Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

Johnson was right to announce his departure when he did – politicalbetting.com

245

Comments

  • geoffw said:

    Thread on the Scottish Fiscal Commission Demographics Report:

    https://twitter.com/scotfax/status/1564687989883682818

    Scotland is slowly disappearing infront of our very eyes, but this report has just been quietly dropped to the public on a Tuesday afternoon.
    Good morning

    I am sure our SNP friends will reject this comment but I am increasingly of the opinion Sturgeon wants out and is working on a pathway to achieve this without loss of face

    The prospect of indyref2 happening in the next few years is highly unlikely and while I am not a fan she is a consummate politician and will be looking into the future which frankly is a nightmare for all politicians.

    An easier life beckons outside politics

    And labour latest announcement to help business is to increase the tax on Amazon

    They clearly have no idea of the scale of the crisis facing businesses which in one estimate said 170 billion would be needed to insulate them from this crisis

    Labour produce superficially popular announcements but when examined they just do not address the scale of the problem and their spokesperson also refused to outline what they would do in six months when energy bills head to £6,000
    Nobody has clear answers because the path through this is obvious. But opposition parties only having a partial answer is not going to drive them back to voting for a Tory Government who have demonstrated they have no ideas or understanding or compassion.
    I am interested in your explanation of 'the path through this is obvious' as it is clear no government has found it

    As far as the conservatives are concerned they have trashed their brand and they may well pay a heavy price for it

    As far as Johnson is concerned, I have been certain he is history but I am beginning to see a path back for him, especially if Truss fails as so many on here expect, as by this time next year if the conservatives are cratering it is highly likely she will be hooked and a new leader sought and if Johnson is still in the HOC I would expect a near coronation

    What price a Johnson - Trump PM - President in 2024

    Please do not have nightmares
  • rcs1000 said:

    So why is Boris Johnson set to approve spending £30 billion on a nuclear power plant but will leave how many poor people will freeze to death to Truss?

    Boris Johnson is poised to give approval this week for a nuclear power station costing up to £30 billion as ministers close in on a deal to reopen Britain’s biggest gas storage facility.

    The prime minister is preparing to announce an in-principle agreement to offer funding to the Sizewell C reactor in Suffolk before he leaves office, despite concerns about creating a multibillion-pound spending commitment for Liz Truss, the frontrunner to succeed him.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-ready-to-sign-off-on-30bn-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-station-fnnjds2ls

    Ummm ...

    Normally the way this works is that the government agrees to buy electricity on a fixed price contract, and then the private sector puts up the money to build the plant.
    The "private sector" being subsidiaries of the French or Chinese governments.
    For the former, what difference does that make?

    We should be wary of the Chinese, but if a subsidiary of the French are putting up the money they're doing so for private sector purposes, not for public sector purposes. They're seeking to make a profit, by being efficient, they're not seeking to do so in order to further the agenda of politicians, unions, civil servants or other "stakeholders".

    If anyone can do it more efficiently than the French firm, then they're welcome to create a company and put up the investment themselves. If they can't, then the French subsidiary doing so is the private sector working properly.
    EDF is a StateCo. The exact kind of company you said wasn't possible to be a success due it being state owned. Whilst it is Not Good that we are once again in hoc to foreign governments for energy, it does show us the way forward.

    Nuclear power costs £lots which puts it out of reach of the free market. It is a political football so is largely out of reach of political viability. So create BritZap, allow it to borrow money at government rates to invest in a multi-decade mandate to provide power for the middle of the century. Instead of having a foreign StateCo do this, why not have our own?
    I categorically never said that StateCo's are "never" a success due to being state owned, I said they're rarely a success, EDF is the diamond in the rough.

    Survivorship bias means that EDF has outlasted all the other StateCo's in that sector because it is good at its job and knows what it is doing.

    Why not create BritZap? Because BritZap won't be as efficient as EDF. If you have a way of making a firm more efficient than EDF then do so in the private sector without state involvement, if you can't, then EDF is the better option.
    You say "survivorship" as if it is the same as the previous state monolith. It is not. There is zero reason why the UK cannot create the same other than intransigence from markeyt-uber-alles zealots like your good self.

    You say "in the private sector without state involvement" as if that is EDF. It is not. It is a true piece of British absurdity that we are happy to have so many of our public services provided by foreign StateCos but cannot create our own because "they're rarely a success".
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,008
    "One of the most positive things that will be said about Johnson is the manner of his exit."

    Stick to "naturally gifted clown".
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,138

    TimS said:

    So why is Boris Johnson set to approve spending £30 billion on a nuclear power plant but will leave how many poor people will freeze to death to Truss?

    Boris Johnson is poised to give approval this week for a nuclear power station costing up to £30 billion as ministers close in on a deal to reopen Britain’s biggest gas storage facility.

    The prime minister is preparing to announce an in-principle agreement to offer funding to the Sizewell C reactor in Suffolk before he leaves office, despite concerns about creating a multibillion-pound spending commitment for Liz Truss, the frontrunner to succeed him.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-ready-to-sign-off-on-30bn-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-station-fnnjds2ls

    He's also allowed the civil service to shunt the Cumbria coal mine into the repair yard. What an utterly useless [wordthatgetsyoubanned]
    Oh, I’m starting to warm to him.

    The coal mine was an example of a very small project with an ability to do orders of magnitude greater damage to British soft power or influence on developing world environmental policies than it would ever generate either in GDP, energy security or indeed carbon emissions.
    That's a rather odd argument. Do you use it against German soft power and their influence on developing world environmental policies, given Germany's vastly greater use of much
    worse types of coal?
    Yes. Germany is rightly pilloried not only in the developing world but the rest of Europe for that, its reluctance on nuclear and its over dependence on Russian gas. German soft power is badly diminished by its energy policy - a perfect case study.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,457
    glw said:

    I don't think we chose to squander Russia, we tried for many years to bring Russia in from the cold, and we succeeded as you say with most of Eastern Europe. Unfortunately Russia's leaders chose that a gangster state would be better for them than the path of freedom. That wasn't our choice.

    From what I've read on the subject I think you could argue that if anything the West got too involved in transforming Russia. The abrupt switch to a market economy caused a lot of trouble and damage that the crooks were able to exploit, as they were the people with the capital and connections. Russia might have been better off with a much slower change, even if that meant the remnants of the Communist Party had clinged on to power for another decade or so.
    I think that's spot on. Glasnost and perestroika were designed by Gorbachev as gradual, medium-term reforms. But events overtook them and a dose of rampant capitalism, encouraged by the West, happened too quickly and without safeguards. The main beneficiaries were the Russian Mafia equivalents and those who were in a political position to fill their financial boots.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544
    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    So why is Boris Johnson set to approve spending £30 billion on a nuclear power plant but will leave how many poor people will freeze to death to Truss?

    Boris Johnson is poised to give approval this week for a nuclear power station costing up to £30 billion as ministers close in on a deal to reopen Britain’s biggest gas storage facility.

    The prime minister is preparing to announce an in-principle agreement to offer funding to the Sizewell C reactor in Suffolk before he leaves office, despite concerns about creating a multibillion-pound spending commitment for Liz Truss, the frontrunner to succeed him.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-ready-to-sign-off-on-30bn-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-station-fnnjds2ls

    He's also allowed the civil service to shunt the Cumbria coal mine into the repair yard. What an utterly useless [wordthatgetsyoubanned]
    Oh, I’m starting to warm to him.

    The coal mine was an example of a very small project with an ability to do orders of magnitude greater damage to British soft power or influence on developing world environmental policies than it would ever generate either in GDP, energy security or indeed carbon emissions.
    That's a rather odd argument. Do you use it against German soft power and their influence on developing world environmental policies, given Germany's vastly greater use of much
    worse types of coal?
    Yes. Germany is rightly pilloried not only in the developing world but the rest of Europe for that, its reluctance on nuclear and its over dependence on Russian gas. German soft power is badly diminished by its energy policy - a perfect case study.
    Though, as it turns out, we are just as dependent on Russian gas now. Even though we barely use it.
  • rcs1000 said:

    So why is Boris Johnson set to approve spending £30 billion on a nuclear power plant but will leave how many poor people will freeze to death to Truss?

    Boris Johnson is poised to give approval this week for a nuclear power station costing up to £30 billion as ministers close in on a deal to reopen Britain’s biggest gas storage facility.

    The prime minister is preparing to announce an in-principle agreement to offer funding to the Sizewell C reactor in Suffolk before he leaves office, despite concerns about creating a multibillion-pound spending commitment for Liz Truss, the frontrunner to succeed him.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-ready-to-sign-off-on-30bn-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-station-fnnjds2ls

    Ummm ...

    Normally the way this works is that the government agrees to buy electricity on a fixed price contract, and then the private sector puts up the money to build the plant.
    The "private sector" being subsidiaries of the French or Chinese governments.
    For the former, what difference does that make?

    We should be wary of the Chinese, but if a subsidiary of the French are putting up the money they're doing so for private sector purposes, not for public sector purposes. They're seeking to make a profit, by being efficient, they're not seeking to do so in order to further the agenda of politicians, unions, civil servants or other "stakeholders".

    If anyone can do it more efficiently than the French firm, then they're welcome to create a company and put up the investment themselves. If they can't, then the French subsidiary doing so is the private sector working properly.
    EDF is a StateCo. The exact kind of company you said wasn't possible to be a success due it being state owned. Whilst it is Not Good that we are once again in hoc to foreign governments for energy, it does show us the way forward.

    Nuclear power costs £lots which puts it out of reach of the free market. It is a political football so is largely out of reach of political viability. So create BritZap, allow it to borrow money at government rates to invest in a multi-decade mandate to provide power for the middle of the century. Instead of having a foreign StateCo do this, why not have our own?
    I categorically never said that StateCo's are "never" a success due to being state owned, I said they're rarely a success, EDF is the diamond in the rough.

