Bugger.. another contentious subject….

So what was wrong with the Vow?
I was under the impression that it was delivered and agreed on by Westminster and Scottish Govt?
Genuinely interested in info if it wasn’t?

tjagain
So would I for that matter. Except that that means full fiscal autonomy.

epicyclo

It seems the only credible reason is that they have either ill-will or antagonism towards Scotland.

I won’t refrain from using the words sneering and condescending for this :O)

Is it not even a wee bit credible that they live here, they can’t see the upside, and they don’t want the economic pain for themselves and their families.

Or maybe they like being part of the UK as much as they liked being part of Europe?

After all they were 55% of the population last time?

Do you know what othering is?

@ km79

To summarise ETP – why won’t you thick ignorant delusional fools engage with me?

Just noticed this.. it’s like looking in a mirror.. how to you know me so well 🙂

Can you show me where you cut and pasted that from?

If it’s just a summary I’d prefer something like
“Show me the money?”

Yes BoardinBob.. I’m just trying to scare you.
Scotland deficit is all smoke and mirrors.
grauniad article

tjagain,
Some information, in the nicest way possible :O) (really)
(with references)
BfS From here

So of the seven Directors who were in place in November 2013 all but one resigned in December 2014. Since then one was elected as an SNP MP, one as an SNP MSP and one was a failed SNP list candidate.

Also:

Finally – for those thinking this apparent party affiliation may be just a series of concidences – the Herald revealed after the referendum that SNP Chief Executive Peter Murrell was personally providing guidance on the structure of the board and how they focused their activities.

Comment?

epicylo,
I don’t think anyone is saying that Scotland can’t.
They’re saying that at least in the medium term iScotland will have less money to spend on the things everyone (seems to) agree it would want (like strong welfare and a thriving NHS).

It would have to start with a lot of austerity, and grow its way out.

So who would pay the price and for how long?

tjagain
I seem to recall that (on the basis of evidence offered in this thread) I’ve withdrawn my comments on the Scottish NHS and retracted a comment about set up costs for an iScotland that was a wild overestimate.
I also withdraw my comment about the SNP not wanting FFA (which I considered a compliment). Clearly they did want it but I can’t for the life of me understand why.

So that’s 3 times I’ve changed my mind or retracted based on evidence offered.

If I’m still disagreeing with you it might be because the evidence you produced is just not good enough.

Apart from the comment about epicyclo (which I explained) and calling you a snowflake (which think I can defend) I don’t really make personal comments or get offended.

Try harder to make good arguments and I’ll try not to parody them.

PS an economic article by Business in Scotland, is a pamphlet from an SNP sponsored pressure group trying to obfuscate. Not an attempt to clarify.

tjagain,
Yup all of those work for me 🙂
Perfectly fair, reflecting what I wanted to say exactly. Especially the last one, which you should read again because thats pretty much how I see YOUR point of view.

Except for the epicyclo reference where you seem to have removed the smiley face. The comment was in reference to this:

epicyclo >> As for mentioning their location, that was because they got all upset last time when I said they were irrelevants because they have no vote because they are not in Scotland.

which I took to suggest that he was trying to create annoyance by mentioning location again.

Are you really suggesting that you have produced evidence that I am sneering, condescending, scot disliking and just possibly scot hating?

I’m tempted to call you a snowflake, but I fear you may melt in my laser like distain. For reference, I may be forthright or distainful, but I’m not the one throwing accusations of “dislike” and “hatred” based on nothing.

By all means argue for an independent Scotland, but stop trying to tell us it’ll be coated in honey.

How about a realistic stab at what we won’t be able to pay for.

Some assets can be sold, but its like the family silver, a temporary measure and only once.

PS There you go again with the “you don’t live in Scotland” thing.
Watch it your Nationalism is showing.

PPS We’ve had the “you’re rude” reason for not engaging, and now the “you’re not in Scotland”.. whatever next?

PS tjagain,
You have accused me (along with seosamh77) of disliking or hating scots and failed to produce any evidence the exists outside your own head (or I guess you could presumably just have me banned for racism, which should be pretty easy with all the evidence lying about on the forum, No?)

From now on I’m going to take accusations of hatred and dislike to mean
“I have searched the whole of the internet for evidence of the truth of things in my head, but have none.”

tjagain,
Please don’t join seosamh77 in accusing me of disliking scots, thats genuinely all in your head.

