Osbourne says no to currency union.

I can certainly see some people boycotting Scottish goods/services if Scotland attempts to renege on her portion of the debt. Many (like myself) will already be giving serious thought to reducing their financial exposure to Scottish banks and planning to remove their funds etc. Whilst that is in the most part pragmatic, as we simply do not know how iScotland’s monetary and financial systems will work there will also be an element of not wanting the Scots to have our money.
The Yes supporters seem to dismiss the rising resentment south of the border as ‘petty’, well it is there, it is real and whilst it is currently low key I think many in Scotland will be surprised at the angry backlash should the negotiations become bitter – which I suspect they will.

If nothing else, this referendum has deepened divisions between Scotland and the other regions of the UK & that is to be deplored.

Not to mention the divisions it has created in Scotland. A win of only a few per cent either way does not bode well for Scotland. Much more preferable would have been a decisive yes or no vote as there may be years of turmoil ahead regardless of who wins.

Muddydwarf – I agree entirely, the consequences of the moral failure to take on their fair share of debt could be pretty high, both with reputation, financial markets, and the outcome of a backlash from their biggest trading partner rUK (I am assuming that is the case on trading partner). And to dismiss it as petty posturing for rUK to want to get the best deal will just make it worse, ok there will not be a rebuild of hadrians wall but the moral equivalent of it.
Why the SNP think that rUK will just roll over and give up everything they want if the vote goes there way is beyond me. It just feels like utter delusion to me.

an employer seems within their rights to explain the impact of the vote on their businesses and I would imagine the employees would be interested to know that

If you go back to the old notion about no taxation without representation then given the levels of tax paid by businesses who can’t vote, there’s an engagement deficit if they are to remain silent.

It worries me how much influence and deference some of you have towards organisations whose sole legal duty is to make money for its shareholders.
How many people work for a company that GAS about them?
All of us would be sacked th emoment they cannot make money form our labour. the could not GAS about us and now you want them to advise us

Indeed, separate legal persons. Who pay tax and don’t have representation. So they issue press releases and employee memos. How terrible.

LOL I can only imagine the average companies response if employees started writing letters to them telling them about their social responsibility and what they ought to do re paying tax, wages and anything the company did that affected them
I dont get how anyone can be so pro business tbh.
Suggesting they do not have representation is laughable as well – you do know what demos means dont you?

It is not about being petty it is about getting the best deal possible for the people of the rUK

If iS do the same then they wont take debt so you wont share assets so they wont so yo wont etc
At some point both sides have to realsie they will nee to compromise and cooperate or they hurt themselves in a never ending tit for tat /eye for an eye.

to dismiss it as petty posturing for rUK to want to get the best deal will just make it worse, ok there will not be a rebuild of hadrians wall but the moral equivalent of it.
Why the SNP think that rUK will just roll over and give up everything they want if the vote goes there way is beyond me. It just feels like utter delusion to me.

but it is not a delusion for you to think you can just amke demands to them they will agree and roll over and say thanks for that yes rUK whatever you say.
How can you not see the scottish folk you are disagreeing with have exactly the same attitude as you but just from another country, You both need to move [ or hopefully not be involved in the negotiations]. Neither side can get what is best for them on everything and neither will just let the other side “win”

I can certainly see some people boycotting Scottish goods/services if Scotland attempts to renege on her portion of the debt.

The people with this attitude [ on both sides] are the problem
Tit for tat for tit for tat is never ending at some point you have to compromise and so do they.
You have also been amongst the most [ what ever the correct and polite word is here ] anti ?? scottish on this thread.

it wont help if both sides are this anti the other
Both get hurt by behaving like children pulling at the same toy till it breaks and neither have it to play with and then they blame each other

Junky you are right, trouble is I cannot see it working out any other way.
I have a horrible image of the negotiations looking like salmond and call me dave holding onto each end of a toy truck and shouting “mine”.
Both sides are setting the scene for it to turn out like that, and sadly I can see people on both sides taking exactly the petty view as mentioned above with regards to buying patterns

I dont get how anyone can be so pro business tbh

Equally, I don’t get how anyone can so readily dismiss the concerns of so many organisations which provide employment and generate wealth which can be taxed.

It is like that old public vs private sector debate – neither is better, both are essential. You’ve made your view clear on employers several times over many threads but being one isn’t the easiest thing in the world.

If staff told the company about its social responsibility, we’d be delighted. Fortunately, they do. And we support many of the initiatives they propose because if they don’t believe in what the company is trying to do they’re not going to do it as well. It may surprise to you learn that many companies know that great ideas come from every level within a business if you just give people the confidence to speak up.

