The Telegraph, 13 September 2014:
“Scotland heading for a ‘Great Depression’ after a Yes vote
A study by Deutsche Bank said a Yes vote for Scottish independence would ‘go down in history as a political and economic mistake’ on a par with Winston Churchill’s decision in 1925 to return the pound to the Gold Standard or the failures by the Federal Reserve in America that triggered the Great Depression in the 1930s.
It warned that Scotland risked a similar depression if voters backed the Yes campaign on Thursday, and described the desire for independence as an ‘incomprehensible’ one which could have negative consequences ‘far beyond’ what people had imagined.
Gordon Brown said the Deutsche Bank report showed that Scotland was ‘in danger of falling through an economic trapdoor’.”
We can only assume something pretty amazing must have happened since then.
The Telegraph, 9 February 2015:
“The European regions that could be better off going it alone
Scotland, Flanders and Catalonia are among the European regions that could be better off going it alone, says Deutsche Bank
Many of Europe’s most prosperous regions could be better off by going it alone and abandoning the nation states of which they are currently a part, according to a Deutsche Bank report. The bank has identified regions in Spain, Italy, Belgium, and even the UK that could potentially benefit from independence.
All but one of the seven regions named in the report boast per capita incomes higher than their nation’s respective averages.
Only output in Scotland fail[s] to match the national average, at 92.9pc of the typical level. Yet when Deutsche accounted for oil deposits based on their location, Scottish production rose to 115pc of the UK average.
The bank also noted that setting up a new administration, including separate defence and diplomatic spending, ‘naturally comes at a price. However these risks [of going it alone] have decreased for smaller countries; paradoxically, this is especially due to European integration,’ it continued. “
As ever, we remain mystified by the practice of calculating Scotland’s wealth without oil. Nobody does the same thing for Norway or Saudi Arabia, or publishes figures for the UK without the financial sector, or Germany without the car industry.
Nevertheless, if independence would mean Scotland would be subject to a new Great Depression, yet still “better off” than if it stayed in the Union, our blood runs cold at what must be coming down the line for the UK.
.
FOOTNOTE: In anticipation of this report we were eyebrows-deep in UK and Scottish Government statistics yesterday. We were able to establish that in 2012-13 (the most recent year for which the figures are available), despite a huge 40% drop in oil revenues from the previous year, Scottish workforce productivity (GVA measurement) including a 90% share of oil was still higher than that of the rest of the UK, by around £200 per head. In most years the gap is considerably larger.
[…] The Telegraph, 13 September 2014:"Scotland heading for a 'Great Depression' after a Yes vote A study by Deutsche Bank said a Yes vote for Scottish independence would 'go down in history as a polit…" […]
The 2 articles refer to “a study” and “a report”.
Both studies and reports are commissioned with a specific title, and I dare say Deutsch Bank commissions several thousand studies and reports per year.
Would it be too much to ask, which study and report are referred to in the articles, so that these can be cross checked? I’m sure the Deutsch Bank would not have any issues in releasing sections of these documents.
Der links hand doesn’t appear to know what the rechts hand is doing.
The Deutsche Bank is going through a credibility crisis, perhaps time for old friends to yet again scratch each others backs…?
link to labourlist.org
Today’s articles are making us re-live the indy ref. I am even more angry at the lies and deceit bestowed upon us by our imperial masters.It all serves to make me even more determined to get a large group of SNP MPs at GE2015.
OMG.. is this all because I stopped saving my 2 pound coins and have been spending them without a care in the world..
I’m so sorry.. If only I’d known..
the thing that’s changed? we’ve already (apparently) returned a no vote, so there’s no need to lie any longer.
See I’m viewing that slightly differently. For starters, I don’t think they are talking about Scotland being a separate entity out-with the UK and prospering. I think they specifically mean if we were to leave the EU but remain in the UK (yes the allocation of the oil money muddies the waters of that argument but I think that’s just more ‘media games’ being played). In all honesty I believe this an another attempt to sway public perception (when is it not from these papers?) in an effort to sour the general public of Scotland towards, and the held perception (generally favourable) on, remaining in the EU. With Nicola Sturgeon, and now Leanne Wood, calling for each nation to have a veto on Brexit, I believe they are laying the groundwork for their next smear campaign.
This is a link to the latest report.
link to dbresearch.com
I remain convinced having studied the GERS figures in recent months that if Scotland were to become independent it would be significantly better off. I’m also convinced that rUK would be significantly worse off & would end up probably having to go to IMF for help.
This is purely as a result of the tory/libdem mismanagement that has gone on for the last 5 years. Prior to that rUK stood a chance of recovering. 5 years later that chance has reduced to almost nothing thanks to the vested interests taking money out of the economy & squirreling it away in tax havens.
The BBC of course gave great prominence to the prior negative Deutsch Bank report in advance of the referendum.
In the interests of balanced reporting and impartiality I call on BBC Scotland to carry this item with due prominence and gravity.
The guy who wrote the report supporting the Unionist agenda,
is English establishment. Enough said.
( sorry can’t remember the name, but he has form!)
Somewhere in my old coin collection I have a 50million Mark piece.
Should I try cashing it in now!