Maybe to help you understand my “tone”…

If I was recommending 10-14Bn of conservative government cuts in Scotland. (equivalent to more than the cash spent on the Scottish NHS), and then pointing to the “conservative businessmans association” for evidence that it wouldn’t matter. And pointing out that things would actually be better because reasons!!!

What tone would you adopt with me?

Thats genuinely (at least a wee bit) like what a lot of you are doing, but you don’t see it because its wrapped in flag.

tjagain, surely you know how frustrating it is when people claim information exists (against all evidence) and then fail to produce evidence themselves?

So, still [citation required] for your claim about the deficit.

As a start heres an article where St Nic is quoted screaming at the error in the figures her stats dept produced in 2016.

Oh no, actually she completely accepts them and tries to spin them (and fails).

Waiting… (but not distainfully if that helps 🙂

PS saying that “the GERS figure don’t apply to an independent Scotland” is a bit like saying “my height today bears no relation to my height tomorrow” .. some things don’t change fast.

EDIT PS “Business for Scotland” the SNP front? Don’t make me laugh. Have a look at the.

You do realise that you’re trying to rewrite a reality that Nichola Sturgeon actually accepts don’t you?

I’ve been told have I?

Cheers for that. and I await the link to a serious treatment of Scottish economics that reinforces me being ‘telt’ 🙂

As I’ve asked you before.. If this clear evidence exists why doesn’t St Nic kick her stats dept. up the arse?

epicyclo.. so you’re trying to create annoyance? 🙂

I know some people are trolling: “You’ve got no central bank and yer da smells of elderberries” etc. etc. but there are serious questions about the economics of iScotland and pointing at someone’s nationality doesn’t answer them.

How about a serious attempt to fill the gaps. Can you see why just saying “we’ll cope” might not cut it with people who have parents in care or no job or expensive health needs?

You tell us, what are your examples of the exclusive nature of scottish nationalism?

Well for a start there’s the unwritten assumption (shared by you, and directed at me a few days ago.. “why do you hate us?”) that posters on here who disagree with Scottish independence must not be Scottish or must live outside Scotland.

Then there’s the point I made above that epicyclo seems to value posts less when they are from outside Scotland.

Seems pretty clear to me?

(Please don’t answer with examples of English people being nasty.. That’s no excuse)

epicyclo » Well it seems to have been established by southern experts that the SNP will make a mess of the Scottish economy after independence.

You seem to be more concerned about the location of the commenter than the content of their posts?
I guess thats might be the way to go in a debate about Nationalism, but surely Scottish Nationalism is more inclusive?

Will iScotland have its own Maths?

As we seem to be revisiting the same things over and over here is an (edited) post of mine from a few days ago.

we’ll deal with it

My translation:
-2Bn temporary westmonster austerity = work of Satan leading to food banks and suicides
-10Bn ongoing SNP austerity = a satisfying challenge for a brave young nation.

no one really knows

Translation:
GERS are the Scottish Governments own figures. The SNP based the book of dreams on GERS when oil was expensive and it fitted their narrative.
They also made changes to how the data is collected to make it more accurate (and it comes with error bars of about 1bn I think).

But now that it doesn’t fit the narrative, it’s just a remote guess?

[subtext: No-one can know _anything_ about the future _ever_, all evidence that disagrees with me is useless and I’ll probably be killed by a truck I saw coming but ignored.]

On the bright side, you all seem to accept that indy would lead to massive hardship for the weakest in society for a long time.

But you don’t seem to care as long as the right people (with the right flags) making the cuts. Fair enough I see where you are coming from and your Conservative party membership card is in the post.

(although what your proposing in terms of the fiscal future of Scotland would make a brexiter blush.

highlandman
I’m repeating myself here, but please explain (using facts) why St Nic doesn’t correct the statistics put out by her own government statistics department?
also the pain you speak of.. who will suffer it.. the poor, the weak? If anyone else.. then who?

km79
Thats a big “maybe” as opposed to the pretty definite “OMFG where did all the money for NHS and pensions go!” of indy.

Maybe the SNP should campaign for full fiscal autonomy, and get the pain over with now?

Mind you, I recall they (SNP) actually started doing that after the 2014 neverrendum, no doubt pumped up with their own indy propaganda about the “nth richest country in the world”.

Until they realised (had it explained by someone with a bit of maths) what the results would be, and quietly accepted Barnett (pooling and sharing).
Weirdly without the usual shouty fanfare that accompanies SNP decisions/announcements that make the UK look bad?

seosamh77
You (I think) accuse me of offering a “snapshot”, but the graph I showed was
scotlands public spending 1998 to 2016?

