Fight Club

Same old shite club mair like.

Nah, its the comedy store.

Can any of you tell me which 14.8 billion of that we will not fund in year 1 of independence? What about year 2, 3 or 4?[/I]

The real problem (from a financial perspective) is that we don’t really know the income/expenditure of any single country within the EU so consequently all that can be done is a pro-rata of UK-based numbers.

Scotland could be better/worse off than the £14.8bn ‘gap’.

Also there are certain costs that wouldn’t need to be pro-rata’d, and policy would dictate this, ie:
defence costs – all we really need is fishery protection, air-sea rescue and a (very small) standing army
foreign office – partner up with an existing small country and share limited embassy and UN costs
etc etc

And if/when we’re independent, if we can’t afford it, we can’t do it.

Eh? A lot of that is devolved and they have exact figures, even for stuff which isn’t devolved they have fairly accurate figures for Scotland specific spending – it’s not done on a pro-rata basis at all, they know that more is spent on some things in Scotland than the pro-rata amount!

Are you suggesting the Scottish government’s figures are wrong or just indulging in wishful thinking?

And if/when we’re independent, if we can’t afford it, we can’t do it.

Hence the question – which of those things aren’t you going to do?

BTW the things you think you don’t need to do are a very small part of the spending, nowhere near the gap

BTW the things you think you don’t need to do are a very small part of the spending, nowhere near the gap [/I]

Reining in the double-double of pension increases and not paying for the heating of pensioners living in Spain will save us a few quid 🙂

And then we can lower Employers NI which’ll get us a load of jobs from rUK along with been a part of the EU to keep the corporations happy.

An awful lot of savings to be made Aracer. Defense, not paying for westminster and whitehall, not paying for overseas wars, not paying for hinkley and the other nukes, and a lot of goverenment expenditure is pro rata divided to scotland and much is basically guess work.

I love the idea oil is a declining industry – they are not making any more oil. the less we take out now the more we have for the future. Sure it will be hard to get to but long term oil prices are only going to go one way.

So how do other small countries on the edge of europe survive? Slovenia? Denmark?

dont forget pension savings as you all die younger 😉

Yup – that as well.

thing is it will be a long transition unless its a hard exit and if its a hard exit its mainly in scotlands interests as if Westminster play hardball so will holyrood and if Scotland ends up with none of the asserts we take none of the debt – which has only been run up in England!

If we’re going to speculate about possible futures I wonder what effect the breaking of the currency union the treasury predicted. I mean George Osbourne must have done some work on it before the sermon on the pound.

I love the idea oil is a declining industry – they are not making any more oil. the less we take out now the more we have for the future. Sure it will be hard to get to but long term oil prices are only going to go one way.

Hmmm, loads of fields in the North Sea are about to start being decommissioned, e.g. Brents. There is no guarantee that prices will go up a lot now that fracking can act like a swing producer. That is also coupled with more green tech coming online. Leaving it in the ground for the future isn’t an option if the field is small and the current infrastructure is in place, you may as well make as much as you can now and get one with it.

Are you suggesting the Scottish government’s figures are wrong or just indulging in wishful thinking?

Are you new here?

They keep all the plus items and get rid of the minus ones – remember things like “we have no deficit”! It’s comical other than the fact that it has real impact on people’s lives. But don’t blame angry nats, after all WoS is a key source of intelligence (sic).

All the things you mention are a pretty small part of the pie – even if you completely remove defence and pro-rata the entire cost of Hinkley that’s still less than half the gap.

So how do other small countries on the edge of europe survive? Slovenia? Denmark?

I’ve no idea, I’ve not checked their figures, but they appear to have a rather smaller deficit than Scotland does.

BTW which of the costs do you think are pro-rataed rather than there being Scotland specific figures – any of those big chunks; social, health, education?

I can’t remember what the yS view was on NATO and honouring the level of defence spending. Or does that go in the minus therefore ignore column?

So just by removing scotlands share of defense and hinkley half the gap is gone? Pretty easy to sort the rest as well. Whats Scotlands pro rata share of westminster and whitehall? Do your defense figures include the costs of the wars in the middle east – a million quid a missile ain’t it?

Nice to know we can invade unopposed with a a girl guides regiment if ever we want Scotland back.

That’s removing the entirety of defence, including foreign wars and presumably lots of stuff you’d want to keep, and I guess you missed that I was pro-rataing the lifetime cost of Hinkley into a single year in order for it to make any difference. The cost of running Westminster doesn’t even seem to appear in those figures, I presume it is too small – a quick google suggests the pro-rata cost to you is ~£50m a year so pretty much irrelevant.

