A hot tip
Posted on
January 30, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
So we’ll just leave this here:
And then we’re off to bed.
[EDIT: Story confirmed with Jessica Bridges at Ladbrokes press office.]
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A tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
If I put a grand on then I will still be better off than what I would get in interest at the bank…
I see the odds against a yes result have dropped from 5/1 to 9/2 in November and now 7/2. Get your money on soon folks.
Long odds these… Looks like a deal.
I see they have diluted their bile here from this afternoon apart from Ruthie spitting Golden Eagle feathers. The penny seems to have started to drop but still hasn’t landed yet hence the headline.
Realisation setting in perhaps.
link to archive.is
I expect Lamont will be all over the currency tomorrow at FMQ’s, it should be interesting to see what script has been written for her this week.
Lamont, our very own Bet No-er.
Jeez that was bad.
Ladbrokes are offering 7/1 50% – 55% and 7/1 above 55% which is the attractive bet as I don’t think this will end up close.
As Bateman points out the most important aspect of today’s visit is not actually what was said but the fact that Carney was up discussing a result of independence, further normalising the independence case
Wayne
Counting is a weakness with ‘Scottish’ labour but she has no choice really it’s the biggest story, however there might be that £3000 unaccounted golf trip money that Mr Salmond owes us all.
Meanwhile BfS has looked at the runes on currency.
link to businessforscotland.co.uk
So if I borrow £10,000,000 and put it on Scotland using Sterling, I’ll get £100,000 profit.
That’s basically how banks make their money these days, no?
We’re buggered if Scotland wins the 6 Nations though…
O/T + apologies to Stu.
Did anyone catch the bit on Ch4 news tonight, not sure who the presenter was, but there was Alan Johnstone on one side and Diane Abbott on the other and they were discussing the decoupling of TU members from being automaticaly signed up to the Labour Party.
AJ was very much for this in this day and age and thought it the rght thing to do.
DA got very aggressive, leaning forward and, for her, almost shouting, that if they didn’t keep the link, the unions might, in Scotland, give their backing to the SNP instead. She came across as very worried that this may come to pass.
Wonder if it’s feedback from e.g. the recent STUC meeting in Govan/Clydebank, where Anas Sarwar was given a verbal bollocking? Might explain their increasing vitriol towards SNP.
@ Chic McGregor 12.46 It wizna awe that bad no er,wiz that no him that built a boat fur the flood,s comein,their droonin but their to stupid tae climb intae the life raft
Lamont, our very own Bet No-er.
Wins thread.
By a mile Morag.
Having spent some time digesting this all day and once the shrill union media bleating dies down wont this actually be reassuring to the undecideds and those who favour devomax. The perception will be OK we get full oil/tax/welfare powers but BOE and westminster will still reign in the perceived “excesses” of indy SNP government. I actually think this is another very shrewd move and the Bitter Togethers cant even see it !
From waaaay way back (December) on Bloomberg:
“Scotland fits an optimum currency area with the rest of the U.K. very well,” Oliver Harvey, a London-based strategist at Deutsche Bank, the biggest currency trader, said in a Nov. 27 phone interview. “For the pound, Scottish independence is not particularly significant for the rest of the U.K.”
link to bloomberg.com
Scotland should get all the money it can get hold of and take it to Ladbrokes. Place it on “no-currency union” and join the euro!
Just listened to GMS this morning with Londons big hitter speaking to Prof G McCrone regards Carneys statement. Amazing to see how this chap is becoming very popular these days, after decades of being invisible to our trusted media. He will of course be a useful tool to the state broadcaster, should his report be front and centre later on in the debate. Expect lots of retractions and that’s not what I really meant spin.
@ Chic
Not at all. One of my Ol’ Man’s favourite phrases. And he had a few.
Good oh, Baron Lang of Monkton coming up on GMS.
And from the Herald
link to archive.is
Ian Lang being plucked out of obscurity. Still got a plum in his mouth.
Good stuff on GMS this morn as interviewer tries to get head of Diageo EU to say that they are making contingencies if their is a YES vote, but no cigar.
