank you for that spot. Most interesting. Especially in a referendum which will see lots of new youngsters, and a great effort by the Lefties and Greens to call out the C2DE mature first time voters ...
Could explain the disparity seen between canvasing returns and these polls certainly.
Philip Davies @PhilipDaviesMP 10h For the record, I will not be voting to maintain an unfair funding settlement for Scotland whatever Messrs Cameron, Miliband and Clegg say
Is the Barnett formula unfair ?
I cannot see Westminster looking to change it, after all these years.
So does the word "bitch" but I'd still consider it inappropriate as an insult to a woman. Especially one who wasn't doing anything wrong. We have far too few women on here and this sort of abuse doesn't help.
"Afaik it is used for "door knocking" - no point in going round to the homes of people who have already voted - so it will create a list of "no" voters who have not yet voted to encourage them to do so...."
That sounds more interesting. So I will be doing my bit for the union!
Indeed!
Did you catch the Gordon Brown interview last night - worth watching - puts the current generation in the shade....
I'd forgotten about that. This morning I have been blaming the bedtime cheese for last night's amazing dream in which I found myself agreeing with Gordon Brown.
Yes - he was a man transformed on his own turf, eloquent, fluent, persuasive - very different from the brooding sulk in No 10......
LOL.........fanny alert
Fanny has more than one meaning, especially up here, and not just the unfortunate Miss Adams of Alton.
Rumours that pb.com is going to have all women threads are completely baseless...
Where does PB's most famed cross dresser, Peter the Punter, fit in there ?
You're back! Welcome back! Hopefully the old ARSE isn't giving you too much gyp!
It got well reamed up in Edinburgh, bet he was as popular as Dave and Ed
I think it amazing that you sit on the fence and at the same time shout about making 100s on Betfair .
Assuming that's aimed at OGH that's a bit unfair. I don't always see eye-to-eye with Mike (I think he has a bias against spotting pro-Conservative trends) but he is perfectly entitled to sit on the fence in a tight race, whilst making money in the process. As he reminded me a fortnight ago, this is, after all, a betting site.
"Afaik it is used for "door knocking" - no point in going round to the homes of people who have already voted - so it will create a list of "no" voters who have not yet voted to encourage them to do so...."
That sounds more interesting. So I will be doing my bit for the union!
Indeed!
Did you catch the Gordon Brown interview last night - worth watching - puts the current generation in the shade....
I'd forgotten about that. This morning I have been blaming the bedtime cheese for last night's amazing dream in which I found myself agreeing with Gordon Brown.
Yes - he was a man transformed on his own turf, eloquent, fluent, persuasive - very different from the brooding sulk in No 10......
LOL.........fanny alert
Fanny has more than one meaning, especially up here, and not just the unfortunate Miss Adams of Alton.
Rumours that pb.com is going to have all women threads are completely baseless...
Where does PB's most famed cross dresser, Peter the Punter, fit in there ?
You're back! Welcome back! Hopefully the old ARSE isn't giving you too much gyp!
It got well reamed up in Edinburgh, bet he was as popular as Dave and Ed
So does the word "bitch" but I'd still consider it inappropriate as an insult to a woman. Especially one who wasn't doing anything wrong. We have far too few women on here and this sort of abuse doesn't help.
"Afaik it is used for "door knocking" - no point in going round to the homes of people who have already voted - so it will create a list of "no" voters who have not yet voted to encourage them to do so...."
That sounds more interesting. So I will be doing my bit for the union!
Indeed!
Did you catch the Gordon Brown interview last night - worth watching - puts the current generation in the shade....
I'd forgotten about that. This morning I have been blaming the bedtime cheese for last night's amazing dream in which I found myself agreeing with Gordon Brown.
Yes - he was a man transformed on his own turf, eloquent, fluent, persuasive - very different from the brooding sulk in No 10......
LOL.........fanny alert
Fanny has more than one meaning, especially up here, and not just the unfortunate Miss Adams of Alton.
Rumours that pb.com is going to have all women threads are completely baseless...
Where does PB's most famed cross dresser, Peter the Punter, fit in there ?
You're back! Welcome back! Hopefully the old ARSE isn't giving you too much gyp!
Thank you and to the many others who have expressed good wishes. I'm still on an enforced restricted PB posting regime.
My ARSE remains firm, pert and fully functional in its determination that NO will win a handsome, nay crushing victory. The pollsters should be preparing their facial omelette defences this very day.
They struggled again to get enough young voters and C2DE demographics having to heavily up-weight these categories and down-weight the over representation from older voters and ABC1 demographics.
Seems to have been a pattern from most of these polls.
Which ties-in with Mike's thread leader. This could spell trouble for the pollsters.
They struggled again to get enough young voters and C2DE demographics having to heavily up-weight these categories and down-weight the over representation from older voters and ABC1 demographics.
Seems to have been a pattern from most of these polls.
Thank you for that spot. Most interesting. Especially in a referendum which will see lots of new youngsters, and a great effort by the Lefties and Greens to call out the C2DE mature first time voters ...
How bizarre: they found twice as many people who claimed to have voted LibDem in 2011 than actually did so...
BetFair odds on YES are now out to 5.35. It seems clear that they are much too long. Start from a, say, 51% poll-of-polls NO position. If there only sampling error around this, the confidence interval for the actual NO vote is something like 49.5% - 52.5% i.e. 1.5% (down from 3%) margin-of-error. Just look at this would argue for somewhat lower YES odds.