    Survivorship bias means that EDF has outlasted all the other StateCo's in that sector because it is good at its job and knows what it is doing.

    Why not create BritZap? Because BritZap won't be as efficient as EDF. If you have a way of making a firm more efficient than EDF then do so in the private sector without state involvement, if you can't, then EDF is the better option.
    You say "survivorship" as if it is the same as the previous state monolith. It is not. There is zero reason why the UK cannot create the same other than intransigence from markeyt-uber-alles zealots like your good self.

    You say "in the private sector without state involvement" as if that is EDF. It is not. It is a true piece of British absurdity that we are happy to have so many of our public services provided by foreign StateCos but cannot create our own because "they're rarely a success".
    You're right its not the same as the previous state monolith, its taken the success from the state monolith in the past and then evolved into a very successful private sector business. EDF UK is a private sector firm that happens to have a French parent company.

    If you want to compete with EDF UK then create a successful alternative. If you can't, then don't complain and don't be xenophobic.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    So why is Boris Johnson set to approve spending £30 billion on a nuclear power plant but will leave how many poor people will freeze to death to Truss?

    Boris Johnson is poised to give approval this week for a nuclear power station costing up to £30 billion as ministers close in on a deal to reopen Britain’s biggest gas storage facility.

    The prime minister is preparing to announce an in-principle agreement to offer funding to the Sizewell C reactor in Suffolk before he leaves office, despite concerns about creating a multibillion-pound spending commitment for Liz Truss, the frontrunner to succeed him.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-ready-to-sign-off-on-30bn-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-station-fnnjds2ls

    He's also allowed the civil service to shunt the Cumbria coal mine into the repair yard. What an utterly useless [wordthatgetsyoubanned]
    Oh, I’m starting to warm to him.

    The coal mine was an example of a very small project with an ability to do orders of magnitude greater damage to British soft power or influence on developing world environmental policies than it would ever generate either in GDP, energy security or indeed carbon emissions.
    That's a rather odd argument. Do you use it against German soft power and their influence on developing world environmental policies, given Germany's vastly greater use of much
    worse types of coal?
    Yes. Germany is rightly pilloried not only in the developing world but the rest of Europe for that, its reluctance on nuclear and its over dependence on Russian gas. German soft power is badly diminished by its energy policy - a perfect case study.
    And do you realise the Cumbrian coal mine is *tiny* in comparison? A problem with your argument is that it can be used for anything we do that *you* don't like - however necessary it is.

    "We're still allowing diesel cars in 2022? Don't you realise the damage to British soft power or influence on developing world environmental policies this has?"
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,747

    glw said:

    I don't think we chose to squander Russia, we tried for many years to bring Russia in from the cold, and we succeeded as you say with most of Eastern Europe. Unfortunately Russia's leaders chose that a gangster state would be better for them than the path of freedom. That wasn't our choice.

    From what I've read on the subject I think you could argue that if anything the West got too involved in transforming Russia. The abrupt switch to a market economy caused a lot of trouble and damage that the crooks were able to exploit, as they were the people with the capital and connections. Russia might have been better off with a much slower change, even if that meant the remnants of the Communist Party had clinged on to power for another decade or so.
    I think that's spot on. Glasnost and perestroika were designed by Gorbachev as gradual, medium-term reforms. But events overtook them and a dose of rampant capitalism, encouraged by the West, happened too quickly and without safeguards. The main beneficiaries were the Russian Mafia equivalents and those who were in a political position to fill their financial boots.
    I think that you are missing the central point of that critique. Everything is always our fault directly or indirectly.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092

    geoffw said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    While I believe in Scottish independence this point by you is very silly.

    Migration to Scotland is low because people don't want to emigrate to Scotland, by and large, not because of an absence of migration to the UK. Emigration from the rest of the world to the UK is still running at extremely high levels.

    If the Scottish Government truly wants a pro-migration policy then they have two ways they could be seeking to address why people don't want to emigrate to Scotland as much as they want to emigrate to England and work to fix that problem. That is entirely within their own hands, but blaming London is far easier than actually doing their own job.
    And the "two ways" are …?

    Sorry I wrote that sentence badly. Two ways to get more migrants.

    1: (What Rochdale suggested) Go independent and have own immigration policy.
    2: (My alternative) Address why people don't want to emigrate to Scotland and get more migrants as the UK already is doing.

    Going independent isn't the only way to have more immigration, if people from the rest of the world wanted to migrate to Scotland then Scotland could be receiving many more migrants under the existing immigration framework.

    Why fewer people want to emigrate to Scotland than England, even proportionately, is a question that the Scottish Government studiously ignores.
    If fertility trends wont help then migration is the only way, and the easiest migration is from the other parts of the UK. The Scottish government has within its power to encourage such immigration through taxes and spending. It could choose an increase in public expenditure to create more public sector jobs. The effect of that would be to siphon off private sector jobs within Scotland. Or it could choose to encourage private sector job creation by reducing taxes (and pubic expenditure) enabling enterprising incomers to start businesses and make money in Scotland. Any bets on which way this Scottish government would go?

  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,138

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Perhaps if Scotland had seen much more immigration then similar concerns as have occurred in places in England would have happened there too. Many ‘native’ English, for whatever that means, are not so much racist, but have concerns about the rapidity of change of culture, life etc in their places of origin. With such a slow trickle into Scotland, similar changes have not happened. Perhaps remember that when decrying the racists of England.
    Except most of the more anti immigration areas of England are those with fewer immigrants. London has similar public opinion to Scotland.

    I think it’s more about perceptions of the other, and who is them, who is us. Every society has its out groups, but they vary.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,138

    TimS said:

    TimS said:

    So why is Boris Johnson set to approve spending £30 billion on a nuclear power plant but will leave how many poor people will freeze to death to Truss?

    Boris Johnson is poised to give approval this week for a nuclear power station costing up to £30 billion as ministers close in on a deal to reopen Britain’s biggest gas storage facility.

    The prime minister is preparing to announce an in-principle agreement to offer funding to the Sizewell C reactor in Suffolk before he leaves office, despite concerns about creating a multibillion-pound spending commitment for Liz Truss, the frontrunner to succeed him.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-ready-to-sign-off-on-30bn-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-station-fnnjds2ls

    He's also allowed the civil service to shunt the Cumbria coal mine into the repair yard. What an utterly useless [wordthatgetsyoubanned]
    Oh, I’m starting to warm to him.

    The coal mine was an example of a very small project with an ability to do orders of magnitude greater damage to British soft power or influence on developing world environmental policies than it would ever generate either in GDP, energy security or indeed carbon emissions.
    That's a rather odd argument. Do you use it against German soft power and their influence on developing world environmental policies, given Germany's vastly greater use of much
    worse types of coal?
    Yes. Germany is rightly pilloried not only in the developing world but the rest of Europe for that, its reluctance on nuclear and its over dependence on Russian gas. German soft power is badly diminished by its energy policy - a perfect case study.
    And do you realise the Cumbrian coal mine is *tiny* in comparison? A problem with your argument is that it can be used for anything we do that *you* don't like - however necessary it is.

    "We're still allowing diesel cars in 2022?
    Don't you realise the damage to British soft power or influence on developing world environmental policies this has?"
    You keep making my points for me. It’s the very tininess of it which makes the negative
    PR and signalling out of all proportion to any economic benefit.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544
    glw said:

    I don't think we chose to squander Russia, we tried for many years to bring Russia in from the cold, and we succeeded as you say with most of Eastern Europe. Unfortunately Russia's leaders chose that a gangster state would be better for them than the path of freedom. That wasn't our choice.

    From what I've read on the subject I think you could argue that if anything the West got too involved in transforming Russia. The abrupt switch to a market economy caused a lot of trouble and damage that the crooks were able to exploit, as they were the people with the capital and connections. Russia might have been better off with a much slower change, even if that meant the remnants of the Communist Party had clinged on to power for another decade or so.
    Curiously the economist most responsible for that is now chairing the Lancet's 'Covid Commission'.

  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited August 2022
    China-linked APT40 gang targets wind farms, Australian government
    ScanBox installed after victims lured to fake Murdoch news sites with phishing emails

    https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/31/chinanexus_apt40_targeting_australian_government/

    Keep safe, everybody, and reflect on how much easier it would be for state-backed hackers if said state controlled the installation of firmware and other low-level systems in UK infrastructure. As Jim Hacker said: "it might be the Fre... frigging Chinese."
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,873
    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
  • geoffw said:

    Thread on the Scottish Fiscal Commission Demographics Report:

    https://twitter.com/scotfax/status/1564687989883682818

    Scotland is slowly disappearing infront of our very eyes, but this report has just been quietly dropped to the public on a Tuesday afternoon.
    Good morning

    I am sure our SNP friends will reject this comment but I am increasingly of the opinion Sturgeon wants out and is working on a pathway to achieve this without loss of face

    The prospect of indyref2 happening in the next few years is highly unlikely and while I am not a fan she is a consummate politician and will be looking into the future which frankly is a nightmare for all politicians.

    An easier life beckons outside politics

    And labour latest announcement to help business is to increase the tax on Amazon

    They clearly have no idea of the scale of the crisis facing businesses which in one estimate said 170 billion would be needed to insulate them from this crisis

    Labour produce superficially popular announcements but when examined they just do not address the scale of the problem and their spokesperson also refused to outline what they would do in six months when energy bills head to £6,000
    Nobody has clear answers because the path through this is obvious. But opposition parties only having a partial answer is not going to drive them back to voting for a Tory Government who have demonstrated they have no ideas or understanding or compassion.
    I am interested in your explanation of 'the path through this is obvious' as it is clear no government has found it

    As far as the conservatives are concerned they have trashed their brand and they may well pay a heavy price for it

    As far as Johnson is concerned, I have been certain he is history but I am beginning to see a path back for him, especially if Truss fails as so many on here expect, as by this time next year if the conservatives are cratering it is highly likely she will be hooked and a new leader sought and if Johnson is still in the HOC I would expect a near coronation

    What price a Johnson - Trump PM - President in 2024

    Please do not have nightmares
    Probably poorly phrased. I said "nobody has clear answers because the path through this is obvious." - a single phrase highlighting that there is no clear path.

