A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
It is the only option, not a chance they will stay with GB pound, apart from maybe a very short changeover spell t get central bank etc setup and running but as the currency is already in circulation it should not be a big issue.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
It’s the only option. But the SNP don’t want to explain how much it will cost or the risks - for exporters to their largest market, or people with debts in GBP.
Plainly an independent Scottish currency is not the only option, and given the importance of cross-border trade (no snp fantasists wibbling about trade deals with Japan, Australia or other countries thousands of miles away!) it is most likely they will stick with the pound sterling at least in the short term pending possible reentry to the EU which would put the Euro back on the table.
They can’t join the Euro without their own currency and Central Bank. If they stick with the GBP they will lose their entire finance industry.
Yeah, like London can't trade Euros? But if, or when, Scotland wants to join the Euro, fudging the entry requirements is not unprecedented.
Yes that's the easiest thing to circumvent.
The requirement to join and the requirement to change the entry requirements are identical - unanimous agreement. If the EU wants Scotland to join with the EU, if Scotland wants to, then it can. End of story.
There is a reason for years SNP policy was to switch to the Euro. The issue is the SNP no longer want to say we will use the Euro as the Euro isn't popular - but its really not a bad idea for them, if they want a currency union it is the best option available.
To be fair to Williamson all four home nations got it very wrong so he is in good company.
Perhaps the fiasco was inevitable once exams were shelved. Perhaps the finger pointing should start there. Universities managed to get remote assessments organised by June. This happened for both of my undergraduate son's.
Anyway I have had confirmation that I am eligible for the second installment of the self-employment adverse trading grant. Who doesn't love a government handing out free money? 12 point poll lead for the Tories next weekend?
Fair nothing , he made a complete tit of himself. Last weekend he was berating Scottish government for being so stupid , mid week he said "No Surrender" and yesterday capitulated totally and admitted he was a moronic halfwitted dullard. An absolute embarrassment who you could not trust to run a bath.
Exactly. It was pretty obvious from the moment that the Scots - relatively quickly - changed their position, that the UK sticking to the flawed algorithm wasn't going to be sustainable. Certainly after the relevations about the differential treatment of state and private schools and the threats of legal action this should have been blindingly obvious.
A politician with better judgement and more fleet of foot would have made the move much earlier. Instead, Johnson and Williamson just kept digging - until they were forced to change, not by their own assessment of the facts of the matter, but by their own backbenchers who weren't quite so blind to the obvious.
I think they thought they had with the “you can use your mock grade” phase. Unfortunately they did not realise that not all schools do mocks the same way and so they were no more reliable than the CAGs.
There was no perfect solution. Had they gone with the CAGs last Thursday the Friday headlines would have been full of distraught students who did not get into their first choice despite making their offers as the universities would have been full.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
“No one ever seems to resign or get fired any more,” laments one senior Tory.
“The past few months have been a shitshow,” says a minister. “The only way to stop a repeat is getting pupils back.” It’s on students’ return to the classroom that any hope of restoring confidence in both Williamson and the government now rests.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
It is the only option, not a chance they will stay with GB pound, apart from maybe a very short changeover spell t get central bank etc setup and running but as the currency is already in circulation it should not be a big issue.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A lot of it depends on how honourably the newly independent Scotland us wrt debt, if they take the "walk away" method espoused by Malc and other extremist independence supporters then there is little to no chance they would be able to float a currency and not see it rapidly depreciate. It would also destroy any chance of them being able to sell paper denominated in McPounds under Scottish law, they would need to raise sterling in London, investors wouldn't trust anything less.
Currency, imo, is still the unanswerable question for the SNP and I actually think it may cause a post yes vote unionist majority. Tell people their savings are going to be converted to McPounds but their debt repayments will be in Sterling and that very real cost of independence starts to be realised.
I also think that the option of the currency peg is completely unrealistic, it would require Scotland to run a perpetually balanced budget and to hold £50-60bn in reserve capital to ensure the over/under isn't breached. The Swiss National Bank €23bn defending the Swiss Franc over a 4 year period (of real money) that's money the Swiss government could have spent on schools, hospitals, policing etc... but was eaten up to keep the Franc pegged to €1.20. Does anyone in Scotland have the stomach to spend taxpayer money on defending the currency? Or more realistically, do 50% +1 think it's a worthy area of expenditure and what spending would they cut to allow it? Scotland isn't Switzerland, they don't have the capability to just go and borrow the money at -0.4% from the markets.
As I've said many times, the independence referendum will be won or lost on emotional reasons. It seems to me that not enough people value the Union to a degree that they will vote to stay in. However, the business of independence is very, very difficult and complicated. Unwinding a 300 year union of shared language, culture, identity and economy is, IMO, going to be close to impossible. The easy way out for Scotland would be to become a vassal state, use the same currency and beg for a monetary union with Westminster, but that would ultimately give Westminster a veto over the Scottish budget and even more power than it holds now.
Max, you don't get it do you, Scotland has no debt, the UK has debt and they have two options , either keep it or share all UK assets including Bof E , Buckingham palace etc and a share of the debt. Can you guess which one they will be desperate to choose , exactly the same one Cameron said would apply , rUK will retain all the debt IT borrowed. Secondly not everyone is obsessed by greed, people will be holding UK pounds so nothing will be devalued initially and no reason why a debt free Scotland would be any worse than a debt laden rUK on currency. Clean slate start or we start with our central bank bulging with UK pounds and a share of the debt, what is there not to like.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
Who will lend the banks money if the economy goes kaput? At the moment the answer is the BoE. In the Euro area the ECB. If you're unilaterally using a currency without a monetary union then the answer is no one which means all banks will have to leave, they would have a duty to shareholders as it makes a material difference to their ability to survive a crash.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A lot of it depends on how honourably the newly independent Scotland us wrt debt, if they take the "walk away" method espoused by Malc and other extremist independence supporters then there is little to no chance they would be able to float a currency and not see it rapidly depreciate. It would also destroy any chance of them being able to sell paper denominated in McPounds under Scottish law, they would need to raise sterling in London, investors wouldn't trust anything less.
Currency, imo, is still the unanswerable question for the SNP and I actually think it may cause a post yes vote unionist majority. Tell people their savings are going to be converted to McPounds but their debt repayments will be in Sterling and that very real cost of independence starts to be realised.
I also think that the option of the currency peg is completely unrealistic, it would require Scotland to run a perpetually balanced budget and to hold £50-60bn in reserve capital to ensure the over/under isn't breached. The Swiss National Bank €23bn defending the Swiss Franc over a 4 year period (of real money) that's money the Swiss government could have spent on schools, hospitals, policing etc... but was eaten up to keep the Franc pegged to €1.20. Does anyone in Scotland have the stomach to spend taxpayer money on defending the currency? Or more realistically, do 50% +1 think it's a worthy area of expenditure and what spending would they cut to allow it? Scotland isn't Switzerland, they don't have the capability to just go and borrow the money at -0.4% from the markets.
As I've said many times, the independence referendum will be won or lost on emotional reasons. It seems to me that not enough people value the Union to a degree that they will vote to stay in. However, the business of independence is very, very difficult and complicated. Unwinding a 300 year union of shared language, culture, identity and economy is, IMO, going to be close to impossible. The easy way out for Scotland would be to become a vassal state, use the same currency and beg for a monetary union with Westminster, but that would ultimately give Westminster a veto over the Scottish budget and even more power than it holds now.
Max, you don't get it do you, Scotland has no debt, the UK has debt and they have two options , either keep it or share all UK assets including Bof E , Buckingham palace etc and a share of the debt. Can you guess which one they will be desperate to choose , exactly the same one Cameron said would apply , rUK will retain all the debt IT borrowed. Secondly not everyone is obsessed by greed, people will be holding UK pounds so nothing will be devalued initially and no reason why a debt free Scotland would be any worse than a debt laden rUK on currency. Clean slate start or we start with our central bank bulging with UK pounds and a share of the debt, what is there not to like.
Honestly, I'm not going to engage you on this subject any longer. It's a waste of my time. You're welcome to your views, if they are shared in Edinburgh then good luck to independent Scotland and I hope you don't lose your life savings over it, genuinely.
The challenges of i-Scotland and its currency exemplifies perfectly why none of the Euro states has dared veer towards the exit. Even Greece stepped back from the brink. It’s a very hard road to leave an integrated currency union without experiencing a major level of hardship one way or the other. That’s exactly why the architects of Unions love a currency union, it cements them. Transaction cost savings are incidental in comparison.
So the push factor needs to be very high to do it. But who am I to tell those seeking independence for emotional / identity reasons that the push factor isn’t big enough?
So how do you do it? If I were the PM of i-Scotland I would revise all contracts 1-1 into Scottish Pounds and let the currency float freely. Including Scotland’s share of sovereign debt liabilities.
No point trying to hold back the tide with a fixed exchange rate. And suck up any loss of purchasing power from the likely substantial devaluation as coming out in the wash, by boosting competitiveness in export industries.
With a sovereign central bank, until the economy stabilises Scotland would be free to monetise its deficit happily enough the same way as Westminster/Threadneedle. All talk of a gilt buyers strike becomes moot in the face of an unprecedented money printing spree (aka QE).
Knowing this, depositors (both corporate and retail) would move their deposits from RBS to Barclays ahead of time and certainly before the split is finalised. Even this gives the sting to the English, who would still be on the hook for the bail-out. Sure, Scotland might lose the jobs. But surely half the point of independence is a burst of creative economic destruction to re-set the clock and set the country on a different course to before?
I suspect all this will be little understood before a Yes vote and will fit into the “figure it out as we go” box for voters. Much the same as Brexit and Northern Ireland. And it will be.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
It is the only option, not a chance they will stay with GB pound, apart from maybe a very short changeover spell t get central bank etc setup and running but as the currency is already in circulation it should not be a big issue.
The currency isn't in circulation.
If you mean the Scottish paper notes those are Pound Sterling. They literally have Sterling printed on them. If created a new Scottish currency would need to not say Sterling but instead name the new Scottish currency's name instead.
Its not the biggest challenge to overcome though.
Honestly the hard part of all this is making an actual decision. Once a decision is made, implementing it isn't that tough.
Project Fear from the loyalists is very 2014. The next indyref will be contested on visceral emotion via micro target social media ads not nerdwanking about LoLR, etc.
It’s not “Project Fear” it’s “Project Reality” something the SNP has a tenuous relationship with.
“No one ever seems to resign or get fired any more,” laments one senior Tory.
“The past few months have been a shitshow,” says a minister. “The only way to stop a repeat is getting pupils back.” It’s on students’ return to the classroom that any hope of restoring confidence in both Williamson and the government now rests.
This might be the reason for nor losing Williamson at the moment: the September return to school should be the department’s main focus as it affects an order of magnitude more pupils than the A-level results do.
When that goes wrong he can take the blame for both, rather than getting a new body in now just in time for it to all go really pear shaped on them.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
If they want to use the currency of foreign countries the smart option is the Euro. It is designed as a currency union so has safeguards in it that simply don't exist within Sterling.
Sterling is the currency of the United Kingdom. Once Scotland leaves it would be the currency of the rUK whatever its called, I'll refer to it as UK for rest of this post. Thus Westminster, the Bank of England etc would be able to make any decisions they want regarding printing currency (Quantitative Easing), interest rates etc for the UK and Scotland would not get any say whatsoever.
If the UK engages is QE that devalues the currency and pays for the UKs budget deficit then Scotland gets the devaluation of the currency its using but nothing to its budget.
If the UK is worried about inflation and wants higher interest rates but Scotland is worried about low growth and wants lower interest rates - it would get higher interest rates.
Salmond pretended Scotland would continue to get a say over Sterling after it leaves. That's not true. If you want the say over a currency union there is an option that is real - join the Euro.
PS technically under EU rules Scotland can't join the Euro without its own currency first, but that's because it wasn't expected that countries would split apart and then part of the country join. That is a problem that can be overcome. It takes a unanimous vote of EU states to let a new country join, and it takes a unanimous vote of EU states to change the rules - so if accession is agreed with Scotland joining the Euro then that can be agreed as part of its accession talks. Indeed it would be logical to have this happen as part of its exit talks with the UK - so if eg an independence date is set as 1/1/23 then Scotland could go from being in the UK and using Pound Sterling on 31/12/22 and being in the EU and using the Euro on 1/1/23.
PS the other way of dealing with it is to create your own currency but peg it, that is not the same thing as using the other nations currency specifically because the peg can be broken. Not having your own currency really leaves you in a difficult position.
Your reply was basically what I assumed/thought. Of course the lack of control exists even if you do have a say eg differences between North and South Europe, differences between North and South England, although admittedly Greece and Bradford do get a say (even if ignored), whereas as you say an independent Scotland gets no say whatsoever if it just adopts a currency without any legal arrangement.
Re your para on joining the Euro - surely Scotland does not have to join the Euro, it can just adopt it (although again it would do so without any control whatsoever, but how much is that worth?).
It would completely destroy Scotland's huge financial services industry overnight. Everything moves to England.