But the bigger issue are the potential non-sampling errors: - Momentum with YES. Yesterday's polls generally showed an increase in YES support compared to a few days back - Some evidence that Don't Know's tend to move to YES. - Demographic challenges given the likely high turnout, favouring YES owing to the (presumably) disaffected being much more likely to vote. - Shy NOs. - Status quo bias i.e. late swing to NO. I don't think anyone knows the net impact of the above factors. Some imply NO is too low but others imply YES is too low. But the additional uncertainty / error from these factors must widen the likely NO vote range significantly e.g. (and I am guessing here) from 49.5% - 52.5% to something like 46.5% - 55.5%. ... and a range of this width means the current 5.35 YES odds are much much too high.
Philip Davies @PhilipDaviesMP 10h For the record, I will not be voting to maintain an unfair funding settlement for Scotland whatever Messrs Cameron, Miliband and Clegg say
Is the Barnett formula unfair ?
I cannot see Westminster looking to change it, after all these years.
Given that Philip Davies has voted every year to maintain it as a consequence of the Finance Bill (I assume),his tweet seems an odd thing to say...
Three weeks since the Rotherham report and still no government action.
These questions need to be answered:
1) Why has Home secretary Teresa May taken no action against a police force which has collaborated with child rapists.
2) Why has Rotherham children's services not been placed in 'special measures' instead of remaining under the control of Joyce Thacker, who has admitted to the HoC Home Affairs Committee that she knowingly allowed child rapes to continue.
3) How much did the locally well connected former Communities Minister Sayeeda Warsi know about what was taking place and why did she do nothing about it.
4) Why has Prime Minister David Cameron allowed at least three government departments to take no action.
Since the Rotherham report was published there is now likely to be five NEW child rape victims on the numbers given in it.
Can I recommend you save this, and then repost it on Monday when people will final pay attention to things other than Scotland...
An even better idea would be for another_richard to get his facts right and then repost. He might start with a smidgen of research on Sayeeda Warsi's record on this issue.
On the eve of independence, Scotland’s poet laureate pens a valedictory poem to the English people.
“O Arse-lickers chasing gongs, Chicken-hearted tossers. Pathetic creatures scared of your own shadows, Ha ha ha, big gob smacked shut. Sad sack Tory half-wits — You hyenas will chase money anywhere. Come on cretins, you can do it, Ask your mammy to help. You are fanny of the first order, Full of wind and piss. Stick your heads up your erchie, you wittering dimwits, Wobbly chicken-hearted wimps. No wonder England is down the cludgie. Hinge and Brackett are blubbing — Get the Kleenex. Doom and gloom, dread laden drudgery, Are you right in the head? Thick as mince, You turnips!”
Not one of Carol Ann Duffy's better efforts - or was this delegated to Liz Lochead?
BetFair odds on YES are now out to 5.35. It seems clear that they are much too long.
As the first results roll in and they indicate a close race these will surely come in. In fact there's probably a fair bit of money to be made armed with Rod's or numbercruncher's or AndyJS's spreadsheets as the results come in and get misinterpreted. For anyone who can bear to stop watching the coverage long enough to update their position on betfair that is.
BetFair odds on YES are now out to 5.35. It seems clear that they are much too long.
As the first results roll in and they indicate a close race these will surely come in. In fact there's probably a fair bit of money to be made armed with Rod's or numbercruncher's or AndyJS's spreadsheets as the results come in and get misinterpreted. For anyone who can bear to stop watching the coverage long enough to update their position on betfair that is.
Or the other way round - might not get lower than 5.35 again..
I think it amazing that you sit on the fence and at the same time shout about making 100s on Betfair .
No, it's absolutely reasonable. Correctly spotting the moments when the Betfair market over-represents a probability is the way to make money from it, not necessarily correctly predicting the winner.
They struggled again to get enough young voters and C2DE demographics having to heavily up-weight these categories and down-weight the over representation from older voters and ABC1 demographics.
Seems to have been a pattern from most of these polls.
Yes. Note, though, that this merely means that the under-represented groups were polled on a smaller sample, so will tend to have a greater margin of error. It doesn't mean that they have been given too little weight. For example, if portly Martians with green hair were 10% of the electorate, but the pollsters only found 10 of them of them out of 1000, those 10 would be upweighted by a factor of 10 to reflect the significance of this subsample. Since 10 isn't as big number, the risk that they were not representative would be bigger, but you couldn't say that green-haired fat Martians were under-represented.
Can some pb brainiac tell me how opinion pollsters deal with postal voters - i.e. those who have already voted? Are they filtered out and excluded? Are they asked what they voted and added in?
Or are they just asked what they would vote if they had a second go?
*confused in Camden*
I'm pretty sure they aren't allowed to ask how people have voted.. but I don't think I have seen a question in a poll saying 'have you voted already'. Perhaps they aren't filtered at all, and just asked the normal questions.
It's not illegal to ask how someone voted! Let me demonstrate - how did you vote in the last election? You don't have to tell me, but the police won't be calling round.
That said, I don't think polls normally bother, so it's up to voters who have voted to decide how to handle such questions. Perhaps they will tend to respond less.
I found the last time a regional analysis of UK accounts was done. This allocates North Sea oil revenue to Scotland, so no nationalist whingers please. Net contributions:
Scotland: -£2.1bn Northern Ireland: -£7.2bn North East: -£6.8bn North West: -£11.9bn Yorkshire & Humber: -£8.2bn Wales: -£9.3bn East Midlands: -£1.4bn West Midlands: -£5.0bn South West: -£3.6bn East of England: +£5.4bn South East: +£16.3bn Greater London: +£16.0bn
So the government supposedly run in favour of "London and the South East" actually mainly entails taking our money and handing it out to the North, Westcountry and Celtic fringe.