I have literally no idea why you think more detailed figures will make cutting 10Bn from a budget of 60+ will be easy or painless?

km79

Eat the pudding, why do you think there will be 10Bn in cuts in an independent Scotland but not as part of the UK? Are you proposing that in independent Scotland won’t/shouldn’t run a deficit?

Scotland could certainly run a deficit, but without
a) massive cuts to public spending or
b) massive tax rises

the deficit would be at a level that would disallow joining the EU for a start and possibly make borrowing extremely difficult (see Greece)

To make again a point you dismissed previously, the current deficit is not “real” as a result of being in the UK.

Here:

is a picture from Chokkablog that shows by his calculation that oil money flowing from Scotland to the to the UK (black line above red line) has to a significant extent come back to Scotland (red line above black line).

He calculates that by the time another £10k per person in scotland comes back north (via Barnett, probably in about 6 years) it’ll break about even.

And after that the UK will still be funding our deficit IF we’re still part of the UK “single market” where we pool and share resources (to Scotlands benefit).

Or we could walk away, make the deficit real and make Edinburgh the Athens of the North 🙂

Once again, I’m not saying we couldn’t. I’m saying we shouldn’t if we want to preserve public spending on welfare, NHS, pensions etc etc. All of whic would be at extreme risk in an independent Scotland (not by “choice” but by necessity).

seosamh77
I agree that it’s up to the SNP to prove it.
But the likelihood is that it’s a non starter.

So no EU single market and no UK single market either.

Badum tish

gordimhor

Eat the pudding as piemonster and others have said the key is it will be our decision.
There is an argument made briefly here that the deficit figures are not very accurate
Andrew Hughes Hallett
Also when I posted the link to the Nuffield Centre’s updated report on the NHS I also posted a link which claimed the NHS in Scotland was functioning better than elsewhere. You haven’t responded to that so far as I am aware.

The GERS figures are the Scottish Governments OWN FIGURES. If they were significantly wrong , Nic would surely have fixed them by now? If not why not?

Also, I accepted a long time ago based on the evidence you provided that the Scottish NHS is no worse (or better) that that in England, you must have missed that.
Did you see this ..Watchdog rebukes SNP Health Secretary over comparisons with NHS in England)

I changed my mind and owned up. But a side note you seemed to quietly stop defending the SNP record on education .. why was that 🙂

seosamh77

Eat the pudding. So what are you wanting there? As I’ve said before you need more detailed figures if you want to have a detailed discussion.

But you crack on. More vague points for you…

Nice to see barrosos pal comment on Scotlands EU membership. Must be fact that…

Jeebus, You ask for more detail? I pointed out that you claim 2Bn austerity was a social disaster for many people, but somehow 10Bn is affordable? I think you’ll have to make that case yourself. Please use facts.

Vague? (Jeebus^2)
Please Point at any verifiable fact you have brought to the table about 10Bn in cuts being affordable, or that Scotlands defecit is not at Greek levels?

By all means accuse me of being vague (?) but please dispel my vagueness with facts and not flag waving nonsense.

On that note Re: Barosso
did you read this from the Independent? “EU says independent Scotland would not have automatic right to become new member”.

Do you know what the word “fact” means?

big n’ daft
Wow, welcome to the new outward looking Scotland.

Big aspirations and tiny bank balance.
But aspirations are what matters!
Right?
Not being able to pay for pensions and healthcare, what does that matter when you have a flag!
Right?

I’ll put this here to kick off discussions again.
If few billion a year in “tory austerity” is bad in terms of social consequences (and it is!)
How about 10Bn a year until Scotlands economy catches up (Maybe at the same speed Greece has not managed?)

No EU, no UK and 10Bn of ongoing cuts, year on year where do you want it?

Remember, I’m not saying it can’t be done. but asking who will pay the price.

Shouldn’t there be some sort of discussion about that?

#eat_the pudding fact :O)
Genuinely just a number I saw online. I’ll withdraw it as a bit of googling suggests its an order of magnitude high.

I’ll happily take better info if you have it (book of dreams not accepted).

Salmond 2014 figure of £500Mn for a complete “IKEA country” setup went by the wayside when just setting up a system to manage the new Scottish tax powers cost many times that.

Trident will probably cost the UK 2 – 2.4Bn per year (Figures apparently from CND so probably on the high side). Scottish proportion of that would be relatively small

So for the price of Indy we could build how many nuclear submarines?

