Osbourne says no to currency union.

And it’s a tactic that has worked so well, eh?

@whatnobeer, yes I think it has

Well that speaks volumes. Imo needles conflicts, thousands of civilian deaths, still apparently an high terror threat which is also being used to erode civil liberties. Not what I’d call a success by any means.

t it’s a very strong opinion based on speaking to people,e

So that’ll be a yes with regard to it being waste of time asking for any supporting evidence? You spoke to someone and read about it on thread with differing opinions. Fact free diets aren’t for everyone, I’m happy that you seem to be enjoying yours

you should probably read it tbh, because it doesn’t say that at all

You think I don’t read what I link to. Interesting. It may use the word “could” but there’s no reason to publish it unless it is to satisfy investor concerns over what it will do in the event of a Yes vote. Otherwise its previous statement on contingency planning would have been adequate.

Assuming an Independent Scotland does join NATO – what are you going to do with all the troops / aircraft that you will have? Remember that people join the armed forces to fight. Throughout the recruitment process it is made very clear that this is the whole point. You might gain a trade – but the ONLY reason for armed forces is to fight.

All the people I know in the forces (and I live next to Aldershot) understand this and get disappointed when they don’t get selected to be deployed. The main problem that they had with the Afgan conflict, was not that they were being deployed, but they did not have enough time at home between deployments

And don’t think that by being a small country this won’t happen. My cousin is in the Danish Army and was hugely disappointed not to be allowed her second tour in Afghanistan. (During her medicals for deployment they found out that she was pregnant!)

And the whole topic of which army units will be transferred to the Scottish Defence Force has been ignored. This will be interesting as the SNP campaigned for the recent cuts to the Armed Forces to have a minimal impact on the Scottish regiments. Now Scotland is over represented in the Armed Forces. No money in the SDF budget for them

SNP – Tory informal coalition 2007-11 – from the Guardian

Alex Salmond has been accused of total hypocrisy by the former leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Annabel Goldie, for forgetting he enjoyed a long informal coalition with the Conservatives before his landslide election victory.

Goldie, who forged a close working relationship with Salmond as Scottish Tory leader between 2007 and 2011, said the first minister was guilty of double standards for repeatedly attacking Labour’s coalition with the Tories in the anti-independence campaign.

Goldie said: “When his political fate depended on us, he didn’t think twice before seeking and taking our support. It is quite extraordinary that he’s now doing a complete volte-face and now proclaims that the Tories are the worst things on the earth.

“To hear him now dismissing the Tories as the pariah of politics, as the name that dare not be spoken, is to me just utterly incredible and utterly hypocritical.”

Whenever you have a source material, you are immediately asking the obvious questions – who, where, why, what etc.

So you have a major Scottish Institution that tries to maintain political neutrality, giving live information, reflecting actual client concerns and their response in language that they can distribute in news feeds that satisfy various compliance requirements.

It’s as close as saying in the event of a yes, we will be shifting significant resources to (100 Cheapside) as we can, and don’t worry we are already on top of this.

Standard Life is trying to appear neutral in terms of Yes/No but what it’s said is designed to send a very clear message that it will move a significant part of it’s business if there is a Yes vote.

Jambalaya – you described progressive taxation, something the UK already does reasonably well on the face of it.

What about VAT? Corporation tax?

Not what I’d call a success by any means.

Hmm yes but you cannot judge that without a) all the information and b) knowing what would have happened had those things not been done.

None of us can know about either of those things.

Assuming an Independent Scotland does join NATO – what are you going to do with all the troops / aircraft that you will have? Remember that people join the armed forces to fight. Throughout the recruitment process it is made very clear that this is the whole point. You might gain a trade – but the ONLY reason for armed forces is to fight.

I’m not sure what your point is. Are you suggesting that if you have an army then it should be used in some way whether there is reason or not? Can’t have all those soldiers who’ve signed up to kill people sitting on their hands getting all frustrated! I think the clue is in the name – Scottish DEFENCE force.

Scottish DEFENCE force

Yup, that could only mean one thing. See Israel Defence Forces for useful naming conventions

Hmm yes but you cannot judge that without a) all the information and b) knowing what would have happened had those things not been done.

None of us can know about either of those things.

Similar to the Referendum yes/no vote then? 😛

Tbh, the French and Germans did a good job of not getting involved didn’t they? There were millions of people marching saying we don’t want to get involved in this war and yet we did it anyway. Given the relative size of a SDF our government would be unlikely to have the same reaction.

jambalaya – Member
Standard Life is trying to appear neutral in terms of Yes/No but what it’s said is designed to send a very clear message that it will move a significant part of it’s business if there is a Yes vote.