Can some pb brainiac tell me how opinion pollsters deal with postal voters - i.e. those who have already voted? Are they filtered out and excluded? Are they asked what they voted and added in?
Or are they just asked what they would vote if they had a second go?
*confused in Camden*
I'm pretty sure they aren't allowed to ask how people have voted.. but I don't think I have seen a question in a poll saying 'have you voted already'. Perhaps they aren't filtered at all, and just asked the normal questions.
It's not illegal to ask how someone voted! Let me demonstrate - how did you vote in the last election? You don't have to tell me, but the police won't be calling round.
That said, I don't think polls normally bother, so it's up to voters who have voted to decide how to handle such questions. Perhaps they will tend to respond less.
That's actually a very good point (they also ask for how they voted last time!). Still doesn't seem proper asking someone how they voted for an opinion poll for an election which hasn't happened yet.
Not sure whether there is a better way. It is a really complicated issue and you cannot just look at dividing up money allocated on a per capita basis.
I found the last time a regional analysis of UK accounts was done. This allocates North Sea oil revenue to Scotland, so no nationalist whingers please. Net contributions:
Scotland: -£2.1bn Northern Ireland: -£7.2bn North East: -£6.8bn North West: -£11.9bn Yorkshire & Humber: -£8.2bn Wales: -£9.3bn East Midlands: -£1.4bn West Midlands: -£5.0bn South West: -£3.6bn East of England: +£5.4bn South East: +£16.3bn Greater London: +£16.0bn
So the government supposedly run in favour of "London and the South East" actually mainly entails taking our money and handing it out to the North, Westcountry and Celtic fringe.
God, we're all a bunch of moochers apart from the SE.
BetFair odds on YES are now out to 5.35. It seems clear that they are much too long.
As the first results roll in and they indicate a close race these will surely come in. In fact there's probably a fair bit of money to be made armed with Rod's or numbercruncher's or AndyJS's spreadsheets as the results come in and get misinterpreted. For anyone who can bear to stop watching the coverage long enough to update their position on betfair that is.
Yes. Its may also come in this evening with the next (final?) polls.
So does the word "bitch" but I'd still consider it inappropriate as an insult to a woman. Especially one who wasn't doing anything wrong. We have far too few women on here and this sort of abuse doesn't help.
"Afaik it is used for "door knocking" - no point in going round to the homes of people who have already voted - so it will create a list of "no" voters who have not yet voted to encourage them to do so...."
That sounds more interesting. So I will be doing my bit for the union!
Indeed!
Did you catch the Gordon Brown interview last night - worth watching - puts the current generation in the shade....
I'd forgotten about that. This morning I have been blaming the bedtime cheese for last night's amazing dream in which I found myself agreeing with Gordon Brown.
Yes - he was a man transformed on his own turf, eloquent, fluent, persuasive - very different from the brooding sulk in No 10......
LOL.........fanny alert
Fanny has more than one meaning, especially up here, and not just the unfortunate Miss Adams of Alton.
I'm not even sure this Carlotta is a woman. You do realise the name comes from a well-known play ...?
He is a pathetic whinging dumpling. Do we think he is a man just because he uses Socrates as a pet name. Too stupid to believe.
You're one to talk, given your entire existence is one long whinge about how Scotland is so hard done by. Given how much my part of the country subsidises yours, you should really be grateful.
I found the last time a regional analysis of UK accounts was done. This allocates North Sea oil revenue to Scotland, so no nationalist whingers please. Net contributions:
Scotland: -£2.1bn Northern Ireland: -£7.2bn North East: -£6.8bn North West: -£11.9bn Yorkshire & Humber: -£8.2bn Wales: -£9.3bn East Midlands: -£1.4bn West Midlands: -£5.0bn South West: -£3.6bn East of England: +£5.4bn South East: +£16.3bn Greater London: +£16.0bn
So the government supposedly run in favour of "London and the South East" actually mainly entails taking our money and handing it out to the North, Westcountry and Celtic fringe.
I would point out that oil prices have fallen since this was calculated and output has dropped, so it's likely Scotland will be c. £3bn worse ($110 -> $100, plus 1.4m boe/day -> 1.2m, x average cash tax take of 65%)
I found the last time a regional analysis of UK accounts was done. This allocates North Sea oil revenue to Scotland, so no nationalist whingers please. Net contributions:
Scotland: -£2.1bn Northern Ireland: -£7.2bn North East: -£6.8bn North West: -£11.9bn Yorkshire & Humber: -£8.2bn Wales: -£9.3bn East Midlands: -£1.4bn West Midlands: -£5.0bn South West: -£3.6bn East of England: +£5.4bn South East: +£16.3bn Greater London: +£16.0bn
So the government supposedly run in favour of "London and the South East" actually mainly entails taking our money and handing it out to the North, Westcountry and Celtic fringe.
I would point out that oil prices have fallen since this was calculated and output has dropped, so it's likely Scotland will be c. £3bn worse ($110 -> $100, plus 1.4m boe/day -> 1.2m, x average cash tax take of 65%)
Your proposal for London independence is a mistake, but an independent London + home counties state might have some merit.
BetFair odds on YES are now out to 5.35. It seems clear that they are much too long.
As the first results roll in and they indicate a close race these will surely come in. In fact there's probably a fair bit of money to be made armed with Rod's or numbercruncher's or AndyJS's spreadsheets as the results come in and get misinterpreted. For anyone who can bear to stop watching the coverage long enough to update their position on betfair that is.
Or the other way round - might not get lower than 5.35 again..