GMS earlier a Diageo rep on talking about good trading results and twice batted the Hayley Millar’s questions about an independent Scotland being ‘a risk’ into the long grass.
WOW 40 peers to speak today on the question of independence in HoL. Lord Lang suddenly wakes up to the fact that England will be affected and effected. Same old nonsense about covering Scottish debt etc.
GMS: Jamieson & Kerevan : Devo Max says Jamieson but Kerevan warns of the dangers of Scotland walking away from rUK if no currency union. Never mind it’s all about the £ on Call Kaye later.
Listening to GMS brought back memories of Lang, Phil Gallie and that creepy wee guy with the lamb chop sideboards pontificating over Scottish affairs while the feeble 49 sat on their hands, waiting for ……. Tony Blair!
Never again – vote YES
I was listening to Radio 4 this morning and zilch about the currency issue on the news items.
Heard Lang on GMS – like a very posh Darling, and saying almost exactly the same stuff the latter was spouting last night.
Wahooo – PaddyPower’s just reduced the odds against a YES
It would have been very interesting to be a fly on the wall in Bute House when Alex met Mark in Edinburgh.
Just about as interesting as it would have been when Dave met Mark to organise the latter’s official visit to Scotland to discuss currency union. Because of course Mark Carney didn’t come entirely of his own volition. Nope, he was sent by the Tories as part of pre-referendum negotiations with the Scottish government.
I understand Dave’s comments on the visit were somewhat sensible and lacking spin. Well they would be wouldn’t they as he helped organise the visit.
Ivan McKee on GMS in a few minutes
Probably worried since Rev added Tom Gallacher to the ‘Zany Comedy Relief’ Roll of Dishonour.
Alan ‘Cockers’ Cochrane has decided to prove he can do wild eyed myopic loon havering with the best of them….
Yes folks….Scotland’s Civil War and it’s evil cybernat causes by Rear Admiral Cockers.
link to telegraph.co.uk
Call Kaye on the £.
Very refreshing to hear the majority of the calls are clearly not fearties. I think folk are getting the message.
Unionists must be pulling their hair out. Not going to plan at the BBC.
Off for a coffee and a free read at the papers, that will bring me back down to earth, #:0)
Right guys, I’m not going to claim to be any kind of economic or fiscal expert – did Economics to 1st year in Uni and thats about it but here’s my take from yesterday:-
Mark Carney basically said that the BoE would work with whatever settlement was agreed between rUK and iScottish governments, post negotiations from a Yes vote. Much has been made that he said that the iScottish government would have to “cede some sovereignty” due to the need to effectively agree either fiscal rules or a fiscal pact.
I, personally, have got no problems with this whatsoever for reasons that I outline below:-
Firstly, all of the economic reports that have been produced show that Scotland is in a stronger fiscal position that rUK. As far as I can see this means that iScotland would be able to work within the parameters of any fiscal pact more easily than rUK. Therefore, in the short term at least, we should have no qualms about this as a proposition as the parameters will by definition be more constraining for rUK than iScotland.
Secondly, the Scottish Government have made it clear that thet they want to (along with most of the Independence movement) utilise Independence to create an Oil fund in the same way that the Norwegians have done. In order to do this, it means that the Scottish Government would need to work towards eliminating the deficit in the short term and also to reduce/eliminate the portion of spend that is dependent on Oil over the medium-lomg term. This is also what Norway have done and their non Oil deficit is now down to circa 3% of GDP.
Therefore the need to “cede” Sovereignty is pretty much a Red Herring as we would not be agreeing to anything that we didn’t intend to do anyway.
For once I found Newsnight Scotland quite interesting, particularly the input from John Nugée. One point that he made, that all of the pro-Union commentators are missing this morning, is that it would not just be the iScottish Government that would be ceding Sovereignty it would be the rUK Government as well, as both would be signing up to a either a bi-lateral fiscal pact or fiscal rules.