    As for the clown king, lets play the scenario forward:
    1. Britain suffers a brutal winter of discontent
    2. The Truss government displays no valid ideas for getting businesses and individuals through the crisis, and responds to criticism with brittle sniping against those suffering
    3. Europe is pulling together to forge a "strength through unity" approach to reforming both supply and the resale markets of energy. The UK criticises from the sidelines and both excludes itself from solutions being produced there and makes UK dependence on spot pricing and imports worse.
    4. Mutterings against an aloof clearly out of her depth PM continue though summer 2023 until we eventually get a valid leadership challenge against her. Johnson regains the leadership in late 23 / early 24

    What does he offer a country that had already grown tired of him and a no-policies government and had been brutalised by the failed Truss government? What grand plan or big idea can he offer to bring voters back to the Tory cause?

    He can't sell boosterism because people have seen through baseless bluster and would now want specific measures to fix things. But he doesn't do detail and many of the things the party want to do aren't going to help the problems.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,434
    geoffw said:

    geoffw said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    While I believe in Scottish independence this point by you is very silly.

    Migration to Scotland is low because people don't want to emigrate to Scotland, by and large, not because of an absence of migration to the UK. Emigration from the rest of the world to the UK is still running at extremely high levels.

    If the Scottish Government truly wants a pro-migration policy then they have two ways they could be seeking to address why people don't want to emigrate to Scotland as much as they want to emigrate to England and work to fix that problem. That is entirely within their own hands, but blaming London is far easier than actually doing their own job.
    And the "two ways" are …?

    Sorry I wrote that sentence badly. Two ways to get more migrants.

    1: (What Rochdale suggested) Go independent and have own immigration policy.
    2: (My alternative) Address why people don't want to emigrate to Scotland and get more migrants as the UK already is doing.

    Going independent isn't the only way to have more immigration, if people from the rest of the world wanted to migrate to Scotland then Scotland could be receiving many more migrants under the existing immigration framework.

    Why fewer people want to emigrate to Scotland than England, even proportionately, is a question that the Scottish Government studiously ignores.
    If fertility trends wont help then migration is the only way, and the easiest migration is from the other parts of the UK. The Scottish government has within its power to encourage such immigration through taxes and spending. It could choose an increase in public expenditure to create more public sector jobs. The effect of that would be to siphon off private sector jobs within Scotland. Or it could choose to encourage private sector job creation by reducing taxes (and pubic expenditure) enabling enterprising incomers to start businesses and make money in Scotland. Any bets on which way this Scottish government would go?

    Realistically its best bet is to encourage global warming, make the summers unbearable in the balmy parts of southern England and nick our current weather for their central belt. Buy Scottish property, but wait until 2040ish for the impacts to kick in.
  • Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    I'm entirely in favour of Scottish independence for getting rid of that. And get rid of NI while we're at it.

    But doesn't mean the SNP shouldn't be rightly pilloried for what a poor job it is doing. If the SNP put more effort into making Scotland a success, they'd be attracting more migrants anyway, improving their fiscal position, and be able to more confidently say to Scottish voters that Scotland is doing well and can stand on its own two feet.

    Instead it seems the SNP position, as shown so eloquently by their latest convert from Rochdale, is to decry that there's "nothing they can do" while in the UK so need independence to stop being failures.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    geoffw said:

    Thread on the Scottish Fiscal Commission Demographics Report:

    https://twitter.com/scotfax/status/1564687989883682818

    Scotland is slowly disappearing infront of our very eyes, but this report has just been quietly dropped to the public on a Tuesday afternoon.
    Good morning

    I am sure our SNP friends will reject this comment but I am increasingly of the opinion Sturgeon wants out and is working on a pathway to achieve this without loss of face

    The prospect of indyref2 happening in the next few years is highly unlikely and while I am not a fan she is a consummate politician and will be looking into the future which frankly is a nightmare for all politicians.

    An easier life beckons outside politics

    And labour latest announcement to help business is to increase the tax on Amazon

    They clearly have no idea of the scale of the crisis facing businesses which in one estimate said 170 billion would be needed to insulate them from this crisis

    Labour produce superficially popular announcements but when examined they just do not address the scale of the problem and their spokesperson also refused to outline what they would do in six months when energy bills head to £6,000
    Nobody has clear answers because the path through this is obvious. But opposition parties only having a partial answer is not going to drive them back to voting for a Tory Government who have demonstrated they have no ideas or understanding or compassion.
    I am interested in your explanation of 'the path through this is obvious' as it is clear no government has found it

    As far as the conservatives are concerned they have trashed their brand and they may well pay a heavy price for it

    As far as Johnson is concerned, I have been certain he is history but I am beginning to see a path back for him, especially if Truss fails as so many on here expect, as by this time next year if the conservatives are cratering it is highly likely she will be hooked and a new leader sought and if Johnson is still in the HOC I would expect a near coronation

    What price a Johnson - Trump PM - President in 2024

    Please do not have nightmares
    As I posted the other day, I am predicting it will be Starmer vs Johnson at GE 24.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid, it’s drugs, guns, obesity

    For Native Americans it’s a staggering 65
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    America is eating, shooting and drugging itself to death
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
  • It is the last Conservative hustings tonight, 7-9pm.

    Tonight's hustings can be watched on Talk TV ar
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr8RkpcAhsk

    Other downstream URLs will become available.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid, it’s drugs, guns, obesity

    For Native Americans it’s a staggering 65

    Fentanyl.

    The US really needs to start legalising currently illegal drugs, and selling them in measured doses in pharmacies.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706
    Yet polling shows neither Truss nor Sunak do better against Starmer than Johnson.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11091277/Blow-Sunak-Truss-poll-shows-public-think-NEITHER-better-PM-Starmer.html
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544
    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid...

    No, but it largely is.
    ...The Covid-19 pandemic is the primary cause of the decline...
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Good morning, everyone.

    Mr. HYUFD, we must hope they govern the country better.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
    HYUFD said:

    Yet polling shows neither Truss nor Sunak do better against Starmer than Johnson.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11091277/Blow-Sunak-Truss-poll-shows-public-think-NEITHER-better-PM-Starmer.html

    Yeah, swapping Johnson for Truss could be a mistake which will rebound on tory mps.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid...

    No, but it largely is.
    ...The Covid-19 pandemic is the primary cause of the decline...
    Covid has accelerated a decline which was already in place. We must pray the UK does not copy

    There are ominous signs. Our obesity problem is echoing theirs. But we’ve avoided the gun issue and also, so far, the opioids…

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706

    So why is Boris Johnson set to approve spending £30 billion on a nuclear power plant but will leave how many poor people will freeze to death to Truss?

    Boris Johnson is poised to give approval this week for a nuclear power station costing up to £30 billion as ministers close in on a deal to reopen Britain’s biggest gas storage facility.

    The prime minister is preparing to announce an in-principle agreement to offer funding to the Sizewell C reactor in Suffolk before he leaves office, despite concerns about creating a multibillion-pound spending commitment for Liz Truss, the frontrunner to succeed him.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-ready-to-sign-off-on-30bn-sizewell-c-nuclear-power-station-fnnjds2ls

    Given the current climate expanding our energy supply through more nuclear is a good thing
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,259
    edited August 2022
    Sandpit said:

    "The economy is about to go to hell in a handcart, with hundreds of thousands of households reduced to penury and aggregate demand hammered by soaring energy bills, yet neither of the candidates has anything worthwhile to say about it."


    "The casualties are going to be off the scale if nothing is done."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/08/30/tories-have-forgotten-how-do-serious-economics/

    Yet another hack totally ignoring the £37,000,000,000 in support, that’s already been announced by the government.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/energy-bills-support-scheme-explainer

    It’s fair to argue that it’s not enough, or that there’s no support yet for small businesses - but to ignore it completelty it totally disengenuous. We wonder why there’s so little trust in the media.
    The £37bn has unfortunately had a huge whiff of knee-jerkism about it. "Something must be done, shit! Let's bung a few £100 here and a few £100 there."

    I dread to think how much has been wasted in bureaucracy, with some being paid by DWP, some by councils and some via the energy companies... some as shopping vouchers ffs!

    Right at the start HMG should have just forced the price cap to remain at a level they decided was affordable, with similar support for those not covered by the price cap. Paid for by taxes on the wealthy to keep it progressive.

    Would have had the massive benefit of keeping inflation down.

    The other major failing of course has been failing to secure our energy security over many years (not just the Tories - Labour too). All this is the consequence of the neoliberal pursuit of 'the market rules' over every other consideration.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    edited August 2022

    geoffw said:

    Thread on the Scottish Fiscal Commission Demographics Report:

    https://twitter.com/scotfax/status/1564687989883682818

    Scotland is slowly disappearing infront of our very eyes, but this report has just been quietly dropped to the public on a Tuesday afternoon.
    Good morning

    I am sure our SNP friends will reject this comment but I am increasingly of the opinion Sturgeon wants out and is working on a pathway to achieve this without loss of face

    The prospect of indyref2 happening in the next few years is highly unlikely and while I am not a fan she is a consummate politician and will be looking into the future which frankly is a nightmare for all politicians.