The long-term money making strategy on this market has been to back 'yes' when it has drifted to ridiculously long prices. I'm not seeing much evidence that this will suddenly start failing. If the polls are right and even if it's a close 'no' then the first few authorities reporting showing a close race will probably "shock" the market into narrowing some. Of course if it's a 'yes' the market will be shocked even more. I havent looked at the expected timings of LA declarations yet. It would help if some 'yes' leaning ones came first obviously.
Philip Davies @PhilipDaviesMP 10h For the record, I will not be voting to maintain an unfair funding settlement for Scotland whatever Messrs Cameron, Miliband and Clegg say
Is the Barnett formula unfair ?
I cannot see Westminster looking to change it, after all these years.
I also reckon Salmond will get his currency union.
This really does strike me as a pivotal moment in Cameron's fortunes. He has now done enough to convince me not to vote for him. By committing to use my money in perpetuity to bribe Scotch Labour scumbags, he has IMO demonstrated appalling judgement and gross, gross irresponsibility, and this was the week he lost my vote. I do not want these sponging f>ckwits in the UK; he has no mandate to bribe them to stay, he does not speak or act for me, and how dare he put that Cyclopean pr>ck Brown in charge.
The EU will have taken careful note of how he has behaved over IndyRef and now know if they did not before that they can stonewall him and he'll fold.
He could and should have used a potential exit vote as a means to extract anything he wanted from the EU. He should be getting ready to act like Scotland has acted so that the EU would give him anything to stay.
Not sure whether there is a better way. It is a really complicated issue and you cannot just look at dividing up money allocated on a per capita basis.
Of course there's a better way. Virtually any other process for arriving at a number would at least have some logic of sense and fairness to it. Basing the numbers off late 19th Century populations, plus a weird modification, is just idiotic.
Three weeks since the Rotherham report and still no government action.
These questions need to be answered:
1) Why has Home secretary Teresa May taken no action against a police force which has collaborated with child rapists.
2) Why has Rotherham children's services not been placed in 'special measures' instead of remaining under the control of Joyce Thacker, who has admitted to the HoC Home Affairs Committee that she knowingly allowed child rapes to continue.
3) How much did the locally well connected former Communities Minister Sayeeda Warsi know about what was taking place and why did she do nothing about it.
4) Why has Prime Minister David Cameron allowed at least three government departments to take no action.
Since the Rotherham report was published there is now likely to be five NEW child rape victims on the numbers given in it.
Can I recommend you save this, and then repost it on Monday when people will final pay attention to things other than Scotland...
You expecting a No vote then?
If there's a Yes vote, the only UK political stories for the next few months will be the independence negotiations and any Conservative leadership election. English and Welsh by-elections will be treated as mini-referendums on the government's performance over Scotland, with local issues largely drowned out, which might produce some unusual voting swings.
A by-election in Scotland, taking place between a Yes vote and the 2015 General Election, could be particularly dramatic, though I've no idea how likely a vacancy is.
BetFair odds on YES are now out to 5.35. It seems clear that they are much too long.
As the first results roll in and they indicate a close race these will surely come in. In fact there's probably a fair bit of money to be made armed with Rod's or numbercruncher's or AndyJS's spreadsheets as the results come in and get misinterpreted. For anyone who can bear to stop watching the coverage long enough to update their position on betfair that is.
Or the other way round - might not get lower than 5.35 again..
The long-term money making strategy on this market has been to back 'yes' when it has drifted to ridiculously long prices. I'm not seeing much evidence that this will suddenly start failing. If the polls are right and even if it's a close 'no' then the first few authorities reporting showing a close race will probably "shock" the market into narrowing some. Of course if it's a 'yes' the market will be shocked even more. I havent looked at the expected timings of LA declarations yet. It would help if some 'yes' leaning ones came first obviously.
I agree on the strategy. And YES is certainly far too long now. Personally, I am long YES and likely to stay that way until the result. The winnings will act as a mild offset to the pain of watching my country split.
There's a lot of BS spouted about what has been promised. The Barnett formula stays, so Scotland will not get any more or less than it did before. DevoMax means the Scottish Parliament will have even more control of how this is spent. If DevoMax gives them more control over how it is raised, this will be reflected in the Barnett Formula. Ergo, the Scottish cake will not be getting bigger off the back of English taxpayers, but it might well be sliced up differently. I'd be very surprised if each of the major parties does not include its plans for 'DevoMax for the Sassenachs" in its manifesto, therefore making this a key debating point for GE15.
So does the word "bitch" but I'd still consider it inappropriate as an insult to a woman. Especially one who wasn't doing anything wrong. We have far too few women on here and this sort of abuse doesn't help.
"Afaik it is used for "door knocking" - no point in going round to the homes of people who have already voted - so it will create a list of "no" voters who have not yet voted to encourage them to do so...."
That sounds more interesting. So I will be doing my bit for the union!
Indeed!
Did you catch the Gordon Brown interview last night - worth watching - puts the current generation in the shade....
I'd forgotten about that. This morning I have been blaming the bedtime cheese for last night's amazing dream in which I found myself agreeing with Gordon Brown.
Yes - he was a man transformed on his own turf, eloquent, fluent, persuasive - very different from the brooding sulk in No 10......
LOL.........fanny alert
Fanny has more than one meaning, especially up here, and not just the unfortunate Miss Adams of Alton.
Rumours that pb.com is going to have all women threads are completely baseless...
Where does PB's most famed cross dresser, Peter the Punter, fit in there ?
You're back! Welcome back! Hopefully the old ARSE isn't giving you too much gyp!
Thank you and to the many others who have expressed good wishes. I'm still on an enforced restricted PB posting regime.
