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 Allod wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
Prima noctra was a custom in parts of dark age Europe, but it wasnt used by the english at any point in our history.

The ius primae noctis (not "prima noctra", that's just gibberish) never existed at all as far as we know. It's another myth from the "Age of Enlightenment" to shock and thrill (then) modern audiences.

If you already correct somebody who made a joke, at least get it right.

this guy gets it!

Vakathi wrote:As I'm not aware of the specifics, does Scotland raise more tax revenue than is spent on it? I can understand this argument, but if Scotland is gaining more in public spending than it collects, it would seem to be beneficial to remain in the UK. It may also be worthwhile to look at indirect spending, given the small geographic area and spending in England could still be a net positive for Scotland depending on what that infrastructure provides the island as a whole. That said, I don't know the specifics of that and Scotland could be totally getting screwed for all I know

From the last set of Treasury figures Scotland raised 9.9% of UK Tax Revenues and received 9.6% in funding. There's also some larger corporations put all their earnings via their headquarters (Which are almost invariably in London) and that's where they're taxed instead of where they're earned (This is a UK wide issue not just Scotland)

Wouldn't that effectively be part of joint defense? I mean that seems to be a defense policy rather than something specific to just Scotland right? Those missiles aren't specifically English are they? I'd say that'd be more a question of changing defense policy than a Scottish sovereignty issue, at least to me. That said, I'm also not aware of how the costs and all that work for that.

While they are part of the UK's defence they're currently based not too far from Scotland's largest city (Glasgow). and the current UK government is currently funding them but and independent Scotland wouldn't need them as being a smaller nation they don't need to do all the world power macho stuff the UK does currently

Is that a sovereignty issue or just one of party politics?

While it is based off party politics Scotland hasn't had a big influence on Westminster elections http://wingsoverscotland.com/why-labour-doesnt-need-scotland/

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
... ...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Not watching, I can't vote so it is of only academic interest.

My view on the whole issue is that it isn't realistically possible to be sure if Scotland would be better off or worse off as a separate country, so I don't see the point in upsetting the applecart.

Of course being English I do not have the nationalist feelings of a lot of Scots.

I would disagree. Not calling you an English nationalist, but the rise of UKIP and their unpopularity in the other home nations, would suggest that English nationalism is on the rise.

...

Oh granted, it is a most disturbing thing.

I was just saying that not being Scottish I do not have the feelings of resentment towards the English that apparently are fairly widespread and contribute to the pro-independence movement.

Not that widespread honestly. There's a hardcore within the traditional SNP support who really do buy into the whole "English Oppressors" bollocks, but Salmond and Sturgeon have had reasonable success shoving them back into the margins as they pursued the more gradualist inclusive narrative that's brought us to this point, and in the wider Yes Campaign there are no more anti-English nutters than there are Orange Order-style Loyalists on the No side - in short there's a nasty fringe to both, but for both it's far less pronounced than either the other side or the media claim. What you will find is a lot of resentment towards Westminster, and the UK's political system in general, which when combined with simply factual statements about the relative size of the English population or the proportion of spending and political effort devoted to London & the SE, is often twisted by the more dishonest supporters of the Union both within BT and the press into being atavistic anti-Englishness.

And yes, like everyone, I've read and myself seen anecdotes about some berk in a pub or child in a school being mean spirited or even outright bigoted against an English person, but it's not a common sentiment any more than it would be fair to lambast English people for the occasional crass and offensive crap that's said about Scots by a tiny tiny minority of English people; you know, the "drunk, miserly, deep fried heroin & haggis eating beggar-Scot" stereotype.

 Frazzled wrote:
Youtube is worked blocked for me. But on the subject of babies mmm the other other white meat...

Yep plastic paddies sounds like an insult, like when someone calls Brits limeys. Maybe you're just jealous of their superior tenors?

Back to topic.
Again can someone list in bullet points what the actual Scottish issues are, and more importantly, who gets the oil?