To me, that is the key to much of the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the UK Government and its Unionist supporters. They can’t say that they wouldn’t accept a currency Union because the know market pressure will force it. They have to maintain that it’s “unlikely” because what they really know is that to rUK it would be unpalatable. It would be unpalatable because they know that a Yes vote takes Westminster from being in a situation where it exerts full, unlimited Sovereignty over Scotland to a situation where a newly Independent Scotland and international finance had just bounced it into a situation of ceding Sovereignty on a bi-lateral basis with iScotland.
Jim Sillars might disagree over the currency union but one thing that he said is startlingly clear and true. The people of Scotland will have all the Sovereign Power of a Nation state at their fingertips on 18th September. A No vote hands it straight back to Westminster. A Yes vote puts Scotland absolutely in the driving seat.
Follow the money, as they say!
I loved hearing BBC Political Editor, Nick Robinson, talking of “spectres”, “Greece”, blah, blah last night. Listing problems (obviously zero solutions or positives) and forecasts of doom.
It’s hilarious that New OneNation Labour supporters believe any of these predictions.
I remember Nick Robinson using his political insight to predict David Miliband was the next leader of New Labour – 30 seconds before it was announced Ed had won!
Listen to plummy Lang spouting garbage on GMS this morning
what caught my attention was his remark that ‘The Scottish Banks (plural, didn’t know there was more than one now…) had a bigger GDP than all of Scotland, how would Scotland cope if they went bust.
Hold on , a company or companies within a country having a bigger GDP than the country their based in. Is that possible?
To my understanding any commercial concern can have a sizable GDP of a nation that its in, but its part of that nations GDP. After all what the company makes contributes to the nation that its based in.
A company can have a larger GDP than a nation that its not based in as its not contributing.
Perhaps a wiser person can advise.?
@The great baldo. Aye,Cochers having a go there. No surprise. I see he is peddling the lie that Kezia, poor lamb, being bombarded with nasty nat tweets, particulary the bayonet one, all ostensibly due to her QT appearance.
@Doug Daniel –
‘So if I borrow £10,000,000 and put it on Scotland using Sterling, I’ll get £100,000 profit.’
Fancy going halfers?
Whose currency is it anyway?
I have a Clydesdale £10 note with a picture of Rabbie Burns on it!
Scotland 1/100 to beat San Marino? Seems a bit of a rip-off.
Listen to plummy Lang spouting garbage on GMS this morning
Geeez, where did they find that old fossil? BT must be getting really desperate.
Always interesting to listen to the BBC Scotland morning news the day after a huge news item like Mark Carney’s speech.
If they have been battering on about a legitimate criticism it would still be running today, without doubt. But any time they focus on minute details, taken out of context, like the ‘would have to lose some sovereignty to enter a currency union’ line, and scream about it the following morning you find that nothing seems to have happened at all. It isn’t mentioned. It’s as though yesterday’s huge story which they spun relentlessly all day has been spun out of existence. They tried to call it a neutral speech, and by and large it was, but not for one second did they acknowledge that Carney, unlike the UK Government, did not dismiss a currency union. He only said that there would need to be constraints on both sides.
At one stroke he blew the UK Government ‘unlikely to be a currency union’ line out of the water, or at least critically holed it below the waterline. The BBC and other compliant news outlets didn’t bother about that, choosing to brand his speech as a warning… which it blatantly wasn’t.
Normal service resumes at our national media. The ripples begin to settle and soon it will be as though there was nothing there at all. Unfortunately for the BBC et al, we listen to far, far more sources than just their furious spinning of every event. I personally find Al Jazeera, France 24, Russia Today a lot more interesting; not because they are unbiased, they are all biased in their own way, but importantly they are all biased in different ways to each other and, most importantly, to the BBC.
For me it all depends on how many advisors we get on the Monetary Policy Committee….it’s worth considering as well, that if it’s Yes, then Westminster may very well give in to the other regions and give them their own tax powers etc, this would then result in welsh, n.irish and english advisors on the monetary policy committee as well.
This is the sovereign part we are giving up, the chance to set our own interest rates directly. With a currency union it would be debated back and forth in the committee….important we have a couple of advisors in there, along with some from the other regions…..think there is 7 on there just now, all handpicked by George Osbourne…
@Ian Brotherhood
Gambling with other people’s money!