Where to cut after that. Schools, NHS, Pensions.

You decide.

This seems to have been lost after I mentioned it a few pages ago ..

Independent on Scotland in Europe

Reapplication required.
So indy means out of Europe AND out of UK
Why is that a good thing?

Also, 14.8Bn deficit plus maybe 150Bn set up costs (up from Salmonds estimate of 500Mn tee hee)

No-one seems to be keen to be honest about where we will make the cuts?
Just about the wonderful “freedom” we will have.

Scottish Indy isn’t a way of avoiding Brexit.

Its Brexit squared (plus Brexit)

km79
a) Why should people who do live in Scotland try to engage you when you ignore them anyway?
b) Why should someones argument be devalued or ignored because of their nationality?

Dazh

Reasons why the result of this referendum might be different:

– The scottish public are surely not going to fall for project fear again, especially when staying in the UK is now just as scary and uncertain.

Sometimes consequences are real. Part of “project fear” was warning about oil prices. Is it still fear when its real? Brexit gave people the same lesson.

– The rUK will be so distracted by the brexit cluster**** that they won’t be as organised or united this time round

You seem to be thinking you’ll be up against the rUK, when the people you have to convince actually live here.

– The labour party aren’t going to make the same mistake as before which resulted in them wiping themselves out by doing Cameron’s dirty work. If people thought Corbyn was lacklustre on brexit wait til they see him on indyref 2

Funny someone on here excused St Nic from appearing on the same platform as the conservatives during the EU referendum on the basis that she “wasn’t signed up to be part of the same campaign”. Has that changed now? What if Conservatives and Labour campaign for the same thing independently?

– The UK haven’t delivered on any of the promises given following the last referendum

This is just funny. EDIT In Before “prove it”. You made the allegation. YOU prove it.

– The brexit cluster**** will have become just that by the time this referendum is held

Undecided, but the slogan “Out of EU AND UK” might not have the draw you think.
Also a (regretable in my view) hard Brexit would mean a hard border to the South and a loss of potentially 4x more exports than those to the EU.

– Due to brexit/trump/farage, nationalistic instincts have been amplified since the last indyref, this will result in more votes for independence.

I agree, Nationalisnm does breed Nationalism. But Scotlands Nationalism is sooo different and inclusive and non judgmental and never makes broad generalisations about large groups of people and everything.
Or maybe (and its my hope) people will vote with their heads and not their other parts?

– Sturgeon is a much more competent, telegenic and trustworthy leader than Salmond. She’ll win the votes of people who couldn’t stomach Salmond.

Have you seen her approval rating recently?

I can’t actually think of many reasons why it’ll be a no vote.

Your confirmation bias is showing.

Tweeted by Aidan Kerr:
BREAKING: EU says Barossos 2014 words still apply and an independent Scotland would still have to apply for membership.

Oops..

epicyclo
I’m still against derogatory generalisations over here. But as you seem incapable of stopping yourself, please carry on regardless.

If you think I have “triumphant ill will” at the prospect of economic hardship in an iScotland (that will probably be paying my pension) you may have jumped an assumption too far (again).

But don’t let that stop you assuming ill will hatred racism and intolerance (or whatever) in anyone who disagrees with you.

PS Now that I’ve made it clear that such generalisations are reprehensible from wherever they come, would it be foolish to assume that maybe others on here will apologise for conflating opposition to iScotland for an:
a) inclination to dominate brown people (epicyclo) and
b) a hatred of Scottish people (seosamh77)

Seems only fair. No?
But not holding my breath.

Also
Despite the fluff and misdirection, I’m still waiting for a list of 10-14Bn worth of progressive, forward looking, socially responsible and fair public spending cuts (or tax rises) that an iScotland could make while protecting the poor and disadvantaged more than the current situation?

But again, not holding my breath.

The economic plan for iScotland really is beginning to look like its flags all the way down.

Not swerving, but thanks for making assumptions.

Yes it is a 2 way street. Thought that would go without saying based on my clearly expressed attitude.

Specific enough for you?

duckman
So they started it.
Well that makes it all right then; generalise away; perfectly justified; can’t see what I was complaining about at all now.

Whataboutery achievement unlocked.

🙄 Thanks for making my point.

epicyclo
I’m content that I’ve made my point and kind of moved on from this .
But I’m not going to let pass your implication that opposing scottish independence is somehow related to a vision that includes;

you’ll have Empire 2.0 to occupy your time. Lots and lots of brown people to exploit and feel superior to….