    An easier life beckons outside politics

    And labour latest announcement to help business is to increase the tax on Amazon

    They clearly have no idea of the scale of the crisis facing businesses which in one estimate said 170 billion would be needed to insulate them from this crisis

    Labour produce superficially popular announcements but when examined they just do not address the scale of the problem and their spokesperson also refused to outline what they would do in six months when energy bills head to £6,000
    Nobody has clear answers because the path through this is obvious. But opposition parties only having a partial answer is not going to drive them back to voting for a Tory Government who have demonstrated they have no ideas or understanding or compassion.
    I am interested in your explanation of 'the path through this is obvious' as it is clear no government has found it

    As far as the conservatives are concerned they have trashed their brand and they may well pay a heavy price for it

    As far as Johnson is concerned, I have been certain he is history but I am beginning to see a path back for him, especially if Truss fails as so many on here expect, as by this time next year if the conservatives are cratering it is highly likely she will be hooked and a new leader sought and if Johnson is still in the HOC I would expect a near coronation

    What price a Johnson - Trump PM - President in 2024

    Please do not have nightmares
    Probably poorly phrased. I said "nobody has clear answers because the path through this is obvious." - a single phrase highlighting that there is no clear path.

    As for the clown king, lets play the scenario forward:
    1. Britain suffers a brutal winter of discontent
    2. The Truss government displays no valid ideas for getting businesses and individuals through the crisis, and responds to criticism with brittle sniping against those suffering
    3. Europe is pulling together to forge a "strength through unity" approach to reforming both supply and the resale markets of energy. The UK criticises from the sidelines and both excludes itself from solutions being produced there and makes UK dependence on spot pricing and imports worse.
    4. Mutterings against an aloof clearly out of her depth PM continue though summer 2023 until we eventually get a valid leadership challenge against her. Johnson regains the leadership in late 23 / early 24

    What does he offer a country that had already grown tired of him and a no-policies government and had been brutalised by the failed Truss government? What grand plan or big idea can he offer to bring voters back to the Tory cause?

    He can't sell boosterism because people have seen through baseless bluster and would now want specific measures to fix things. But he doesn't do detail and many of the things the party want to do aren't going to help the problems.
    I do not expect Johnson to return but it is not as fanciful as it may seem

    I have no idea where any of us will be in 24, but I have serious reservations that Europe (3) will get its act together

    I would just add the obvious pathway through this is peace between Ukraine and Russia but that seems years away, if at all
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,873
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,706

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    I'm entirely in favour of Scottish independence for getting rid of that. And get rid of NI while we're at it.

    But doesn't mean the SNP shouldn't be rightly pilloried for what a poor job it is doing. If the SNP put more effort into making Scotland a success, they'd be attracting more migrants anyway, improving their fiscal position, and be able to more confidently say to Scottish voters that Scotland is doing well and can stand on its own two feet.

    Instead it seems the SNP position, as shown so eloquently by their latest convert from Rochdale, is to decry that there's "nothing they can do" while in the UK so need independence to stop being failures.
    Most Scottish domestic policy is already set at Holyrood not in Westminster
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544
    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid, it’s drugs, guns, obesity

    For Native Americans it’s a staggering 65

    Fentanyl.

    The US really needs to start legalising currently illegal drugs, and selling them in measured doses in pharmacies.
    Yes, they do. It's way too profitable, and way too easy to supply illegally. Law enforcement is never going to make a significant difference.

    $200 for the precursor chemicals for a kilo.

    Inside a Sinoloa cartel fentanyl factory. More like a fentanyl kitchen actually. And I mean, really, inside. Amazing story @jon_kamp @Jose_deCordoba @littlewern
    Amazing photos @PaulRatje

    https://wsj.com/articles/mexico-drug-cartels-fentanyl-overdose-sinaloa-jalisco-11661866903?st=cj8bsbnncgj2004
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    Agreed. The honest case for Independence needs to be absolutely clear about the route map and ansolutely honest about the up front costs. To me the case is there - although it is quite finely balanced - but Scots need to go into it with their eyes open. It will be difficult, perhaps very difficult, at first. If the yes campaign lie about that then they don't deserve to win.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    I don't think that poll backs up the header. The party was a five months or so late in taking action, and Johnson was a week or so late in resigning. Both delays were harmful to those responsible.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,259
    geoffw said:

    HYUFD said:

    Yet polling shows neither Truss nor Sunak do better against Starmer than Johnson.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11091277/Blow-Sunak-Truss-poll-shows-public-think-NEITHER-better-PM-Starmer.html

    Yeah, swapping Johnson for Truss could be a mistake which will rebound on tory mps.
    Let's hope so, eh?

    An unavoidable mistake though, since Johnson's continued presence in No 10 was untenable.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid, it’s drugs, guns, obesity

    For Native Americans it’s a staggering 65

    Fentanyl.

    The US really needs to start legalising currently illegal drugs, and selling them in measured doses in pharmacies.

    No, that wouldn’t solve it. Fentanyl is more addictive than heroin and gives a more profound if troubling “high”. It’s a designer drug - designed to be hideously addictive and deranging. Instant schizophrenia


    I have some sympathy for the conspiracy theorists who wonder if these drugs were expressly designed by the Chinese to bring down the USA
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    Good morning all. Bright and breezy here today!

    Johnson was right to announce his departure, but he's been far too long about it. I don't see Truss as the saviour of the nation either.
    In other words Old King Cole doesn't see a very bright future at all!
  • It is the last Conservative hustings tonight, 7-9pm.

    Tonight's hustings can be watched on Talk TV ar
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr8RkpcAhsk

    Other downstream URLs will become available.
    No thank you - I would rather watch paint dry
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
  • geoffw said:

    HYUFD said:

    Yet polling shows neither Truss nor Sunak do better against Starmer than Johnson.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11091277/Blow-Sunak-Truss-poll-shows-public-think-NEITHER-better-PM-Starmer.html

    Yeah, swapping Johnson for Truss could be a mistake which will rebound on tory mps.
    Boris is a bit like Alastair Campbell.

    Yes he was at his prime good at his job, and yes nobody might do better. But he'd become the story and he had to go.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid, it’s drugs, guns, obesity

    For Native Americans it’s a staggering 65

    Fentanyl.

    The US really needs to start legalising currently illegal drugs, and selling them in measured doses in pharmacies.
    Yes, they do. It's way too profitable, and way too easy to supply illegally. Law enforcement is never going to make a significant difference.

    $200 for the precursor chemicals for a kilo.

    Inside a Sinoloa cartel fentanyl factory. More like a fentanyl kitchen actually. And I mean, really, inside. Amazing story @jon_kamp @Jose_deCordoba @littlewern
    Amazing photos @PaulRatje

    https://wsj.com/articles/mexico-drug-cartels-fentanyl-overdose-sinaloa-jalisco-11661866903?st=cj8bsbnncgj2004
    One of the other things Trump may have been right about was the need to use the US military in Mexico against the drug cartels.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911
    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid, it’s drugs, guns, obesity

    For Native Americans it’s a staggering 65

    Fentanyl.

    The US really needs to start legalising currently illegal drugs, and selling them in measured doses in pharmacies.

    No, that wouldn’t solve it. Fentanyl is more addictive than heroin and gives a more profound if troubling “high”. It’s a designer drug - designed to be hideously addictive and deranging. Instant schizophrenia


    I have some sympathy for the conspiracy theorists who wonder if these drugs were expressly designed by the Chinese to bring down the USA
    I highly doubt it but the poetic justice of the Chinese trafficking opiates to the west would certainly be interesting.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,873

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    Maybe, but Scotland just isn’t that attractive. Look at DickStuartson, the biggest Scottish booster on here, and even he can’t be arsed to live there. It’s great at times, the short summer nights and endless daylight. But my god the darkness of winter, an worse the further north you go. Stumpy, one story houses, a lack of trees, a lack of sun, and you don’t wonder why people don’t come.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    edited August 2022

    Good morning all. Bright and breezy here today!

    Johnson was right to announce his departure, but he's been far too long about it. I don't see Truss as the saviour of the nation either.
    In other words Old King Cole doesn't see a very bright future at all!

    It is at times like this that we value our family and our soon to be born 5th grandchild ( due1st September )
  • Sandpit said:

    "The economy is about to go to hell in a handcart, with hundreds of thousands of households reduced to penury and aggregate demand hammered by soaring energy bills, yet neither of the candidates has anything worthwhile to say about it."


    "The casualties are going to be off the scale if nothing is done."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/08/30/tories-have-forgotten-how-do-serious-economics/

    Yet another hack totally ignoring the £37,000,000,000 in support, that’s already been announced by the government.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/energy-bills-support-scheme-explainer

    It’s fair to argue that it’s not enough, or that there’s no support yet for small businesses - but to ignore it completelty it totally disengenuous. We wonder why there’s so little trust in the media.
    The £37bn has unfortunately had a huge whiff of knee-jerkism about it. "Something must be done, shit! Let's bung a few £100 here and a few £100 there."

    I dread to think how much has been wasted in bureaucracy, with some being paid by DWP, some by councils and some via the energy companies... some as shopping vouchers ffs!

    Right at the start HMG should have just forced the price cap to remain at a level they decided was affordable, with similar support for those not covered by the price cap. Paid for by taxes on the wealthy to keep it progressive.

    Would have had the massive benefit of keeping inflation down.

    The other major failing of course has been failing to secure our energy security over many years (not just the Tories - Labour too). All this is the consequence of the neoliberal pursuit of 'the market rules' over every other consideration.
    Keeping the price cap down is a terrible, terrible idea.

    Do that and its "nice" politics, but it means that nobody cuts their fuel usage (as why bother) and so we have an energy shortage but no reduction in energy demand, so we have blackouts instead.

    I'm no fan of government support in general, but having the price rise but government support available as required is the lesser of two evils. It means people can be helped to afford the energy, but they will still be looking at the price and cutting their usage as much as possible, which is what is required.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    But the same problem obtains. The weather and the light. Scotland is not an attractive place to live for these reasons. It takes an unusual mentality to endure it

    So if iScotland is in the EU Europeans who want to live in “Britain” will move to Scotland then simply move south across an open border to London, which has a much more pleasant climate

    The only way to stop this would be a very hard border along Hadrian’s. All roads closed and passport checks 24/7

    That’s quite a hard sell for the SNP. Yes you can be independent but No there won’t be a free moving common travel area like Ireland
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,695
    Another crazy day in the world of gas pricing.

    https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uk-natural-gas

    Up 25% so far today.
  • Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid, it’s drugs, guns, obesity

    For Native Americans it’s a staggering 65

    Fentanyl.