I pointed out a few in my previous post, others have since, but it's largely summed up within the self-determination argument; Scotland consistently votes left of centre, but since we're only 8.4% of the UK population and Wales/Northern Ireland are even smaller, in practice UK general elections are decided by English voters, so we only actually get left of centre governments and policies if they agree with us. Scotland has voted Labour at every UK general election since WW2, yet for more than half that time we've had Tory right-wing governments, and in all but three cases(all of which were knife-edge anyway) removing Scottish votes from the process entirely wouldn't have meaningfully impacted the outcome. This issue is compounded by the fact the UK still uses First Past the Post voting, which focuses down election-deciding votes into a handful of marginal seats(because any seat with a sufficient majority support for any one party essentially makes voting for any other party in that seat a waste of time), so even within England there's a huge inequality of effort and resources. Since the reestablishment of the Scottish Parliament in '99, we've had control over certain areas like Local Government, Healthcare and Education, but most economic powers, all defence and foreign affairs powers, all energy powers(we did have some authority over renewables, but that was recently stripped away by the unelected House of Lords), and employment law are "reserved" to Westminster, meaning our only say in them is limited to our 59 elected MPs going against nearly 400 other elected MPs and almost the same number of unelected Lords, ie functionally no say at all.

As for the oil, it's not actually that important. Without oil, Scotland's GDP per-capita is 99% of the UK average, so while in the short term oil revenues will be important to the Scottish Government's finances, in the medium to long term a combination of rapid expansion of the renewables industry(Scotland has 25% of Europe's offshore wind potential, 25% of its Tidal potential, 10% of its Wave potential, so we can become a substantial green-energy exporter to the rest of the UK & the Continent) and a careful reindustrialisation programme focused on a mix of modern and traditional industries should make our finances more than sustainable. Opinion is divided at that point on what to do, many support the SNP's proposals to establish a Norway-style oil fund, but there's reasonably significant backing for the position of the Greens that we should begin winding the oil industry down to a smaller sector dedicated to petrochemicals rather than fuel production.

Who gets it? Scotland, most of it anyway, somewhere between 90-96% of the oil and around 10-15% of the natural gas, depending on whether or not the UK accepts the internationally recognised process for establishing maritime borders, or if it tries to maintain Tony Blair's seabed-grab from a few years ago in which the "internal"(ie nonexistent except for tax purposes) border between England's territorial waters and Scotland's was turned into a straight line and pointed several degrees further North in order to filch a few oil & gas fields.

 Vaktathi wrote:
As an American, I'm obviously not super familiar with all the issues at hand, and I'm all for people's self-determination, but I'm not seeing major advantages to Scotland removing itself from the UK.

I can get the representation issues, but I imagine those could be addressed and changed within the context of the existing relationship, while Scotland can effectively harness the power of their much larger neighbor to reap benefits that Scotland on its (much smaller) own would be unable to obtain.

The thing is, they won't be addressed and changed within the existing relationship, because going any further than is already the case would dramatically impact the power of the Westminster establishment. That's why all the "further devolution" offers being presented by the main parties as sweeteners to vote No are either unworkable(Labour want to devolve power over *only* Housing Benefits, but they cannot explain how they plan to do that in the context of the UK's new Universal Credit system, which rolls *all* benefits into a single system with a single payment) or not actually "powers" at all but responsibilities for raising revenue, which are meaningless given that the funding system for the Scottish Government is a block grant; all revenues from Scotland go to the UK Treasury, who use a formula to determine a lump-sum which is then handed back to the Scottish Government to spend here. Every penny the Scottish Government would raise would result in an exactly equivalent reduction in the size of the block grant, meaning new tax "powers" are a poison pill; we'll have to fund the bureaucratic apparatus necessary to raise the revenue, but the Scottish Government wouldn't actually have any extra to spend(indeed it would have less because of aforementioned additional bureaucracy).

There is already substantial resentment among rUK MPs towards the "freebies" Scots get(which are all paid for out the block grant, a sum which is itself only a portion of the taxes raised here, so in fact are not "free" at all, merely different policy choices) like no tuition fees for higher education and no prescription charges, and post a No vote we will have thrown away our most powerful bargaining chip; the threat of independence. Where is the incentive for Westminster to offer us meaningful further powers if we vote No? We can't threaten to leave, we'll have just voted to stay. We don't make up a big enough part of the UK's population to be a threat to the establishment in elections - our MPs can sometimes influence direction, but they can't steer. Most of the UK establishment didn't even want to have this debate, so after two+ years of it, in which their influence and prestige will have been tarnished in the eyes of many Scots, with an increasingly hostile attitude towards the "perks" we get out of devolution, and no necessity to offer more to stymie the SNP and the threat of independence, what, will they just give us more powers out of the goodness of their hearts? I seriously doubt it.

