Osbourne says no to currency union.

I want people who have a life balance and set of values that means they live where they want to live rather than move to somewhere they dont like just to further their career.

Why should they not like London? Do all Scottish politicians not like London? Do all Scottish people not like London? I think your rampant nationalism is clouding your judgement

So some of the woeful incompetent Westminster MPs might get in. Presumably all current MSPs are a beacon of light in comparison?

For your first question – you never know. They might not be able to stick around for long though. Would Danny Alexander be voted in? Probably not….

So how many of those do you seriously think have the ambition to be an MP in Edinburgh? ISTM there are far worse things (and plenty of compensations) about being an MP!

Now I’m really confused – you’re telling me that the MP for Shetland won’t have to live in Edinburgh?

Dunno – do you – with 100% certainty?

If they don’t want to be an MP in Edinburgh nobody is forcing their hand and personally I wouldn’t want any MP to be representing me if their primary goal wasn’t to do their best for the people who voted them in. (But that’s a completely different matter which is more about career politicians who are just in the business of feathering their nest for later life).

I’ve just realised I’m perfectly qualified to be a Scottish MP – I don’t like London. Will you vote for me, wanmankylung?

….set of values that means they live where they want to live rather than move to somewhere they dont like just to further their career.

So only Edinburgh MSPs will live in Edinburgh then, all other MSPs will live elsewhere. Otherwise you won’t like their “set of values”. Apparently.

In just the same way that nobody is forcing anybody to be a Westminster MP – but I’m still not sure why London/Edinburgh makes any difference to the quality of politicians.

(But that’s a completely different matter which is more about career politicians who are just in the business of feathering their nest for later life).

Presumably there are no people like that in Scotland?

No. Because I don’t think your debating skills or style are anything like the required standard.

I promise I’ll try and appear more stupid and corrupt if you vote for me, and do my very best not to show your claims are indefensible.

No. Because I don’t think your debating skills or style are anything like the required standard.

So it’s nothing to do with policies or politics then, just debating skills and styles.

Good news for Gorgeous George Galloway then.

Much like Better Together there is no substance to what he/she has to say and the main approach is to try and repeat something enough times so that people start to believe it. Very much like your own approach ernie_lynch. It’s not big, it’s not clever and it’s frankly boring.

I’ve just realised I’m perfectly qualified to be a Scottish MP – I don’t like London

aracer – Member
duckman » Sorry for using up to date polls
Ah, so currency (DYSWIDT?) is the only important criteria for selecting a poll to support your assertion, not whether the poll in question actually provides any data on the point being discussed?

Well,the original point was that Scotland and England share a similar view on European membership. I would suggest the way people vote would be a fairly strong indicator of their views on certain topics.Remind me what the central focus of ukip is? Maybe there’s is another reason why so many of you vote for them,but I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are euro skeptics, rather than anything less savoury.

So if you are opposed to the EU you must be a UKIP supporter ? Where on earth do you get that logic from ?

@ernie I posted “anti EU” deliberately not “pro UKIP” although perhaps you where referencing the other reply to my post and not.

I cannot think of anything less empowering than being ruled by people you did not vote for

@JunkYard Well provided in the last 10 years you voted for one of Labour. Lib Dem or Conservative you have been ruled by who you voted for. Assuming it’s a minority party like SNP, Greens etc then you cannot seriously expect for a national government of the colour ? Also to say you have no representation means you view the Scottish Parliament as worthless ?

I think the key argument on Scotland vs Westminster MP’s is that Scotland would be ruled by their own corrupt incompetents rather than ours.

There have been some excellent politicians from Scotland, I’ve no doubt that with an iS they will attract more top quality people into politics. Sadly, there will also be a big increase in hangers-on as there will be a huge increase in beaurocrats, as I posted before there will be a long list of applicants (and a long list of jobs) in the new Scottish Foreign Office

Well,the original point was that Scotland and England share a similar view on European membership

@Duckman – this was one of the points I was trying to address. Scotland will not inherit/be able to match all the UK opt outs etc. So if an iS is going to join the EU its going to have to be much more pro-EU than the UK.

there will be a huge increase in beaurocrats

I know this is often posted as a problem with independence, but is there evidence for it? Do other smaller countries have large numbers of bureaucrats?