    The US really needs to start legalising currently illegal drugs, and selling them in measured doses in pharmacies.

    No, that wouldn’t solve it. Fentanyl is more addictive than heroin and gives a more profound if troubling “high”. It’s a designer drug - designed to be hideously addictive and deranging. Instant schizophrenia


    I have some sympathy for the conspiracy theorists who wonder if these drugs were expressly designed by the Chinese to bring down the USA
    It may be hideously addictive but law enforcement doesn't work to stop it. Prohibition doesn't work.

    Education and treatment does work.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    An independent Scotland would be a very different matter, though.

    What you seem to be arguing is that Scotland is simply a hopeless case, independent or not. That's just absurd.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    edited August 2022

    We really should have a thread on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of the people's princess.

    The great Welsh Conservative Journalist John Humphreys said at the time Diana's death was not a seminal moment. We all thought it was, he was right.

    I once passed Diana on a platform at Cardiff
    Central Station on a 5 Nations match day circa 1993. Our eyes met, I ventured a cheery hello and she smiled knowingly. I don't know where the security detail were, they must have been deep, deep undercover.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544
    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid, it’s drugs, guns, obesity

    For Native Americans it’s a staggering 65

    Fentanyl.

    The US really needs to start legalising currently illegal drugs, and selling them in measured doses in pharmacies.

    No, that wouldn’t solve it. Fentanyl is more addictive than heroin and gives a more profound if troubling “high”. It’s a designer drug - designed to be hideously addictive and deranging. Instant schizophrenia


    I have some sympathy for the conspiracy theorists who wonder if these drugs were expressly designed by the Chinese to bring down the USA
    It would at least do something to manage the problem, and get rid of much of the criminal activity associated with it.
    The current policy is doomed to failure.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid, it’s drugs, guns, obesity

    For Native Americans it’s a staggering 65

    Fentanyl.

    The US really needs to start legalising currently illegal drugs, and selling them in measured doses in pharmacies.

    No, that wouldn’t solve it. Fentanyl is more addictive than heroin and gives a more profound if troubling “high”. It’s a designer drug - designed to be hideously addictive and deranging. Instant schizophrenia


    I have some sympathy for the conspiracy theorists who wonder if these drugs were expressly designed by the Chinese to bring down the USA
    It may be hideously addictive but law enforcement doesn't work to stop it. Prohibition doesn't work.

    Education and treatment does work.
    No they don’t. I wish they did, but they don’t

    I used to be a drug libertarian. Legalise them! But these new opioids are so brutally addictive and damaging I’ve changed my mind
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Leon, not really up on modern geography but isn't the whole of Hadrian's Wall in England?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,873
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    An independent Scotland would be a very different matter, though.

    What you seem to be arguing is that Scotland is simply a hopeless case, independent or not. That's just absurd.
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    An independent Scotland would be a very different matter, though.

    What you seem to be arguing is that Scotland is simply a hopeless case, independent or not. That's just absurd.
    I’m absolutely not arguing that. I’m just suggesting that being independent and returning to freedom of movement will not suddenly generate a vast influx of immigrants looking for a new life, because that didn’t happen as far back as say 2016. Why was that? Scotland is a fine country, but the weather and the dark winters are a real factor in how people feel. See also California, Spain, Italy etc, for similar, but opposite, arguments.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880



    One of the other things Trump may have been right about was the need to use the US military in Mexico against the drug cartels.

    Yep, not a single poppy field in Afghanistan since 2001.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911
    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    But the same problem obtains. The weather and the light. Scotland is not an attractive place to live for these reasons. It takes an unusual mentality to endure it

    So if iScotland is in the EU Europeans who want to live in “Britain” will move to Scotland then simply move south across an open border to London, which has a much more pleasant climate

    The only way to stop this would be a very hard border along Hadrian’s. All roads closed and passport checks 24/7

    That’s quite a hard sell for the SNP. Yes you can be independent but No there won’t be a free moving common travel area like Ireland
    It will be just like the situation with Ireland, which is inside the common travel area; EU citizens can travel to Ireland freely but they can't work in the UK. As you know there is no hard border in Ireland and the common travel area works fine. It will be the same in Scotland. Independence comes with many short term costs but that is unlikely to be one of them.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583

    It is the last Conservative hustings tonight, 7-9pm.

    Tonight's hustings can be watched on Talk TV ar
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr8RkpcAhsk

    Other downstream URLs will become available.
    No thank you - I would rather watch paint dry
    Liz might let you do that at the No 11 flat if you emulsion over Carrie's ostentatious wallpaper for her.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid, it’s drugs, guns, obesity

    For Native Americans it’s a staggering 65

    Fentanyl.

    The US really needs to start legalising currently illegal drugs, and selling them in measured doses in pharmacies.

    No, that wouldn’t solve it. Fentanyl is more addictive than heroin and gives a more profound if troubling “high”. It’s a designer drug - designed to be hideously addictive and deranging. Instant schizophrenia


    I have some sympathy for the conspiracy theorists who wonder if these drugs were expressly designed by the Chinese to bring down the USA
    It may be hideously addictive but law enforcement doesn't work to stop it. Prohibition doesn't work.

    Education and treatment does work.
    No they don’t. I wish they did, but they don’t

    I used to be a drug libertarian. Legalise them! But these new opioids are so brutally addictive and damaging I’ve changed my mind
    What needs to be legalised is the regular heroin and cocaine - precisely to keep these new, addictive opioids off the streets.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,777
    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    I don't think those raising the £2k think it's a bad thing. Scotland is inherently more expensive to run than other parts of the UK - just look at roads, rail and ferries.

    They bring it up because some nationalists like to claim that Scotland is a relative net contributor.

    This misses the point, imo. It's not UK v Scotland. It's UK v London. NE England, in particular, gets a much worse deal than Scotland.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    Agreed. The honest case for Independence needs to be absolutely clear about the route map and ansolutely honest about the up front costs. To me the case is there - although it is quite finely balanced - but Scots need to go into it with their eyes open. It will be difficult, perhaps very difficult, at first. If the yes campaign lie about that then they don't deserve to win.
    The strongest argument for me (and FWIW, I'm actually a unionist, but not one who would deny them the choice) is that it would provide Scotland with a democratic government not wholly preoccupied with the independence argument - and an electorate which doesn't make its choices based entirely on that.

    Economically, the rapid energy self sufficiency potential for an independent Scotland is also a strong argument.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    Dura_Ace said:



    One of the other things Trump may have been right about was the need to use the US military in Mexico against the drug cartels.

    Yep, not a single poppy field in Afghanistan since 2001.
    They didn't go into Afghanistan because of drugs.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    It is the last Conservative hustings tonight, 7-9pm.

    Tonight's hustings can be watched on Talk TV ar
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr8RkpcAhsk

    Other downstream URLs will become available.
    No thank you - I would rather watch paint dry
    Liz might let you do that at the No 11 flat if you emulsion over Carrie's ostentatious wallpaper for her.
    It's interesting how little Mr Truss and their presumably ugly kids have featured in the campaign. He didn't hoof her out when the cuckold's horns were affixed to his brow so he's clearly a wuss but beyond that we know little or nothing about our new First Gentleman.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544
    The Justice Department asserts in a filing that some of the documents seized from Mar-A-Lago were so sensitive and classified that in some instances the FBI agents and DOJ attorneys needed additional security clearances to review them.
    https://twitter.com/Tom_Winter/status/1564821787250249729
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    Maybe, but Scotland just isn’t that attractive. Look at DickStuartson, the biggest Scottish booster on here, and even he can’t be arsed to live there. It’s great at times, the short summer nights and endless daylight. But my god the darkness of winter, an worse the further north you go. Stumpy, one story houses, a lack of trees, a lack of sun, and you don’t wonder why people don’t come.
    And then the real sucker punch - the midges make it difficult to enjoy the sun and the good weather when it comes in summer.

    Stopped for dinner on the edge of Loch Lomond last week, lovely evening to have dinner outside - but the midges.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid, it’s drugs, guns, obesity

    For Native Americans it’s a staggering 65

    Fentanyl.

    The US really needs to start legalising currently illegal drugs, and selling them in measured doses in pharmacies.

    No, that wouldn’t solve it. Fentanyl is more addictive than heroin and gives a more profound if troubling “high”. It’s a designer drug - designed to be hideously addictive and deranging. Instant schizophrenia


    I have some sympathy for the conspiracy theorists who wonder if these drugs were expressly designed by the Chinese to bring down the USA
    It may be hideously addictive but law enforcement doesn't work to stop it. Prohibition doesn't work.

    Education and treatment does work.
    No they don’t. I wish they did, but they don’t

    I used to be a drug libertarian. Legalise them! But these new opioids are so brutally addictive and damaging I’ve changed my mind
    What needs to be legalised is the regular heroin and cocaine - precisely to keep these new, addictive opioids off the streets.
    But heroin and coke can’t compete, for addictivity, with the new drugs
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,873
    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid, it’s drugs, guns, obesity

    For Native Americans it’s a staggering 65

    Fentanyl.

    The US really needs to start legalising currently illegal drugs, and selling them in measured doses in pharmacies.

    No, that wouldn’t solve it. Fentanyl is more addictive than heroin and gives a more profound if troubling “high”. It’s a designer drug - designed to be hideously addictive and deranging. Instant schizophrenia


    I have some sympathy for the conspiracy theorists who wonder if these drugs were expressly designed by the Chinese to bring down the USA
    It may be hideously addictive but law enforcement doesn't work to stop it. Prohibition doesn't work.