Wait so the Scots are really a bunch of lefty pinkoes, and their total population is less than Houston?

Dude.

 Frazzled wrote:
Wait so the Scots are really a bunch of lefty pinkoes, and their total population is less than Houston?

Dude.

Your point being...?

...he's a Texan.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
...he's Frazzled*.

Fixed.

Ah OK then.

As a wee update, some interesting details in the tabulated breakdown of ICM's polling data gathered during and after the debate. As expected, those who had declared what their intention to vote was largely thought "their man" did best in the debate, although from what I've been reading on Twitter from both Yes and No voters I think that's less "our guy was amazeballs, their's was terribad" and more "our guy was gak, but theirs was a bit worse".

Among "undecided" voters who'd still to make up their mind after the debate however, it seems despite the opinions of myself and a fair whack of other declared Yes voters that he did pretty poorly, the break was 3:1 in favour of Alex Salmond. That may be an indication that some of the polling from late last year that put currency a fair way down most people's list of concerns was accurate and Darling made a tactical error in focusing so much of his time on that line of attack.

Or, as one Guardian journo suggested on Twitter, maybe people just really liked that Alex came around the podium to answer their questions in a more "personal" way(at which point my eyes begin rolling so hard and continually that I get motion sickness).

Christ I hate "personality politics".

I mean after looking in to the currency thing more I'm not as bothered about it. I had just hoped Salmond would have been able to argue coherently. I know, not voting for him etc etc, but he's got the reigns for at least 18 months. Presumably he'd get the first term too, unless everybody votes Green. One party state!

Hopefully the next debate, if there is one, will be on the BBC and take a more Question Time style approach with the question format.

 Medium of Death wrote:
I mean after looking in to the currency thing more I'm not as bothered about it. I had just hoped Salmond would have been able to argue coherently. I know, not voting for him etc etc, but he's got the reigns for at least 18 months. Presumably he'd get the first term too, unless everybody votes Green. One party state!

Hopefully the next debate, if there is one, will be on the BBC and take a more Question Time style approach with the question format.

That would improve things somewhat, but it needs three things to make them really worthwhile IMO; no audience(questions from the public yes, but a live audience just encourages playing to the crowd), a moderator that's willing to step right in and forcefully direct proceedings, and a less fragmented format - taking breaks constantly to get "live reactions" from a bunch of talking heads just limits the potential for the politicians to give coherent, in-depth answers. EDIT: If you've not, check out the Sturgeon v Carmichael debate that was on STV a couple of months back, it wasn't perfect by any means, but the lack of audience and fairly coherent moderation meant it was a bit less shouty-sneery and a bit more informative than this more recent offering.

Who'll be running the show in 2016 is actually one of the most interesting and IMO exciting "uncertainties" of the whole affair. First, I suspect Alex may well have got the FM job again, but will he go for it? Consider; if he is concerned with his "legacy"(and being a politician he likely is, to a degree, even if he's not the mad obsessive he's cast as by some elements in the press), the man's 59, so he'll be almost 63 by the time we have our first independent elections, he'll just have achieved his life's work, he'll get to be "the man who led Scotland into independence" yadda yadda whatever - I'd say there's a better than even chance he cashes out on that high note and takes retirement a couple of years early, leaving Sturgeon likely to take over leadership of the SNP.

