[Closed] Osbourne says no to currency union.

Athgray I feel there are a lot of good services provided by the BBC. I am really disappointed by the poor quality of some of the news output from BBC Scotland not only the referendum coverage, though it took the referendum to make me realise it.
It makes me wonder about some decisions taken at pacific quay cutting staff levels particularly.

Gordimhor, I have always thought that we have Reporting Scotland and the Proper News.
I also don't like when Newsnight becomes Newsnight Scotl..... change channel. About the only output from BBC Scotland I like is The Adventure Show.

What a sensitive wee bunch

Duckman/ aracer I cannot keep up - can you just argue with each other without making me referee 😉
I am calling it a score draw as i like you both

I think that hiring Kezia Dugdale to co present the program during the run up to the referendum is very shortsighted. I think the overreaction to Prof Robertsons criticism is bullying and I cant understand why at time when bbc scotland journalists are complaining of being overworked due to staff shortages, BBC Scotland are cutting staff again. This inspite of the fact that BBC Scotland has been allocated extra short term funding for referendum coverage. Then there are the recent arrivals of James Naughtie and Sarah Smith neither of whom have so far been any better than those they replaced imo . (edit)

😉 the tummy rumbles on 😉

Anyway feel the lurve from south of the border

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5473566a-ed9a-11e3-8a00-00144feabdc0.html#axzz33tl57riN

Athgray The Adventure Show is good, I thought newsnicht did pretty well until the last round of budget cuts. If you have gaelic or dont mind subtitles there is some good referendum coverage on BBC Alba notably Rathad an Referendum- Road to the Referendum.

I might look into it gordimhor. Up to now I have avoided everything referendum related apart from this cursed thread. 🙂

This (thread)too will pass 🙂

athgray - Member
I might look into it gordimhor. Up to now I have avoided everything referendum related apart from this cursed thread.

Which is the right thing to do. The real debate is over in a few seconds thought, but the fun goes on much longer.

[quote=Junkyard ]Duckman/ aracer I cannot keep up - can you just argue with each other without making me referee
I am calling it a score draw as i like you both

Sorry - I only brought you into it because I thought he was referring to my Sir BS line 😳

duckman also appears to have misunderstood the intent of my post - apologies if it came across as suggesting Scotland is nothing without rUK, that certainly wasn't the intention - I was simply having a pop at AS suggesting that iS would be just as important an ally to the US as rUK.

Though I guess if I'm having to explain my post a page or so later it hasn't really worked 🙁

aracer - Member

I was simply having a pop at AS suggesting that iS would be just as important an ally to the US as rUK

Which of course, he didn't do.

independence for Scotland would mean: "America has two great friends and allies here rather than one"

?

Yep, exactly. "Two great friends and allies" not "2 equally important friends and allies"

Do you want me to referee this one then 😉

OK, so I was having a pop at Sir BS suggesting that iS would be considered a great ally in the same sense as UK or rUK then if you're being picky.

Feel free JY - post edited just for you 😉

not "2 equally important friends and allies"

So Salmond recognises the lack of importance that an "independent" Scotland will have ? I can't say that came across when he made the comment "yes we can".

aracer - Member

OK, so I was having a pop at Sir BS suggesting that iS would be considered a great ally in the same sense as UK or rUK then if you're being picky.

When did he do that? Seriously, you're reading something that's just not there.

So he did actually say what I edited it to then?

You are "having a pop" about things you imagine he's said, which he hasn't. It's not "being picky", it's just stating the bloomin obvious- when you find yourself having a go at people for things they haven't done, you probably need to have a rethink.

Or failing that, imagine something more fun, [i]I[/i] didn't like it when David Cameron got high on glue and shat on Greyfriars Bobby.

Or failing that, imagine something more fun, I didn't like it when David Cameron got high on glue and shat on Greyfriars Bobby.

Did he not steal the money for the glue from Scottish orphans who's parents had died due to Tory cut backs in the NHS? But the BBC didn't report the whole story,so we will never be sure.

An OTT article but with one obvious pearl

[b]The Scottish government’s determination to retain the currency of what would be a foreign country, having no control over what interest rates are set and therefore having no real monetary policy, is bound to have caused a sharp intake of breath in these capitals. [u]Such elementary carelessness[/u] renders a financial crisis almost inevitable. [/b]Before an attentive Better Together audience at Leith Academy in Edinburgh on Thursday evening, Professors Adam Tomkins and Ronald MacDonald, both highly thought-of constitutional legal experts and economists, set out the all-too-likely consequences of such recklessness for the living standards of Scots paying mortgages or juggling precarious family budgets.

And the historical evidence is clear for all to see. Elementary carelessness indeed.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomgallagher/100275242/why-europe-and-america-dont-want-an-independent-scotland-run-by-shape-shifting-alex-salmond/

ndependence for Scotland would mean: "America has two great friends and allies here rather than one"

Yes, I'm sure the Americans see it that way

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/6078767/US-senator-calls-for-investigation-into-Scotlands-decision-to-free-Lockerbie-bomber.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/6073466/The-full-letter-from-the-FBI-Director-on-the-Lockerbie-bomber-release.html
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/aug/20/lockerbie-bomber-release-libya-obama
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/6064071/Barack-Obamas-fury-as-Lockerbie-bomber-flies-home-a-hero.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8226585.stm

Swedish documentary on independence subtitles are not translated by me 🙂

Shape-shifting Alex Salmond? Has someone been watching too many David Icke documentaries? #fnord

Oh come on. That's a 30 minute video FFS.

I can't watch all that. Can someone give a biased summary?

AS is the DO and he will eat your babies to get the pound and he still wont have freedom.
He will then turn iS into North Korea and the population will starve

Happy?