    Education and treatment does work.
    No they don’t. I wish they did, but they don’t

    I used to be a drug libertarian. Legalise them! But these new opioids are so brutally addictive and damaging I’ve changed my mind
    What needs to be legalised is the regular heroin and cocaine - precisely to keep these new, addictive opioids off the streets.
    But heroin and coke can’t compete, for addictivity, with the new drugs
    But that’s not what determines use though, is it? Why do people use cannabis if heroin is available?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    But the same problem obtains. The weather and the light. Scotland is not an attractive place to live for these reasons. It takes an unusual mentality to endure it

    So if iScotland is in the EU Europeans who want to live in “Britain” will move to Scotland then simply move south across an open border to London, which has a much more pleasant climate

    The only way to stop this would be a very hard border along Hadrian’s. All roads closed and passport checks 24/7

    That’s quite a hard sell for the SNP. Yes you can be independent but No there won’t be a free moving common travel area like Ireland
    It will be just like the situation with Ireland, which is inside the common travel area; EU citizens can travel to Ireland freely but they can't work in the UK. As you know there is no hard border in Ireland and the common travel area works fine. It will be the same in Scotland. Independence comes with many short term costs but that is unlikely to be one of them.
    The Common Travel Area with Ireland is now a problem for both sides. It would not be repeated between England and iScotland
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,873

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    Maybe, but Scotland just isn’t that attractive. Look at DickStuartson, the biggest Scottish booster on here, and even he can’t be arsed to live there. It’s great at times, the short summer nights and endless daylight. But my god the darkness of winter, an worse the further north you go. Stumpy, one story houses, a lack of trees, a lack of sun, and you don’t wonder why people don’t come.
    And then the real sucker punch - the midges make it difficult to enjoy the sun and the good weather when it comes in summer.

    Stopped for dinner on the edge of Loch Lomond last week, lovely evening to have dinner outside - but the midges.
    There are usually a couple of weeks pre midges in April where you get some decent weather, but yes, the midges are not great…
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid, it’s drugs, guns, obesity

    For Native Americans it’s a staggering 65

    Fentanyl.

    The US really needs to start legalising currently illegal drugs, and selling them in measured doses in pharmacies.

    No, that wouldn’t solve it. Fentanyl is more addictive than heroin and gives a more profound if troubling “high”. It’s a designer drug - designed to be hideously addictive and deranging. Instant schizophrenia


    I have some sympathy for the conspiracy theorists who wonder if these drugs were expressly designed by the Chinese to bring down the USA
    It may be hideously addictive but law enforcement doesn't work to stop it. Prohibition doesn't work.

    Education and treatment does work.
    No they don’t. I wish they did, but they don’t

    I used to be a drug libertarian. Legalise them! But these new opioids are so brutally addictive and damaging I’ve changed my mind
    What needs to be legalised is the regular heroin and cocaine - precisely to keep these new, addictive opioids off the streets.
    But heroin and coke can’t compete, for addictivity, with the new drugs
    The users don’t want the most addictive drugs, they just want to get high. The addictivity is being driven by the suppliers.

    Sell the regular stuff for a couple of bucks at Walgreens or Boot’s, and people will take that instead - without totally f***ing up their lives in the process.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,777

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    Maybe, but Scotland just isn’t that attractive. Look at DickStuartson, the biggest Scottish booster on here, and even he can’t be arsed to live there. It’s great at times, the short summer nights and endless daylight. But my god the darkness of winter, an worse the further north you go. Stumpy, one story houses, a lack of trees, a lack of sun, and you don’t wonder why people don’t come.
    And then the real sucker punch - the midges make it difficult to enjoy the sun and the good weather when it comes in summer.

    Stopped for dinner on the edge of Loch Lomond last week, lovely evening to have dinner outside - but the midges.
    There are usually a couple of weeks pre midges in April where you get some decent weather, but yes, the midges are not great…
    The midges have been quite chill this year.

    Generally, May and June are best for them. I do a lot of walking in September too.

    Just hope we get a good winter, last few have been rubbish (or locked down).
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    Agreed. The honest case for Independence needs to be absolutely clear about the route map and ansolutely honest about the up front costs. To me the case is there - although it is quite finely balanced - but Scots need to go into it with their eyes open. It will be difficult, perhaps very difficult, at first. If the yes campaign lie about that then they don't deserve to win.
    The strongest argument for me (and FWIW, I'm actually a unionist, but not one who would deny them the choice) is that it would provide Scotland with a democratic government not wholly preoccupied with the independence argument - and an electorate which doesn't make its choices based entirely on that.

    Economically, the rapid energy self sufficiency potential for an independent Scotland is also a strong argument.
    One of the reasons that Ireland is facing a potential energy crisis this winter is that they've been very successful in attracting foreign investment for energy-intensive data centres, and so demand for electricity in Ireland has risen more strongly than supply.

    There are many superficial similarities between Ireland and Scotland, so why hasn't Scotland been able to attract such investment, particularly given it has a better energy supply situation?
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    Maybe, but Scotland just isn’t that attractive. Look at DickStuartson, the biggest Scottish booster on here, and even he can’t be arsed to live there. It’s great at times, the short summer nights and endless daylight. But my god the darkness of winter, an worse the further north you go. Stumpy, one story houses, a lack of trees, a lack of sun, and you don’t wonder why people don’t come.
    And then the real sucker punch - the midges make it difficult to enjoy the sun and the good weather when it comes in summer.

    Stopped for dinner on the edge of Loch Lomond last week, lovely evening to have dinner outside - but the midges.
    There are usually a couple of weeks pre midges in April where you get some decent weather, but yes, the midges are not great…
    Midges are not really a big deal on the East Coast or across the Central belt where most people actually live - much more of an issue in popular West Coast holiday destinations so views of those who know Scotland primarily from holidays are skewed.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544

    Nigelb said:

    Sandpit said:

    Leon said:

    US life expectancy plunges:


    https://www.statnews.com/2022/08/31/u-s-life-expectancy-drops-sharply-the-second-consecutive-decline/

    Now down to an amazing 76.1. It’s not just Covid, it’s drugs, guns, obesity

    For Native Americans it’s a staggering 65

    Fentanyl.

    The US really needs to start legalising currently illegal drugs, and selling them in measured doses in pharmacies.
    Yes, they do. It's way too profitable, and way too easy to supply illegally. Law enforcement is never going to make a significant difference.

    $200 for the precursor chemicals for a kilo.

    Inside a Sinoloa cartel fentanyl factory. More like a fentanyl kitchen actually. And I mean, really, inside. Amazing story @jon_kamp @Jose_deCordoba @littlewern
    Amazing photos @PaulRatje

    https://wsj.com/articles/mexico-drug-cartels-fentanyl-overdose-sinaloa-jalisco-11661866903?st=cj8bsbnncgj2004
    One of the other things Trump may have been right about was the need to use the US military in Mexico against the drug cartels.
    Utter nonsense.

    Did you even read the article ? The ease and cheapness of manufacturing fentanyl means anyone can do it.
    US law enforcement can't do anything about it in the US. Invading a neighbour in a futile effort to expand their area of failure ia one of the more idiotic ideas Trump has had. And God knows there's some stiff competition for that.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    Good morning all. Bright and breezy here today!

    Johnson was right to announce his departure, but he's been far too long about it. I don't see Truss as the saviour of the nation either.
    In other words Old King Cole doesn't see a very bright future at all!

    It is at times like this that we value our family and our soon to be born 5th grandchild ( due1st September )
    Indeed Mr G. And your fifth grandchild is due on the ideal date, educationally, I understand.

    Oldest child in the class; starts just after its fifth birthday!
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Nigelb said:

    geoffw said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    While I believe in Scottish independence this point by you is very silly.

    Migration to Scotland is low because people don't want to emigrate to Scotland, by and large, not because of an absence of migration to the UK. Emigration from the rest of the world to the UK is still running at extremely high levels.

    If the Scottish Government truly wants a pro-migration policy then they have two ways they could be seeking to address why people don't want to emigrate to Scotland as much as they want to emigrate to England and work to fix that problem. That is entirely within their own hands, but blaming London is far easier than actually doing their own job.
    And the "two ways" are …?

    And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    Well done, @CarlottaVance .
    So why are the SNP government ignoring them, rather than shouting from the rooftops?
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    But the same problem obtains. The weather and the light. Scotland is not an attractive place to live for these reasons. It takes an unusual mentality to endure it

    So if iScotland is in the EU Europeans who want to live in “Britain” will move to Scotland then simply move south across an open border to London, which has a much more pleasant climate

    The only way to stop this would be a very hard border along Hadrian’s. All roads closed and passport checks 24/7

    That’s quite a hard sell for the SNP. Yes you can be independent but No there won’t be a free moving common travel area like Ireland
    It will be just like the situation with Ireland, which is inside the common travel area; EU citizens can travel to Ireland freely but they can't work in the UK. As you know there is no hard border in Ireland and the common travel area works fine. It will be the same in Scotland. Independence comes with many short term costs but that is unlikely to be one of them.
    The Common Travel Area with Ireland is now a problem for both sides. It would not be repeated between England and iScotland
    Not having it would be more of a problem for both the UK and Ireland - it would in fact be impossible to implement. It would be very hard for rUK to impose a full border with passport checks on Scotland although of course they could if they wanted to be dicks about it and didn't mind Faslane closing on day 1.
  • Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    Maybe, but Scotland just isn’t that attractive. Look at DickStuartson, the biggest Scottish booster on here, and even he can’t be arsed to live there. It’s great at times, the short summer nights and endless daylight. But my god the darkness of winter, an worse the further north you go. Stumpy, one story houses, a lack of trees, a lack of sun, and you don’t wonder why people don’t come.
    I live her and don't recognise what you have just described. There is part of Scotland north of the tree line, but most of it has trees. An awful lot of them.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,777

    Nigelb said:

    geoffw said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    While I believe in Scottish independence this point by you is very silly.