Max, see my other post to you. I don't have any expertise in this area so I don't understand why.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
It’s the only option. But the SNP don’t want to explain how much it will cost or the risks - for exporters to their largest market, or people with debts in GBP.
Plainly an independent Scottish currency is not the only option, and given the importance of cross-border trade (no snp fantasists wibbling about trade deals with Japan, Australia or other countries thousands of miles away!) it is most likely they will stick with the pound sterling at least in the short term pending possible reentry to the EU which would put the Euro back on the table.
They can’t join the Euro without their own currency and Central Bank. If they stick with the GBP they will lose their entire finance industry.
FFS the Oracle has spoken , Lady Haw Haw opines Yes we are so dumb we don't understand that clever stuff, we should just stick with it and let English think for us , we are too wee and too stupid to be a country.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
If they want to use the currency of foreign countries the smart option is the Euro. It is designed as a currency union so has safeguards in it that simply don't exist within Sterling.
Sterling is the currency of the United Kingdom. Once Scotland leaves it would be the currency of the rUK whatever its called, I'll refer to it as UK for rest of this post. Thus Westminster, the Bank of England etc would be able to make any decisions they want regarding printing currency (Quantitative Easing), interest rates etc for the UK and Scotland would not get any say whatsoever.
If the UK engages is QE that devalues the currency and pays for the UKs budget deficit then Scotland gets the devaluation of the currency its using but nothing to its budget.
If the UK is worried about inflation and wants higher interest rates but Scotland is worried about low growth and wants lower interest rates - it would get higher interest rates.
Salmond pretended Scotland would continue to get a say over Sterling after it leaves. That's not true. If you want the say over a currency union there is an option that is real - join the Euro.
PS technically under EU rules Scotland can't join the Euro without its own currency first, but that's because it wasn't expected that countries would split apart and then part of the country join. That is a problem that can be overcome. It takes a unanimous vote of EU states to let a new country join, and it takes a unanimous vote of EU states to change the rules - so if accession is agreed with Scotland joining the Euro then that can be agreed as part of its accession talks. Indeed it would be logical to have this happen as part of its exit talks with the UK - so if eg an independence date is set as 1/1/23 then Scotland could go from being in the UK and using Pound Sterling on 31/12/22 and being in the EU and using the Euro on 1/1/23.
PS the other way of dealing with it is to create your own currency but peg it, that is not the same thing as using the other nations currency specifically because the peg can be broken. Not having your own currency really leaves you in a difficult position.
Your reply was basically what I assumed/thought. Of course the lack of control exists even if you do have a say eg differences between North and South Europe, differences between North and South England, although admittedly Greece and Bradford do get a say (even if ignored), whereas as you say an independent Scotland gets no say whatsoever if it just adopts a currency without any legal arrangement.
Re your para on joining the Euro - surely Scotland does not have to join the Euro, it can just adopt it (although again it would do so without any control whatsoever, but how much is that worth?).
It would completely destroy Scotland's huge financial services industry overnight. Everything moves to England.
Most of it has legally moved south already in response to the 2014 referendum. The rest would undoubtedly follow so far as the legal seat was concerned which would have serious implications for the tax base but I suspect that most of the "back office" functions would remain.
To be fair to Williamson all four home nations got it very wrong so he is in good company.
Perhaps the fiasco was inevitable once exams were shelved. Perhaps the finger pointing should start there. Universities managed to get remote assessments organised by June. This happened for both of my undergraduate son's.
Anyway I have had confirmation that I am eligible for the second installment of the self-employment adverse trading grant. Who doesn't love a government handing out free money? 12 point poll lead for the Tories next weekend?
Fair nothing , he made a complete tit of himself. Last weekend he was berating Scottish government for being so stupid , mid week he said "No Surrender" and yesterday capitulated totally and admitted he was a moronic halfwitted dullard. An absolute embarrassment who you could not trust to run a bath.
Exactly. It was pretty obvious from the moment that the Scots - relatively quickly - changed their position, that the UK sticking to the flawed algorithm wasn't going to be sustainable. Certainly after the relevations about the differential treatment of state and private schools and the threats of legal action this should have been blindingly obvious.
A politician with better judgement and more fleet of foot would have made the move much earlier. Instead, Johnson and Williamson just kept digging - until they were forced to change, not by their own assessment of the facts of the matter, but by their own backbenchers who weren't quite so blind to the obvious.
I think they thought they had with the “you can use your mock grade” phase. Unfortunately they did not realise that not all schools do mocks the same way and so they were no more reliable than the CAGs.
There was no perfect solution. Had they gone with the CAGs last Thursday the Friday headlines would have been full of distraught students who did not get into their first choice despite making their offers as the universities would have been full.
If the government takes a fancy to long term solutions, it has become apparent that A-levels are not fit for purpose. They are badly timed, subject to grade inflation and wild variation between different subjects even in a good year. Williamson could set up a commission (and kick it into the long grass).
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A lot of it depends on how honourably the newly independent Scotland us wrt debt, if they take the "walk away" method espoused by Malc and other extremist independence supporters then there is little to no chance they would be able to float a currency and not see it rapidly depreciate. It would also destroy any chance of them being able to sell paper denominated in McPounds under Scottish law, they would need to raise sterling in London, investors wouldn't trust anything less.
Currency, imo, is still the unanswerable question for the SNP and I actually think it may cause a post yes vote unionist majority. Tell people their savings are going to be converted to McPounds but their debt repayments will be in Sterling and that very real cost of independence starts to be realised.
I also think that the option of the currency peg is completely unrealistic, it would require Scotland to run a perpetually balanced budget and to hold £50-60bn in reserve capital to ensure the over/under isn't breached. The Swiss National Bank €23bn defending the Swiss Franc over a 4 year period (of real money) that's money the Swiss government could have spent on schools, hospitals, policing etc... but was eaten up to keep the Franc pegged to €1.20. Does anyone in Scotland have the stomach to spend taxpayer money on defending the currency? Or more realistically, do 50% +1 think it's a worthy area of expenditure and what spending would they cut to allow it? Scotland isn't Switzerland, they don't have the capability to just go and borrow the money at -0.4% from the markets.
As I've said many times, the independence referendum will be won or lost on emotional reasons. It seems to me that not enough people value the Union to a degree that they will vote to stay in. However, the business of independence is very, very difficult and complicated. Unwinding a 300 year union of shared language, culture, identity and economy is, IMO, going to be close to impossible. The easy way out for Scotland would be to become a vassal state, use the same currency and beg for a monetary union with Westminster, but that would ultimately give Westminster a veto over the Scottish budget and even more power than it holds now.
Max, you don't get it do you, Scotland has no debt, the UK has debt and they have two options , either keep it or share all UK assets including Bof E , Buckingham palace etc and a share of the debt. Can you guess which one they will be desperate to choose , exactly the same one Cameron said would apply , rUK will retain all the debt IT borrowed. Secondly not everyone is obsessed by greed, people will be holding UK pounds so nothing will be devalued initially and no reason why a debt free Scotland would be any worse than a debt laden rUK on currency. Clean slate start or we start with our central bank bulging with UK pounds and a share of the debt, what is there not to like.
You want a share of Buckingham Palace?
OK sure and I'm assuming Westminster will get its share of Holyrood Palace too?
Otherwise we would never have voted for Brexit. People are prepared to die for their country and their identity. They won't baulk at a bit of money being required to establish a new currency.
So the question is whether 50% of the voters in Scotland identify as Scots-oppressed-by-the-English.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
It cannot be difficult given over 200 countries manage it, Scotland does not have unique quality of being the only country in the world that could not have a currency. It is not rocket science.
This report is interesting on two counts. The reported infection rate of nearly 90% suggests that ideas of preexisting herd immunity are far fetched*. And the fact that those who had antibodies from previous infection avoided reinfection is good evidence of immunity on that basis.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
It’s the only option. But the SNP don’t want to explain how much it will cost or the risks - for exporters to their largest market, or people with debts in GBP.
Is that like the cost of Brexit risks, or England deciding to give away fishing , or force us to import chlorinated chicken, or cut our pocket money whenever it suits them.
Otherwise we would never have voted for Brexit. People are prepared to die for their country and their identity. They won't baulk at a bit of money being required to establish a new currency.
So the question is whether 50% of the voters in Scotland identify as Scots-oppressed-by-the-English.
They do and rising by the day as they watch the shitshow unfold, Brexit and the stealing of powers will be the last straw.
If the advisors are giving awful advice and the minister decides they need to change course (as has happened) then why would you keep getting advice from the person who gave you the awful advice in the first place?
If the minister had gone against the advice then that would be a different matter, but it doesn't seem like that happened.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A lot of it depends on how honourably the newly independent Scotland us wrt debt, if they take the "walk away" method espoused by Malc and other extremist independence supporters then there is little to no chance they would be able to float a currency and not see it rapidly depreciate. It would also destroy any chance of them being able to sell paper denominated in McPounds under Scottish law, they would need to raise sterling in London, investors wouldn't trust anything less.
Currency, imo, is still the unanswerable question for the SNP and I actually think it may cause a post yes vote unionist majority. Tell people their savings are going to be converted to McPounds but their debt repayments will be in Sterling and that very real cost of independence starts to be realised.
I also think that the option of the currency peg is completely unrealistic, it would require Scotland to run a perpetually balanced budget and to hold £50-60bn in reserve capital to ensure the over/under isn't breached. The Swiss National Bank €23bn defending the Swiss Franc over a 4 year period (of real money) that's money the Swiss government could have spent on schools, hospitals, policing etc... but was eaten up to keep the Franc pegged to €1.20. Does anyone in Scotland have the stomach to spend taxpayer money on defending the currency? Or more realistically, do 50% +1 think it's a worthy area of expenditure and what spending would they cut to allow it? Scotland isn't Switzerland, they don't have the capability to just go and borrow the money at -0.4% from the markets.
As I've said many times, the independence referendum will be won or lost on emotional reasons. It seems to me that not enough people value the Union to a degree that they will vote to stay in. However, the business of independence is very, very difficult and complicated. Unwinding a 300 year union of shared language, culture, identity and economy is, IMO, going to be close to impossible. The easy way out for Scotland would be to become a vassal state, use the same currency and beg for a monetary union with Westminster, but that would ultimately give Westminster a veto over the Scottish budget and even more power than it holds now.
Max, you don't get it do you, Scotland has no debt, the UK has debt and they have two options , either keep it or share all UK assets including Bof E , Buckingham palace etc and a share of the debt. Can you guess which one they will be desperate to choose , exactly the same one Cameron said would apply , rUK will retain all the debt IT borrowed. Secondly not everyone is obsessed by greed, people will be holding UK pounds so nothing will be devalued initially and no reason why a debt free Scotland would be any worse than a debt laden rUK on currency. Clean slate start or we start with our central bank bulging with UK pounds and a share of the debt, what is there not to like.
You want a share of Buckingham Palace?
OK sure and I'm assuming Westminster will get its share of Holyrood Palace too?
Seriously?
The status of Balmoral in these talks will blow their minds...
The challenges of i-Scotland and its currency exemplifies perfectly why none of the Euro states has dared veer towards the exit. Even Greece stepped back from the brink. It’s a very hard road to leave an integrated currency union without experiencing a major level of hardship one way or the other. That’s exactly why the architects of Unions love a currency union, it cements them. Transaction cost savings are incidental in comparison.
So the push factor needs to be very high to do it. But who am I to tell those seeking independence for emotional / identity reasons that the push factor isn’t big enough?
So how do you do it? If I were the PM of i-Scotland I would revise all contracts 1-1 into Scottish Pounds and let the currency float freely. Including Scotland’s share of sovereign debt liabilities.
No point trying to hold back the tide with a fixed exchange rate. And suck up any loss of purchasing power from the likely substantial devaluation as coming out in the wash, by boosting competitiveness in export industries.
With a sovereign central bank, until the economy stabilises Scotland would be free to monetise its deficit happily enough the same way as Westminster/Threadneedle. All talk of a gilt buyers strike becomes moot in the face of an unprecedented money printing spree (aka QE).
Knowing this, depositors (both corporate and retail) would move their deposits from RBS to Barclays ahead of time and certainly before the split is finalised. Even this gives the sting to the English, who would still be on the hook for the bail-out. Sure, Scotland might lose the jobs. But surely half the point of independence is a burst of creative economic destruction to re-set the clock and set the country on a different course to before?
I suspect all this will be little understood before a Yes vote and will fit into the “figure it out as we go” box for voters. Much the same as Brexit and Northern Ireland. And it will be.
In theory that works, but Scotland's debt will be payable in sterling which means it can't simply print it's way out of debt and give the bondholders McPounds. As you say it's one of the main reasons Greece (and Italy) walked back from the brink.
Also, take a look at the countries with money printing power, the US, UK, EU and Japan all of those are established reserve currencies with trillions in assets denominated in each of them, that means adding a few hundred billion to 5he moelney supply doesn't necessarily make a huge difference to the overall value. If you fitted up the printing presses for a completely new currency then it would cause severe and rapid inflation wiping out any remaining savers and making it impossible to sell paper in the new currency.