@ben – currently you have no foreign/diplomatic service for example, no equivalent of HMRC, DVLA. There must be some economies of scale for Scotland’s interests and Civil Service leveraging off that of the wider UK. You need to create all of that. It’s good as it’s Scottish jobs for Scottish people and a focus purely on your interests but it has to be more expensive that at present I think.

Jambalaya – to be fair to them on that, there’s also a lot of civil service jobs covering UK roles up in Scotland – there were big CSA offices up there for example, the cynic would comment that certain politicians stacked lots of jobs up there in ‘pet’ constituencies so that the voters were suckling off the government teat and would keep voting Labour…

I suppose its possible that you could rerole them, so you might not need more staff but I don’t know how much you’d have to pay out in costs of retraining and reroling for example a CSA/CMEC office into a Scottish DVLA or passport one? or even if the current staff would even have the skills/suitability (and if you did close them, who would be responsible for that decision, would the office just close or would it pass into the hands of Holyrood? think of the redundancy payments the Scottish government might have to shoulder from that)

I don’t like London. Will you vote for me

Do you have any policies
Are you nice and do you have a lovely media persona?
Ben iS will probably need some more than it has now – say embasies and officials that currently UK does so there must be some increase.
How many I have no idea.

@JunkYard Well provided in the last 10 years you voted for one of Labour. Lib Dem or Conservative you have been ruled by who you voted for.

I was referring to how the country voted not how individuals voted and you know this

Assuming it’s a minority party like SNP, Greens etc then you cannot seriously expect for a national government of the colour ?

I do not know what this was meant to say.

Also to say you have no representation means you view the Scottish Parliament as worthless ?

Face Palm @ the Straw man. I am discussing the Westminster parliament and they do have a say but not one that matters currently as they get a givt that they [ the country] did not vote for
Its is a simple and undeniable fact/reality that the nation of Scotland did not vote for and would not have the current govt were it iS. At least THM has the sense to not even try and explain why this is more freedom than independence as he realises it is impossible to argue this. I suggest you take his approach of just ignoring uncomfortable facts. On terms of representation and freedom the current outcome, for scotland voting, is as poor as it gets. Ruled by a govt they did not vote for.

Looks like this link might be useful

https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/contact-us

You need to create all of that.

We do, yes. And I’m not minimising the challenges of having to build institutions. However there’s a lot we won’t need – we won’t need a massive MOD, for a start, nor will we need the House of Lords and all it’s ancillaries. We already have quite a bit – separate health, education and legal systems, and devolution has helped too.

So while in the short term I’m sure there will be costs and disruption, in the long run I think we will actually end up saving money. Best I can find with quick googling is this graph:

So Scandinavian countries have a higher level of government jobs – that’s no big surprise. The Czech and Slovak republics and New Zealand, similar in size to Scotland, have smaller numbers.

So I’d say the number of bureaucrats depends more on what kind of country it is, not the size of the country. Scandinavian countries have more because of their welfare systems.

we won’t need a massive MOD, for a start,

Eh, The white paper specifically criticised Westminster for reducing the size of the MOD in Scotland:

In Scotland, the adverse consequences of Westminster’s defence policies have been felt in many ways:

…Ministry of Defence employment – civilian and service – in Scotland has fallen from 24,680 in 2000 to 15,340 in 2013, a proportionately larger fall than across the UK as a whole. Consequently, Scotland’s share of UK-based Ministry of Defence personnel has fallen from 9.2 per cent to 7.5 per cent over this period

Now you’re saying this is a good thing 😆

I think it’s a good thing, yes.

The complaint above is specifically about how MoD cuts have been deeper in Scotland than elsewhere, which is a different complaint.

I was referring to how the country voted not how individuals voted and you know this

Its is a simple and undeniable fact/reality that the nation of Scotland did not vote for and would not have the current govt were it iS. At least THM has the sense to not even try and explain why this is more freedom than independence as he realises it is impossible to argue this.