My ARSE remains firm, pert and fully functional in its determination that NO will win a handsome, nay crushing victory. The pollsters should be preparing their facial omelette defences this very day.
Will you do the decent thing if Yes wins or the results are wafer thin close, JackW? BTW didn't know you were seriously ill. Get better soon.
I found the last time a regional analysis of UK accounts was done. This allocates North Sea oil revenue to Scotland, so no nationalist whingers please. Net contributions:
Scotland: -£2.1bn Northern Ireland: -£7.2bn North East: -£6.8bn North West: -£11.9bn Yorkshire & Humber: -£8.2bn Wales: -£9.3bn East Midlands: -£1.4bn West Midlands: -£5.0bn South West: -£3.6bn East of England: +£5.4bn South East: +£16.3bn Greater London: +£16.0bn
So the government supposedly run in favour of "London and the South East" actually mainly entails taking our money and handing it out to the North, Westcountry and Celtic fringe.
God, we're all a bunch of moochers apart from the SE.
It may be a bit more complicated than that. People retire from London to the SouthWest for example, making the South West appear to be a net recipient due to more pensions being paid there.
Companies with head office in the SouthEast may also report their income there despite earning these nationally.
It would show the folly of breaking up England into devolved regions, though I note the East Midlands are as financially viable as Scotland.
I found the last time a regional analysis of UK accounts was done. This allocates North Sea oil revenue to Scotland, so no nationalist whingers please. Net contributions:
Scotland: -£2.1bn Northern Ireland: -£7.2bn North East: -£6.8bn North West: -£11.9bn Yorkshire & Humber: -£8.2bn Wales: -£9.3bn East Midlands: -£1.4bn West Midlands: -£5.0bn South West: -£3.6bn East of England: +£5.4bn South East: +£16.3bn Greater London: +£16.0bn
So the government supposedly run in favour of "London and the South East" actually mainly entails taking our money and handing it out to the North, Westcountry and Celtic fringe.
Next up: London and South East ask for independence.
Not sure whether there is a better way. It is a really complicated issue and you cannot just look at dividing up money allocated on a per capita basis.
The Barnett formula allocates changes in the budget on a per capita basis. True story.
A by-election in Scotland, taking place between a Yes vote and the 2015 General Election, could be particularly dramatic, though I've no idea how likely a vacancy is.
It's probably too late for Eric Joyce to assault someone, be convicted, receive a long enough sentence to be kicked out of Parliament and also organise a by-election now.
Philip Davies @PhilipDaviesMP 10h For the record, I will not be voting to maintain an unfair funding settlement for Scotland whatever Messrs Cameron, Miliband and Clegg say
Is the Barnett formula unfair ?
I cannot see Westminster looking to change it, after all these years.
I also reckon Salmond will get his currency union.
This really does strike me as a pivotal moment in Cameron's fortunes. He has now done enough to convince me not to vote for him. By committing to use my money in perpetuity to bribe Scotch Labour scumbags, he has IMO demonstrated appalling judgement and gross, gross irresponsibility, and this was the week he lost my vote. I do not want these sponging f>ckwits in the UK; he has no mandate to bribe them to stay, he does not speak or act for me, and how dare he put that Cyclopean pr>ck Brown in charge.
The EU will have taken careful note of how he has behaved over IndyRef and now know if they did not before that they can stonewall him and he'll fold.
He could and should have used a potential exit vote as a means to extract anything he wanted from the EU. He should be getting ready to act like Scotland has acted so that the EU would give him anything to stay.
No-one can endorse the Barnett formula out of a sense of principles, and no Prime Minister with a sense of democracy can commit to handing home counties money over to Scotland without any input from parliament. He is just willing to say whatever is needed to maintain his power. It was the same with the immigration pledge of getting it down to tens of thousands, when the levels are virtually identical to what they were four years ago. He never had any intention of achieving it. It's the same with the EU: he's not interested in a genuine substantial repatriation of powers. As he told Carswell, he just wants to put on just enough of a show to get an In vote, because he puts staying in with Brussels above getting the best deal for Britain.
I found the last time a regional analysis of UK accounts was done. This allocates North Sea oil revenue to Scotland, so no nationalist whingers please. Net contributions:
Scotland: -£2.1bn Northern Ireland: -£7.2bn North East: -£6.8bn North West: -£11.9bn Yorkshire & Humber: -£8.2bn Wales: -£9.3bn East Midlands: -£1.4bn West Midlands: -£5.0bn South West: -£3.6bn East of England: +£5.4bn South East: +£16.3bn Greater London: +£16.0bn
So the government supposedly run in favour of "London and the South East" actually mainly entails taking our money and handing it out to the North, Westcountry and Celtic fringe.
Next up: London and South East ask for independence.
Don't think this particularly unique in a country. Figures for USA show that there are plenty of States that are net contributors to Federal budget versus their tax take. Here's just one link I could find:
Whilst the polls are all at 52-48 the datasets are very different and had the methodologies been the same the results would have varied markedly.
The failure to see origin of person polled is an issue as Scots have 8% English and polling companies consistently poll well above that and do not weight down despite a higher percentage feeling they want to be British first and Scottish second. Scots born are a majority for YES at this time in the polls.
I said many months ago YES would win the polling day but the postals were the issue and I still see that as the problem. The fear over pensions when none exists under a strong MSM campaign which did not allay it meant the 60-40 necessary for pensioners voting NO to win overall may just have been achieved.
After all, there is no threat to pensioners who have paid in and live in Spain or Oz now so why would those who live in Scotland be any different? My guess is 51-49 to NO based on women staying with NO, which had Sturgeon run the campaign last 3 months would in my view have been worth 2 or 3% at least a la Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard.