Moderately.

But that has more to do with the massive fruit scone in my belly.

What, not even a whiff of NATO?

Is there a new scare story? Same as the old scare story?

Anyhow, for those people who said it was absolutely ridiculous to suggest Obama weighed in at the request of the UK government:

http://news.sky.com/story/1278462/downing-street-asked-obama-to-back-union

Yeah, it's from across the pond this one.

googling Scotland NATO veto should find The Times article.

Its quite clear there are only bad outcomes from the US's perspective with an iS, things like a government more likely to be anti US, likely complexities with the Faslane base for example. From speaking with American friends the decision to release the Lockerbie bomber was very unpopular, most didn't understand before that Scotland could do such a thing independently of the UK government. The UK may well have asked Obhama to make a public statement of what it knew the countries previously privately help views where.

Here's hoping the next 100 days pass as quickly as possible so we can get this over and done with.

Double post for some reason.

for those people who said it was absolutely ridiculous to suggest Obama weighed in at the request of the UK government

Who said that ? What is ridiculous is the suggestion that the US president says stuff at a joint press conference with a British Minister without first discussing it with them.

Equally ridiculous is the suggestion that a US president says stuff concerning the integrity of the UK because he has been forced to do so by a British Prime Minister.

Obama gave his opinion because he chose to, no other reason.

Personally I think he should mind his own business and focus on being US president instead of interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, but that's a different issue altogether.

And if Scotland an "independent" Scotland wants to be a member of NATO you best get used to it anyway.

WTF is going on with journalism these days ?

Right they seem to have covered all bases with that article 😕

NATIONALISTS have been warned that the US will veto Scottish membership of Nato in the event of independence, following President Barack Obama’s intervention in support of retaining the United Kingdom.

The head of the Royal United Services Institute, an influential defence think tank, said there was “zero chance” of Scotland joining the organisation if a Scottish National party government tried to remove the UK’s nuclear weapons from Scottish waters.

In addition, a former SNP defence adviser, Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart Crawford, claims a source close to the White House told him last year the US would block or delay Scottish Nato membership if it insists on Trident submarines being quickly withdrawn

Well, if we weren't a member of Nato we would be more vunerable,however if we didn't have a Nato member's nuclear subs in our waters(yes I know,annexing Faslane has been floated,but stay with me)then we would be a less attractive target.

if we weren't a member of Nato we would be more vunerable

What, you mean like Ireland ? 😀

That was a joke......right ?

What I don't understand is, like with the EU, what the motivation would be for kicking Scotland out. It'd be a huge hassle for no advantage, and they'd only want to let us back in again.

bencooper - Member

What I don't understand is, like with the EU, what the motivation would be for kicking Scotland out.

Scotland isn't an EU member state Ben.
We've been over this already. 💡

@ben - surely it's the other way round, having another new member at the table and likely one who is anti Nuclear and who has made the UK's and thus NATOs life more difficult by insisting no nuclear subs as Faslane. NATO wouldn't be kicking Scotland out, it would be declining to accept a new member. So iS out is the path of least resistance. The fact NATO is Like the EU in this regard, the EU wouldn't be kicking iS out they would be considering whether to accept a new member. Its the UK which is a member of NATO and the EU

Well I reckon the situation concerning NATO has been aggravated by the Scottish government making it very clear that things in an independent Scotland would be very different to how they are now, ie, no nukes.

That was always more likely to cause a reaction than saying that things would be remain exactly the same.

Scotland isn't an EU member state Ben

It's currently part of an EU/NATO state. There's a choice between unpicking all of that after independence - making every ex-pat Scot go home, making every EU citizen leave Scotland, etc - or just fast-tracking some paperwork and transferring membership to an independent Scotland in the 18 months between the referendum and independence.

NATO already has a bunch of non-nuclear members, and other countries which have near-member status. Being non-nuclear is no big deal to the USA, they've got plenty of their own nukes to go around, and they never base their boomers in other countries anyway.

It's currently part of an EU/NATO state.

The apparent notion that an iS will get everything it has asked for in the White Paper and everyone else is going to have to make all the concessions is optimistic in the extreme.

NATO already has a bunch of non-nuclear members

But that's not the issue. The issue is that there would be a significant change in Scotland to the existing situation.

If the British government was to inform NATO that it intended to scrap all its nuclear weapons by the end of next year that would not go down very well, despite the fact that NATO already has a bunch of non-nuclear members.

British nuclear weapons are part of a specific NATO strategy, some NATO countries not having nuclear weapons fits into that strategy, Britain scrapping its doesn't.

And presumably Scotland banning them doesn't either.

The apparent notion that an iS will get everything it has asked for in the White Paper and everyone else is going to have to make all the concessions is optimistic in the extreme.

Pretty sure that most people (even Ben 😉 )accept that iScotland won't get everything it wants, but that's what the starting point will be in the negotiations.

And it would be voting to leave those arrangements. How many times do we have to go over that? The stated aim of the iS campaign is to negotiate continued membership before independence day - i.e. there's an acceptance that it needs to be arranged.

Likewise, everyone accepts this, but given that both the EU and NATO are unlikely to really want to unpick everything as Ben points out, it's likely that iScotlands membership will be massaged and FastTracked.

Even the official reports of what are likely to happen (with regards to the EU anyway, I've not read anything on NATO) say that an entirely new membership application, negotiated from outside of the EU, with a lapsed membership isn't very likely and is undesirable.

None of that is likely whatnobeer. Scotland can't even fast track public sector change of its own design when it is in control of every component. Been there, tried to make it go faster, gave up and did something more interesting instead.