Beyond that, while I think Salmond almost certainly and Sturgeon very probably both have the force of personality required to keep the SNP solid, despite them having achieved their main reason for existing and cooperating for, at least a couple of terms of the parliament, it's still not a certainty. The SNP is a pretty broad church; Alex's membership of the '79 group gave him clout with the left-wing of the party, as did his support of Sturgeon who comes from that perspective, but his oil economist background and emphasis on a more "social democratic" rather than socialist policy direction, emphasising economic growth could be a tool to support social justice if properly managed, that gave him leverage over the smaller but still influential pro-business centre/centre-right elements who would otherwise back Swinney to the hilt. Even if the FM stays in for the first term as party leader, they'll likely lose a few fringe members on the left to the Greens, and a few fringe on the right to the Lib Dems or Tories - if the FM does step down and Sturgeon takes over the party will probably still mostly hold together but would lose a few more from the centre/centre-right wing. So they will probably continue, but with slightly less support, maybe enough to tip them back over the line and out of a majority, in which case we may well see them in coalition with the Greens depending on how big the erosion is, and whether Patrick Harvie is as sensible as he seems or turns out to be yet another environmentalist hard-liner who'd rather make no progress at all than not get absolutely everything he wants.

But there's still a few genuine wildcards. The Common Weal project is splitting off from the Jimmy Reid Foundation, and support for their ideas could have a serious impact on the results. CW or their supporters could form a new party, which would be a completely unknown quantity; they could offer support to any existing party candidates willing to endorse their policy programme, or we could see a raft of Independent non-party candidates campaigning informally under their banner. Another is, surprisingly, the Labour party, because we just don't know what they'll do. Labour seem to still have never forgiven people for electing the SNP in '07 and '11 into what they see as their "rightful place" in Scotland, so how they react to a Yes, whether they can organise and endure a change in leadership, rediscover their principles, and reenergise their campaign base among the voters could have a huge impact. Even the Tories or the Lib Dems might pull something really astonishing out of their hats, although that's pretty unlikely right off the bat as I suspect both will require a bit of distance in time between them and their past incarnation as local branches of not-very-popular UK parties.

But yeah, try and remember the last time there were so many factors and potential choices to make and ideas to debate when the UK elections came around. Right now the only genuine possible wildcard at the UK level is the chance we might see a Boris Johnson-led Tory party in coalition with a Farrage-led UKIP, and that's not so much exciting as it is genuinely horrifying

Scotland has its own parliament that has already decided to provide free university education and free old age care in Scotland, which are not available in England. What does this say about the democratic deficit between socialist Scotland and conservative UK?

What positives does Scotland have leaving the union? Very little if not none.

I've got many family members in Scotland (Glasgow to be exact) they think it would be absolutely tragic if they left Great Britian, AND THEY ARE CELTIC FANS and are very Catholic and they still want to stay.

The Economy would crash faster then you could say haggis. And no, North Sea oil would not hold it together, the yanks would get involved so fast and would probably look at it like this "Wait... North Sea no longer in British hands.... mhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"

 Poppabear wrote:
What positives does Scotland have leaving the union? Very little if not none.

I've got many family members in Scotland (Glasgow to be exact) they think it would be absolutely tragic if they left Great Britian, AND THEY ARE CELTIC FANS and are very Catholic and they still want to stay.

The Economy would crash faster then you could say haggis. And no, North Sea oil would not hold it together, the yanks would get involved so fast and would probably look at it like this "Wait... North Sea no longer in British hands.... mhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"

Religion and football has nothing to do with the independence debate.
And also when the No campaign has said Scotland would be successful as an independent nation it's pretty obvious that Scotland wouldn't "crash and burn"

And are you insinuating that the US would invade the oil fields?

 Poppabear wrote:
What positives does Scotland have leaving the union? Very little if not none.

I've got many family members in Scotland (Glasgow to be exact) they think it would be absolutely tragic if they left Great Britian, AND THEY ARE CELTIC FANS and are very Catholic and they still want to stay.

The Economy would crash faster then you could say haggis. And no, North Sea oil would not hold it together, the yanks would get involved so fast and would probably look at it like this "Wait... North Sea no longer in British hands.... mhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"

What is this I don't even.

First, what religion you happen to follow(or not) nor which bloody sports team you support should have, and in the mast majority of cases does not have, anything to do with which way people vote on something this important. We have enough issues with Sectarian neanderthals without bringing it into mainstream political debate.

Second, me and a few others have spent the last few pages spelling out multiple benefits we'd get from leaving the union, and a fair whack of negatives we'd be able to avoid.