@Junkyard – sorry I really didn’t know that’s what you meant.

You don’t always get the government you voted for. That’s true for all of us and in any democracy, that’s the point I was trying to make. So you didn’t get the Government you voted for this time but you did have one Scotland voted for last time with a representative at the highest level. FWIW I don’t think the budget cuts etc would have been much different under Labour. Labour was never going to get in after the debacle of the banking crises, Iraq war and Brown’s personal lack of credibility with the voters.

THM is much more sensible than me, its not fair but that’s the way it is. 😕

@ben, on MOD cuts I don’t have the figures but is it possible that the UK had borne more than its “fair share” of cuts in the past (Scotland protected by Brown) and that’s being addressed in the latest round ? I don’t know. I do know the cuts to the MoD in the past 10+ years have been pretty savage all round.

In that case I would have been nicer

I agree we dont all get the govt we voted [ unless its North Korea 😉 ] for but when it is a country it will smart a bit more- we did this when folk compared constituencies etc and I assume we all agree countries are different from individuals and constituencies

I dont live in Scotland to be clear. I dont even sound Scottish anymore but dont you ever ever call me English to my face as thems fighting words 😉

jambalaya – Member

You don’t always get the government you voted for. That’s true for all of us and in any democracy, that’s the point I was trying to make. So you didn’t get the Government you voted for this time but you did have one Scotland voted for last time with a representative at the highest level

Scotland has had the government it voted for less than half the time since the war. I don’t know the numbers for the Welsh but I doubt it’s so different. (NI is a bit of a special case with their unique parties). How many times has England not had the government it voted for?

I don’t have the figures but is it possible that the UK had borne more than its “fair share” of cuts in the past (Scotland protected by Brown) and that’s being addressed in the latest round ?

No, the figures don’t show that:

Between 2000 and 2010 Ministry of Defence personnel in Scotland were cut by 27.9%. This is much higher than the equivalent UK cut of 11.6%.

http://www.businessforscotland.co.uk/12-defence-facts-that-the-no-campaign-dont-want-you-to-know/

Some parts of the country have governments they dont vote for 100% of the time – that is inescapable as Jamabalaya points out.

Hence defining independence in terms of well we wont get a certain type of outcome (eg the bedroom tax) is pretty silly when you think about it. The whole argument will follow a path of reductio ad absurdam as one elite is replaced by another. Tis always the way.

But with “freedom” you will have a foreign government setting the levers of power over the economy without any or with minimal reference to what is happening domestically. So odd-on bet that you actually have less freedom than before with zero representation. And that’s progress?

And that’s progress?

Yes. Because if we don’t like how those levers are being pulled, our government – the one we voted for – can do something about it.

At the moment the levers are set to benefit the City, not Scotland (or the North, or Wales, etc), and we can’t do anything about it. With independence, we can.

No they cant, thats the whole point. AS proposals require sovereignty to be ceded. This whole thread is about the impact of choosing a currency union as the “supposed” best option for Scotland (and the rUK, hic!).

Now if AS stood up and said, we want to have an independent Scottish pound that may be fixed, floating or some hybrid, then the arguments that you make may start to have some/more validity. At the moment, they don’t which is why I come back to Keynes’ comment about “who controls the currency.”

No they cant, thats the whole point.

Sure they can. they can say “this currency union thing isn’t working for Scotland, we’re going to work towards joining the Euro” or whatever.

Remember the impact of a change in the price of NS Oil will have differing impacts on the economies of iS and rUK. But interest rates and fiscal policy will be set in the context solely of the impact on one party – rUK. So policy conflicts are likely to more significant not less significant in the event of a yes vote. But now you cant even exercise “any” democratic influence over the decision makers – now that may well lead to justifiable accusations of bullying. Be careful what you ask for!

That would be even worse. The Scottish economy is far more aligned with the economy of the rUK than with the economies of the € area.