It is like that old public vs private sector debate – neither is better, both are essential

On that we are agreed.
Jim Sillars doesnt have a lot say over the SNP these days he lost any real influence when Salmond became leader in the 90s.

Junkyard – I am anti SNP/Salmond. The rhetoric coming from Salmond smacks to me of almost naked Anglophobia, when I hear him sneer ‘team Westminster’ I hear the words ‘English bastards’ and I doubt I’m the only one. My English friend who lives in Scotland tells me she views SNP supporters and the Party as “anti English in the main” her words.
Yes, the movement is far more than the SNP but they are a main driver.
I fully Support Scotland’s desire & right to self determination, what I oppose strongly is this idea that we are going to let you have a Currency Union, that my investments and pension will help to backstop a competitor State and refund any Scottish failures – that is a very strange version of independence.
For the rest, I simply don’t care if you go, alhough many others are angry at a small % of the population tearing their country apart.
It WILL affect the rest of us so why are you all surprised we are getting resentful?

when I hear him sneer ‘team Westminster’ I hear the words ‘English bastards’

But that’s just you. Not him.

generate wealth That phrase makes me chuckle – news speak IMHO to make it sound noble as they want to benefit others

I dont dismiss them I just think they have no say in an election.

It is like that old public vs private sector debate – neither is better, both are essential.

generally true that we need both as they bith do different things well
FWIW my concern has always been about the distribution of wealth rather than how it is “created”.IME “wealth creators” dont do it to make the world a better place.

You’ve made your view clear on employers several times over many threads but being one isn’t the easiest thing in the world.

Dont doubt it as I have mates who employ folk who ask me for advice. Some employees are poor trust me as nion rep I deal with them often.
As an employee it serves no one if we hate each other as we still have to work there. Getting along is best and one where employees are happy always works best. you cannot buy loyalty nor influence.
There are good employers and bad ones IMHO good ones know voting intentions of workers/influencing them is not their business.

You know as well as I do than many companies dont actually care about their workforce beyond it being dearer to cope with illness, re training , recruiting and staff turnover. Strangely the larger the organisation and the more the profit [ multi nationals etc] the less they seem to care.

There are excellent employers out there and they dont write letters like that

Graham it could go either way but there will be some big egos to back down and they have both sides have backed themselves into a corner with their rhetoric and lines in sand

Wont be pretty

muddy all your post read to me like you dont like scotland
i doubt I am alone in that perception though i accept i may have some bias; its not as bad as your though 😉

Guess it also shows how any yes vote is going to be hard to deal with as no doubt a reasonable % of english feel as you do
FWIW no one [english]outside STW has ever mentioned it to me.
I still dont live there and i am still in england

Companies are not people. That is why companies don’t actually pay tax. Tax comes out of the pockets of employees (wages), customers (prices) or shareholders (dividends). Brackets relate to the opportunity costs of tax

The most unfortunate things about the vote is that there will be no clear mandate but significant animosity. There will be no smooth negotiations. pandora’s box has been well and truly opened. So unnecessary.

The 2015 election could well be defined by who stands up to the Scots the most. CMD has little to lose. EM on the other hand has a lot. Very easy to paint this as a failure of labour to mobilise its resources properly and CMD (if he survives) will play that card tor all it’s worth.

Its hard for me to dislike Scotland, I haven’t met every Scot yet.
You may not have heard it – perhaps (hopefully) people are polite, but I hear it often. The anger, the resentment and the desire that “they just bugger off and have done with it”. Ive personally had some small dealings with SNP/SnG unpleasantness at the Bannockburn event and I know personally that some (many?) of that ilk are unpleasantly anti English. Having it spat in your face for two days tends to leave an impression.

I’m English. Lived in Scotland for 25 years. Almost never heard anti-Englishness. Some banter, yes. Genuine hatred nope.

The SNP has no connection with Siol nan Gaidheal, membership of SnG is proscribed within the SNP

For those who subscribe, the Martin Wolfe article in FT is well written (and I don’t normally agree with him)

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/67017a0a-390d-11e4-9526-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3CCEZv67a

Funny to watch the DO lambasting retailers now – a few months after the Tesco tax debacle. How very dare they suggest that costs may go up! What do they know? They only run the bloody businesses, pal.

Piss businesses off alex and what do you expect. The CBI claims that 90% of its members are against you – just where are all these wonderful tax flows going to come from??