Finally, I would suggest you spend a bit of time looking into the facts of Scotland's economy before making such...entertaining pronouncements on its health, you may find yourself a bit surprised. For example, oil would make up approx 15% of the economy of an independent Scotland - that's substantially less than Norway, yet they seem to be doing pretty well for themselves even these days.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Scotland has its own parliament that has already decided to provide free university education and free old age care in Scotland, which are not available in England. What does this say about the democratic deficit between socialist Scotland and conservative UK?

To me? It says that when we do have control over our own affairs, we enact policy much more in line with the wishes of the Scottish electorate, and that since we've done a decent enough job of running health, education, and local governance, there's no reason I can see we shouldn't have the chance to do the same with economic & tax policy, defence policy, foreign relations, and all the other things currently controlled by Westminster.

And Scotland isn't "socialist", our political consensus is just to the left of centre, likely because we're not weighed down by FPTP(it even hurts the Tories, under FPTP they have one Scottish seat, they'd have three or four based on share of the vote). The issue isn't that Scotland is some borderline Trotskyite paradise-in-waiting, the issue is that the electoral system of the UK combined with the incestuous relationships between politics, corporations, and the media has resulted the consensus at Westminster shifting ever further rightwards despite there not being a huge amount of difference between the Scottish and UK electorates when you drill down past party affiliation and ask opinions on policy options(excepting perhaps a less pronounced level of Euroskepticism up here). Like I said before, if a lot of people up here actually believed there was a chance of reforming the UK's broken political system from within, we'd be voting No in an instant, but we've been convinced, not by Alex Salmond or the SNP but by the actions and rhetoric of the British establishment itself, that it isn't going to happen.

Also, I'd note that there's no guarantee we'll get to keep our different policy choices if we vote No; we have control over those specific policy areas, but Westminster decides our budget. The latest Tory appointee to the Treasury has long been a proponent of cutting Scotland's budget to eliminate the "extra" £1200approx per-capita spend here(ignoring that we more than pay for that extra with on average £1700approx per-capita taxes over the UK average), many English and Welsh MPs have advocated replacing the Barnett Formula which currently dictates the size of the budget with a new "needs based formula" that would knock £4billion off our budget in one fell swoop, and even if Barnett remains in place, under that existing system our total budget is determined by allocating an amount of money for each devolved policy area that is a proportion of the total spend in the rest of the UK; the English NHS is being steadily privatised, meaning less public money is "officially" going to healthcare, so our budget gets reduced. The same thing is happening with higher education(tuition fees) and soon perhaps even primary and secondary education(for-profit Academies are likely coming in the next Parliament if the Tories get back in). Westminster cuts English council budgets, our finances are reduced as well. We don't have the powers(nor will we get them even under the barely-coherent "note No for more powers even though we specifically refused to put devo-max on the ballot paper we're on the level this time guv honest" proposals being made during the campaign) to raise additional revenue -any extra we bring in results in an exactly equivalent reduction in the block grant- so the Scottish Government has to balance the books; we've already had to make compromises in local government services, tertiary college education, and policing to fit in the things we consider important on-principle(education and healthcare free at the point of use for all), but given the limited policy areas we have control over, if our budget is reduced any more we're going to have to drop some of those to keep the others affordable.

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

 Poppabear wrote:
What positives does Scotland have leaving the union? Very little if not none.

I've got many family members in Scotland (Glasgow to be exact) they think it would be absolutely tragic if they left Great Britian, AND THEY ARE CELTIC FANS and are very Catholic and they still want to stay.

The Economy would crash faster then you could say haggis. And no, North Sea oil would not hold it together, the yanks would get involved so fast and would probably look at it like this "Wait... North Sea no longer in British hands.... mhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"

Religion and football has nothing to do with the independence debate.
And also when the No campaign has said Scotland would be successful as an independent nation it's pretty obvious that Scotland wouldn't "crash and burn"

And are you insinuating that the US would invade the oil fields?

If we had half a brain we'd have three carriers sitting over it within 24 hours. At the same time launch Operation Girl Scout and unleach the 10th Girl Scout legion to take western Canada. But alas and alack we no longer have manly Presidents. Where's Jackson when you need him?