I think you may be right about Sturgeon. At the end of the day, Alex Salmond is divisive and seems overweening - for all his talents as an outstanding retail politician. He got us to this point but may prove unable to get across the line. Women voters don't really go for that alpha male assertiveness and are probably not too keen on all the evident testosterone being pumped out at the moment.
Unfortunately, I think the "Vote Yes to preserve the Scottish NHS" is having a lot of success in pushing people to Yes. It should be obvious to anyone that it is an outrageous lie, but there is a large group of people who have left behind any critical thinking in this debate.
The other notable thing about the claim is that it is very conservative: Vote for independence, embrace the new dawn - to maintain the status quo. Which is a somewhat strange manifesto.
I cannot believe Scotland is about to vote YES to this package of lies told by Salmond. Perhaps they know it is all lies, yet do not care?
One of my work colleagues and all round good bloke is from Aberdeen. He fully recognises it'll be freedom n vinegar not freedom n jam. But doesn't care. He's looking 50 years ahead and says so. An unmovable YES voter.
One of the cheering things about this referendum is its likely very high turnout, which is indisputably due to the fact that everyone's vote will count. Those who continue to advocate FPTP, where 40-60% of the votes in each constituency are routinely wasted should perhaps pause for thought.
I found the last time a regional analysis of UK accounts was done. This allocates North Sea oil revenue to Scotland, so no nationalist whingers please. Net contributions:
Scotland: -£2.1bn Northern Ireland: -£7.2bn North East: -£6.8bn North West: -£11.9bn Yorkshire & Humber: -£8.2bn Wales: -£9.3bn East Midlands: -£1.4bn West Midlands: -£5.0bn South West: -£3.6bn East of England: +£5.4bn South East: +£16.3bn Greater London: +£16.0bn
So the government supposedly run in favour of "London and the South East" actually mainly entails taking our money and handing it out to the North, Westcountry and Celtic fringe.
God, we're all a bunch of moochers apart from the SE.
Companies with head office in the SouthEast may also report their income there despite earning these nationally.
Actually corporation tax is allocated on a profits basis from the GVA accounts, meaning that they will be allocated where the activity is made. You'll note if you go to the original report that "other" tax, mainly corporation tax, is only 35% higher in London than in Scotland, despite the 56% larger population. (Also down to all the oil tax being allocated to Scotland.)
Hmmm … well if you liked it, I guess that's the main thing. Hasn't done you much harm hitherto, although I wonder if you've used 'ever' thrice in a sentence in your bestsellers? Anyway, apologies for the digression: you don't much like PPE cabinet members then?! I'm actually inclined to agree. None of them have done proper jobs in their lives. Talking of which I love that George Monbiot article:
Not sure whether there is a better way. It is a really complicated issue and you cannot just look at dividing up money allocated on a per capita basis.
Of course there's a better way. Virtually any other process for arriving at a number would at least have some logic of sense and fairness to it. Basing the numbers off late 19th Century populations, plus a weird modification, is just idiotic.
Socrates
We will put you in charge of coming up with a formula that everyone thinks is fair. You can explain it all the interested parties and put through the legislation.
Always easy to say there is a better way, without explaning what the new system would be, plus coming up with details of actual financial implications.
I found the last time a regional analysis of UK accounts was done. This allocates North Sea oil revenue to Scotland, so no nationalist whingers please. Net contributions:
Scotland: -£2.1bn Northern Ireland: -£7.2bn North East: -£6.8bn North West: -£11.9bn Yorkshire & Humber: -£8.2bn Wales: -£9.3bn East Midlands: -£1.4bn West Midlands: -£5.0bn South West: -£3.6bn East of England: +£5.4bn South East: +£16.3bn Greater London: +£16.0bn
So the government supposedly run in favour of "London and the South East" actually mainly entails taking our money and handing it out to the North, Westcountry and Celtic fringe.
Next up: London and South East ask for independence.
Don't think this particularly unique in a country. Figures for USA show that there are plenty of States that are net contributors to Federal budget versus their tax take. Here's just one link I could find:
In the US, the system works on a need basis, however. It doesn't arbitrarily hand over a large amount to Alaska based on population ratios a century ago.
They struggled again to get enough young voters and C2DE demographics having to heavily up-weight these categories and down-weight the over representation from older voters and ABC1 demographics.
Seems to have been a pattern from most of these polls.
Yes. Note, though, that this merely means that the under-represented groups were polled on a smaller sample, so will tend to have a greater margin of error. It doesn't mean that they have been given too little weight. For example, if portly Martians with green hair were 10% of the electorate, but the pollsters only found 10 of them of them out of 1000, those 10 would be upweighted by a factor of 10 to reflect the significance of this subsample. Since 10 isn't as big number, the risk that they were not representative would be bigger, but you couldn't say that green-haired fat Martians were under-represented.
Agreed Nick, but that was kinda my point. The lack of track record for recording and accurately weighting these groups is clearly a problem and one that we must take into consideration when analysing the polls.
One of the cheering things about this referendum is its likely very high turnout, which is indisputably due to the fact that everyone's vote will count. Those who continue to advocate FPTP, where 40-60% of the votes in each constituency are routinely wasted should perhaps pause for thought.
Even as a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of FPTP - since I did PPE at Oxford, SeanT - I have to admit you have a point.
Nice piece Mr. T.. I particularly liked the final paragraph,
"No one who has ever done PPE at Oxbridge is ever allowed into the Cabinet ever again...."