But you would get buried under a mountain of deep fried mars bars and woad

That seems a bit unfair on the poor girl guides

Oh I don’t know – they might become assimilated

teamhurtmore – Member

Are you suggesting the Scottish government’s figures are wrong or just indulging in wishful thinking?

Are you new here?

They keep all the plus items and get rid of the minus ones

You would be the flip side to that coin. But all because the bloody jocks don’t know their place eh? Because you care about the people of Scotland so much…Remind me again why you kept accusing Junkyard of trolling you on the Indy thread?

Good afternoon duckie, did you a have a point to make or merely doing what you accuse Jambas of?

There are sensible Scots who dont need to make things up every time and then there are the WoS brigade who do. This thread is an excellent example.

Who are these bloody “somethings” (careful, could be false accused there) that you (do not) refer to? I prefer not to tarr everyone with the same brush -especially as the majority understand the issues and what is in their best interest? Canny folk – at least 55% of them.

Isn’t everyone just arguing about the same issues as in 2012-4, Scots and associated residents already voted on that.

Yes and No – the same lies are being spouted true but with even less foundation. The last time we heard such stuff was Brexshit, but fortunately the Scots are more sensible than that.

There is however a hard core who wish to retain single market status with an area where they have relatively less business but depart from it with an area which is key to their trade and economic interests. They do make it up.

Iceland hasn’t had a standing army since 1869.

Hpw do you fight sitting down – in a tank I guess?

Except the United Kingdom I voted to remain a part of will not exist in a couple of years come next March. The game has changed.

And if you still don’t get it Jamba, this sums it up perfectly

I remember before the original ref some of the Scottish people I work with saying that they would be able to cut military funding. When the first person said, “For sure, the English will be around to protect you…” they all said we need to have a military so that can’t be said…

Yes and the fact that Iceland doesn’t have an army meant the UK and USA effectively invaded during WW2 and set up their own camps there unopposed.

I can’t imagine Scotland being invaded but it was just a jibe by one of the guys to say you would never be equal outside the union unless you wasted all your money on a military…

Edit: With all the nationalist chest building that was going on in the room it was quite amusing..

You could always become a free rider? 😉

teamhurtmore – Member

Good afternoon duckie, did you a have a point to make or merely doing what you accuse Jambas of? Yes I did, sorry you missed it. You are a flip side to the Wings crowd, which I see you are not “playing the man” by suggesting that pro indy contributors to this thread are, I am surprised you missed it. But then selective memory was ever your forte.

Well you are correct duckie.

Indeed the flip side of the WOS crowd. The factual side v the BS side. Which would do you want to be on?

Pages and pages of posts from yS Scotland supporters that rarely hold up to basic scrutiny, with one poster excelling in this regard. In this case, Jambas turned out to be quite correct in his observation ^.

Its nice that some people have looked at my question about the bits of government spending that wont happen under independence, but I don’t really get some of the answers?

Hinckley is a red herring as the annual cost is relatively small.
Defence is £3Bn.
Any more?

Bear in mind again that these are the Scottish Governments own figures.

If you think making Scotland into Greece is worth it for independence then make and defend that position, but don’t try and pull the wool over peoples eyes with lies like those in 2014.

More economic sense here on this blog

PS Its probably worth adding that the SNP said that the startup costs of a whole independent Scotland could be about £200million, about a year before claiming that just setting up a separate tax system for their new post referendum powers would cost about £1.6 billion.

I’m going to have to start keeping my new irony meter switched off when listening to political news in Scotland. Its getting expensive.

I’m going to have to start keeping my new irony meter switched off when listening to political news in Scotland. Its getting expensive.

C’mon its amusing the way folk want to make fools of themselves – its the beauty of free speech.

Angus MacNeil is not alone BTW!!

It’s worth noting that these performances don’t just the keep less-than-fully-intellectually-engaged Yes voters amused and well misinformed – they also ensure opponents spend their time and energy debunking myths instead of engaging in substantive and constructive debate; it takes a lot less time to make up nonsense than it does to robustly disprove it.

The SNP/Trump/Brexshit strategies in a nutshell – look out for talk of negativity, its a give away.

BoardinBob – Member
And if you still don’t get it Jamba, this sums it up perfectly

FTFY

Nice to know we can invade unopposed with a a girl guides regiment if ever we want Scotland back.

That looks a bit like what some people used to call the United Kingdom Ninfan except someone seems to have eaten a large part of the mull of Kintyre and Skye has vanished all together

except someone seems to have eaten a large part of the mull of Kintyre and Skye has vanished all together

Have you forgotten? Westminster removed them from the map to help keep all those secret West coast oil reserves under wraps