 Frazzled wrote:

 Hlaine Larkin mk2 wrote:

 Poppabear wrote:
What positives does Scotland have leaving the union? Very little if not none.

I've got many family members in Scotland (Glasgow to be exact) they think it would be absolutely tragic if they left Great Britian, AND THEY ARE CELTIC FANS and are very Catholic and they still want to stay.

The Economy would crash faster then you could say haggis. And no, North Sea oil would not hold it together, the yanks would get involved so fast and would probably look at it like this "Wait... North Sea no longer in British hands.... mhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"

Religion and football has nothing to do with the independence debate.
And also when the No campaign has said Scotland would be successful as an independent nation it's pretty obvious that Scotland wouldn't "crash and burn"

And are you insinuating that the US would invade the oil fields?

If we had half a brain we'd have three carriers sitting over it within 24 hours. At the same time launch Operation Girl Scout and unleach the 10th Girl Scout legion to take western Canada. But alas and alack we no longer have manly Presidents. Where's Jackson when you need him?

Beating Angels with a cane most likely.

But yeah I don't see why we would want the Scotland oil fields, I mean considering they've been discovering new ones in our area of ocean and land alone..

Though I don't know much about the Scotland issue aside from the vast rhetoric we keep hearing from the world news over there.

The most compelling arguments I've seen for independence are political ones - that England's right wing influence on the parliament drowns out the predominantly left wing voice of scotland. That seems a fair argument to me. On economic matters, I'm not as sure, but I also believe that not every decision made by a polity has to boil down to economics.

I'm following the debate out of a bit of self interest though- if Scotland gets independence, I wonder what it will do to the Unionist movement in Northern Ireland, which traditionally has pretty strong ties to Scotland (as does the Republican movement, but to different demographics).

We're looking at the centenary of the 1916 rising in a couple of years here, and reflecting on it, Independence didn't really do much for the republic. We became almost a catholic theocracy, mired in idealism about how Ireland should be, and controlled by a political elite who were no better, and perhaps worse, than the English we'd had before. The state education system and general narrative became extremely nationalistic, something you'll still get echoes from to this day. If Scotland gains independence, I hope they manage it better than we did, as I consider our bid for independence mostly failed at this point. Compare the health systems of the north and south, or the education systems, or the state of the civil service, and you will see the Northern example outshining the southern on almost all fronts, even with the added challenge of sectarian tensions.

I will watch with interest how this might influence Sinn Féin's push for a vote on the Border.

Almost a momnth to go till the polls.

I'm off that week so going to stay up and see what happens overnight.

I'm a no voter and pretty much have been since day 1, for the simple fact Salmond is my local MP and through some work things and family members I have met him and spoken with him a few times and he is, if anything, a fantastic political salesman.

However the whole independence thing was basically the SNP's way to power, selling it as an opion of giving a referendum if they came to power, so that got them a lot of the anti-uk politico establishment straight off, and a wave of 'anyone but labour' after the Brown fiasco years, the SNP were basically the ONLY party worth voting for, for many, at the last Scottish election. This landslide victory gave the SNP a bighead, thinking they could do no wrong and the will of the Scottish people was that they wanted nationalist Scottish polcies and independence.

This basically became the SNP's sole policy, and now we are at the end of these labours, with many major political decisions not being made in healthcare, education and economically, with mainly fiddling at the edges policies (at the last manifesto, the biggest thing was making air rifles require a licence.

Recent bi-elections (specifically in Aberdeen) has seen the SNP vote collapse from a 3000 majority to just over 1000, and while many state that 'there are more panda's in Scotland than Tory MP's' the percentage of votes tell a very different story, with the tory vote in Scotland being something like 11% with 1 MP yet the SNP vote is closer to 16% of the vote, however due to proportional representation and skewed council boundaries lines (a legacy of labour ensuring the voting system is more likely to give them a majority) the SNP has less supporters than it thinks.