Is that “venture capitalism” or “casino banking”?
I’ll raise you another billion.
@ chalks
Wishful thinking, London never gives up anything unless they’re forced, which is why we’re here now.
Did anyone else have trouble decoding Alistair Darling’s brain droppings yesterday on Scotland Tonight? This is not your usual unionist car crash of an interview.
link to youtu.be
It’s made even better when his comments are followed by a cool and collective John Swinney who calmly deconstructs the day’s events.
Doug, Unfortunately not , at 1/100 you win £1 for every £100 wagered, so £1000 bet wins you £10. The bookies are not daft , they know it is a racing certainty.
@Roughman
A Yes vote would change all that. Empowerment is a wonderful thing, once the Welsh, N.Irish and North English saw we’d done it, well, there would be no place for Westminster to hide.
Add in that if we were to get a couple of people on the MPC then the Welsh, N.Irish have an even bigger stick to beat Westminster with…
Edward,
Didn’t know Lang was still alive, he didn’t show much in the way of vital signs when he was in post. He’s either not very bright or disingenuous (that’s where I’d put my money) as it is obvious the banks’ turnover is greater than GDP because most of it is outwith Scotland and if it involves bad debt is not our responsibility. BT have been repeatedly told that any country is only responsible for debt in its own economic sphere and not those incurred in another country but they still keep banging on about it, especially Flipper. If they repeat a lie then it must be true!
@Moujick
I think the point you repeat from John Nugée is important, about both iScotland and rUK having to cede a degree of Sovereignty.
Listening to the radio news yesterday I wondered if Carney had said this specifically in relation to iScotland only, or if the point he was making was a general one.
If the latter, the implication was that rUK would also have to cede a degree, but I confidently expected none of the MSM or Unionist side to realise or admit to this.
Thanks GrahamB
Thought that was the case
It was obviously too much for the GMS interviewer to query this morning
@ chalks
I agree completely, but my previous still stands, they’ll give up nothing till they’re forced.
@moujick or any other economists out there.
How much of the national debt can be written off by Westminster? Jim sillars suggested that about a third was held in-house.
Is this not a bit like issuing IOUs to yourself? So shouldn’t currency Union be based on a share of real debt?
Happy to hear your thoughts.
It seemed self evident to me that Carney was making a case for an enhanced BofE that would take powers from both Scotland and rUK and become a central bank of a shared currency. A point I made a couple of times last night on the Guardian. I’m gratified that Qvortrup and Nugee also take this stance. I am not sure that many of the No posters who seemed to go in some sort of convulsion yesterday over this topic with absolutely empty rhetoric saying this proved their point – without actually having a point.
Glancing at the headlines in the shop this morning, you’d have thought that the sky had fallen in. Shrieking big scare stories about how that’s it, it’s all over for Salmond now (natch). Not a reasonable headline in sight.
Yet in contrast, John Sweeney last night was completely unperturbed about Carney’s speech and agreeing with what he said. ‘s a’ aboot keeping the heid while all around others are losing theirs.
I believe the treasury is still in possession of a few gold bars (you know, the ones that Gordon Brown did not manage to sell off).
Who exactly owns these? Would they be a shared asset?
Jim Naughtie let Lang go on and on and on this morning. But its OK because apparently there will be an independence supporter interviewed tomorrow morning. I’m sure Jim will be similarly accommodating
@breastplate …argh just said I wasn’t an economist…:)….however my understanding was with Quanititaive easing the BoE can write off the interest on the bonds they purchased but not the debt itself. JS suggesting it would be the debt. Happy to stand corrected on that though if anybody is more knowledgable…
Moujick
It depends a bit on the structure of the debt but guilts paid in Sterling will be less onerous due to QE. It is a bit of a dark art and QE does not come without issues of its own once the world economy does pick up. Imports will be dearer and that will put pressure on inflation again.
Just had a chance to watch some of Darling in action yesterday.