In this thread I have been accused of being a racist once already by someone who failed to produce any evidence and the implication of your comment isn’t far off the same thing.

Its obviously not enough that you (and not only you) can’t come up with any evidence that iScotland would not be an economic basket case. But it seems that anyone who disagrees with you or uses facts must somehow be an outsider with reprehensible character traits.

Such people can’t be Scottish,
They can’t live in Scotland,
They must be tories,
They must support brexit,
They must have certain attitudes about “brown people”,

Whats next maybe “traitor” “quisling”?

If thats what your “joyful” “inclusive” “non-nationalistic nationalism” has to offer to those who dissent. then you can definitely keep it.

Scotlands deficit ‘hole’ only becomes a real deficit under independence. Until then the areas of the UK that perform less well economically are supported by the areas that perform better. That’s sort of the advantage of being part of a country rather than part of an Amazonian tribe with tiny horizons and no wider ‘pooling and sharing’ of resources.

You could probably make a case that pretty much any area outside London is running a deficit in terms of cash generated vs cash spent. But no one is doing the calculations because they’re not planning to set out on their own and make it real.

Anyway, I’m glad we all seem to see at least the initial problem with the economic argument for independence (that there isn’t one) and we can move on to whether the people of Scotland think it’s a price worth paying.

km79 stop calling “certain austerity” “uncertainty” your dictionary is broken.

seosamh77 I refer you to my post above. You can live on your own efforts and those who rely a welfare safety net can just tighten their belts a bit more. For the next 20 years.

Charity cases .. Jeebus give me strength ..
Here have a read of this: FFA for dummies

Theres a lot more in there about GERS and everything else you probably don’t really want to know. Fill yer boots.

we’ll deal with it

My translation:
-2bn temporary westmonster austerity = work of Satan leading to food banks and suicides

-10bn ongoing SNP austerity = a satisfying challenge for a brave young nation.

no one really knows

Translation:
SNP based the book of dreams on GERS when oil was expensive, and have made changes to how the data is collected to make it more accurate (and it comes with error bars of about 1bn I think). But now it’s just a remote guess because it doesn’t follow my preferred narrative.

[subtext: No-one can know _anything_ about the future _ever_, all evidence that disagrees with me is useless and I’ll probably be killed by a truck I saw coming but ignored.]

On the bright side, you all seem to accept that indy would lead to massive hardship for the weakest in society for a long time.

But you don’t seem to care as long as the right people are making the cuts. Fair enough I see where you are coming from and your Conservative party membership card is in the post.

Maybe….. sorry 🙁

Can I have a flag now that I’ve confessed 🙂

seosamh77
I’ll leave aside your “feels” based personal comments for now (tho I’d still love a citation for my hatred).

Re: GERS details you asked for.
GERS isn’t the spending.
Its the Scottish Governments own figures reflecting the size of the Scottish economy.
Thats the money we would have raised in taxes etc. if Scotland was independent right now.
(It bears repeating that those saying that 10Bn has been stolen or hidden or missed off in some underhand way should talk to Nic about her stats department.)

The graph I asked people to choose bits to chop off is public spending.

Its not my job to provide you with a detailed breakdown of what the spending involves, but it should suffice to say that the wee drop at the top of the graph (in 12-13 13-14 14-15) is austerity.

We know the pain and anguish that caused.

Austerity looks (from the graph) to have led to a drop of 2Bn (70.4 to 68.4) over 6 or 8 years.

Independence would lead to a potential drop in that graph of 10Bn in 1 year

Unless you are really a wizzard, I don’t think the detailed breakdown will help with cutting that mount of public spending (schools, hospitals, social care and welfare) with out a lot of pain.

Greekonomics if you like.

Thats why the economic argument “was always mince and is now toast”.
(and yes I did just quote myself, because I liked it the first time :0)

Which is where I came in.

For the record I live in Scotland, I love Scotland and [most] Scottish people.
I hate divisive politics based on big lies (including brexit) and thats what the SNP are selling as well.

I’ll ask it again.

How big would the economic hit have to be for the SNP to say “hold on lets look at this again in a few years”

Theres a day job to do and they’re not doing it.

dear seosamh77
We have many citation spaces available for hire in YOUR area!
[ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]*
*citation space still available for hire.

Can be used freely for direct quotes or real evidence.

NB Not to be used for “the feels” or poems of despair and loss.