The killer is infrastructure – infrastructure spending per head in London is around £5000, and that’s not quoted in the normal public spending figures.

Those figures are meaningless until you know what the histrorical and future infrastructure plans are for the various regions. FWIW I do think spending should be more widely spread, I thought the new ‘Wembley’ should have been built in the midlands for example.

But the whole topic is whataboutery really.

I’d also add that it’s odd to see so much complaint about higher public spending in Scotland, when the public spending per person is even higher in London. Why isn’t there more complaint about that?

Because you’ve just made that ‘fact’ up? (Public spending per capita Scotland £10152, London £9435)

Strictly speaking a PG spoke is stronger stiffer

FTFY

As for this, the fact that we’re unlikely to vote in a party that favours the privatisation of public services

Apart from the one you have voted in which has increase expenditure on NHS use of private health care year on year since gaining power.

I think that the sender can agree to pay all of the fees (I can when sending from my Rabobank account to a UK bank) so it should be possible to get credited the correct amount. 2-3 days seems normal, you can pay for a rapid service which is usually next day.

Along with starting running I would start doing eccentric calf lifts – at some stage your achilles and/or calves will hurt, so you might as well start strengthening them now. Side planks with legs raises are also good for hip flexors which don’t get much of a workout from cycling but can hurt after running particularly off road.

And, really, the “powers” suggested aren’t a help. It’s suggested to give further tax-raising powers, letting the Scottish government raise more of the money it spends. But the corresponding block grant will be cut. So Scotland will have to set up a whole new tax department and bureaucracy, at great expense, and won’t get any more money because of it.

I’m not sure thats a correct interpretation of the changes. The planned change is for the UK to collect 10p less income tax from Scotland and to change the block grant to reflect this (so yes the block grant will be smaller). Scotland then has the power to set it’s rate at whatever it choses, if it choses 10p then the revenue into Scotland will be the same, but it has the option to increase its rate to 11p (or more) and gain extra revenue.

So Scotland will have to set up a whole new tax department and bureaucracy, at great expense

<£200Million isn’t it?

There’s no such thing as EU citizenship

Whilst I agree with that, the people of an independent Scotland have no problems being ‘thrown out’ of the EU in the event of a yes vote thanks to the clear statement from the UK government that they will allow dual nationality therefore guaranteeing that anyone holding a British passport will able to take advantage of the UKs treaties.

Of course this needs agreement from the iScotland government that they will also allow dual nationality.

Oil is a very nice bonus to have, but even without oil the GDP per head is similar north and south of the border.

Those are the figures for Scotland as part of the UK – what about for an independent Scotland?

One thing for people thinking about Dusseldorf, if you’re flying into Weeze it’s a long way to Dusseldorf itself (50miles ish) and the buses are not that regular – we’ve had friends who turned down offers of being picked up at the airport because they didn’t realise and then had 2hr waits at the airport for the bus.

The labelling of products is exactly the same in the Dutch supermarkets, most of the products are the same but the level of obesity is about half that of the UK – I’m not convinced that it’s product labelling thats the root of the issue.

My wife always goes to a few Christmas markets each year with friends (usually Dusseldorf and Aachen). I’ve been once, I really don’t see the attraction of stalls all selling overpriced wooden tat. My daughter is a bit older than yours (8 now) and she would rather stay at home, the markets are really busy at times and I can imagine it would be claustrophobic for a little person.

The market in the caves at Valkenburg are really festive though and my daughter likes to go there, not sure there’s much else to do in the town apart from some hill reps up the Cauberg though. Unless you accidentaly happen to book a weekend when the cyclo-cross word cup is in town.

says england voted conservative in % and MP terms so I think that paper /claim must be poor but I cannot be bothered doing them all.

Your link says England voted 45.64% Conservative (or 48.78% for a combined Conservative sub-total) and 48.81% Labour.

I assume you iwsh to ignore the fact based nature of my retorts

what’s that phrase your so keen on about ironing?

Scotland has no intention of getting involved in any more overseas adventures. We’ll need some fishery patrol vessels, a few things to keep an eye on the oil rigs, that’s about it.

So what are Scotland offering to NATO?

No /the UK said Both parties agreed they would not pre negotiate so lots of the economic questions are basically we do not know and there is obvious uncertainty as there is with any change

That’s OK because the SNP will have done lots of research and taken all of the variables into account to arrive at their ‘Scotland will be £5billion better off’ claims.

Or maybe they just make it up as they go along;

Milk and Honey?