An editor might have trimmed the evers …
He might also have noted that a PPE is only offered at Oxford, but I expect the Telegraph can't get the staff.....
I was also aware of that fact, but saying "Oxford PPE" isn't as effective - some people might think that's a car parts company or something. The word "Oxbridge" relays the sense that you're talking about the elite, and about certain universities...
p.s. Excellent use of the term 'caudillo': it's exactly right for Salmond
We could do with poll on PB, as to whether Scotland would get a sterling currency union.
I don't think Scotland will get a currency union with the BoE as a central bank. I suspect that an independent Scotland would end up having the Euro in about 2022, after using their own currency.
Not sure whether there is a better way. It is a really complicated issue and you cannot just look at dividing up money allocated on a per capita basis.
The Barnett formula allocates changes in the budget on a per capita basis. True story.
What the formula fails to do is to update the population estimates and incorporate these.
Not sure whether there is a better way. It is a really complicated issue and you cannot just look at dividing up money allocated on a per capita basis.
Of course there's a better way. Virtually any other process for arriving at a number would at least have some logic of sense and fairness to it. Basing the numbers off late 19th Century populations, plus a weird modification, is just idiotic.
Socrates
We will put you in charge of coming up with a formula that everyone thinks is fair. You can explain it all the interested parties and put through the legislation.
Always easy to say there is a better way, without explaning what the new system would be, plus coming up with details of actual financial implications.
Ok, fine. An index for each home nation is calculated of population + (0.2 * population below poverty line). The ratios of these indices is used to distribute funds on all devolved matters. That's already a better system than Barnett.
I found the last time a regional analysis of UK accounts was done. This allocates North Sea oil revenue to Scotland, so no nationalist whingers please. Net contributions:
Scotland: -£2.1bn Northern Ireland: -£7.2bn North East: -£6.8bn North West: -£11.9bn Yorkshire & Humber: -£8.2bn Wales: -£9.3bn East Midlands: -£1.4bn West Midlands: -£5.0bn South West: -£3.6bn East of England: +£5.4bn South East: +£16.3bn Greater London: +£16.0bn
So the government supposedly run in favour of "London and the South East" actually mainly entails taking our money and handing it out to the North, Westcountry and Celtic fringe.
Next up: London and South East ask for independence.
Well don't laugh if the "divide up England" brigade got their way devolution powers would be a consequence. The real fun would start if tax varying powers were introduced and a Tory majority in the "SE assembly " cut the second top rate income tax by say 7p and standard rate by 3p. The same fun of course would apply to England as a whole if it got the sort of powers Scotland may well get in the event of a NO. Not a lot of point the UK "Federal" Govt setting the second top rate income tax at 40p if England varies it down by 3p at the same time Scotland varies it up by 3p and Wales up by 4p (for example). We would then have the wonderous situation where somebody with in Newport might pay 44p income tax and 25 minutes way in Bristol only 37p. That sound you would hear around the Severn Bridge would be the big sucking sound as people left SE Wales. The same applies with VAT, corporation tax, CGT, any "mansion tax" introduced etc etc. Same applies between say Wrexham and Manchester, which should give Plaid Cymru pause for thought as they drew up tax plans - look at the map guys.
This of course is the ultimate logical consequence of devolving power and is why some of us voted no to it in 1999. It has only held together as a settlement as we have had big Lab majorities in London and pliant sister regimes (most of the time) in Cardiff and Edinburgh. As soon as the pendulum swung the logic void is exposed and we are all now dealing with the consequences.
I found the last time a regional analysis of UK accounts was done. This allocates North Sea oil revenue to Scotland, so no nationalist whingers please. Net contributions:
Scotland: -£2.1bn Northern Ireland: -£7.2bn North East: -£6.8bn North West: -£11.9bn Yorkshire & Humber: -£8.2bn Wales: -£9.3bn East Midlands: -£1.4bn West Midlands: -£5.0bn South West: -£3.6bn East of England: +£5.4bn South East: +£16.3bn Greater London: +£16.0bn
So the government supposedly run in favour of "London and the South East" actually mainly entails taking our money and handing it out to the North, Westcountry and Celtic fringe.
In a monetary and fiscal union this is to be expected. The idea that devolving spending power to the regions will solve all ills is stupid because once spending power is devloved to London and the South East I can't see any voters putting in people who pledge to spend their operating surplus in the North, Wales or Scotland. What we need is a proper discussion warts and all about how to best get the north of England growing again so the operating subsidy can be reduced. That means more investment in education, infrastructure and reducing public sector dependence. There ate far too many people in these parts of the UK that rely on either public sector employment or benefit handouts. It is this culture that needs to be changed. For all this talk of how London and the South East get more government investment in transport, it is pretty clear that the money being spent in these areas is largely being generated in these areas.
Comments
https://twitter.com/search?q=@angrysalmond&src=typd (yu need to click on the @AngrySalmond to get the Profile Summary, if you aren't on Twitter)
Now I really must finish catching up on the Graun news and do some work ...
http://www.icmresearch.com/data/media/pdf/2014_scotsman_final_pollv1.pdf
They struggled again to get enough young voters and C2DE demographics having to heavily up-weight these categories and down-weight the over representation from older voters and ABC1 demographics.
Seems to have been a pattern from most of these polls.
I cannot see Westminster looking to change it, after all these years.
"I propose a simple law to start with. No one who has ever done PPE at Oxbridge is ever allowed into the Cabinet ever again...."
My ARSE remains firm, pert and fully functional in its determination that NO will win a handsome, nay crushing victory. The pollsters should be preparing their facial omelette defences this very day.
a) you cross your fingers
b) it can be voted down by unhappy English MPs
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/market?marketId=1.115492650&eventTypeId=2378961&betId=41260587801
It seems clear that they are much too long.