As I said, I think the easiest way out is to beg for a monetary union and pray that Westminster is gentle and uses a lot of lubrication.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A lot of it depends on how honourably the newly independent Scotland us wrt debt, if they take the "walk away" method espoused by Malc and other extremist independence supporters then there is little to no chance they would be able to float a currency and not see it rapidly depreciate. It would also destroy any chance of them being able to sell paper denominated in McPounds under Scottish law, they would need to raise sterling in London, investors wouldn't trust anything less.
Currency, imo, is still the unanswerable question for the SNP and I actually think it may cause a post yes vote unionist majority. Tell people their savings are going to be converted to McPounds but their debt repayments will be in Sterling and that very real cost of independence starts to be realised.
I also think that the option of the currency peg is completely unrealistic, it would require Scotland to run a perpetually balanced budget and to hold £50-60bn in reserve capital to ensure the over/under isn't breached. The Swiss National Bank €23bn defending the Swiss Franc over a 4 year period (of real money) that's money the Swiss government could have spent on schools, hospitals, policing etc... but was eaten up to keep the Franc pegged to €1.20. Does anyone in Scotland have the stomach to spend taxpayer money on defending the currency? Or more realistically, do 50% +1 think it's a worthy area of expenditure and what spending would they cut to allow it? Scotland isn't Switzerland, they don't have the capability to just go and borrow the money at -0.4% from the markets.
As I've said many times, the independence referendum will be won or lost on emotional reasons. It seems to me that not enough people value the Union to a degree that they will vote to stay in. However, the business of independence is very, very difficult and complicated. Unwinding a 300 year union of shared language, culture, identity and economy is, IMO, going to be close to impossible. The easy way out for Scotland would be to become a vassal state, use the same currency and beg for a monetary union with Westminster, but that would ultimately give Westminster a veto over the Scottish budget and even more power than it holds now.
All true, but none of this matters.
It's about identity. Once the British sense of identity is gone, it's gone.
Interesting the Democrats had some prominent Republicans speaking at their convention last night like John Kasich and Meg Whitman and Christine Whitman as Biden targets moderates on the GOP side, as well as Bernie Sanders and Michelle Obama
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A lot of it depends on how honourably the newly independent Scotland us wrt debt, if they take the "walk away" method espoused by Malc and other extremist independence supporters then there is little to no chance they would be able to float a currency and not see it rapidly depreciate. It would also destroy any chance of them being able to sell paper denominated in McPounds under Scottish law, they would need to raise sterling in London, investors wouldn't trust anything less.
Currency, imo, is still the unanswerable question for the SNP and I actually think it may cause a post yes vote unionist majority. Tell people their savings are going to be converted to McPounds but their debt repayments will be in Sterling and that very real cost of independence starts to be realised.
I also think that the option of the currency peg is completely unrealistic, it would require Scotland to run a perpetually balanced budget and to hold £50-60bn in reserve capital to ensure the over/under isn't breached. The Swiss National Bank €23bn defending the Swiss Franc over a 4 year period (of real money) that's money the Swiss government could have spent on schools, hospitals, policing etc... but was eaten up to keep the Franc pegged to €1.20. Does anyone in Scotland have the stomach to spend taxpayer money on defending the currency? Or more realistically, do 50% +1 think it's a worthy area of expenditure and what spending would they cut to allow it? Scotland isn't Switzerland, they don't have the capability to just go and borrow the money at -0.4% from the markets.
As I've said many times, the independence referendum will be won or lost on emotional reasons. It seems to me that not enough people value the Union to a degree that they will vote to stay in. However, the business of independence is very, very difficult and complicated. Unwinding a 300 year union of shared language, culture, identity and economy is, IMO, going to be close to impossible. The easy way out for Scotland would be to become a vassal state, use the same currency and beg for a monetary union with Westminster, but that would ultimately give Westminster a veto over the Scottish budget and even more power than it holds now.
Max, you don't get it do you, Scotland has no debt, the UK has debt and they have two options , either keep it or share all UK assets including Bof E , Buckingham palace etc and a share of the debt. Can you guess which one they will be desperate to choose , exactly the same one Cameron said would apply , rUK will retain all the debt IT borrowed. Secondly not everyone is obsessed by greed, people will be holding UK pounds so nothing will be devalued initially and no reason why a debt free Scotland would be any worse than a debt laden rUK on currency. Clean slate start or we start with our central bank bulging with UK pounds and a share of the debt, what is there not to like.
You want a share of Buckingham Palace?
OK sure and I'm assuming Westminster will get its share of Holyrood Palace too?
Seriously?
If we get your debt then we get 10% of all your assets, otherwise a clean break. All assets down to your last rowing boat and you can have your share of Holyrood Palace.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
If they want to use the currency of foreign countries the smart option is the Euro. It is designed as a currency union so has safeguards in it that simply don't exist within Sterling.
Sterling is the currency of the United Kingdom. Once Scotland leaves it would be the currency of the rUK whatever its called, I'll refer to it as UK for rest of this post. Thus Westminster, the Bank of England etc would be able to make any decisions they want regarding printing currency (Quantitative Easing), interest rates etc for the UK and Scotland would not get any say whatsoever.
If the UK engages is QE that devalues the currency and pays for the UKs budget deficit then Scotland gets the devaluation of the currency its using but nothing to its budget.
If the UK is worried about inflation and wants higher interest rates but Scotland is worried about low growth and wants lower interest rates - it would get higher interest rates.
Salmond pretended Scotland would continue to get a say over Sterling after it leaves. That's not true. If you want the say over a currency union there is an option that is real - join the Euro.
PS technically under EU rules Scotland can't join the Euro without its own currency first, but that's because it wasn't expected that countries would split apart and then part of the country join. That is a problem that can be overcome. It takes a unanimous vote of EU states to let a new country join, and it takes a unanimous vote of EU states to change the rules - so if accession is agreed with Scotland joining the Euro then that can be agreed as part of its accession talks. Indeed it would be logical to have this happen as part of its exit talks with the UK - so if eg an independence date is set as 1/1/23 then Scotland could go from being in the UK and using Pound Sterling on 31/12/22 and being in the EU and using the Euro on 1/1/23.
PS the other way of dealing with it is to create your own currency but peg it, that is not the same thing as using the other nations currency specifically because the peg can be broken. Not having your own currency really leaves you in a difficult position.
I expect an independent Scotland would use Sterling initially (unofficially). It would then bring its own currency in pegged to the pound on a 1:1 basis several years later, prior to applying for EU membership and the Euro. If it applied for the ERM before the euro then the 1:1 link would be broken, and you'd have an exchange rate between the Scottish pound and GBP.
This is what the Irish free state did. Of course, it comes at an economic cost - there would be a lot of capital outflow from Scotland, and it would need to build up significant banking reserves at the same time to separate out from Sterling formally.
The other alternative is to jump straight to the Euro (and the EU might make an exception for that) but it's a big "if", particularly since it might set a precedent for Catalonia.
“No one ever seems to resign or get fired any more,” laments one senior Tory.
“The past few months have been a shitshow,” says a minister. “The only way to stop a repeat is getting pupils back.” It’s on students’ return to the classroom that any hope of restoring confidence in both Williamson and the government now rests.
This might be the reason for nor losing Williamson at the moment: the September return to school should be the department’s main focus as it affects an order of magnitude more pupils than the A-level results do.
When that goes wrong he can take the blame for both, rather than getting a new body in now just in time for it to all go really pear shaped on them.
Put like that, keeping an idiot in position so he can take the blame for his next even larger cockup, almost sounds sensible.
I’m still in hospital. Had a rough night but overall am getting there. Hopefully I wont be here for too long. These wards are not at all conducive to healing or rest. I wish I had a private room with an en suite.
Congratulations are in order to @HYUFD on the engagement.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
If they want to use the currency of foreign countries the smart option is the Euro. It is designed as a currency union so has safeguards in it that simply don't exist within Sterling.
Sterling is the currency of the United Kingdom. Once Scotland leaves it would be the currency of the rUK whatever its called, I'll refer to it as UK for rest of this post. Thus Westminster, the Bank of England etc would be able to make any decisions they want regarding printing currency (Quantitative Easing), interest rates etc for the UK and Scotland would not get any say whatsoever.
If the UK engages is QE that devalues the currency and pays for the UKs budget deficit then Scotland gets the devaluation of the currency its using but nothing to its budget.
If the UK is worried about inflation and wants higher interest rates but Scotland is worried about low growth and wants lower interest rates - it would get higher interest rates.
Salmond pretended Scotland would continue to get a say over Sterling after it leaves. That's not true. If you want the say over a currency union there is an option that is real - join the Euro.
PS technically under EU rules Scotland can't join the Euro without its own currency first, but that's because it wasn't expected that countries would split apart and then part of the country join. That is a problem that can be overcome. It takes a unanimous vote of EU states to let a new country join, and it takes a unanimous vote of EU states to change the rules - so if accession is agreed with Scotland joining the Euro then that can be agreed as part of its accession talks. Indeed it would be logical to have this happen as part of its exit talks with the UK - so if eg an independence date is set as 1/1/23 then Scotland could go from being in the UK and using Pound Sterling on 31/12/22 and being in the EU and using the Euro on 1/1/23.
PS the other way of dealing with it is to create your own currency but peg it, that is not the same thing as using the other nations currency specifically because the peg can be broken. Not having your own currency really leaves you in a difficult position.
Your reply was basically what I assumed/thought. Of course the lack of control exists even if you do have a say eg differences between North and South Europe, differences between North and South England, although admittedly Greece and Bradford do get a say (even if ignored), whereas as you say an independent Scotland gets no say whatsoever if it just adopts a currency without any legal arrangement.
Re your para on joining the Euro - surely Scotland does not have to join the Euro, it can just adopt it (although again it would do so without any control whatsoever, but how much is that worth?).
It would completely destroy Scotland's huge financial services industry overnight. Everything moves to England.
Most of it has legally moved south already in response to the 2014 referendum. The rest would undoubtedly follow so far as the legal seat was concerned which would have serious implications for the tax base but I suspect that most of the "back office" functions would remain.
David think of all the jobs that would be repatriated though , bet your bottom dollar they would be far more numerous than those heading south. It is not a one way road. Plenty would love an EU HQ on their doorstep, why are you unionists so myopic and only see things from your point of view.
Anti-lockdowner Simon Dolan hearing rumours furlough may be extended to the end of the year as Johnson desperately tries to hide from the implications of some of the worst policy decisions ever taken by a British government,
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
If they want to use the currency of foreign countries the smart option is the Euro. It is designed as a currency union so has safeguards in it that simply don't exist within Sterling.
Sterling is the currency of the United Kingdom. Once Scotland leaves it would be the currency of the rUK whatever its called, I'll refer to it as UK for rest of this post. Thus Westminster, the Bank of England etc would be able to make any decisions they want regarding printing currency (Quantitative Easing), interest rates etc for the UK and Scotland would not get any say whatsoever.
If the UK engages is QE that devalues the currency and pays for the UKs budget deficit then Scotland gets the devaluation of the currency its using but nothing to its budget.
If the UK is worried about inflation and wants higher interest rates but Scotland is worried about low growth and wants lower interest rates - it would get higher interest rates.
Salmond pretended Scotland would continue to get a say over Sterling after it leaves. That's not true. If you want the say over a currency union there is an option that is real - join the Euro.
PS technically under EU rules Scotland can't join the Euro without its own currency first, but that's because it wasn't expected that countries would split apart and then part of the country join. That is a problem that can be overcome. It takes a unanimous vote of EU states to let a new country join, and it takes a unanimous vote of EU states to change the rules - so if accession is agreed with Scotland joining the Euro then that can be agreed as part of its accession talks. Indeed it would be logical to have this happen as part of its exit talks with the UK - so if eg an independence date is set as 1/1/23 then Scotland could go from being in the UK and using Pound Sterling on 31/12/22 and being in the EU and using the Euro on 1/1/23.
PS the other way of dealing with it is to create your own currency but peg it, that is not the same thing as using the other nations currency specifically because the peg can be broken. Not having your own currency really leaves you in a difficult position.
Your reply was basically what I assumed/thought. Of course the lack of control exists even if you do have a say eg differences between North and South Europe, differences between North and South England, although admittedly Greece and Bradford do get a say (even if ignored), whereas as you say an independent Scotland gets no say whatsoever if it just adopts a currency without any legal arrangement.
Re your para on joining the Euro - surely Scotland does not have to join the Euro, it can just adopt it (although again it would do so without any control whatsoever, but how much is that worth?).
Of course it can adopt it but again that is the worst case scenario.
If they simply adopt it they will have no financial sector (no lender of last resort), no say over the Euro policies etc - adopting another currency without joining it really only works for failed states and micronations and Scotland is neither.
The only two viable options are: 1: Float own Scottish Pound. 2: Join the Euro.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
Who will lend the banks money if the economy goes kaput? At the moment the answer is the BoE. In the Euro area the ECB. If you're unilaterally using a currency without a monetary union then the answer is no one which means all banks will have to leave, they would have a duty to shareholders as it makes a material difference to their ability to survive a crash.