Isn’t the cost of living more expensive in Ireland, because it’s a small country and needs to import a lot? Wouldn’t Scotland be similar?

If the SNP are now saying they will nationalise BP, would they also nationalise the banks in Scotland? Could I find that even though RBS might have moved itself to London, that enough of its Scottish assets get nationalised to cause complete chaos?

i.e. should I close my NatWest account and move it to a bank that lives somewhere safer?

oldnpastit – Member

If the SNP are now saying they will nationalise BP,

They are not. Sillars was an SNP MP and deputy leader, 20 odd years ago. Basically, one dude throws a strop, entire national press jump on it as if it’s representative of the Yes campaign. For some reason.

@ Molgrips, depends which measure you use but it seems to be broadly similiar. Consumer prices are 2.44% higher on average apparently but costs of housing, utilities, petrol etc are lower. Remember that includes differences in taxation too though, Irish alcohol duties seem to be higher. And average salaries are slightly higher too.

From the horse’s mouth, Tesco took issue with a Better Together leaflet claiming to prove an increase in retailer prices

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29087393

Nationalise the banks and BP, well statements like that are dangerous and daft. Can’t comment on the banks but claiming to want to nationalise a large multinational (presumably only the north sea component) is drivel but elsewhere has done it. Now these countries who have cannot get people to invest there due to the instability so are once again trying to tempt western multinationals back but nobody is interested except for one or two (NIOC) operators whose track record is very very poor.

Best headline I’ve seen lately

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/iceland-boss-yes-vote-would-make-me-panicbut-sillars-is-talking-bollocks.1410550762

The SNP has no plans to nationalise BP.

Muddydwarf, you haven’t a bloody clue. There is no broad sense of hatred toward England, except a few songs at Scotland games ( and vice versa!) those days are over. I have a love of our neighbours to the south, the same way I feel about the French, it’s just that I don’t want them deciding our politics.

It’s about self governance, not hatred.

Quite liked the balance in this article. A more reasoned approach.

Then there’s this one 🙂

Muddydwarf, you haven’t a bloody clue. There is no broad sense of hatred toward England, except a few songs at Scotland games ( and vice versa!) those days are over. I have a love of our neighbours to the south, the same way I feel about the French, it’s just that I don’t want them deciding our politics.

It’s about self governance, not hatred.

self governance? leaving the EU?

The French probably have more influence over laws in Scotland than the Westminister parliament does

Epic. That headline doesn’t have the word ‘bollocks’ in it though

The rhetoric coming from Salmond smacks to me of almost naked Anglophobia, when I hear him sneer ‘team Westminster’ I hear the words ‘English bastards’ and I doubt I’m the only one.

you’re loopy.

The French probably have more influence over laws in Scotland than the Westminister parliament does

Go on then, enlighten me.

And boris is heading back to Westminster, even more of a reason to get out.

@ epicyclo the last paragraph of that article catches the moment for me

The pleasure of witnessing this democracy in action is tempered by a nagging question: why is it not like this all the time? It is not, as the Scots have proved, because people are apathetic. It is because they don’t have, in day-to-day politics, a sense that they can control things. What really matters now is whether after the referendum, Scots return, like the rest of us, to a state of frustrated powerlessness, or can sustain the democratic energy that has been unleashed. If that’s to happen, neither a mini-Westminster in Edinburgh nor a lightly modified Britain will be much use. If the referendum is to be the start of something big, it must also be, for international democracy, the start of something new.

If anyone wants to listen to a sensible, reasoned debate on the independance issue, shedding quite a few myths and lies, then suggest you listen to this. Very interesting and certainly puts most of the common arguments in perspective.

Aberdeen debate

Go on then, enlighten me.

once you discount the devolved area’s most other legislation has a EU origin

France has a disproportionate number of EU civil servants compared to other nationalities eg English who actually write the EU legislation that the EP passes

France also has 74 MEP’s compared to England’s 60

At the risk of sounding negative. I am not sure that the referendum debate isn’t to politics what the Olymics are to rowing/sailing. It is one off thing which catches people’s attention.

Looking like Boris will be next PM….whatever Scotland votes for.

.Douglas Adams …. What an astute bloke he was.

I see The Guardian has come out No. Interesting, as a lot of the tone of its coverage has been sympathetic to Yes & I would have thought the left leaning agenda that Yes has tried to claim for itself would have led to the paper being at least neutral.

Jesus **** wept

Boris or Ed

😆 at the google auto fill for Ed Milliband being Milliband bacon sandwich

Ignore that. Move along.