Cor blimey! I didn’t realise Canadian English was so nuanced – Darling won’t be stuck for a job after September, he’ll get a job as a translator nae borra.
Thanks moujick, any info is welcome.
I thought Darling looked pained and hunched over in the interview yesterday. Is he OK?
Just a thought – if you did put a bet on ‘No currency union’ and won, what currency would you get your winnings in?
All the negative comment last night seemed to be based on problems that Scotland might cause in a currency union. If our GDP per head is greater than that of the UK (and oil price volatility is offset by defence cost volatility e.g. Invasions, wars etc.) then we should be worried about rUK putting strain on currency.
I’m beginning to see the relationship between Holyrood, Bank of England and Westminster as a future Ménage à trois !
Two recently divorced partners, being managed by a third party and all getting on well
And so to the crystal ball: An independent Scotland enters into a currency union with rUK. After a few years Scotland is running a financial surplus and has a growing oil fund. The rUK has a growing deficit exceeding the criteria set by the currency union administrators. What would be the next move?
Ian Lang; during the Thatcher years I recall him gloatingly tell Thatcher what an obedient little boy he’d been, and how he had stuffed his own people. I just cannot recall the story but I do remember being so angry . And didn’t L. Lang lose a pile in the Lloyds Names crash?
It’s interesting that they say an independent Scotland would likely have to cede some power if we entered a currency union with England.
Consider what the English Government would have to cede:
The inability to drag Scotland into illegal wars. The end of nuclear weapons being stationed in Scotland. The impossibility of making the NHS in Scotland private. The inability to stop the Scottish Government from nationalising the Post Office in Scotland. etc, etc. The list goes on and on.
It’s not Scotland that will be ceding any power to speak of, it’s England and London.
Handandshrimp Guilts paid in Sterling? How much will I get for feeling guilty about those sweeties I nicked out of Woolworths when I was a bairn?
The Westminster Government (I hestitate to say English since Wales and Northern Ireland are still going to be lumbered with them) will also have to cede some power to enter a currency union with Scotland, a little point the BBC et al seemed curiously reticent to point out. Mark Carney would have been talking about the kind of legal guidelines that govern all parties to an agreement; kinda like the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, but one that works. The other screams that it would be really really hard to do, ‘just look at how badly it works in Europe’ ignores one fundamental point. The number of parties involved. It’s pretty easy to get most things to work when you’re dealing with two national governments. How many are they trying to juggle in the Eurozone now? That’s a whole different trick they’re talking about there; it doesn’t appear to have been set up quite well enough, and it was always going to be difficult with so many different national interests trying to be heard. My point here is that you just cannot compare a Scotland / rUK currency union with the Eurozone and expect anyone with a bit of knowledge not to laugh at you.
For those who missed this, Mr Darling on BBC News at 5 yesterday.
O/T
Great Britains place in the world:
The British Olympic Association is recommending that its delegation wear “less overtly branded Team GB kit” during their journey to Sochi.
In a statement, the BOA added that the safety and wellbeing of the delegation remains its number one priority and it is in daily contact with the relevant authorities in the UK, including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
From the bosom of the State Media Machine
@chalks 1.46, jist lets tae goes tae show ya, how much
the rest of the World respect, you, UK USA.
WHO LOVES YA BABY. nae cunart,s.
Aye bit there,ll be plenty Killtie,s, LOUD N PROUD.
Rough Bounds
Good list there which many are not yet taking into account.
Mosstrooper
LOL I think it must have been a Freudian slip – the whole damn shooting match should feel guilty.
@ Grant_M
I couldn’t watch that all the way through. Darling’s constant negative droning and misinformation is a complete turn off. If Darling has that effect on a political anorak, how dire must he seem to Joe Public?
Some-one from YES Scotland really needs to set up a debate with Darling in order to put his falsehoods to the test.
This whole affair reminds me of that drinking game whereby people hit each other over the head with spoons.
AS is stood behind Darling pretending to hit him on the napper with a spoon while Mr Carney twats him one with a giant spurtle.
Seasick Dave says:
AS is stood behind Darling pretending to hit him on the napper with a spoon while Mr Carney twats him one with a giant spurtle.