I wonder why the book uses those figures Ben? Why not use the latest ones;
Revenue = 53.1bilion (9.1% of UK total 583billion)
Expenditure = 65.2billion (9.3% of UK total 701billion)
Deficit = 12.1billion
Population share of borrowing = 10billion (8.4% of 118.5)

Revenue and expenditure from GERS so feel free to knock a couple of billion off for the real revenue figures

Scotland provides 9.9% of the revenue but receives 9.7% of the spending

This was about page 3 of this thread wasn’t it? – which is bigger 9.9% of the revenue or 9,7% of the spending?

I’ve used Inventor and Solidworks in the past and the best package was neither of them! I think it’s a very personal thing but I found Solid Edge the most intuitive package but it does seem resource hungry especially with large assemblies (I think that’s deliberate so Seimens can still justify NX). Solid Edge used to distribute the 2D package as a free download, maybe have a look on the web for a download.

I don’t see how this could apply to Scotland

I don’t think there is much credibility to the ‘Newly independent state’ claim either but it’s the only definition which fits in with some of the claims (walking away from the debt etc.) – Scotland existed before the Union, and has continued to exist during the union – letting sport be the judge; they are a separate team at the commonwealth games and seven nations and I think they had a football team once.

No debt means less assets.

Bearing in mind I’m not an economist, can you explain this please?

Sorry for dragging this up from the past, but I’ve typed it all out now!

My understanding of the debt / asset / liabilities distribution post-independence is that it depends upon the definition of iScotland under international law (Vienna Convention on Succession of States). There seems to be two ‘categories’ that the creation of iScotland can fit into either a “newly independent State” or “Separation of part or parts of the territory of a State”

Both of these categories carry pros and cons for Scotland and the UK,

Newly independent state would seem to be a good option for Scotland in terms of debt;

Article 38
Newly independent State
1.When the successor State is a newly independent State, no State debt of the predecessor State
shall pass to the newly independent State, unless an agreement between them provides otherwise in view
of the link between the State debt of the predecessor State connected with its activity in the territory to
which the succession of States relates and the property, rights and interests which pass to the newly
independent State.

Although there is the get out of jail free card in there for the UK “unless an agreement between them provides otherwise…..” so as long as the UK could show that the debt was used in Scotland and for Scotland then presumably they can request some compensation. The newly formed state also has advantages in terms of the assets (referred to as ‘property’ in the Vienna Convention)

Article 15
Newly independent State
1.When the successor State is a newly independent State:
(a) immovable State property of the predecessor State situated in the territory to which the succession
of States relates shall pass to the successor State;
(b) immovable property, having belonged to the territory to which the succession of States relates,
situated outside it and having become State property of the predecessor State during the period of
dependence, shall pass to the successor State;
(c) immovable State property of the predecessor State other than that mentioned in subparagraph (b)
and situated outside the territory to which the succession of States relates, to the creation of which the
dependent territory has contributed, shall pass to the successor State in proportion to the contribution of
the dependent territory;
(d) movable State property of the predecessor State connected with the activity of the predecessor
State in respect of the territory to which the succession of States relates shall pass to the successor State
(e) movable property, having belonged to the territory to which the succession of States relates and
having become State property of the predecessor State during the period of dependence, shall pass to the
successor State;
(f) movable State property of the predecessor State, other than the property mentioned in
subparagraphs (d) and (e), to the creation of which the dependent territory has contributed, shall pass to
the successor State in proportion to the contribution of the dependent territory.

So not only would Scotland get to keep the assets located on Scottish soil, but would be entitled to some of the properties located within other areas of the UK. This seems to be the premise behind the white paper claims of sharing embassies and the pound etc.

But it does put a spanner in the works in respect to treaties and as the SNP refer to it “continued membership” of organisations such as the EU and NATO. A newly independent Scotland would be considered a new state which didn’t exist before independence day, so continuation of anything would be implausible.

The second option puts more weight behind the UKs claim for debt compensation;

Article 40
Separation of part or parts of the territory of a State
1.When part or parts of the territory of a State separate from that State and form a State, and
unless the predecessor State and the successor State otherwise agree, the State debt of the predecessor
State shall pass to the successor State in an equitable proportion, taking into account, in particular, the
property, rights and interests which pass to the successor State in relation to that State debt.

So not really any wiggle room there for Scotland to be debt free.

Article 17
Separation of part or parts of the territory of a State
1.When part or parts of the territory of a State separate from that State and form a successor
State, and unless the predecessor State and the successor State otherwise agree:
(a) immovable State property of the predecessor State situated in the territory to which the succession
of States relates shall pass to the successor State;
(b) movable State property of the predecessor State connected with the activity of the predecessor
State in respect of the territory to which the succession of States relates shall pass to the successor State;
(c) movable State property of the predecessor State, other than that mentioned in subparagraph (b),
shall pass to the successor State in an equitable proportion.