I think I need a scenario painted out for me. I appreciate you may not want give an Economics lesson here?
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
It cannot be difficult given over 200 countries manage it, Scotland does not have unique quality of being the only country in the world that could not have a currency. It is not rocket science.
Of course we could have a currency but it is a long way from a cost free option.
The trading costs of having a different currency from rUK would be considerable. The cost of maintaining a link to Sterling would be huge both in terms of reserves but also the loss of the ability to have our own economic policy. The lack of a credible LOLR makes large scale financial services impossible. We simply could not bail out a RBS on our own. We would need to incentivise the markets to hold Scottish currency meaning higher interest rates and a more cautious economic policy with much smaller deficits. We would need to accept that QE etc was pretty much unavailable. Large currencies can get away with that, small ones can't.
So it can be done but only at a real and substantial cost to our current economy. Joining the Euro would solve some of these but not others. It also means that we are accepting German interest rates and further restrictions on deficits.
Project Fear from the loyalists is very 2014. The next indyref will be contested on visceral emotion via micro target social media ads not nerdwanking about LoLR, etc.
It’s not “Project Fear” it’s “Project Reality” something the SNP has a tenuous relationship with.
Says a cult unionist , not everyone worships Tory Mamon like you.
Anybody arguing with the scot nats about the unviability of their currency arrangements should realise these are bits of your life you will not get back.
Anti-lockdowner Simon Dolan hearing rumours furlough may be extended to the end of the year as Johnson desperately tries to hide from the implications of some of the worst policy decisions ever taken by a British government,
That's a cracker, right there.
You’re right, it is.
Boris Johnson may be a twat, but he isn’t responsible for Iraq, Suez, the squandering of Marshall Aid, Appeasement, the Jameson Raid, the Trevelyan response to the Irish Potato Famine or the 1834 Poor Law.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
It cannot be difficult given over 200 countries manage it, Scotland does not have unique quality of being the only country in the world that could not have a currency. It is not rocket science.
True, but it’s a “I wouldn’t start from here” problem.
Suppose you have a mortgage of £100,000 with a UK bank. If that bank is based in London then after independence you still have that mortgage and you need to keep paying in in Sterling. If the Scottish currency maintains parity with the pound, fine, but if not then your mortgage payments are now subject to currency swings (a trap some UK customers who decided they liked the look of interest rates in Europe and went for mortgages in Euros found themselves in a few years back).
Scotland could pass a law to convert these debts into the new currency I suppose, but that would probably not go down well and might lead to all sorts of repercussions, particularly as it would also imply that any savings held by people from Scotland in London banks should be similarly treated.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
Who will lend the banks money if the economy goes kaput? At the moment the answer is the BoE. In the Euro area the ECB. If you're unilaterally using a currency without a monetary union then the answer is no one which means all banks will have to leave, they would have a duty to shareholders as it makes a material difference to their ability to survive a crash.
I think I need a scenario painted out for me. I appreciate you may not want give an Economics lesson here?
During the financial crisis Royal Bank of Scotland was going to run out of money. Everyone who had deposits in RBS would lose everything. RBS spoke to the government and the government bailed them out. The Bank of England acts as "lender of last resort" to all the banks in the UK.
If Scotland was independent but still using Sterling and RBS was still Scottish then it would have simply gone bust. Households and businesses with money in RBS accounts would have lost everything - like people who had put their money into Icelandic banks without realising there were no guarantees or backups and the Icelandic government chose to let them go bust rather than bail them out.
Labour Emma Hardy now saying how on earth can we accommodate all these students
You could not make this up
And Williamson is just excruciating to listen to
It was bound to happen, as soon as the Givernment did what 95% of people wanted and U turned, within 5 minutes the BBC were interviewing people describing all the negative aspects of the U-Turn eg grade inflation and not enough Uni places. It really shows that this was an impossible position and whatever the Government did would be wrong. And as you have so rightly said all 4 countries have had to do the same thing. I still don't understand how Labour can criticise what the Government in London has done when its own Government in Cardiff did exactly the same thing an hour before.
I quite expect that in x years time, the same people will be upset that a "glut" of newly qualified doctors will be "squeezing out" applicant doctors from overseas.
The UK’s reliance on overseas trained doctors and nurses is in my view shameful. We’re the 5th-ish richest country, have many of the finest university hospitals in the world and every year perfectly capable students with straight As can’t find a space at medical school.
Why are people happy to deprive poorer countries (with much sparser provision of doctors per capita) of medical staff that their cash strapped governments paid to train?
Cross fertilisation of ideas from international job swaps (formal or through the market mechanism) is terrific. Having a perpetual net import requirement for doctors and nurses is a scandal.
I was told, when I discussed this with some medical people a couple of years back that the approach of training doctors and nurses to provide 100%+ of NHS requirements was "bigoted".
Because it would eliminate the requirement for large numbers of staff from overseas.
I found the insult interesting. It showed how a band-aid policy can become a sacred rule.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
It is the only option, not a chance they will stay with GB pound, apart from maybe a very short changeover spell t get central bank etc setup and running but as the currency is already in circulation it should not be a big issue.
The currency isn't in circulation.
If you mean the Scottish paper notes those are Pound Sterling. They literally have Sterling printed on them. If created a new Scottish currency would need to not say Sterling but instead name the new Scottish currency's name instead.
Its not the biggest challenge to overcome though.
Honestly the hard part of all this is making an actual decision. Once a decision is made, implementing it isn't that tough.
I don't believe it will be copyright. They are printed as Scottish notes and so if they decide on the pound Scottish then there would be no reason not to use them. Either way a Scottish pound is what it is likely to be.
Boris was voted in because he was seen to be an electoral asset.
As soon as he's an electoral liability.. gone. My view is next year.
The Tory party doesn't muck about when it comes to millstone leaders.
You're joking right? The party kept Theresa May for nearly two years after the election failure. The idea that it'd give less time to a landslide election winner is fantasy land.
No, I'm not joking.
Theresa May faced serious leadership challenges within 18 months of GE2017. She only didn't face them earlier because of the delicate nature of the hung parliament alliance with the DUP, and the fact it might threaten Brexit. Ironically, she'd have been even more vulnerable had she won a small majority.
Thatcher was facing challenges to her leadership within 30 months of winning a landslide victory in 1987.
Boris goes as soon as he's an electoral liability, rather than an asset, and there's a credible replacement - the obvious one being Sunak.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
Who will lend the banks money if the economy goes kaput? At the moment the answer is the BoE. In the Euro area the ECB. If you're unilaterally using a currency without a monetary union then the answer is no one which means all banks will have to leave, they would have a duty to shareholders as it makes a material difference to their ability to survive a crash.
I think I need a scenario painted out for me. I appreciate you may not want give an Economics lesson here?
Just think RBS. If RBS had been operating in an independent Scotland it would have gone insolvent and brought the financial system down with it. It survived because it got bailed out by the UK who have almost infinite resources due to QE. No bank of any size could rely upon the central bank of a nation of 5.3m. They could only operate at a local level doing the most basic of functions. For many small countries that doesn't matter because they are not in that game. Scotland is.
“No one ever seems to resign or get fired any more,” laments one senior Tory.
“The past few months have been a shitshow,” says a minister. “The only way to stop a repeat is getting pupils back.” It’s on students’ return to the classroom that any hope of restoring confidence in both Williamson and the government now rests.
This might be the reason for nor losing Williamson at the moment: the September return to school should be the department’s main focus as it affects an order of magnitude more pupils than the A-level results do.
When that goes wrong he can take the blame for both, rather than getting a new body in now just in time for it to all go really pear shaped on them.
Put like that, keeping an idiot in position so he can take the blame for his next even larger cockup, almost sounds sensible.
It's like the "Boris is hopeless, so he should go after Brexit is finalised" argument.
If a minister has failed on something smaller, why would you leave them in place to manage something bigger?
Otherwise we would never have voted for Brexit. People are prepared to die for their country and their identity. They won't baulk at a bit of money being required to establish a new currency.
So the question is whether 50% of the voters in Scotland identify as Scots-oppressed-by-the-English.
If you count oppression as having a government & policies for which you didn't vote forced upon you by English voters, more than 50%.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A lot of it depends on how honourably the newly independent Scotland us wrt debt, if they take the "walk away" method espoused by Malc and other extremist independence supporters then there is little to no chance they would be able to float a currency and not see it rapidly depreciate. It would also destroy any chance of them being able to sell paper denominated in McPounds under Scottish law, they would need to raise sterling in London, investors wouldn't trust anything less.
Currency, imo, is still the unanswerable question for the SNP and I actually think it may cause a post yes vote unionist majority. Tell people their savings are going to be converted to McPounds but their debt repayments will be in Sterling and that very real cost of independence starts to be realised.
I also think that the option of the currency peg is completely unrealistic, it would require Scotland to run a perpetually balanced budget and to hold £50-60bn in reserve capital to ensure the over/under isn't breached. The Swiss National Bank €23bn defending the Swiss Franc over a 4 year period (of real money) that's money the Swiss government could have spent on schools, hospitals, policing etc... but was eaten up to keep the Franc pegged to €1.20. Does anyone in Scotland have the stomach to spend taxpayer money on defending the currency? Or more realistically, do 50% +1 think it's a worthy area of expenditure and what spending would they cut to allow it? Scotland isn't Switzerland, they don't have the capability to just go and borrow the money at -0.4% from the markets.
As I've said many times, the independence referendum will be won or lost on emotional reasons. It seems to me that not enough people value the Union to a degree that they will vote to stay in. However, the business of independence is very, very difficult and complicated. Unwinding a 300 year union of shared language, culture, identity and economy is, IMO, going to be close to impossible. The easy way out for Scotland would be to become a vassal state, use the same currency and beg for a monetary union with Westminster, but that would ultimately give Westminster a veto over the Scottish budget and even more power than it holds now.
All true, but none of this matters.
It's about identity. Once the British sense of identity is gone, it's gone.
Yep, I think that is spot on. I also think it is happening as much in England as in Scotland. The last true Brits are to be found in the royal family and in the Scottish and Northern Irish Unionist communities.
If anyone asks me where I am from I say England. English is what I feel, though I feel a strong sense of shared identity with all the other home nations, as well as the Republic of Ireland.
I remain in favour of the Union, but only because I dislike nationalism, which in all its forms seems to me to do a whole lot more harm than good. Thus, I instinctively do not want it to win. But maybe the real task is to redefine these Isles of ours so that nationalism melts away and we end up like the Nordics - independent of each other, but forever aligned socially, culturally and politically.
So, will next year's cohort go back to proper grades or will it be perma grade inflation. I think I'd complain if I was Yr 12 and fluffed my exams next year...
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A lot of it depends on how honourably the newly independent Scotland us wrt debt, if they take the "walk away" method espoused by Malc and other extremist independence supporters then there is little to no chance they would be able to float a currency and not see it rapidly depreciate. It would also destroy any chance of them being able to sell paper denominated in McPounds under Scottish law, they would need to raise sterling in London, investors wouldn't trust anything less.
Currency, imo, is still the unanswerable question for the SNP and I actually think it may cause a post yes vote unionist majority. Tell people their savings are going to be converted to McPounds but their debt repayments will be in Sterling and that very real cost of independence starts to be realised.
I also think that the option of the currency peg is completely unrealistic, it would require Scotland to run a perpetually balanced budget and to hold £50-60bn in reserve capital to ensure the over/under isn't breached. The Swiss National Bank €23bn defending the Swiss Franc over a 4 year period (of real money) that's money the Swiss government could have spent on schools, hospitals, policing etc... but was eaten up to keep the Franc pegged to €1.20. Does anyone in Scotland have the stomach to spend taxpayer money on defending the currency? Or more realistically, do 50% +1 think it's a worthy area of expenditure and what spending would they cut to allow it? Scotland isn't Switzerland, they don't have the capability to just go and borrow the money at -0.4% from the markets.
As I've said many times, the independence referendum will be won or lost on emotional reasons. It seems to me that not enough people value the Union to a degree that they will vote to stay in. However, the business of independence is very, very difficult and complicated. Unwinding a 300 year union of shared language, culture, identity and economy is, IMO, going to be close to impossible. The easy way out for Scotland would be to become a vassal state, use the same currency and beg for a monetary union with Westminster, but that would ultimately give Westminster a veto over the Scottish budget and even more power than it holds now.
Max, you don't get it do you, Scotland has no debt, the UK has debt and they have two options , either keep it or share all UK assets including Bof E , Buckingham palace etc and a share of the debt. Can you guess which one they will be desperate to choose , exactly the same one Cameron said would apply , rUK will retain all the debt IT borrowed. Secondly not everyone is obsessed by greed, people will be holding UK pounds so nothing will be devalued initially and no reason why a debt free Scotland would be any worse than a debt laden rUK on currency. Clean slate start or we start with our central bank bulging with UK pounds and a share of the debt, what is there not to like.
You want a share of Buckingham Palace?
OK sure and I'm assuming Westminster will get its share of Holyrood Palace too?
Seriously?