Screen cleaner, please.
Slightly off topic – tipping my hat to regular wings reader and contributor – Boorach – out delivering YES papers this morning – BATTLE BUS style… :-p See below:
link to facebook.com
@Kevin Kane –
Spotted the battlebus fundraiser too late but delighted to see you exceeded the target.
@Edward
If it must be a menage-a-trois lets hope the new man is AC/DC.
I thought Darling looked pained and hunched over in the interview yesterday. Is he OK?
Do you realise how much a long, wooden nose weighs?
Kevin, sorry for refering to the lovely Yes Mobile as a “battlebus”!
@Moujick
Absolutely, and more importantly rUK would have to cede sovereignty over the currency they used; neither iScotland nor rUK would control it. As you said, this would cause more problems for rUK than for iS, since iS would, for the short to medium term at least, be likely to run current account surpluses thanks to oil. With its persistent, large current account deficits rUK would face exactly the same problems afflicting Greece, Spain etc. in the eurozone.
The core that makes currency unions work is the combination of a single overarching fiscal authority — a national government — and fiscal transfers. Someone here asked about Carney commenting that Scotland is already in a currency union with rUK. It’s true, it is. So is Yorkshire, the Isle of Wight, South Shields, and my neighbour at number 48. Nobody cares if Northampton is in surplus or deficit with the rest of the UK, because the national government and fiscal transfers fill in any gaps. Perhaps insufficiently; governments can still implement bad policy.
With Scottish independence there will be no single fiscal authority, there will be two independent ones, and there will be no transfers. Would the people of Scotland want to constantly send money to England to try to fill the gap, or vice versa? rUK would be the party to suffer under those conditions, and badly.
This is why I believe them when they say a currency union is unlikely; they simply won’t give up that sovereignty, that control. To do so would require a level of incompetence that I don’t believe exists even in Westminster. If I’m wrong, get ready for a flood of economic refugees from England.
@Edward
Yes, if you’re a multinational. There’s the overall size of the company, with its overseas operations, and there’s the issue of ‘moving’ apparent trade around. It’s the Vodafone — and others — trick of booking profits via one bloke operating out of a cupboard in Switzerland.
@Breastplate
Yes, it’s exactly like that. It’s part of the insanity of pretending the gold exchange standard is still in operation. Westminster doesn’t need to write debt down though. Its debt is denominated in sterling, and it issues sterling; it can just pay it down, if it chooses.
Just a thought BUT, wouldnt we need a Central Bank of Scotland sometime..i.e after the smooth transition into Independence and away from any currency Union.
I think that’s where the layman, i.e me, gets a tad confused with all this patter about currency unions. Its all very well the folk who all seem to go “Oh yeah, yeah I get it, oh currency unions are so 2013!” leaving most folk standing around thinking “Err, sure, you might, but I still dont get it”
@desimond
Yes, an independent Scotland with its own currency would need either a central bank much like those in other nations, or it could bring the functions of such a bank — (some*) currency creation, the payment system, bank supervision, etc. — into a Scottish treasury. The latter approach has the advantage of bringing it under direct democratic accountability, and would fit well with public banking, debt-free money creation, and similar ideas that are floating around.
* I say ‘some’ since treasuries already create some currency, with central banks creating most of it, under government mandate. That’s just currency though; most money is created as credit/debt by commercial banks.
Just back in and talking to my better half she informs me that she completed a political survey about an hour ago.
Tell me more… basically only took less than 10mins.
She can’t remember all the Q’s but in no particular order
1. did you vote in 2010
2. will you be voting 2014
3. who did you vote for last time
4. will you vote YES / NO 2014
5. if Labour Uk look likely to win GE will you change your
vote
6. if Conservatives Uk look likely to win GE will you
change your vote
I paraphrase Q’s above but that’s all she wrote/ remembered. She does a lot of surveys got 20p today for participating.
I asked her who conducted poll? She don’t know. looked back email log but only trace was a poll number which I wont post..
Ach well, as Johann would say, wee things mean a lot.