Start from a, say, 51% poll-of-polls NO position.
If there only sampling error around this, the confidence interval for the actual NO vote is something like 49.5% - 52.5% i.e. 1.5% (down from 3%) margin-of-error.
Just look at this would argue for somewhat lower YES odds.
But the bigger issue are the potential non-sampling errors:
- Momentum with YES. Yesterday's polls generally showed an increase in YES support compared to a few days back
- Some evidence that Don't Know's tend to move to YES.
- Demographic challenges given the likely high turnout, favouring YES owing to the (presumably) disaffected being much more likely to vote.
- Shy NOs.
- Status quo bias i.e. late swing to NO.
I don't think anyone knows the net impact of the above factors. Some imply NO is too low but others imply YES is too low. But the additional uncertainty / error from these factors must widen the likely NO vote range significantly e.g. (and I am guessing here) from 49.5% - 52.5% to something like 46.5% - 55.5%.
... and a range of this width means the current 5.35 YES odds are much much too high.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/16/media-shafted-people-scotland-journalists
Well, yes it is, according to Lord Barnett:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11100400/My-funding-formula-for-Scotland-is-a-terrible-mistake-Lord-Barnett-admits.html
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Political-Punter-Betting-Politics/dp/1905641095/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410944989&sr=8-1&keywords=mike+smithson
http://news.sky.com/story/1336911/the-barnett-formula-explained
That said, I don't think polls normally bother, so it's up to voters who have voted to decide how to handle such questions. Perhaps they will tend to respond less.
Scotland: -£2.1bn
Northern Ireland: -£7.2bn
North East: -£6.8bn
North West: -£11.9bn
Yorkshire & Humber: -£8.2bn
Wales: -£9.3bn
East Midlands: -£1.4bn
West Midlands: -£5.0bn
South West: -£3.6bn
East of England: +£5.4bn
South East: +£16.3bn
Greater London: +£16.0bn
http://www.isitfair.co.uk/reports/public/oe ukpublicfinance.pdf
So the government supposedly run in favour of "London and the South East" actually mainly entails taking our money and handing it out to the North, Westcountry and Celtic fringe.
This really does strike me as a pivotal moment in Cameron's fortunes. He has now done enough to convince me not to vote for him. By committing to use my money in perpetuity to bribe Scotch Labour scumbags, he has IMO demonstrated appalling judgement and gross, gross irresponsibility, and this was the week he lost my vote. I do not want these sponging f>ckwits in the UK; he has no mandate to bribe them to stay, he does not speak or act for me, and how dare he put that Cyclopean pr>ck Brown in charge.
The EU will have taken careful note of how he has behaved over IndyRef and now know if they did not before that they can stonewall him and he'll fold.
He could and should have used a potential exit vote as a means to extract anything he wanted from the EU. He should be getting ready to act like Scotland has acted so that the EU would give him anything to stay.
Private Yes briefings put their support at 53-57% No reckon they have 55% both cannot be right #indyts #indyref
If there's a Yes vote, the only UK political stories for the next few months will be the independence negotiations and any Conservative leadership election. English and Welsh by-elections will be treated as mini-referendums on the government's performance over Scotland, with local issues largely drowned out, which might produce some unusual voting swings.
A by-election in Scotland, taking place between a Yes vote and the 2015 General Election, could be particularly dramatic, though I've no idea how likely a vacancy is.
Personally, I am long YES and likely to stay that way until the result. The winnings will act as a mild offset to the pain of watching my country split.
The Barnett formula stays, so Scotland will not get any more or less than it did before.
DevoMax means the Scottish Parliament will have even more control of how this is spent.
If DevoMax gives them more control over how it is raised, this will be reflected in the Barnett Formula. Ergo, the Scottish cake will not be getting bigger off the back of English taxpayers, but it might well be sliced up differently.
I'd be very surprised if each of the major parties does not include its plans for 'DevoMax for the Sassenachs" in its manifesto, therefore making this a key debating point for GE15.
BTW didn't know you were seriously ill. Get better soon.
Companies with head office in the SouthEast may also report their income there despite earning these nationally.
It would show the folly of breaking up England into devolved regions, though I note the East Midlands are as financially viable as Scotland.
Next up: London and South East ask for independence.
Oooh!
So the issue is emotive, not really one about facts for most people IMO.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2004/09/red_states_feed.html
The other notable thing about the claim is that it is very conservative: Vote for independence, embrace the new dawn - to maintain the status quo. Which is a somewhat strange manifesto.
Anyway, apologies for the digression: you don't much like PPE cabinet members then?! I'm actually inclined to agree. None of them have done proper jobs in their lives. Talking of which I love that George Monbiot article:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/16/media-shafted-people-scotland-journalists
We will put you in charge of coming up with a formula that everyone thinks is fair. You can explain it all the interested parties and put through the legislation.
Always easy to say there is a better way, without explaning what the new system would be, plus coming up with details of actual financial implications.
The lack of track record for recording and accurately weighting these groups is clearly a problem and one that we must take into consideration when analysing the polls.
I don't think Scotland will get a currency union with the BoE as a central bank. I suspect that an independent Scotland would end up having the Euro in about 2022, after using their own currency.
Next.
This of course is the ultimate logical consequence of devolving power and is why some of us voted no to it in 1999. It has only held together as a settlement as we have had big Lab majorities in London and pliant sister regimes (most of the time) in Cardiff and Edinburgh. As soon as the pendulum swung the logic void is exposed and we are all now dealing with the consequences.