Which isn’t quite as good a deal as a “Newly independent state” gets because Scotland would have no claim to properties outside its borders. The advantage here is that it would recognise the fact the Scotland existed as a territory of the UK before the date of succession so would add some weight to the ‘continued membership argument’

There are other pros and cons in terms of treaty obligations based on the two categories – it would appear that the “Newly independent state” option is pretty much a clean slate whereas the “Separation of part or parts of the territory of a State” option would allow Scotland to inherit some of the UKs treaties.

What the white paper seems to assume is an improbable mix and match of the two categories and of course it can be highlighted that the UK hasn’t signed up to the Vienna Convention (and obviously Scotland hasn’t) so it’s not relevant – but if during negotiation arbitration by the UN is required then it would be plausible to think that their first reference would be that document.

My tax office is in East Kilbride. There is also a tax office at Haymarket in Edinburgh. There are DVLA offices all over Scotland. I do believe that there is a passport office in Glasgow. They’d be scottish assets.

They’d be UK institutions, just like they are now.

you are the one arguing its ok that the ones who came last rule you…oh the ironing

No, I’ve never argued that at all so you can put the ironing board away.

Your claim is that Scotland never voted for the current government (well it’s crept to that, from the initial position of “time and time and time again”) but Scotland is not a single homogenous voting entity and making a sweeping statement that Scotland voted for XYZ is verifiably false, there are currently 12 MPs in the UK government who ‘Scotland’ voted for and it could be argued that using a more proportional form of representation that there should be more (36%*59=21)but we can probably agree to gloss over the fact that the ‘broken’ Westminster system hugely over-represents Labour in Scotland.

Clearly the majority of people didn’t vote Lib or Con, ~2.5million people voted in the election and only about 900k of those voted for the current government but you want to ignore those peoples opinions because their political views don’t match yours or those of another group of voters irrespective of the fact that ~16.5million people agree with them.

Every time a tory is governing scotland it is not due to the votes in scotland no matter how much you torture logic to suggest otherwise

I never did suggest otherwise. Although if you go back to 1951……… :wink:

Your interpretation is beyond spin and is not a credible view.

It might not be credible if I was claiming what you are trying to claim that I am claiming.

Gordimhor – Sorry, I didn’t look up the exact results so was using the rough numbers I could recall and some creative rounding up and down so I could do the adding up in my head without having to take my shoes and socks off :oops:

The basic premise of my stance still stands though; there are lots of people who vote in Scotland who did vote for the current UK government and there has been “time after time after time after time”. Any claims to the contrary are just tub thumping nationalism BS spouted by the likes of WOS and swallowed as gospel by the believers. And as Junkyard later admitted, he’s not really interested in democracy he just wants any system which prevents a tory government – which in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing just don’t try and dress it up as something else :wink:

If you want to see some real statistical gymnastics you should look at the nat sympathizer sites trying to claim that people who thought Salmond won the debate but failed to convert ‘Don’t Knows’ to ‘Yes’ is somehow a win situation vs. the majority who thought Darling won the debate and changed their minds from ‘Don’t Know’ to ‘No’.

does Scotland really have an elctorate of 33,330,000

The UK had ~30million voters in the last election, hence “total number of voters”

I am saying that currently scotland does not have the govt they voted for and nothing is giving away power more than that scenario

Which as a statement is correct, very few people voted for the SNP government :wink: . But what you originally said was,

IMHO and I assume anyone who looks at democracy nothing is ceeding control more than getting a govt you did not vote for time and time and time again

“Time and time and time again” many people in Scotland have the UK government they voted for. In the last election only ~100k people more voted Lab than the combined Con/Dem count (in Scotland) that’s 0.3% of the total number of voters.

Can you counter that at without a red herring/moving the goalposts?

It’s not moving the goalposts, as you stated, “in an democracy the losers do not get the govt they wanted” and in any democracy you have to accept the possibility that the outcome of an election might be a result that you (or any given block of 10% or less of the electorate) didn’t vote for.

i notice you have chosen to run with this rather than address the actual point

Because the basic premise of your opening statement is wrong, many people in Scotland DO get the government they vote for ”time and time and time again” so these people aren’t ceding any power they are benefitting from a democratic system which has favoured their views.