    Migration to Scotland is low because people don't want to emigrate to Scotland, by and large, not because of an absence of migration to the UK. Emigration from the rest of the world to the UK is still running at extremely high levels.

    If the Scottish Government truly wants a pro-migration policy then they have two ways they could be seeking to address why people don't want to emigrate to Scotland as much as they want to emigrate to England and work to fix that problem. That is entirely within their own hands, but blaming London is far easier than actually doing their own job.
    And the "two ways" are …?

    And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    Well done, @CarlottaVance .
    So why are the SNP government ignoring them, rather than shouting from the rooftops?
    Because mass immigration = border with England.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    Maybe, but Scotland just isn’t that attractive. Look at DickStuartson, the biggest Scottish booster on here, and even he can’t be arsed to live there. It’s great at times, the short summer nights and endless daylight. But my god the darkness of winter, an worse the further north you go. Stumpy, one story houses, a lack of trees, a lack of sun, and you don’t wonder why people don’t come.
    And then the real sucker punch - the midges make it difficult to enjoy the sun and the good weather when it comes in summer.

    Stopped for dinner on the edge of Loch Lomond last week, lovely evening to have dinner outside - but the midges.
    There are usually a couple of weeks pre midges in April where you get some decent weather, but yes, the midges are not great…
    Midges are not really a big deal on the East Coast or across the Central belt where most people actually live - much more of an issue in popular West Coast holiday destinations so views of those who know Scotland primarily from holidays are skewed.
    Sure, but with more people able to work remotely, it should be a boom time for places that are popular holiday destinations, but don't have a lot of professional employment opportunities.

    West of Scotland is an obvious target for such remote workers, as is the West of Ireland and West Wales. But, for whatever reason, the West of Ireland doesn't have the midge issue.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,873

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    Maybe, but Scotland just isn’t that attractive. Look at DickStuartson, the biggest Scottish booster on here, and even he can’t be arsed to live there. It’s great at times, the short summer nights and endless daylight. But my god the darkness of winter, an worse the further north you go. Stumpy, one story houses, a lack of trees, a lack of sun, and you don’t wonder why people don’t come.
    I live her and don't recognise what you have just described. There is part of Scotland north of the tree line, but most of it has trees. An awful lot of them.
    That bit mainly refers to Inverness north, to be fair.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    But the same problem obtains. The weather and the light. Scotland is not an attractive place to live for these reasons. It takes an unusual mentality to endure it

    So if iScotland is in the EU Europeans who want to live in “Britain” will move to Scotland then simply move south across an open border to London, which has a much more pleasant climate

    The only way to stop this would be a very hard border along Hadrian’s. All roads closed and passport checks 24/7

    That’s quite a hard sell for the SNP. Yes you can be independent but No there won’t be a free moving common travel area like Ireland
    It will be just like the situation with Ireland, which is inside the common travel area; EU citizens can travel to Ireland freely but they can't work in the UK. As you know there is no hard border in Ireland and the common travel area works fine. It will be the same in Scotland. Independence comes with many short term costs but that is unlikely to be one of them.
    The Common Travel Area with Ireland is now a problem for both sides. It would not be repeated between England and iScotland
    In what way is the Common Travel Area problematic?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited August 2022

    Sandpit said:

    "The economy is about to go to hell in a handcart, with hundreds of thousands of households reduced to penury and aggregate demand hammered by soaring energy bills, yet neither of the candidates has anything worthwhile to say about it."


    "The casualties are going to be off the scale if nothing is done."

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/08/30/tories-have-forgotten-how-do-serious-economics/

    Yet another hack totally ignoring the £37,000,000,000 in support, that’s already been announced by the government.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/news/energy-bills-support-scheme-explainer

    It’s fair to argue that it’s not enough, or that there’s no support yet for small businesses - but to ignore it completelty it totally disengenuous. We wonder why there’s so little trust in the media.
    The £37bn has unfortunately had a huge whiff of knee-jerkism about it. "Something must be done, shit! Let's bung a few £100 here and a few £100 there."

    I dread to think how much has been wasted in bureaucracy, with some being paid by DWP, some by councils and some via the energy companies... some as shopping vouchers ffs!

    Right at the start HMG should have just forced the price cap to remain at a level they decided was affordable, with similar support for those not covered by the price cap. Paid for by taxes on the wealthy to keep it progressive.

    Would have had the massive benefit of keeping inflation down.

    The other major failing of course has been failing to secure our energy security over many years (not just the Tories - Labour too). All this is the consequence of the neoliberal pursuit of 'the market rules' over every other consideration.
    Keeping the price cap down is a terrible, terrible idea.

    Do that and its "nice" politics, but it means that nobody cuts their fuel usage (as why bother) and so we have an energy shortage but no reduction in energy demand, so we have blackouts instead.

    I'm no fan of government support in general, but having the price rise but government support available as required is the lesser of two evils. It means people can be helped to afford the energy, but they will still be looking at the price and cutting their usage as much as possible, which is what is required.
    Yes but remember this is not a simple free market. The price of electricity is not determined by the scarcity of electricity but (now) by the cost of gas, which is artificially high owing to events elsewhere. As things stand, although of course they may change, there is no reason to cut electricity usage apart from to save money; there will not be rolling power cuts this week or next if you run the air conditioning and central heating simultaneously because we do not have a shortage of electricity; the price signal you rely on is (eta already) quite misleading.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    But the same problem obtains. The weather and the light. Scotland is not an attractive place to live for these reasons. It takes an unusual mentality to endure it

    So if iScotland is in the EU Europeans who want to live in “Britain” will move to Scotland then simply move south across an open border to London, which has a much more pleasant climate

    The only way to stop this would be a very hard border along Hadrian’s. All roads closed and passport checks 24/7

    That’s quite a hard sell for the SNP. Yes you can be independent but No there won’t be a free moving common travel area like Ireland
    It will be just like the situation with Ireland, which is inside the common travel area; EU citizens can travel to Ireland freely but they can't work in the UK. As you know there is no hard border in Ireland and the common travel area works fine. It will be the same in Scotland. Independence comes with many short term costs but that is unlikely to be one of them.
    The Common Travel Area with Ireland is now a problem for both sides. It would not be repeated between England and iScotland
    Not having it would be more of a problem for both the UK and Ireland - it would in fact be impossible to implement. It would be very hard for rUK to impose a full border with passport checks on Scotland although of course they could if they wanted to be dicks about it and didn't mind Faslane closing on day 1.
    If Indy Scotland adopts a much more pro-immigration policy than rUK - and I can see why it would do so, it needs migrants - then there would have to be a hard border with England. It’s as simple as that. Otherwise these new Scots - mainly from Africa - will simply move south at the first opportunity

    Also: asylum. Look at the Channel crossings. Why bother risking that if you can just fly to Scotland then drive, bus walk to England, losing your documents on the way in Berwick
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911

    We really should have a thread on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of the people's princess.

    The great Welsh Conservative Journalist John Humphreys said at the time Diana's death was not a seminal moment. We all thought it was, he was right.

    I once passed Diana on a platform at Cardiff
    Central Station on a 5 Nations match day circa 1993. Our eyes met, I ventured a cheery hello and she smiled knowingly. I don't know where the security detail were, they must have been deep, deep undercover.
    I've gone the other way - at the time I wondered what all the fuss was about but now I totally understand the outpouring of grief. Diana was a central figure - perhaps the most important at that time - in the Royal soap opera. It is the soap opera that keeps the Royals in business, as they well understand. And people are genuinely emotially invested in their favourite soap. Whether it was a seminal moment or not I doubt it - the royal family has tremendous emotional and ceremonial power in the UK but is really quite tangential to anything important.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,544
    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    But the same problem obtains. The weather and the light. Scotland is not an attractive place to live for these reasons. It takes an unusual mentality to endure it

    So if iScotland is in the EU Europeans who want to live in “Britain” will move to Scotland then simply move south across an open border to London, which has a much more pleasant climate

    The only way to stop this would be a very hard border along Hadrian’s. All roads closed and passport checks 24/7

    That’s quite a hard sell for the SNP. Yes you can be independent but No there won’t be a free moving common travel area like Ireland
    Nonsense as usual.
    While the percentage of any given population who find Scotland's climate appealing might be quite small, with a hinterland of 447m people that doesn't matter much when your own population is only 5m.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    Agreed. The honest case for Independence needs to be absolutely clear about the route map and ansolutely honest about the up front costs. To me the case is there - although it is quite finely balanced - but Scots need to go into it with their eyes open. It will be difficult, perhaps very difficult, at first. If the yes campaign lie about that then they don't deserve to win.
    Economically, the rapid energy self sufficiency potential for an independent Scotland is also a strong argument.
    Doesn't that rely on economic ways of storing energy?

    In 2014 the SNP wanted to remain part of the UK single energy market because while renewables are great when the wind blows & sun shines, Scotland year round is better known for the former than the latter.
  • Good morning all. Bright and breezy here today!

    Johnson was right to announce his departure, but he's been far too long about it. I don't see Truss as the saviour of the nation either.
    In other words Old King Cole doesn't see a very bright future at all!

    It is at times like this that we value our family and our soon to be born 5th grandchild ( due1st September )
    Indeed Mr G. And your fifth grandchild is due on the ideal date, educationally, I understand.

    Oldest child in the class; starts just after its fifth birthday!
    But one hormone fluctuation away from being the youngest. Best tie mum's knees together until the clock strikes midnight.
  • Freedom of movement for an independent Scotland in the EU may not prove to be a net inflow.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    @turbotubbs

    Why is the CTA problematic?