Biling it all down, my biggest fear is the fact we are less than 6 weeks till the vote and we still have no real plan for fiscal authority, currency or things like taxation and infrastructure, if these issues had been discussed in a less 'ach it'll be alreet' attitude I may even be a maybe at this time, but the total lack of reasoned debate on the 'what if's' and not simply calling it scaremongering beggars belief.

I think it will be a no vote with a 60/40 split or near enough to that, as many I speak to feel that the post Yes negotiations will involve the current SNP government, and many don't trust or believe sturgeon and salmond have the political neutrality to do whats best for Scotland, rather whats best for them and the snp, of which many businesses in Scotland are diametrically opposed to, especially in the north east.

I don't hold any negativity towards the Yes voters, apart from a few extreme idiots, but I do hate how this whole thing has created huge resentment, ill feeling and plain anger within the country and between England and Scotland.

I don't like how what was a fringe party some 5 years ago with what was seen as more extreme political promises built on the belief that they would never see power, suddenly deciding the future of the nation.

Speaking with friends the other night, many believe that our grandkids may have a better future under independence, however for us and our children it will be an unpleasant scary time, and things like pensions and pay may stagnate, meaning I cant provide things for my family like I could under the union, so my family has less opportunities leading into the future.

yes its all conjecture, but I don't see the good sense in voting for something that is so poorly explained and ill defined. It makes no sense.

If they had spent the last 2 years actually looking into this properly, then I may have gotten behind it, but as the white paper showed, they are basically wish listing and believeing that anyone who doesn't hate the tories and want to give half their salary away to make it 'fairer' should leave the country for England.

I look forward to it all dying a death come the 19th and we can not be bombarded by it for at least a generation.

Maybe a bit extreme but at the end of the day, the economics don't stack up to the slightest scrutiny, and that, in the end is why many are voting No.

Sorry Rick, but I'm struggling a bit with your characterisation of the White Paper, given it touches on virtually every aspect of governance and society and the sections on economics are drawn pretty much directly from the work of the Fiscal Commission Working Group, a team of renowned independent academic economists and business leaders. You might disagree with some of the policy choices it advocates(I certainly do in many regards), but to call it insubstantial or nothing more than a vague wishlist is unfair I think, and has not a few echos of when I sat watching the news as the WP was released and Alastair Darling came on to dismiss it as "fantasy and wishes", he apparently having read and digested the entire 600+ page document and its citations in the less than thirty minutes since the release.

Further, it's hardly the only vision on offer. Radical Independence, Common Weal, Business for Scotland, Wealthy Nation, Labour for Independence - there are perspectives from across the political spectrum, some of which like Common Weal, a summation of 50 academic papers on over a dozen subjects, are even more comprehensive than the WP. There have been debates hosted by the Royal Society of Edinburgh(available on YouTube) bringing together renowned experts to discuss the issues you list amongst others, there have been assessments from think tanks of all persuasions, the most recent being the Adam Smith Institute, a Libertarian group, advocating that an independent Scotland shouldn't pursue a currency union at all but rather go for "sterlingisation". Preliminary assessments by several international ratings agencies have pronounced us economically sound. There are public meetings taking place up and down the country practically every night of the week discussing exactly these kinds of questions.

There is an ocean of information and ideas out there at the moment, some of it speculative, much of it solidly grounded in research and experience, to the point I just can't recognise the view a few No voters seems to have that this whole thing is just a few notes Big Eck scrawled on the back of a napkin.

I'm also struggling a bit with your characterisation of the SNP. Certainly their overarching objective is and always has been independence, but to say they've done nothing while in office is patently false whether you agree with what they've done or not; PFI deals were ended, the whole NHS including hospitals and ancillary services were taken back into public ownership, council tax was frozen, they restored free higher education, the police forces were reorganised into the new national force in response to budget pressures, they've undertaken substantial infrastructure spending to stimulate the economy, I can keep going but I think I've made my point. The "Scotland on Pause" routine might be a favoured tactic to deploy at FMQs, but it's a fiction.

When it comes to your prediction of the result, honestly it's entirely plausible, I may be a Yes voter but I'm also a cynical bastert so I don't buy into the whole "oh we're totes gonna win dudes!" enthusiasm and positive thinking bollocks, but it's by no means a certainty. There's a lot of folk who'll be voting in this referendum who've not even been on the electoral roll since the days of the poll tax, folk who've never voted before in their lives even, and given the turnout is expected to be in the 80%+ range and the fact none of the polling companies can seem to agree, there's still everything to play for.