If we get your debt then we get 10% of all your assets, otherwise a clean break. All assets down to your last rowing boat and you can have your share of Holyrood Palace.
The way any smart divorce like this has been done before is to say that Scotland can keep the 10% of assets that exist within Scotland and UK would keep the 90% of assets that exist within the UK. And yes Scotland can get 10% of investments etc that aren't either - and 10% of debts that aren't either.
It's not just Williamson though. The rot comes from the top. Michelle's words about Donald Trump could be applied to Boris Johnson: he is clearly in over his head.
He's incompetent, ill-disciplined, slack, dim, careless, boorish, philandering, gluttonous, oleaginous, corpulent ... a flatulent oaf of a Prime Minister.
And Johnson like Trump has a ridiculous hair cut trying to disguise his baldness.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
If they want to use the currency of foreign countries the smart option is the Euro. It is designed as a currency union so has safeguards in it that simply don't exist within Sterling.
Sterling is the currency of the United Kingdom. Once Scotland leaves it would be the currency of the rUK whatever its called, I'll refer to it as UK for rest of this post. Thus Westminster, the Bank of England etc would be able to make any decisions they want regarding printing currency (Quantitative Easing), interest rates etc for the UK and Scotland would not get any say whatsoever.
If the UK engages is QE that devalues the currency and pays for the UKs budget deficit then Scotland gets the devaluation of the currency its using but nothing to its budget.
If the UK is worried about inflation and wants higher interest rates but Scotland is worried about low growth and wants lower interest rates - it would get higher interest rates.
Salmond pretended Scotland would continue to get a say over Sterling after it leaves. That's not true. If you want the say over a currency union there is an option that is real - join the Euro.
PS technically under EU rules Scotland can't join the Euro without its own currency first, but that's because it wasn't expected that countries would split apart and then part of the country join. That is a problem that can be overcome. It takes a unanimous vote of EU states to let a new country join, and it takes a unanimous vote of EU states to change the rules - so if accession is agreed with Scotland joining the Euro then that can be agreed as part of its accession talks. Indeed it would be logical to have this happen as part of its exit talks with the UK - so if eg an independence date is set as 1/1/23 then Scotland could go from being in the UK and using Pound Sterling on 31/12/22 and being in the EU and using the Euro on 1/1/23.
PS the other way of dealing with it is to create your own currency but peg it, that is not the same thing as using the other nations currency specifically because the peg can be broken. Not having your own currency really leaves you in a difficult position.
Your reply was basically what I assumed/thought. Of course the lack of control exists even if you do have a say eg differences between North and South Europe, differences between North and South England, although admittedly Greece and Bradford do get a say (even if ignored), whereas as you say an independent Scotland gets no say whatsoever if it just adopts a currency without any legal arrangement.
Re your para on joining the Euro - surely Scotland does not have to join the Euro, it can just adopt it (although again it would do so without any control whatsoever, but how much is that worth?).
Of course it can adopt it but again that is the worst case scenario.
If they simply adopt it they will have no financial sector (no lender of last resort), no say over the Euro policies etc - adopting another currency without joining it really only works for failed states and micronations and Scotland is neither.
The only two viable options are: 1: Float own Scottish Pound. 2: Join the Euro.
Nothing else is viable.
Thanks. As you see from my post to Max I am struggling to understand why. I also note you are correct re the states that do this and they are distinct from the states that peg their currency, which obviously gives more flexibility.
Suspect this is down to my lack of knowledge on the subject and suspect this is not the place for an Economics lesson.
Anybody arguing with the scot nats about the unviability of their currency arrangements should realise these are bits of your life you will not get back.
Yet here you are, sticking your tiny, wee oar in..
Boris was voted in because he was seen to be an electoral asset.
As soon as he's an electoral liability.. gone. My view is next year.
The Tory party doesn't muck about when it comes to millstone leaders.
We all remember the speed with which Mrs M was despatched after her election debacle.
She lasted two years. Next year, Boris will have been in office two years. And Brexit will be "done", which is why he was selected as well as to win an election.
The Union is under threat, as is the Conservative Party's position in Government by a new competent Labour opposition.
Don't underestimate the ability of that to focus minds.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A lot of it depends on how honourably the newly independent Scotland us wrt debt, if they take the "walk away" method espoused by Malc and other extremist independence supporters then there is little to no chance they would be able to float a currency and not see it rapidly depreciate. It would also destroy any chance of them being able to sell paper denominated in McPounds under Scottish law, they would need to raise sterling in London, investors wouldn't trust anything less.
Currency, imo, is still the unanswerable question for the SNP and I actually think it may cause a post yes vote unionist majority. Tell people their savings are going to be converted to McPounds but their debt repayments will be in Sterling and that very real cost of independence starts to be realised.
I also think that the option of the currency peg is completely unrealistic, it would require Scotland to run a perpetually balanced budget and to hold £50-60bn in reserve capital to ensure the over/under isn't breached. The Swiss National Bank €23bn defending the Swiss Franc over a 4 year period (of real money) that's money the Swiss government could have spent on schools, hospitals, policing etc... but was eaten up to keep the Franc pegged to €1.20. Does anyone in Scotland have the stomach to spend taxpayer money on defending the currency? Or more realistically, do 50% +1 think it's a worthy area of expenditure and what spending would they cut to allow it? Scotland isn't Switzerland, they don't have the capability to just go and borrow the money at -0.4% from the markets.
As I've said many times, the independence referendum will be won or lost on emotional reasons. It seems to me that not enough people value the Union to a degree that they will vote to stay in. However, the business of independence is very, very difficult and complicated. Unwinding a 300 year union of shared language, culture, identity and economy is, IMO, going to be close to impossible. The easy way out for Scotland would be to become a vassal state, use the same currency and beg for a monetary union with Westminster, but that would ultimately give Westminster a veto over the Scottish budget and even more power than it holds now.
All true, but none of this matters.
It's about identity. Once the British sense of identity is gone, it's gone.
Yep, I think that is spot on. I also think it is happening as much in England as in Scotland. The last true Brits are to be found in the royal family and in the Scottish and Northern Irish Unionist communities.
If anyone asks me where I am from I say England. English is what I feel, though I feel a strong sense of shared identity with all the other home nations, as well as the Republic of Ireland.
So, will next year's cohort go back to proper grades or will it be perma grade inflation. I think I'd complain if I was Yr 12 and fluffed my exams next year...
And how does next year's cohort compete with this years, many of whom are deferring their University place because of Covid? It will not be a fair competition.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
It is the only option, not a chance they will stay with GB pound, apart from maybe a very short changeover spell t get central bank etc setup and running but as the currency is already in circulation it should not be a big issue.
The currency isn't in circulation.
If you mean the Scottish paper notes those are Pound Sterling. They literally have Sterling printed on them. If created a new Scottish currency would need to not say Sterling but instead name the new Scottish currency's name instead.
Its not the biggest challenge to overcome though.
Honestly the hard part of all this is making an actual decision. Once a decision is made, implementing it isn't that tough.
I don't believe it will be copyright. They are printed as Scottish notes and so if they decide on the pound Scottish then there would be no reason not to use them. Either way a Scottish pound is what it is likely to be.
Sterling is a legal term. They are not printed as Scottish notes they are printed as Scottish designs of Pound Sterling and you won't be using Sterling if you have your own currency.
But honestly so what? Its a non-issue. You can change currency circulation via banks etc almost overnight and continue to accept the old ones for months afterwards - the same thing happened when the Euro was floated and when a new designed bank note comes out. Besides independence is a great opportunity to come up with new designs, so its not a deal breaker at all.
Scottish businesses would continue to accept pound sterling notes even if the currency was now named the Scottish Pound and would bank the notes and they'd be removed from circulation that way. Its not difficult. Just like when the switch happened from paper to plastic bank notes.
Boris was voted in because he was seen to be an electoral asset.
As soon as he's an electoral liability.. gone. My view is next year.
The Tory party doesn't muck about when it comes to millstone leaders.
We all remember the speed with which Mrs M was despatched after her election debacle.
She lasted two years. Next year, Boris will have been in office two years. And Brexit will be "done", which is why he was selected as well as to win an election.
The Union is under threat, as is the Conservative Party's position in Government by a new competent Labour opposition.
Don't underestimate the ability of that to focus minds.
Just a shame these didn't focus many minds before Brexit got so badly done, eh?
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A lot of it depends on how honourably the newly independent Scotland us wrt debt, if they take the "walk away" method espoused by Malc and other extremist independence supporters then there is little to no chance they would be able to float a currency and not see it rapidly depreciate. It would also destroy any chance of them being able to sell paper denominated in McPounds under Scottish law, they would need to raise sterling in London, investors wouldn't trust anything less.
Currency, imo, is still the unanswerable question for the SNP and I actually think it may cause a post yes vote unionist majority. Tell people their savings are going to be converted to McPounds but their debt repayments will be in Sterling and that very real cost of independence starts to be realised.
I also think that the option of the currency peg is completely unrealistic, it would require Scotland to run a perpetually balanced budget and to hold £50-60bn in reserve capital to ensure the over/under isn't breached. The Swiss National Bank €23bn defending the Swiss Franc over a 4 year period (of real money) that's money the Swiss government could have spent on schools, hospitals, policing etc... but was eaten up to keep the Franc pegged to €1.20. Does anyone in Scotland have the stomach to spend taxpayer money on defending the currency? Or more realistically, do 50% +1 think it's a worthy area of expenditure and what spending would they cut to allow it? Scotland isn't Switzerland, they don't have the capability to just go and borrow the money at -0.4% from the markets.
As I've said many times, the independence referendum will be won or lost on emotional reasons. It seems to me that not enough people value the Union to a degree that they will vote to stay in. However, the business of independence is very, very difficult and complicated. Unwinding a 300 year union of shared language, culture, identity and economy is, IMO, going to be close to impossible. The easy way out for Scotland would be to become a vassal state, use the same currency and beg for a monetary union with Westminster, but that would ultimately give Westminster a veto over the Scottish budget and even more power than it holds now.
Max, you don't get it do you, Scotland has no debt, the UK has debt and they have two options , either keep it or share all UK assets including Bof E , Buckingham palace etc and a share of the debt. Can you guess which one they will be desperate to choose , exactly the same one Cameron said would apply , rUK will retain all the debt IT borrowed. Secondly not everyone is obsessed by greed, people will be holding UK pounds so nothing will be devalued initially and no reason why a debt free Scotland would be any worse than a debt laden rUK on currency. Clean slate start or we start with our central bank bulging with UK pounds and a share of the debt, what is there not to like.
You want a share of Buckingham Palace?
OK sure and I'm assuming Westminster will get its share of Holyrood Palace too?
Seriously?
If we get your debt then we get 10% of all your assets, otherwise a clean break. All assets down to your last rowing boat and you can have your share of Holyrood Palace.
10% of all assets? But that’s only about a third of Scotland. Which two thirds don’t you want?
So, will next year's cohort go back to proper grades or will it be perma grade inflation. I think I'd complain if I was Yr 12 and fluffed my exams next year...
Before we start on that, let’s make sure we have schools up and running again.
The big problem for next year’s exams is going to be the rather stark difference between the pupils at those schools that carried on teaching remotely through lockdown, and those that didn’t.
And guess which sector is which?
This is complicated by Ofqual’s decision to say they will effectively make bugger all changes to the curriculum next year. So anyone trying to teach an already overstuffed two year GCSE in two years now has to do it in about one and a third.
Boris was voted in because he was seen to be an electoral asset.
As soon as he's an electoral liability.. gone. My view is next year.
The Tory party doesn't muck about when it comes to millstone leaders.
We all remember the speed with which Mrs M was despatched after her election debacle.
She lasted two years. Next year, Boris will have been in office two years. And Brexit will be "done", which is why he was selected as well as to win an election.
The Union is under threat, as is the Conservative Party's position in Government by a new competent Labour opposition.
Don't underestimate the ability of that to focus minds.
Boris was voted in because he was seen to be an electoral asset.
As soon as he's an electoral liability.. gone. My view is next year.
The Tory party doesn't muck about when it comes to millstone leaders.
We all remember the speed with which Mrs M was despatched after her election debacle.
She lasted two years. Next year, Boris will have been in office two years. And Brexit will be "done", which is why he was selected as well as to win an election.
The Union is under threat, as is the Conservative Party's position in Government by a new competent Labour opposition.
Don't underestimate the ability of that to focus minds.
If I were a Tory I would wait to see how Sunak deals with the next bit of the crisis before making any final calls. A lot of that Red Wall vote is tied up in Johnson personally and is not Tory per se.
Labour Emma Hardy now saying how on earth can we accommodate all these students
You could not make this up
And Williamson is just excruciating to listen to
It was bound to happen, as soon as the Givernment did what 95% of people wanted and U turned, within 5 minutes the BBC were interviewing people describing all the negative aspects of the U-Turn eg grade inflation and not enough Uni places. It really shows that this was an impossible position and whatever the Government did would be wrong. And as you have so rightly said all 4 countries have had to do the same thing. I still don't understand how Labour can criticise what the Government in London has done when its own Government in Cardiff did exactly the same thing an hour before.