Slightly OT but one of my mates lived in an industrial unit for about a year when he finished uni and didn’t want to move back home. The unit was owned by his dad and the company renting it had moved out leaving it empty.

It was quite a cool space (literally in the winter months) we had a 5-aside pitch and climbing wall set up. He would probably have gotten away with it for longer if the unit next door hadn’t been under police observation for growing weed.

It was actually 16.7 % and No in an democracy the losers do not get the govt they wanted.
HTH

No, it was ~10% of the POPULATION – I was quite considered about that. What’s the proportion of the UK population based in Scotland, ~10% again.

So your standpoint seems to be that if 10% of one population don’t get what they want then the Westminster brand of democracy is failing them, but if 10% of another population don’t get what they want it’s democracy in action.

IMHO and I assume anyone who looks at democracy nothing is ceeding control more than getting a govt you did not vote for time and time and time again.

36% of the Scottish voters voted either Con or Lib Dem at the last general election – that’s about the same as the number of people who voted the SNP into power at the Scottish government elections.

In an independent Scotland will the 10% of the Scottish population who vote Conservative get the government they vote for?

Winterberg definately has uplifts but the tracks will only keep you amused for a weekend at the most, the Dutch like it though.

The average man doesn’t like it either, so I’m not sure what your point is?

My point is that the apparent majority of people criticising the video are doing so because they perceive sexism within the MTB community is putting women off mountain biking. In my experience this is not the case and women chose other sports for a variety of other reasons.

FWIW I don’t particularly like the video, it’s a bit rubbish.

Sorry but this makes me so mad. If you really really want to do something you’ll do it!

That’s the general gist of my ‘argument’ though, they don’t really want to do it. There are other sports that they enjoy which don’t expose them to those perceived risks.

Maybe women don’t mountain bike because the average woman doesn’t really like it? Does there have to be an even gender distribution in every sport?

My wife doesn’t like it, she cycles wherever possible on her town bike and she’ll happily come out with me on the road bike or go for a run but has very little interest in mountain biking in much the same way that I have very little interest in piloxing or horse riding. I think a large proportion of our female friends are ‘sporty’, most compete in one sport or another and only one of them that I know of regularly rides a MTB.

FWIW the main reasons they don’t ride offroad is the safety concerns of being isolated in the middle of nowhere and a worry of crashing, nothing to do with girls in bikinis or wearing lycra or being compared to calendar pictures of Niki Gudex.

It’s the Colnago logo

I kind of want to go under 500 calories for lunch, but still feel full afterwards…

Don’t eat the crisps, have a glass of water?

I had it last year when I upped my running miles. It was mainly due to tight calves. I taped up my foot (plenty of instructions are available via Google) and did lots of eccentric calf raises and haven’t had any bother since.

Where in Belgium are you considering? We live in Eindhoven but know a lot of people who live in and around the Antwerpen area so I could probably get the answers to any specific questions.

A couple of Belgian quirks that I’ve noticed, they have vending machines for bread and only seem to sell UHT milk.

We’re going to Lommel tonight to watch the criterium, waffles, beer and Nibali vs. Nys – what’s not to like?

Sorry at what point are we trespassing?

No this gate is from a private field adj to the footpath. It then accesses the field the footpath is in.

Do you have permission to be in the “private field”? If not you’ve answered your own question.

Froome was grandstanding when he ‘dropped’ Wiggins, he knew very well that his attack would only last a few seconds before he was told to back off.

we’re still comparing a FPTP system with one that is based on proportionality on FPTP

56% of the MPs are elected via FPTP, trying to claim that the system is not based on FPTP just doesn’t make any sense.

At risk of repeating myself;

We’ll go from a first-past-the-post system which allows a party with a minority of the vote to dominate, to a system of proportional representation which more accurately reflects the views of the people

Is verifiably incorrect, just look at the election results, 45% of the vote gets 53% of the seats. The majority of people who voted in the Scottish election did not vote for the SNP, so the system doesn’t accurately reflect the views of the people.

its ok for Scotland to be ruled by a party they don’t vote for and democracy alone is not a good enough reasons for you

UK general election 2010: Scottish vote for Conservative or Lib Dems = 22.4% of electorate.

Scottish parliamentary election 2011: Scottish vote for SNP = 22.7% of the electorate.

Seems to be pretty much the same level of democracy to me.

The reasons are exactly the same as they were the last time!

Essentially Scotland elects 73 of its MPs using the very same FPTP system that is used in the “broken” UK system. The 56 remaining MPs are elected using a form of proportional representation where the results are weighted (D’Hondt method).

It’s very, very easy to verify that the system is not proportional by looking at the last election results.