Clearly.

But heads remain in the sand……

Can’t have all those soldiers who’ve signed up to kill people sitting on their hands getting all frustrated!

So what are they going to do? Given the only land border is with the UK and we are not going to invade what is the point. If we go the logical point, the only part of the SDF that is needed is an Oil Rig and Fishery Protection Fleet and a few aircraft to assist them.

Soldiers fight, take away the fight and it becomes pointless – see the Japanese Defence Force.

However scrapping the Army does leave money for a fairer society!

And the point about this: We are going on about conventional v nuclear forces. If you start off with the viewpoint that nuclear forces are useless, then follow the argument through about conventional forces. If they are not going to be deployed – they why bother.

Seems to me this whole debate can be summed up:

Yessers: We want change.
Everyone else: What you are planning is seriously risky and problematic
Yessers: Maybe, but it’s change so let’s do it.

Well, a bit – but the lie is that a No vote is safe and secure. There’s risks both ways.

Seems to me this whole debate can be summed up:

Yessers: We want change.
Everyone else: What you are planning is seriously risky and problematic
Yessers: Maybe, but it’s change but it can’t be much worse than staying here, so let’s do it.
Ever been in a job you haven’t like and changed just to move, even if it meant a drop in wages?

Ever been in a job you haven’t like and changed just to move, even if it meant a drop in wages?

No

Ever been in a job you haven’t like and changed just to move, even if it meant a drop in wages?

Looking a little harder to find the one with better pay and prospects always seemed a better idea.

And the point about this: We are going on about conventional v nuclear forces. If you start off with the viewpoint that nuclear forces are useless, then follow the argument through about conventional forces. If they are not going to be deployed – they why bother.

You’re right. I don’t see why Scotland would need a large functioning army. In reality the rUK would never allow Scotland to be invaded by a foreign power anyway so there’s really no need. Far better to have an arrangement whereby the rUK defends Scotland in the event of an agressor attacking, and Scotland pays for the protection, with some sort of ongoing contribution acting as a retainer.

jambalaya – Member

Northwind there is very little evidence that student fees discourage people form going to university,

Not so much. Since the introduction of fees, universities south of the border have thrown huge efforts into widening access (to their credit) but the admissions gap hasn’t closed noticably despite that. Meanwhile in scotland, both applications and admissions from disadvantaged kids have increased.

(this is what I do for a job 😉 Widening access is a slow success story in Scotland but we’re getting there- college articulations are at a record high, protected places for simd students are increasing every year, contextual admissions policies are in place for most of the scottish universities (maybe now all but there were some lagging last I checked)- still much more to do )

rUK defends Scotland in the event of an agressor attacking, and Scotland pays for the protection, with some sort of ongoing contribution acting as a retainer

Great idea. Hell, we could even extend that logic to every other aspect of public service provision. Could call it a Union, or something.

@Northwind, understood and I bow to your greater understanding of the issue and it nuances but the fact the gap hasn’t closed is IMO due to the social factors I mentioned.

Great idea. Hell, we could even extend that logic to every other aspect of public service provision. Could call it a Union, or something.

That’d be great! Where we keep full control of everything and pay some cash down south to make it happen? Who’s proposing that then? And how long has that offer been on the table? I must of missed it.

Not always possible and sometimes the employer is just so bad you need to move on.

I think we have stretched the metaphor enough.

Yes that it is a nutshell You should do a Doctoral thesis
Better to say they want democracy and a fairer society even if the the GDP goes down a bit.
It is like a divorce you are both poorer initially but life goes on and you both end up happier – its not that risky or problematic but it is compared to the status quo.

we keep full control of everything

I’m not sure dazh’s suggestion allowed any control. Sort of like the sovereignty debate in a nutshell. maybe.

“We’re keeping the pound” is meaningless? Is English your first language? The statement may be wrong but it certainly isn’t meaningless. Still, that would explain why other simple English phrases like “fairer society” are beyond your comprehension.

Very cutting Bigbut…..I’m quite distraught! Despite that, it seems just like all the others, you are completely unable to recognise that you have been fed a line…and swallowed the lot. Your contribution to this debate shows your lack of understanding of the bigger picture.

Well if Scotland is attacked we could defend it (*cough* ourselves) by making sure all the fighting takes place there 😉

Great idea. Hell, we could even extend that logic to every other aspect of public service provision. Could call it a Union, or something.