    See here

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/28/soft-irish-border-exploited-albanian-traffickers-using-taxis/

    https://www.politico.eu/article/micheal-martin-ireland-ukraine-war-refugees-uk-rwanda-policy/


    The CTA is on its last legs. It won’t survive in its current form. No way would it be repeated for iScotland
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    Agreed. The honest case for Independence needs to be absolutely clear about the route map and ansolutely honest about the up front costs. To me the case is there - although it is quite finely balanced - but Scots need to go into it with their eyes open. It will be difficult, perhaps very difficult, at first. If the yes campaign lie about that then they don't deserve to win.
    The strongest argument for me (and FWIW, I'm actually a unionist, but not one who would deny them the choice) is that it would provide Scotland with a democratic government not wholly preoccupied with the independence argument - and an electorate which doesn't make its choices based entirely on that.

    Economically, the rapid energy self sufficiency potential for an independent Scotland is also a strong argument.
    One of the reasons that Ireland is facing a potential energy crisis this winter is that they've been very successful in attracting foreign investment for energy-intensive data centres, and so demand for electricity in Ireland has risen more strongly than supply.

    There are many superficial similarities between Ireland and Scotland, so why hasn't Scotland been able to attract such investment, particularly given it has a better energy supply situation?
    Tax

  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    Good morning all. Bright and breezy here today!

    Johnson was right to announce his departure, but he's been far too long about it. I don't see Truss as the saviour of the nation either.
    In other words Old King Cole doesn't see a very bright future at all!

    It is at times like this that we value our family and our soon to be born 5th grandchild ( due1st September )
    Indeed Mr G. And your fifth grandchild is due on the ideal date, educationally, I understand.

    Oldest child in the class; starts just after its fifth birthday!
    But one hormone fluctuation away from being the youngest. Best tie mum's knees together until the clock strikes midnight.
    Cruel, but true. It's okay if the child is bright but if it struggles with school work it's at a considerable disadvantage.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    edited August 2022
    More evidence of the Ambulance backlog causing excess deaths? Possibly also the heatwaves.

    10,982 deaths were registered in England and Wales in the week ending 19 Aug 2022. This was 18.6% above the five-year average (1,719 excess deaths) http://ow.ly/hxHF50KwpMw

    Of these, 551 mentioned #COVID19 on the death certificate, accounting for 5.0% of all deaths


    https://twitter.com/ONS/status/1564893570733150210
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    Eabhal said:

    DavidL said:

    WATCH: Our Chair, Professor Graeme Roy, discusses the key messages from our paper on trends in Scotland’s population and their effects on the economy and income tax, published this morning alongside our Fiscal Sustainability Report consultation paper.

    https://twitter.com/scotfisccomm/status/1564540062146101248

    In 50 years:

    Scotland:
    Population, -900,000 (-16%)
    Working age population from 64%>56%, as a result
    GDP -0.5% / year vs UK on average.

    We are going to need a lot of immigration to offset that. A working population down to 56% would be beyond disastrous without a productivity miracle which has not shown any signs of existing yet. But how do we persuade any newcomers to stay here when the bright, shiny lights of London beckon??
    Quite a large chunk of net migration comes from RUK, too. A dilemma, from an indy perspective.

    The bigger issue, imo, is that people have fewer kids in Scotland, even when taking account of our slightly older population compared with the UK. Why?
    I would guess that we have a much smaller immigrant population than rUK and the propensity of immigrants to have larger families has kept the birth rate above replacement for rUk but not for us. The massive scale of immigration in England in particular has also kept the working age/total population ratio at a much healthier place.

    These have been longterm issues for Scotland. In the 1951 census the Scottish population was 5,095,969. It has not even grown 10% since then. In1951 the population of England was 41,164,356 and it is now 56,489,800 an increase of 37%. This has had political consequences. Scotland forms a significantly smaller proportion of MPs than it did 70 years ago. This trend looks set to continue.
    Which is why the Scottish Government has a pro-migration policy being thwarted by the parochial jingoism south of the wall. Its another of the "unless something is done to address this, the arguments for independence go stronger" points. We need to fix the union if we are to stay together.
    Its not being thwarted by jingoism. Not only is recorded immigration currently at record levels (I emphasise the word "recorded" because we frankly have no idea how many EU citizens moved here, not even to the nearest couple of million) but rUk does not need immigration as much as Scotland because it is simply not facing this demographic time bomb.

    Scotland does have a pro immigration stance, and rightly so, but it makes no difference when the Scottish government shows so little interest in the Scottish economy and Nicola's eyes glaze over when economics is mentioned.

    As I have said before on here a government that was serious about independence would be doing all within its considerable range of powers to attract new businesses to Scotland, to improve rather than damage our tax competitiveness, to overcome the infrastructure issues that impede investment and to improve our education systems so that we have the skilled workforce of tomorrow. If the SG was doing these things and the jobs were being created people would come to fill those jobs. But it is so much easier to whine and blame the Tories.
    Can't do much about those things in the decaying husk of the current union settlement. Create a new UK fit for the future with full home rule for each nation and maybe. As for infrastructure, I see way more investment in roads and rail and broadband than I did in England.
    Is that not partly as each Scottish citizen gets two grand a year more U.K. government spend than those in England each year?
    It notable that whose who continually emphasise this - and are constant critics of the SNP government - tend also to be those most opposed to Scottish independence.
    Which would get rid of both of those things quite rapidly.
    Don’t include me in this. If Scots want independence they should go. But before they do the route map must be a damn sight clearer than Brexit…
    I posted a brief sketch upthread:

    It (independence) would mean, for example, that the SNP no longer had a monopoly on government.

    An independent Scotland could join the EU - which would facilitate migration through freedom of movement.
    It would also find it much easier to achieve full energy self sufficiency than would the UK as a whole, both in absolute terms, and in terms of the financing.

    It would be a pretty tough first decade for any independent Scottish government - which if there is ever another referendum would be the basis of the No campaign - but it's entirely feasible. And if those population projections are anywhere near the reality, they make quite a compelling case for it.
    There was freedom of movement from the EU until really recently and almost no-one came to Scotland. There is clearly no draw there, no attraction. I’m not sure why, although a Greek FOAF blamed the poor weather (Glasgow) and that his wife was miserable the whole time.
    It's the lack of light I think. Once you've lived somewhere with significantly more winter light than the UK then London is just about bearable but Scotland is off the scale miserable. It's a tough sell. But if Scotland allows free movement and England doesn't then the draw of Scotland will be bigger than before.
    But the same problem obtains. The weather and the light. Scotland is not an attractive place to live for these reasons. It takes an unusual mentality to endure it

    So if iScotland is in the EU Europeans who want to live in “Britain” will move to Scotland then simply move south across an open border to London, which has a much more pleasant climate

    The only way to stop this would be a very hard border along Hadrian’s. All roads closed and passport checks 24/7

    That’s quite a hard sell for the SNP. Yes you can be independent but No there won’t be a free moving common travel area like Ireland
    It will be just like the situation with Ireland, which is inside the common travel area; EU citizens can travel to Ireland freely but they can't work in the UK. As you know there is no hard border in Ireland and the common travel area works fine. It will be the same in Scotland. Independence comes with many short term costs but that is unlikely to be one of them.
    The Common Travel Area with Ireland is now a problem for both sides. It would not be repeated between England and iScotland
    Not having it would be more of a problem for both the UK and Ireland - it would in fact be impossible to implement. It would be very hard for rUK to impose a full border with passport checks on Scotland although of course they could if they wanted to be dicks about it and didn't mind Faslane closing on day 1.
    If Indy Scotland adopts a much more pro-immigration policy than rUK - and I can see why it would do so, it needs migrants - then there would have to be a hard border with England. It’s as simple as that. Otherwise these new Scots - mainly from Africa - will simply move south at the first opportunity

    Also: asylum. Look at the Channel crossings. Why bother risking that if you can just fly to Scotland then drive, bus walk to England, losing your documents on the way in Berwick
    I doubt that Scotland would change its immigration policy much towards non EU migrants, they would be hoping to benefit from inflows under free movement and so wouldn't have to attract people from outwith the EU. It is the UK that has had to increase non EU migrant flows post Brexit. So perhaps the flows of Africans (shudder!) might be in the other direction!
    And if Scotland stays outside if Schengen, like Ireland, then the picture for asylum etc would be the same as now. They wouldn't be able to get on a plane to Scotland and so the prospect of Berwich high Street being littered with discarded Albanian passports is a dim one.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786

    Freedom of movement for an independent Scotland in the EU may not prove to be a net inflow.

    Brian Cox told Nicola Sturgeon that maybe, possibly, he might move back to an independent Scotland, but he's not sure where.

    https://twitter.com/staylorish/status/1564375633496530946
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911
    Leon said:

    @turbotubbs

    Why is the CTA problematic?

    See here

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/28/soft-irish-border-exploited-albanian-traffickers-using-taxis/

    https://www.politico.eu/article/micheal-martin-ireland-ukraine-war-refugees-uk-rwanda-policy/


    The CTA is on its last legs. It won’t survive in its current form. No way would it be repeated for iScotland

    The CTA is going nowhere, unless you fancy manning the Irish border yourself. The second article is just another example of why the Rwanda policy is a bad one - it is this policy that will end up getting ditched, not the CTA. If the UK tried to ditch the CTA the Irish will just join Schengen and invite the UK government to try to control the border. I will order in multo popcorn for that.
  • Good morning all. Bright and breezy here today!

    Johnson was right to announce his departure, but he's been far too long about it. I don't see Truss as the saviour of the nation either.
    In other words Old King Cole doesn't see a very bright future at all!

    It is at times like this that we value our family and our soon to be born 5th grandchild ( due1st September )
    Indeed Mr G. And your fifth grandchild is due on the ideal date, educationally, I understand.

    Oldest child in the class; starts just after its fifth birthday!
    But one hormone fluctuation away from being the youngest. Best tie mum's knees together until the clock strikes midnight.
    Cruel, but true. It's okay if the child is bright but if it struggles with school work it's at a considerable disadvantage.
    Sport as well; at school level there is a considerable advantage in physical maturity (simply being bigger and stronger than classmates).
This discussion has been closed.