I quite expect that in x years time, the same people will be upset that a "glut" of newly qualified doctors will be "squeezing out" applicant doctors from overseas.
The UK’s reliance on overseas trained doctors and nurses is in my view shameful. We’re the 5th-ish richest country, have many of the finest university hospitals in the world and every year perfectly capable students with straight As can’t find a space at medical school.
Why are people happy to deprive poorer countries (with much sparser provision of doctors per capita) of medical staff that their cash strapped governments paid to train?
Cross fertilisation of ideas from international job swaps (formal or through the market mechanism) is terrific. Having a perpetual net import requirement for doctors and nurses is a scandal.
I was told, when I discussed this with some medical people a couple of years back that the approach of training doctors and nurses to provide 100%+ of NHS requirements was "bigoted".
Because it would eliminate the requirement for large numbers of staff from overseas.
I found the insult interesting. It showed how a band-aid policy can become a sacred rule.
Ideally we would train enough doctors/nurses for at least 100% of our needs and the emigration of some of our trained staff would be balanced by immigration from elsewhere.
It's always baffled me how little we talk about emigration in the UK, particularly given our history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
Who will lend the banks money if the economy goes kaput? At the moment the answer is the BoE. In the Euro area the ECB. If you're unilaterally using a currency without a monetary union then the answer is no one which means all banks will have to leave, they would have a duty to shareholders as it makes a material difference to their ability to survive a crash.
I think I need a scenario painted out for me. I appreciate you may not want give an Economics lesson here?
Just think RBS. If RBS had been operating in an independent Scotland it would have gone insolvent and brought the financial system down with it. It survived because it got bailed out by the UK who have almost infinite resources due to QE. No bank of any size could rely upon the central bank of a nation of 5.3m. They could only operate at a local level doing the most basic of functions. For many small countries that doesn't matter because they are not in that game. Scotland is.
You mean the RBS that would have definitely, definitely left an independent Scotland?
Boris was voted in because he was seen to be an electoral asset.
As soon as he's an electoral liability.. gone. My view is next year.
The Tory party doesn't muck about when it comes to millstone leaders.
We all remember the speed with which Mrs M was despatched after her election debacle.
She lasted two years. Next year, Boris will have been in office two years. And Brexit will be "done", which is why he was selected as well as to win an election.
The Union is under threat, as is the Conservative Party's position in Government by a new competent Labour opposition.
Don't underestimate the ability of that to focus minds.
But plenty of your fellow Leavers don't give a flying feck about the Union.
I mean can you imagine a Conservative and Unionist Government putting a border down the Irish Sea?
The Daily Mail going off Johnson is interesting. Are they lining up to eventually support Gove?
The Mail has frequently been off the government since Geordie Gregg became its editor.
Besides it makes sense for any newspaper, even supposedly friendly ones, to attack the government from time to time. Bad news sells. Even the Mirror and the Guardian etc gave Blair bad headlines from time to time.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
Who will lend the banks money if the economy goes kaput? At the moment the answer is the BoE. In the Euro area the ECB. If you're unilaterally using a currency without a monetary union then the answer is no one which means all banks will have to leave, they would have a duty to shareholders as it makes a material difference to their ability to survive a crash.
I think I need a scenario painted out for me. I appreciate you may not want give an Economics lesson here?
During the financial crisis Royal Bank of Scotland was going to run out of money. Everyone who had deposits in RBS would lose everything. RBS spoke to the government and the government bailed them out. The Bank of England acts as "lender of last resort" to all the banks in the UK.
If Scotland was independent but still using Sterling and RBS was still Scottish then it would have simply gone bust. Households and businesses with money in RBS accounts would have lost everything - like people who had put their money into Icelandic banks without realising there were no guarantees or backups and the Icelandic government chose to let them go bust rather than bail them out.
Boris was voted in because he was seen to be an electoral asset.
As soon as he's an electoral liability.. gone. My view is next year.
The Tory party doesn't muck about when it comes to millstone leaders.
We all remember the speed with which Mrs M was despatched after her election debacle.
She lasted two years. Next year, Boris will have been in office two years. And Brexit will be "done", which is why he was selected as well as to win an election.
The Union is under threat, as is the Conservative Party's position in Government by a new competent Labour opposition.
Don't underestimate the ability of that to focus minds.
Rishi Sunak is not going to suddenly convert Yes voters to No and in any case many No voters vote Labour or LD not Scottish Conservative.
Polling also shows only LD voters prefer Sunak to Starmer by more than they prefer Boris to Starmer, Boris does better with Tory and Labour voters against Starmer than Sunak does
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
Who will lend the banks money if the economy goes kaput? At the moment the answer is the BoE. In the Euro area the ECB. If you're unilaterally using a currency without a monetary union then the answer is no one which means all banks will have to leave, they would have a duty to shareholders as it makes a material difference to their ability to survive a crash.
I think I need a scenario painted out for me. I appreciate you may not want give an Economics lesson here?
Just think RBS. If RBS had been operating in an independent Scotland it would have gone insolvent and brought the financial system down with it. It survived because it got bailed out by the UK who have almost infinite resources due to QE. No bank of any size could rely upon the central bank of a nation of 5.3m. They could only operate at a local level doing the most basic of functions. For many small countries that doesn't matter because they are not in that game. Scotland is.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
Who will lend the banks money if the economy goes kaput? At the moment the answer is the BoE. In the Euro area the ECB. If you're unilaterally using a currency without a monetary union then the answer is no one which means all banks will have to leave, they would have a duty to shareholders as it makes a material difference to their ability to survive a crash.
I think I need a scenario painted out for me. I appreciate you may not want give an Economics lesson here?
Ok I'm still waiting for my lady wife to get ready, so I'll do a short one. Let's go back to 2007/8 - the world economy has crashed and two British banks are in ver big trouble, namely RBS and HBOS. In the end the BoE opened up an unlimited swap line and allowed for banks to deposit collateral in exchange for newly created cash, this solved the overnight liquidity issues, however the main issues were solved with a recapitalisation by the British state. Let's change the scenario to an independent Scotland that has unilaterally taken up sterling and the banks haven't moved over. Questions that need answers - do non-domiciled banks have access to the BoE money? Aiui, they didn't Goldman Sachs Europe could only use it for Goldman Sachs Europe, they couldn't use it for shoring up their US branch, so without being headquartered in the UK how does RBS access that liquidity? It probably doesn't. In the event, the UK government stepped in and guaranteed all depositors of all UK banks to ensure no bank runs, how does a independent Scotland guarantee depositors in a currency it can't print? It doesn't and RBS /HBOS see serious bank runs with people queuing up outside then to withdraw their money.
There's probably a few more but those two are probably the most important and both would ensure that banks move to the UK, and IMO, a lot of the back office functions would too, no need to split over two jurisdictions when the cost base is roughly the same.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
Who will lend the banks money if the economy goes kaput? At the moment the answer is the BoE. In the Euro area the ECB. If you're unilaterally using a currency without a monetary union then the answer is no one which means all banks will have to leave, they would have a duty to shareholders as it makes a material difference to their ability to survive a crash.
I think I need a scenario painted out for me. I appreciate you may not want give an Economics lesson here?
Just think RBS. If RBS had been operating in an independent Scotland it would have gone insolvent and brought the financial system down with it. It survived because it got bailed out by the UK who have almost infinite resources due to QE. No bank of any size could rely upon the central bank of a nation of 5.3m. They could only operate at a local level doing the most basic of functions. For many small countries that doesn't matter because they are not in that game. Scotland is.
You mean the RBS that would have definitely, definitely left an independent Scotland?
That is an awesome euphemism for bankruptcy. Can I use it please?
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A lot of it depends on how honourably the newly independent Scotland us wrt debt, if they take the "walk away" method espoused by Malc and other extremist independence supporters then there is little to no chance they would be able to float a currency and not see it rapidly depreciate. It would also destroy any chance of them being able to sell paper denominated in McPounds under Scottish law, they would need to raise sterling in London, investors wouldn't trust anything less.
Currency, imo, is still the unanswerable question for the SNP and I actually think it may cause a post yes vote unionist majority. Tell people their savings are going to be converted to McPounds but their debt repayments will be in Sterling and that very real cost of independence starts to be realised.
I also think that the option of the currency peg is completely unrealistic, it would require Scotland to run a perpetually balanced budget and to hold £50-60bn in reserve capital to ensure the over/under isn't breached. The Swiss National Bank €23bn defending the Swiss Franc over a 4 year period (of real money) that's money the Swiss government could have spent on schools, hospitals, policing etc... but was eaten up to keep the Franc pegged to €1.20. Does anyone in Scotland have the stomach to spend taxpayer money on defending the currency? Or more realistically, do 50% +1 think it's a worthy area of expenditure and what spending would they cut to allow it? Scotland isn't Switzerland, they don't have the capability to just go and borrow the money at -0.4% from the markets.
As I've said many times, the independence referendum will be won or lost on emotional reasons. It seems to me that not enough people value the Union to a degree that they will vote to stay in. However, the business of independence is very, very difficult and complicated. Unwinding a 300 year union of shared language, culture, identity and economy is, IMO, going to be close to impossible. The easy way out for Scotland would be to become a vassal state, use the same currency and beg for a monetary union with Westminster, but that would ultimately give Westminster a veto over the Scottish budget and even more power than it holds now.
All true, but none of this matters.
It's about identity. Once the British sense of identity is gone, it's gone.
Yep, I think that is spot on. I also think it is happening as much in England as in Scotland. The last true Brits are to be found in the royal family and in the Scottish and Northern Irish Unionist communities.
If anyone asks me where I am from I say England. English is what I feel, though I feel a strong sense of shared identity with all the other home nations, as well as the Republic of Ireland.
I remain a Unionists, but only because I dislike nationalism, which in all its forms seems to me to do a whole lot more harm than good. I instinctively do not want it to win. But maybe the real task is to redefine these Isles of ours so that nationalism melts away and we end up like the Nordics - independent of each other, but forever aligned socially, culturally and politically.
It isn't gone for me. I consider myself British. But, it's a battle I know I'm losing.
Another vector on this is the attacks from the Marxist Left on British history of the last 300 years - all "oppressive", "racist" and "slavery" based - which is unravelling the ties that bind us. It's political horseshit, but it's already creeping into corporate HR departments right across the board, including my own.
If we are to all separate I hope we do come to a similar arrangement like Scandinavia but I think hoping nationalism will melt away is a fool's errand. We'll get global citizens/uber-internationalism/open borders v. loyalists/reborn nationalism and hardcore borders and ID cards on the other. There's (currently) more of a latent democratic pool for the latter, but all the money, influence and elite leaders in the former.
Like I've said before, both sides feed off each other.
Boris was voted in because he was seen to be an electoral asset.
As soon as he's an electoral liability.. gone. My view is next year.
The Tory party doesn't muck about when it comes to millstone leaders.
We all remember the speed with which Mrs M was despatched after her election debacle.
She lasted two years. Next year, Boris will have been in office two years. And Brexit will be "done", which is why he was selected as well as to win an election.
The Union is under threat, as is the Conservative Party's position in Government by a new competent Labour opposition.
Don't underestimate the ability of that to focus minds.
If I were a Tory I would wait to see how Sunak deals with the next bit of the crisis before making any final calls. A lot of that Red Wall vote is tied up in Johnson personally and is not Tory per se.
I'm not convinced of that. The Tory recovery in the North has been a very long time coming and is about more than just Johnson/Corbyn/Brexit.
So, will next year's cohort go back to proper grades or will it be perma grade inflation. I think I'd complain if I was Yr 12 and fluffed my exams next year...
And how does next year's cohort compete with this years, many of whom are deferring their University place because of Covid? It will not be a fair competition.
Next year's shitshow is far worse than this one I think, sticking to algorithmic grades would have mostly solved that. I think the most overestimated grades will be teachers with a poor cohort (That'll happen with random variation) - there's absolubtely no incentive to mark said cohort below average this year... obviously no one is going to be heading onto the radio squawking that they've pulled such a move out loud. But it'll have gone on for sure.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
It is the only option, not a chance they will stay with GB pound, apart from maybe a very short changeover spell t get central bank etc setup and running but as the currency is already in circulation it should not be a big issue.
The currency isn't in circulation.
If you mean the Scottish paper notes those are Pound Sterling. They literally have Sterling printed on them. If created a new Scottish currency would need to not say Sterling but instead name the new Scottish currency's name instead.
Its not the biggest challenge to overcome though.
Honestly the hard part of all this is making an actual decision. Once a decision is made, implementing it isn't that tough.
I don't believe it will be copyright. They are printed as Scottish notes and so if they decide on the pound Scottish then there would be no reason not to use them. Either way a Scottish pound is what it is likely to be.
I think printing notes in someone else’s currency might actually count as an act of war...
If I were a Tory I would wait to see how Sunak deals with the next bit of the crisis before making any final calls. A lot of that Red Wall vote is tied up in Johnson personally and is not Tory per se.