This is the trouble. With a little imagination and creativity there’s no reason why a lot of these questions couldn’t be sorted out quite easily. What it requires though is both sides to be mature and reasonable, and to recognise the common benefits. In reality though I have little hope of this happening. Instead we’ll probably see both sides squabbling over minutiae and cutting their noses off to spite their faces, and this is what worries me the most.

What about VAT? Corporation tax?

The UK tried “progressive” VAT, namely higher rates on Luxury items. That was a disaster for the UK boat building industry with the loss of a lot of skilled jobs as the UK industry was supported by UK buyers who stopped buying. French and Italians kept buying boats in their local markets, the Brits did not. BTW The French can buy a boat via a lease and save the VAT, the government recognizes luxury items like boats actually support working class people’s jobs. The UK has VAT free categories and lower rates on certain items in a way that the rest of ht Europe does not. We are already more progressive there.

Corporation Tax. Not sure how we would make that progressive, higher rates just mean companies move abroad and the EU has tied our hands and allowed companies to run rings round most governments (Irish and Luxembourg being beneficiaries). Higher paid employees pay much more employer taxes like National Insurance as it’s uncapped, 13% on amounts over 50k (I think that’s the threshold)

jambalaya – Member

@Northwind, understood and I bow to your greater understanding of the issue and it nuances but the fact the gap hasn’t closed is IMO due to the social factors I mentioned.

I’d certainly agree it’s a huge consideration, and a really difficult thing to get past. (as someone summed it up to me- middle class kids say “where am I going to uni”, not “will I go to uni”)

The other thing is, it’s just really difficult to make sensible comparisons, the HE environment changes every year (we got record applications this year and all patted ourselves on the back, definitely all down to our hard work, nothing at all to do with the fact that lots of students are going to uni because they don’t think they’ll get a job!) But the societal factors are generally comparable between scotland and england, and there’s a noticable divergence in trends since fee-paying and non-fee-paying started.

(I am not unbiased; I hate this. I was first generation of my family to do any sort of post-school education, it came pretty easily to us but it’s harder now, and that’s shit)

Don’t forget companies don’t pay tax – tax is taking money from the employees (opp cost is wages), the customers (prices) or the shareholders (dividends) in isolation or in combination.

Libertarian Alex, seems keen on recusing the tax bill. So he reads Hayek and Nozick before bed. He will be outsourcing NHS services to the private sector next…..

Higher paid employees pay much more employer taxes like National Insurance as it’s uncapped, 13% on amounts over 50k (I think that’s the threshold)

Mainly 13.8% above c. £8k p.a. with no upper limit.

Scottish DEFENCE force.

Just like the UK Ministry of DEFENCE. 😀

It’s newspeak init!

There’s certainly plenty of duckspeak on here! 🙂

According to Fore live there’s a survation poll coming out at 930 tonight.

as someone summed it up to me- middle class kids say “where am I going to uni”, not “will I go to uni”)

Yes this. My Mum and Dad didn’t go to Uni but they certainly encouraged me to do so. I told my kids it was basically compulsory but they chose what they wanted (Economics, Social Policy, Dance). Northwind I think we have found a topic on which we certainly agree the goal if perhaps not the means

Following up on my comment on mortgages the Guardian posted this. link (mortgage drought)

If there is a Yes vote people in Scotland should only borrow from a Scottish entity, Borrowing from one in the UK means they could be asked to repay that loan early (note its happened to me after my lender withdrew from the mortgage market).

Genuine question – has there been any time where the majority of MP’s in england has been different from the overall parliament?

It will be very few compared to scotland and I doubt scotland has decided more than once or twice ever and certainly not since the 60’s.

I’m not keeping up and have just skimmed the last couple of pages, but I don’t thin this has been done, and as I know the answer…

Yes, at least three times in the last 20 GEs. Most recently of course was in 2010 – now you can argue as much as you like that we have a Tory government, but we don’t we have a coalition and policies have been different as a result (previous to that was I think ’74).

So actually all things considered it doesn’t seem Scotland suffers that much of a democratic deficit compared to England when it’s got the government it voted for 13 times out of 20 against 17 times out of 20. That’s 3 times where the wishes of 50 odd million have been overruled by 5 million.

…actually have just checked again and found 4 occasions where a party had a majority in the UK but not in England or vice versa:

http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/ge64/seats64.htm
http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/ge74a/seats74a.htm
http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/ge74b/seats74b.htm
http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/ge10/seats.htm

Following up on my comment on mortgages the Guardian posted this. link (mortgage drought)

If there is a Yes vote people in Scotland should only borrow from a Scottish entity, Borrowing from one in the UK means they could be asked to repay that loan early (note its happened to me after my lender withdrew from the mortgage market).

aaargh