The choice of a CU with rUK is a clear a message as possible that the interest of Scotland are best served by a union with rUK. And guess who is proposing that!?! 😉

and the cost of all these changes of mind……..?

At the moment we have basically zero control – governments we don’t elect, who act to benefit the City. We lose out in EU funding, in farming and fishery policies, in investment and other areas. And we have no control over it.

With independence, sure – we’re still at the mercy of larger forces. But at least we can do something – we’d have representation in Europe, we’d have the ability to decide which currency unions we want to join (as compared to the one we’re in now, which we didn’t choose), we’d be able to make our own decisions.

Well happy for you to believe that Ben if you want. But I fear you will be ultimately be disappointed. But at least in that case, there would be no one else to blame! 😉

Bon apetit!

But at least in that case, there would be no one else to blame!

Honestly, I think this is a very good reason for independence. We need to be able to make our own mistakes, instead of just taking the easy route and blaming someone else.

Though I’m sure you’ll still blame the English 😉

How many times has England not had the government it voted for?

Nail hammer and head
Indeed perhaps the scots should give the english the govt they choose so they can understand how unfair it is

Some parts of the country

Indeed no one denies this [ its not what the claim was but it much easier to say that than defeat the central point which you still wont even try to do as you know it is true] what you need to do is explain what countries this happens in , why you think its great representation and why any change would be worse in terms of “freedom”.
It would happen within iS as well but it will still be the GOVT THE PEOPLE HAVE CHOSEN

We all agree if you compare chalk and cheese they look different
Please reference countries and not constituencies.

Hence defining independence in terms of well we wont get a certain type of outcome (eg the bedroom tax) is pretty silly when you think about it. The whole argument will follow a path of reductio ad absurdam as one elite is replaced by another. Tis always the way.

I pray to the lords you do not teach philosophy non sequtur even if i accept your premise [ and I dont]

But with “freedom” you will have a foreign government setting the levers of power over the economy

this is what is happening today with england doing it to Scotland

So odd-on bet that you actually have less freedom than before with zero representation.

Stating it again is not proving it 🙄

At the moment we have basically zero control – governments we don’t elect,

this is th epoint you need to counter

you are correct that any currency union [ or indeed union] involves the ceding of some powers but these powers are clearly less than NOT BEING ABLE TO CHOSE YOUR OWN GOVERNMENT!!
Its impossible to argue otherwise hence why you barely even try and just repeat your claim

THM you teach and you mark . You know you would mark this essay poorly as a one sided polemic that barely addresses the central issue or question asked
Nothing can be a greater restriction of a countries freedom than not having the govt you voted for and having one imposed by another countries choices. this is the current scenario.
yes iS has other compromises that mean it is not completely free [ no country is IMHO] and it may even be less free in some areas than the UK currently or rUK afterwards. These are reasonable points but the point [emboldened] still stands and you cannot counter it.

You cannot even engage on it as you know you will be batting on a loosing wicket.

I think Scottish/English* relations would actually improve a lot after independence – sure there would be some in England who were resentful of Scotland breaking away, and some in Scotland who will still harbour grudges, but with both countries on a more equal footing with each other then there’s going to be a lot less resentment both ways.

*I use this as shorthand for “people living in Scotland/England” – place of birth or family background has nothing to do with it.

Scotland has had the government it voted for less than half the time since the war.

Since 1945 there have been 18 elections, the Scottish electorate got the result they wanted in 9 of them. Or looking at it slightly differently, from 1945 to present date is 69 years, the government Scotland voted for has been in power for 37 of them. So Scotland has had the government they voted for more than half of the time. Not a bad result for <10% of the electorate?

(based on % votes cast, since the Scottish are all about PR)

How many times has England not had the government it voted for?

4 – again based on % votes cast, (not including the current government though).

Beaten to it! England (sic, imagine if we had said that!) or the UK has had plenty of experience of gov without an outright majority (especially in terms of votes cast) It’s a non point, albeit like the currency = assets one, a seductive one that the SNP uses well.

http://www.predictableparadox.co.uk/2014/04/getting-government-that-we-vote-for.html