Sunak might have to put some chub on and start fucking a few women on the side to broaden his appeal to the slines.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
Who will lend the banks money if the economy goes kaput? At the moment the answer is the BoE. In the Euro area the ECB. If you're unilaterally using a currency without a monetary union then the answer is no one which means all banks will have to leave, they would have a duty to shareholders as it makes a material difference to their ability to survive a crash.
I think I need a scenario painted out for me. I appreciate you may not want give an Economics lesson here?
Ok I'm still waiting for my lady wife to get ready, so I'll do a short one. Let's go back to 2007/8 - the world economy has crashed and two British banks are in ver big trouble, namely RBS and HBOS. In the end the BoE opened up an unlimited swap line and allowed for banks to deposit collateral in exchange for newly created cash, this solved the overnight liquidity issues, however the main issues were solved with a recapitalisation by the British state. Let's change the scenario to an independent Scotland that has unilaterally taken up sterling and the banks haven't moved over. Questions that need answers - do non-domiciled banks have access to the BoE money? Aiui, they didn't Goldman Sachs Europe could only use it for Goldman Sachs Europe, they couldn't use it for shoring up their US branch, so without being headquartered in the UK how does RBS access that liquidity? It probably doesn't. In the event, the UK government stepped in and guaranteed all depositors of all UK banks to ensure no bank runs, how does a independent Scotland guarantee depositors in a currency it can't print? It doesn't and RBS /HBOS see serious bank runs with people queuing up outside then to withdraw their money.
There's probably a few more but those two are probably the most important and both would ensure that banks move to the UK, and IMO, a lot of the back office functions would too, no need to split over two jurisdictions when the cost base is roughly the same.
It should be noted that when the Irish state bailed out its banks, it was able to do so without prior reference to the ECB. However, had the ECB not first arranged for emergency credit, then unilaterally guaranteed the borrowing of all Irish (and Spanish) banks, and eventually all Eurozone sovereign debt, then the Irish state would have collapsed.
And even with that assistance, Greece went right to the brink.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
Who will lend the banks money if the economy goes kaput? At the moment the answer is the BoE. In the Euro area the ECB. If you're unilaterally using a currency without a monetary union then the answer is no one which means all banks will have to leave, they would have a duty to shareholders as it makes a material difference to their ability to survive a crash.
I think I need a scenario painted out for me. I appreciate you may not want give an Economics lesson here?
Just think RBS. If RBS had been operating in an independent Scotland it would have gone insolvent and brought the financial system down with it. It survived because it got bailed out by the UK who have almost infinite resources due to QE. No bank of any size could rely upon the central bank of a nation of 5.3m. They could only operate at a local level doing the most basic of functions. For many small countries that doesn't matter because they are not in that game. Scotland is.
You mean the RBS that would have definitely, definitely left an independent Scotland?
Yes and prior to 2008 it was the largest single tax payer in the whole of the UK. Or take Standard Life. It has huge Sterling assets and liabilities. Do you think it could operate in an independent Scotland with a separate currency?
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
Who will lend the banks money if the economy goes kaput? At the moment the answer is the BoE. In the Euro area the ECB. If you're unilaterally using a currency without a monetary union then the answer is no one which means all banks will have to leave, they would have a duty to shareholders as it makes a material difference to their ability to survive a crash.
I think I need a scenario painted out for me. I appreciate you may not want give an Economics lesson here?
Ok I'm still waiting for my lady wife to get ready, so I'll do a short one. Let's go back to 2007/8 - the world economy has crashed and two British banks are in ver big trouble, namely RBS and HBOS. In the end the BoE opened up an unlimited swap line and allowed for banks to deposit collateral in exchange for newly created cash, this solved the overnight liquidity issues, however the main issues were solved with a recapitalisation by the British state. Let's change the scenario to an independent Scotland that has unilaterally taken up sterling and the banks haven't moved over. Questions that need answers - do non-domiciled banks have access to the BoE money? Aiui, they didn't Goldman Sachs Europe could only use it for Goldman Sachs Europe, they couldn't use it for shoring up their US branch, so without being headquartered in the UK how does RBS access that liquidity? It probably doesn't. In the event, the UK government stepped in and guaranteed all depositors of all UK banks to ensure no bank runs, how does a independent Scotland guarantee depositors in a currency it can't print? It doesn't and RBS /HBOS see serious bank runs with people queuing up outside then to withdraw their money.
There's probably a few more but those two are probably the most important and both would ensure that banks move to the UK, and IMO, a lot of the back office functions would too, no need to split over two jurisdictions when the cost base is roughly the same.
Boris was voted in because he was seen to be an electoral asset.
As soon as he's an electoral liability.. gone. My view is next year.
The Tory party doesn't muck about when it comes to millstone leaders.
We all remember the speed with which Mrs M was despatched after her election debacle.
She lasted two years. Next year, Boris will have been in office two years. And Brexit will be "done", which is why he was selected as well as to win an election.
The Union is under threat, as is the Conservative Party's position in Government by a new competent Labour opposition.
Don't underestimate the ability of that to focus minds.
But plenty of your fellow Leavers don't give a flying feck about the Union.
I mean can you imagine a Conservative and Unionist Government putting a border down the Irish Sea?
*Raises hand*
Why should we? If the rest of the Union doesn't give a feck about us?
Boris was voted in because he was seen to be an electoral asset.
As soon as he's an electoral liability.. gone. My view is next year.
The Tory party doesn't muck about when it comes to millstone leaders.
We all remember the speed with which Mrs M was despatched after her election debacle.
She lasted two years. Next year, Boris will have been in office two years. And Brexit will be "done", which is why he was selected as well as to win an election.
The Union is under threat, as is the Conservative Party's position in Government by a new competent Labour opposition.
Don't underestimate the ability of that to focus minds.
If I were a Tory I would wait to see how Sunak deals with the next bit of the crisis before making any final calls. A lot of that Red Wall vote is tied up in Johnson personally and is not Tory per se.
I'm not convinced of that. The Tory recovery in the North has been a very long time coming and is about more than just Johnson/Corbyn/Brexit.
yeah, it was certainly set up in 2017 - a lot of seats got a lot closer without being won.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
Who will lend the banks money if the economy goes kaput? At the moment the answer is the BoE. In the Euro area the ECB. If you're unilaterally using a currency without a monetary union then the answer is no one which means all banks will have to leave, they would have a duty to shareholders as it makes a material difference to their ability to survive a crash.
I think I need a scenario painted out for me. I appreciate you may not want give an Economics lesson here?
Just think RBS. If RBS had been operating in an independent Scotland it would have gone insolvent and brought the financial system down with it. It survived because it got bailed out by the UK who have almost infinite resources due to QE. No bank of any size could rely upon the central bank of a nation of 5.3m. They could only operate at a local level doing the most basic of functions. For many small countries that doesn't matter because they are not in that game. Scotland is.
You can become one like Switzerland, but again that needs a lot of discipline and years if keeping the markets happy with balanced budgets.
I mean can you imagine a Conservative and Unionist Government putting a border down the Irish Sea?
That's not going to be a problem. Johnson can just recast it in language that will appeal to the drum bashers. It's not a 'border down the Irish Sea' it's a...
Boris was voted in because he was seen to be an electoral asset.
As soon as he's an electoral liability.. gone. My view is next year.
The Tory party doesn't muck about when it comes to millstone leaders.
We all remember the speed with which Mrs M was despatched after her election debacle.
She lasted two years. Next year, Boris will have been in office two years. And Brexit will be "done", which is why he was selected as well as to win an election.
The Union is under threat, as is the Conservative Party's position in Government by a new competent Labour opposition.
Don't underestimate the ability of that to focus minds.
Rishi Sunak is not going to suddenly convert Yes voters to No and in any case many No voters vote Labour or LD not Scottish Conservative.
Polling also shows only LD voters prefer Sunak to Starmer by more than they prefer Boris to Starmer, Boris does better with Tory and Labour voters against Starmer than Sunak does
Rishi might firm up soft unionist purely by virtue of being harder working and more competent than Boris - how the UK Government is seen is crucial.
You're basing your argument off polling. I agree. Whenever that changes, and it will, Boris goes.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
I can see there are disadvantages in using another's currency you don't have control over, but isn't it an easy solution? The obvious ones are to use the £ or Euro. Admittedly those that have done so are usually doing so because they became basket cases with their own currency, but there are other decent economies who although using their own currency are linked to another, effectively making them the same (although admittedly easy to delink if they wish).
I don't know enough about this subject but isn't it a case of pros and cons for each situation.
You can't have a financial industry and not have your own currency. Which is fine for thevlikes of Cambodia (USD), North Macedonia (EUR) but not Scotland which has a huge Financial services industry that provides 7-8% of annual tax revenue.
Max, so this is where I am showing my ignorance on the subject. Why?
Who will lend the banks money if the economy goes kaput? At the moment the answer is the BoE. In the Euro area the ECB. If you're unilaterally using a currency without a monetary union then the answer is no one which means all banks will have to leave, they would have a duty to shareholders as it makes a material difference to their ability to survive a crash.
I think I need a scenario painted out for me. I appreciate you may not want give an Economics lesson here?
Just think RBS. If RBS had been operating in an independent Scotland it would have gone insolvent and brought the financial system down with it. It survived because it got bailed out by the UK who have almost infinite resources due to QE. No bank of any size could rely upon the central bank of a nation of 5.3m. They could only operate at a local level doing the most basic of functions. For many small countries that doesn't matter because they are not in that game. Scotland is.
You can become one like Switzerland, but again that needs a lot of discipline and years if keeping the markets happy with balanced budgets.
A Scottish Pound is the sensible option. Simply continuing with the Pound is not. They need to create their own Central Bank and have their own Pound. The idea that already exists is nonsense, it doesn't they're using Pound Sterling - but the idea it can't be created is also a nonsense.
They should create plans on how they will set up their own Central Bank, how they will float the currency and get on with it. Its far from unprecedented through history.
It is the only option, not a chance they will stay with GB pound, apart from maybe a very short changeover spell t get central bank etc setup and running but as the currency is already in circulation it should not be a big issue.
The currency isn't in circulation.
If you mean the Scottish paper notes those are Pound Sterling. They literally have Sterling printed on them. If created a new Scottish currency would need to not say Sterling but instead name the new Scottish currency's name instead.
Its not the biggest challenge to overcome though.
Honestly the hard part of all this is making an actual decision. Once a decision is made, implementing it isn't that tough.
I don't believe it will be copyright. They are printed as Scottish notes and so if they decide on the pound Scottish then there would be no reason not to use them. Either way a Scottish pound is what it is likely to be.
I think printing notes in someone else’s currency might actually count as an act of war...
I would have thought it more likely to be just an irrelevance.
I mean, I can print five pound notes off, but unless the Bank of England will back them they’re not worth anything.
Boris was voted in because he was seen to be an electoral asset.
As soon as he's an electoral liability.. gone. My view is next year.
The Tory party doesn't muck about when it comes to millstone leaders.
We all remember the speed with which Mrs M was despatched after her election debacle.
She lasted two years. Next year, Boris will have been in office two years. And Brexit will be "done", which is why he was selected as well as to win an election.
The Union is under threat, as is the Conservative Party's position in Government by a new competent Labour opposition.
Don't underestimate the ability of that to focus minds.
But plenty of your fellow Leavers don't give a flying feck about the Union.
I mean can you imagine a Conservative and Unionist Government putting a border down the Irish Sea?
Plenty of Leave voters don't; plenty of Tory MPs who voted Leave do.
I never agreed with putting a border down the Irish Sea, and said so at the time.
Labour Emma Hardy now saying how on earth can we accommodate all these students
You could not make this up
And Williamson is just excruciating to listen to
It was bound to happen, as soon as the Givernment did what 95% of people wanted and U turned, within 5 minutes the BBC were interviewing people describing all the negative aspects of the U-Turn eg grade inflation and not enough Uni places. It really shows that this was an impossible position and whatever the Government did would be wrong. And as you have so rightly said all 4 countries have had to do the same thing. I still don't understand how Labour can criticise what the Government in London has done when its own Government in Cardiff did exactly the same thing an hour before.
I quite expect that in x years time, the same people will be upset that a "glut" of newly qualified doctors will be "squeezing out" applicant doctors from overseas.
The UK’s reliance on overseas trained doctors and nurses is in my view shameful. We’re the 5th-ish richest country, have many of the finest university hospitals in the world and every year perfectly capable students with straight As can’t find a space at medical school.
Why are people happy to deprive poorer countries (with much sparser provision of doctors per capita) of medical staff that their cash strapped governments paid to train?
Cross fertilisation of ideas from international job swaps (formal or through the market mechanism) is terrific. Having a perpetual net import requirement for doctors and nurses is a scandal.
I was told, when I discussed this with some medical people a couple of years back that the approach of training doctors and nurses to provide 100%+ of NHS requirements was "bigoted".
Because it would eliminate the requirement for large numbers of staff from overseas.
I found the insult interesting. It showed how a band-aid policy can become a sacred rule.
Ideally we would train enough doctors/nurses for at least 100% of our needs and the emigration of some of our trained staff would be balanced by immigration from elsewhere.
It's always baffled me how little we talk about emigration in the UK, particularly given our history.