Latest from Salmond.

Further insistance that Scotland will keep the Pound

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/alex-salmond-declares-it-pound-4022633

As the rUK has already said it will block such a move, and they would have the right and reason to do so, the only thing Salmond could mean is piggybacking.

Otherwise known aas Panamaisation.

Also Salmond threatened a default on sharing the national debt if currency union is rejected. So Scotland's first acts as a sovereign independent state could be a debt default.

I wonder if this should be called Zimbabweisation?

I didn't vote UKIP or Conservative... Can I shout and scream until I am my own country?

It will be interesting to see how regional differences are dealt with in "any aiaaiaiaai aiaaiaiaa" (my touch screen is not letting me delete or cut that bit for some reason! Just keeps adding words whenever I try...) The voting.... vTvT

What if a region has, say a 90%no and 10% yes within and overall yes vote? Is there grounds to use the same be "you don't represent me!" As the SNP are foisting on the UK to remain within the union and not join the SNP in getting a few people people's names in the history books and damn the consequences?

Sorry for weird typos - not sure what the hell this tablet is doing!

It is worth remembering that a Yes vote does not create an independent nation overnight, it merely grants the Scottish parliament a democratic mandate to negotiate with the UK parliament regarding how to arrange a separation.

Obviously things like currency and the share of national debt would come into such negotiations, and they would get resolved one way or another.

Salmond would not be in a position to enforce a currency union though. He would do better to apply to join the Euro. However Salmond might not be in power to do these negotiations anyway.

While Salmond couldn't force a currency union it would devalue the pound not to do so considering without Scotland's income.

And Orlanth Westminster stated everything would be up for negotiation along with an unnamed tory minister saying it would happen and even Alastair Darling stating it was the logical option,

The GBP is perhaps a little too strong at the moment anyway. A destabilisation would occur regardless in the event of a yes vote, no matter whether concrete plans were in place to dictate what was actually going to happen (rather than the wishy washy grandstanding wish list "grass will be greener") paper the SNP actually produced....

From my understanding of the situation, Scotland applying to join the Euro would be complicated because Spain would be politically motivated to block any such move because they do not want to encourage separatist thinking.

There are various forces in the EU and the Eurozone that might be for or against an independent Scotland joining.

And even in the unlikely event that an independent Scotland is permitted to enter the EU, wouldn't it obligated to hoi the Eurozone? I thought adopting the Euro is a pre condition for all future New entrants to the EU.

Silver, Scotland is actually recognised as a Country, so that's why we can split. To suddenly pretend that this is a part of England breaking away is ridiculous.

Spain is only one nation, surely their personal gripe about Catalans won't have a massive effect on Scotland's application to join the EU/adopt the Euro. Surely there clout is minimal when compared to say Germany or France?

There are 28 Countries in the EU, 27 if we go on the idea that Spain is guaranteed to block Scotland's entry. What other countries have expressed resistance to Scotland joining? I know a fair few have said that Scotland would need to reapply when Salmond insisted that we wouldn't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
And even in the unlikely event that an independent Scotland is permitted to enter the EU.

Unlikely event? Sources please.

BBC interviewing some youths: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-28298727

 Medium of Death wrote:
Silver, Scotland is actually recognised as a Country, so that's why we can split. To suddenly pretend that this is a part of England breaking away is ridiculous.

Spain is only one nation, surely their personal gripe about Catalans won't have a massive effect on Scotland's application to join the EU/adopt the Euro. Surely there clout is minimal when compared to say Germany or France?

There are 28 Countries in the EU, 27 if we go on the idea that Spain is guaranteed to block Scotland's entry. What other countries have expressed resistance to Scotland joining? I know a fair few have said that Scotland would need to reapply when Salmond insisted that we wouldn't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
And even in the unlikely event that an independent Scotland is permitted to enter the EU.

Unlikely event? Sources please.

Sources? All the European governments that have already stated their intentions to block an independent Scotland's membership.