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Archive for August, 2014


Kezia Dugdale is a liar 147

Posted on August 25, 2014 by

There’s some interesting footage circulating today of a referendum debate for women that took place last week. Many people have focused on No-campaign representative Cat Headley admitting that a “Better Together” leaflet made some highly misleading claims about an independent Scotland’s ranking among the world’s wealthiest countries, but we covered that back in May so we won’t go over it again.

The bit of the meeting that caught our eye is at 1m 36 in the clip above.

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The wrong direction 183

Posted on August 24, 2014 by

Stand by, readers. We’re about to post some porn for stat nerds.

bondyields

Yeah, you like that, don’t you? What’s a bit less sexy, though, is what the table above means for the “safety and security” of the UK, and the cost of your mortgage.

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Why Ed Balls is an idiot 115

Posted on August 24, 2014 by

Labour’s shadow Chancellor quoted in today’s Observer:

“Alex Salmond doesn’t want to admit it now, but joining the euro would likely be his only realistic plan B.”

This won’t take very long at all.

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The NHS and the TTIP trap 116

Posted on August 24, 2014 by

As part of his Apocalypse Of Doom Revue this week, Gordon Brown provided the Daily Record with a no-questions puff-piece the paper summarised as, “we must continue to share costs of health care and welfare with rest of the union – or pay the price”.

PIC 1

So that’s nice and positive.

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The ordinary people 390

Posted on August 23, 2014 by

The startling lack of “grassroots” support in the No campaign has been a recurring theme on this site. Time and again, people presented as typical members of the public turn out to be dedicated political activists with a vested interest in the status quo.

The “Better Together” website has a long-running series of blog posts under the banner “Why I’m saying No Thanks”. All of the people featured in it are introduced with no mention of any involvment in politics. Out of idle curiosity we thought we’d see if we could find out a little more about them.

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The story of a soldier boy 101

Posted on August 23, 2014 by

“Soldier boy” was an affectionate nickname given to me by my father before he passed away. It was both said with pride and his way of calling me a dunderheid.

elvislennon

Dad was an intelligent, cerebral, well-read man, anti-war and pro-independence. He tried to convince me in a variety of ways not to “sign your life away”, including leaving a collection of DVDs for me like “Beneath Hill 60”, “Cross Of Iron” and “My Boy Jack”, as well as many war poems. He also highlighted my distaste for authority. But he failed to stop me. I signed up.

Scottish independence was a different story.

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The white man’s burden 135

Posted on August 23, 2014 by

borisback

Strong medicine 237

Posted on August 22, 2014 by

When we came up with this flyer idea last January, we decided that on balance it was perhaps edging a wee bit on the aggressive side. But in the light of today’s comments from Eddie Bone and the deputy leader of UKIP, and the findings of the recent Future Of England survey, it seems suddenly more appropriate. What do we think, folks?

bottleflyer

The McCrone Legacy 194

Posted on August 22, 2014 by

As readers of this site will be well aware, 40 years ago the UK government economist Professor Gavin McCrone analysed the effect of North Sea oil on the finances of a notional independent Scotland, which at the time seemed a real and possibly even imminent prospect. His assessment was so alarming to Westminster that its findings had to be kept secret from the Scottish public for over three decades.

With the information suppressed, Scotland remained in the UK (and was even refused modest devolution despite voting for it in a referendum), resulting in the imposition of a series of Conservative governments elected on English votes, beginning with Margaret Thatcher’s turning-point victory in 1979.

thatcher79

Ironically, we have Mrs Thatcher’s government to thank for the collation of the data which demonstrates the true state of Scotland’s finances within the UK, in the shape of the GERS figures (Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland).

The data was subsequently collected into the Scottish National Accounts Project, which provides the figures (Excel document) for the following analysis. What it reveals provides a surprisingly unambiguous statement of Scotland’s financial condition, and one which is agreed across a broader political spectrum that you might imagine.

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Gordon Brown is a liar 450

Posted on August 21, 2014 by

This is what goes on behind the closed doors of invitation-only events run by the No campaign. Here, the former PM and self-proclaimed “ex-politician” lies through his teeth (again) to a Fife audience in June, presumably hoping they’ve by now forgotten his incompetent reign as Chancellor – the massive pensions raid, the cut-price sell-off of the nation’s gold, the ending of the 10p tax rate and all the rest, and the calamitous economic crisis he bequeathed to the nation:

Apparently oil revenues will be the sole source of money for an independent Scotland. No taxes at all. Apparently they’re only “£3 billion a year”, even though they’ve in fact NEVER been as low as £3bn since the Scottish Parliament existed and most sensible projections put receipts for the next few years at an average of at least twice that.

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The lost treasure of the deep 310

Posted on August 21, 2014 by

Sir Ian Wood quoted in the Scotsman late last year:

“A radical overhaul of the North Sea oil industry can deliver a £200 billion injection to the economy over the next 20 years, a major report has concluded.

Oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood has led the biggest independent review of the North Sea oil and gas industry in its history, and said yesterday that production could increase by four billion barrels over coming years if major changes to the operation of the oil and gas sector are made.

Such changes would put the UK in a ‘stronger position’ to extract nearly all of the estimated 24 billion barrels still remaining underneath the North Sea.”

Unfortunately, since then there’s been a cataclysm.

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The other one’s got bells on 216

Posted on August 20, 2014 by

An alert reader drew our attention to a piece in the Telegraph on Monday.

“The pro-UK Better Together campaign said it plans to “turn majority support into a majority vote” by contacting every household at least three times over the next month and every undecided voter at least four times.

Up to a million postal voters will be contacted and more than 25,000 activists will be working to mobilise support for No ahead of polling day. The campaign will also be using advertising on websites such as Facebook to reach 500,000 undecided women.”

Lordy, where to start?

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