In this case, a quick fix - import doctors/nurses, so no cost in educating, training them etc and rapidly increase numbers - became How Things Are Done.
A sensible policy would have been to increase the number of places for medical training of all kinds by a steady x percent per year.
It is quite clear that there is a large cohort of people, in the state education system, who have brains and talent, but are not getting through the system.
The idea that we can only train the current number of medical staff and that any increase would *need* a decrease in quality is horse manure.
If they want to use the currency of foreign countries the smart option is the Euro. It is designed as a currency union so has safeguards in it that simply don't exist within Sterling.
Rubbish. Simple optimal currency area theory is that if you can't have your own currency you want to join the currency with which your economy is most integrated, and your economic cycles are most synced. And for Scotland, that's undoubtedly England.
In addition, there are significant transactions costs to changing to the Euro, which there wouldn't be if they kept the pound.
And finally the euro is a currency rigged in favour of surplus countries in a number of ways, as Greece, Italy and others have found to their cost, and Scotland would be a deficit country, as the UK is.
So either they should have their own currency, with all the associated changeover costs, or they should keep sterling, no matter how much annoys nationalists.
Comments
The requirement to join and the requirement to change the entry requirements are identical - unanimous agreement. If the EU wants Scotland to join with the EU, if Scotland wants to, then it can. End of story.
There is a reason for years SNP policy was to switch to the Euro. The issue is the SNP no longer want to say we will use the Euro as the Euro isn't popular - but its really not a bad idea for them, if they want a currency union it is the best option available.
There was no perfect solution. Had they gone with the CAGs last Thursday the Friday headlines would have been full of distraught students who did not get into their first choice despite making their offers as the universities would have been full.
“No one ever seems to resign or get fired any more,” laments one senior Tory.
“The past few months have been a shitshow,” says a minister. “The only way to stop a repeat is getting pupils back.” It’s on students’ return to the classroom that any hope of restoring confidence in both Williamson and the government now rests.
Secondly not everyone is obsessed by greed, people will be holding UK pounds so nothing will be devalued initially and no reason why a debt free Scotland would be any worse than a debt laden rUK on currency. Clean slate start or we start with our central bank bulging with UK pounds and a share of the debt, what is there not to like.
https://twitter.com/seanjonesqc/status/1295641155129020416
So the push factor needs to be very high to do it. But who am I to tell those seeking independence for emotional / identity reasons that the push factor isn’t big enough?
So how do you do it? If I were the PM of i-Scotland I would revise all contracts 1-1 into Scottish Pounds and let the currency float freely. Including Scotland’s share of sovereign debt liabilities.
No point trying to hold back the tide with a fixed exchange rate. And suck up any loss of purchasing power from the likely substantial devaluation as coming out in the wash, by boosting competitiveness in export industries.
With a sovereign central bank, until the economy stabilises Scotland would be free to monetise its deficit happily enough the same way as Westminster/Threadneedle. All talk of a gilt buyers strike becomes moot in the face of an unprecedented money printing spree (aka QE).
Knowing this, depositors (both corporate and retail) would move their deposits from RBS to Barclays ahead of time and certainly before the split is finalised. Even this gives the sting to the English, who would still be on the hook for the bail-out. Sure, Scotland might lose the jobs. But surely half the point of independence is a burst of creative economic destruction to re-set the clock and set the country on a different course to before?
I suspect all this will be little understood before a Yes vote and will fit into the “figure it out as we go” box for voters. Much the same as Brexit and Northern Ireland. And it will be.
If you mean the Scottish paper notes those are Pound Sterling. They literally have Sterling printed on them. If created a new Scottish currency would need to not say Sterling but instead name the new Scottish currency's name instead.
Its not the biggest challenge to overcome though.
Honestly the hard part of all this is making an actual decision. Once a decision is made, implementing it isn't that tough.
When that goes wrong he can take the blame for both, rather than getting a new body in now just in time for it to all go really pear shaped on them.
Yes we are so dumb we don't understand that clever stuff, we should just stick with it and let English think for us , we are too wee and too stupid to be a country.
OK sure and I'm assuming Westminster will get its share of Holyrood Palace too?
Seriously?
Otherwise we would never have voted for Brexit. People are prepared to die for their country and their identity. They won't baulk at a bit of money being required to establish a new currency.
So the question is whether 50% of the voters in Scotland identify as Scots-oppressed-by-the-English.
The reported infection rate of nearly 90% suggests that ideas of preexisting herd immunity are far fetched*. And the fact that those who had antibodies from previous infection avoided reinfection is good evidence of immunity on that basis.
https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/1294720837887463424
* Though it’s entirely possible that cross reactive antibodies from previous different coronavirus infection still help avoid serious disease.
If the advisors are giving awful advice and the minister decides they need to change course (as has happened) then why would you keep getting advice from the person who gave you the awful advice in the first place?
If the minister had gone against the advice then that would be a different matter, but it doesn't seem like that happened.
Also, take a look at the countries with money printing power, the US, UK, EU and Japan all of those are established reserve currencies with trillions in assets denominated in each of them, that means adding a few hundred billion to 5he moelney supply doesn't necessarily make a huge difference to the overall value. If you fitted up the printing presses for a completely new currency then it would cause severe and rapid inflation wiping out any remaining savers and making it impossible to sell paper in the new currency.
As I said, I think the easiest way out is to beg for a monetary union and pray that Westminster is gentle and uses a lot of lubrication.
It's about identity. Once the British sense of identity is gone, it's gone.
All assets down to your last rowing boat and you can have your share of Holyrood Palace.
This is what the Irish free state did. Of course, it comes at an economic cost - there would be a lot of capital outflow from Scotland, and it would need to build up significant banking reserves at the same time to separate out from Sterling formally.
The other alternative is to jump straight to the Euro (and the EU might make an exception for that) but it's a big "if", particularly since it might set a precedent for Catalonia.
Anti-lockdowner Simon Dolan hearing rumours furlough may be extended to the end of the year as Johnson desperately tries to hide from the implications of some of the worst policy decisions ever taken by a British government,
That's a cracker, right there.
If they simply adopt it they will have no financial sector (no lender of last resort), no say over the Euro policies etc - adopting another currency without joining it really only works for failed states and micronations and Scotland is neither.
The only two viable options are:
1: Float own Scottish Pound.
2: Join the Euro.
Nothing else is viable.
The trading costs of having a different currency from rUK would be considerable.
The cost of maintaining a link to Sterling would be huge both in terms of reserves but also the loss of the ability to have our own economic policy.
The lack of a credible LOLR makes large scale financial services impossible. We simply could not bail out a RBS on our own.
We would need to incentivise the markets to hold Scottish currency meaning higher interest rates and a more cautious economic policy with much smaller deficits.
We would need to accept that QE etc was pretty much unavailable. Large currencies can get away with that, small ones can't.
So it can be done but only at a real and substantial cost to our current economy. Joining the Euro would solve some of these but not others. It also means that we are accepting German interest rates and further restrictions on deficits.
Boris Johnson may be a twat, but he isn’t responsible for Iraq, Suez, the squandering of Marshall Aid, Appeasement, the Jameson Raid, the Trevelyan response to the Irish Potato Famine or the 1834 Poor Law.
Suppose you have a mortgage of £100,000 with a UK bank. If that bank is based in London then after independence you still have that mortgage and you need to keep paying in in Sterling. If the Scottish currency maintains parity with the pound, fine, but if not then your mortgage payments are now subject to currency swings (a trap some UK customers who decided they liked the look of interest rates in Europe and went for mortgages in Euros found themselves in a few years back).
Scotland could pass a law to convert these debts into the new currency I suppose, but that would probably not go down well and might lead to all sorts of repercussions, particularly as it would also imply that any savings held by people from Scotland in London banks should be similarly treated.
If Scotland was independent but still using Sterling and RBS was still Scottish then it would have simply gone bust. Households and businesses with money in RBS accounts would have lost everything - like people who had put their money into Icelandic banks without realising there were no guarantees or backups and the Icelandic government chose to let them go bust rather than bail them out.
Any guesses on with whom the anonymous 'media officer' had a good long chat before penning that FactcheckUK style paean to truth?
Because it would eliminate the requirement for large numbers of staff from overseas.
I found the insult interesting. It showed how a band-aid policy can become a sacred rule.
Theresa May faced serious leadership challenges within 18 months of GE2017. She only didn't face them earlier because of the delicate nature of the hung parliament alliance with the DUP, and the fact it might threaten Brexit. Ironically, she'd have been even more vulnerable had she won a small majority.
Thatcher was facing challenges to her leadership within 30 months of winning a landslide victory in 1987.
Boris goes as soon as he's an electoral liability, rather than an asset, and there's a credible replacement - the obvious one being Sunak.
It isn't done on buggins turn.
If a minister has failed on something smaller, why would you leave them in place to manage something bigger?
Makes no sense.
If anyone asks me where I am from I say England. English is what I feel, though I feel a strong sense of shared identity with all the other home nations, as well as the Republic of Ireland.
I remain in favour of the Union, but only because I dislike nationalism, which in all its forms seems to me to do a whole lot more harm than good. Thus, I instinctively do not want it to win. But maybe the real task is to redefine these Isles of ours so that nationalism melts away and we end up like the Nordics - independent of each other, but forever aligned socially, culturally and politically.
I think I'd complain if I was Yr 12 and fluffed my exams next year...
Suspect this is down to my lack of knowledge on the subject and suspect this is not the place for an Economics lesson.
The Union is under threat, as is the Conservative Party's position in Government by a new competent Labour opposition.
Don't underestimate the ability of that to focus minds.
But honestly so what? Its a non-issue. You can change currency circulation via banks etc almost overnight and continue to accept the old ones for months afterwards - the same thing happened when the Euro was floated and when a new designed bank note comes out. Besides independence is a great opportunity to come up with new designs, so its not a deal breaker at all.
Scottish businesses would continue to accept pound sterling notes even if the currency was now named the Scottish Pound and would bank the notes and they'd be removed from circulation that way. Its not difficult. Just like when the switch happened from paper to plastic bank notes.
The big problem for next year’s exams is going to be the rather stark difference between the pupils at those schools that carried on teaching remotely through lockdown, and those that didn’t.
And guess which sector is which?
This is complicated by Ofqual’s decision to say they will effectively make bugger all changes to the curriculum next year. So anyone trying to teach an already overstuffed two year GCSE in two years now has to do it in about one and a third.
It's always baffled me how little we talk about emigration in the UK, particularly given our history.
I mean can you imagine a Conservative and Unionist Government putting a border down the Irish Sea?
Besides it makes sense for any newspaper, even supposedly friendly ones, to attack the government from time to time. Bad news sells. Even the Mirror and the Guardian etc gave Blair bad headlines from time to time.
Polling also shows only LD voters prefer Sunak to Starmer by more than they prefer Boris to Starmer, Boris does better with Tory and Labour voters against Starmer than Sunak does
There's probably a few more but those two are probably the most important and both would ensure that banks move to the UK, and IMO, a lot of the back office functions would too, no need to split over two jurisdictions when the cost base is roughly the same.
Another vector on this is the attacks from the Marxist Left on British history of the last 300 years - all "oppressive", "racist" and "slavery" based - which is unravelling the ties that bind us. It's political horseshit, but it's already creeping into corporate HR departments right across the board, including my own.
If we are to all separate I hope we do come to a similar arrangement like Scandinavia but I think hoping nationalism will melt away is a fool's errand. We'll get global citizens/uber-internationalism/open borders v. loyalists/reborn nationalism and hardcore borders and ID cards on the other. There's (currently) more of a latent democratic pool for the latter, but all the money, influence and elite leaders in the former.
Like I've said before, both sides feed off each other.
I think the most overestimated grades will be teachers with a poor cohort (That'll happen with random variation) - there's absolubtely no incentive to mark said cohort below average this year... obviously no one is going to be heading onto the radio squawking that they've pulled such a move out loud. But it'll have gone on for sure.
That and trying to pin the blame on Ofqual.
What an embarrassment he is.
And even with that assistance, Greece went right to the brink.
Why should we? If the rest of the Union doesn't give a feck about us?
꧁༺MARITIME SASH ༻꧂
You're basing your argument off polling. I agree. Whenever that changes, and it will, Boris goes.
I mean, I can print five pound notes off, but unless the Bank of England will back them they’re not worth anything.
I never agreed with putting a border down the Irish Sea, and said so at the time.
A sensible policy would have been to increase the number of places for medical training of all kinds by a steady x percent per year.
It is quite clear that there is a large cohort of people, in the state education system, who have brains and talent, but are not getting through the system.
The idea that we can only train the current number of medical staff and that any increase would *need* a decrease in quality is horse manure.
As, it appears, we are about to find out.
In addition, there are significant transactions costs to changing to the Euro, which there wouldn't be if they kept the pound.
And finally the euro is a currency rigged in favour of surplus countries in a number of ways, as Greece, Italy and others have found to their cost, and Scotland would be a deficit country, as the UK is.
So either they should have their own currency, with all the associated changeover costs, or they should keep sterling, no matter how much annoys nationalists.