Wasn’t the first report specifically produced by a chum of David Cameron’s?
I’m surprised that they took almost five months after the referendum to change their tune. The ink on the ballot slips was barely dry when Cameron changed his. We were kind of expecting it, but the red tories took it really badly.
I spotted the volte face this morning. Bizarre.
‘The Flaky Character of Deutche Bank:’ link to grousebeater.wordpress.com
As you state, calculating Scotland’s wealth while laying aside oil revenues is odd. It boosts paranoid suspicions Westminster means to keep it.
We should ask Deutsche Bank to comment on both stories.
“Hey ‘ put German stereotype here’ WTF?”
This’ll be front page news in all the Unionist rags tomorrow then?
It will get an airing on all the telly news and political programs then?
We got it wrong, Scotland would be better off independent, then?
Where’s ma ball pein hammer, I feel a bit of self harming approaching.
I’m convinced that years and years of Westminster Dysgenics experiments in Scotland have yielded a result where 55% of the population are beyond help. This is what Lamont meant about not being genetically able to make political decisions. Years of enforced poverty, low investment and fostering of a silly sectarian divides have worked.
From the “vow” to these propaganda pieces, who benefited from this report from this Deutche Bank report? Who in the EU is getting this report rammed down their political ambitions?
The uk economy has been on life support for the last 6 years, it’s funny how we still have the FTSE rammed down our throat at the end of the establishment news programmes as some barometer to the economic health of the nation.
The stock exchange is artificially pumped up by QE and doesn’t by any means represent economic health any more. Still people are sheep and worship that shit on a daily basis.
I recently put to someone that in one hand I held an ounce of gold and in the other a credit card and asked them to choose. Which one would you choose?
Energy is physical capital and we have it in abundance.
Well who knew? 😮
But apparently some folk were picky with their reporting from financial bodies during the referendum. The odd fact here, the odd statement there and all sewn into a single narrative.
Scots simply aren’t capable of running complex matters such as their own economy.
Its not safe or some such. Here be dragons. The future is unknown. Its dark out… etc
Slowly but surely the Brit establishment and neo con zionist banker chums lies about Scotland becoming independent are being laid bare for all to see. A pox on them all.
AndyC, instead of getting out yer ball-pein hammer lets get a couple of large cranes with ‘wrecking-balls’ and set about Pacific Quay? Far more satisfying and a lot less painful!!!
Auld Rock
There was no change in fortune. We were always going to be better off going it alone–and still will be. They just conned us. And a lot of us fell for it.
I read somewhere the day before yesterday – and it may have been anywhere – that the banks were dusting off and tuning up their indy-plans for Scotland and other regions.
The whole indy ref was such a fix by Better Together and pundits for sale. I wonder how many sweeteners to pundits and CEO passed under the table from the Better Tog funding in some way we will never know: perhaps indicative in next set of honours and gongs.
BUT and this is where I urge caution, again: Better Together’s ridiculous, shambolic, distasteful and undoubtedly dishonest campaign “secured” the Union. Some may have been appalled that their rational for voting No was subverted after the fact: the Vow was less use than a piece of Izal (except for paper and comb competitions > plug there for Stonehaven Folk Festival). But many, even the pensioners, for all the lie exposures do not bother to read further or more deeply than the leaders on the Record or the Mail (or BBC). No questioning.
Or if they realise their pension has diminished or Scotland is Boomtown and the rats, fat cats: well, hen, it is just life. Swings and roundabouts.
Sure, we have many galvanised voters, activists, of all ages, and a sea change the likes of which we may not have seen and which power, in a Riddoch-esque manner we must capture to provide the energy to seize a new accountable democracy. A Second Enlightenment. But we have also a middle ground of middle-aged lumpen bourgeoisie who are alright Jock, and frightened of change. They may be Labour not qua socialist but because they have always voted thus. I worry that not only will the energised outreach of the push for change or even the exposure of the duplicity of Labour (and Tories) not reach them, but they will not care.
Not so much Grannie Labour who would believe anything told by Gordon or Alistair, and if it is proven a lie, find that justifiable for the cause: they would have had reasons. But the unmotivated. Motivated only to Vote at all in the Ref by fear of change.
I think we would be beyond foolhardy to write off Scottish Labour or any other manifestation or recent re-branding of the Labour Party: fear and obfuscation (confusing, back tracking of a yes but no but yes manner) served only to capture the votes of a large proportion. The confused fear-mongering worked, even while seemingly shooting themselves in the foot. The own goals of Project Fear actually totted up in our net (there’s a football ref for you Stu).
We need to be very wary and very slow to dismiss the buffoonery as anything other than more smoke and mirrors with a master plan.
@lollysmum
I agree with your observation about Tory/lib dem mismanagement, however labour would have been just as bad and their manifesto shows this. They are thoroughly entrenched with the city of london and would likewise have allowed them to ‘lead the recovery’. It would have been exactly the same process of more austerity, more private debt, leading to another recession which is where we are headed now.
Deutsch bankster that said Scotland no longer controlled by England would kick off 1930’s great depression is just one more old Etonian non entity terrified of any change but look at how corrupt the UK establishment really is in rancid Guardian stuff about HSBC tax fraudsters
“Green was executive chairman of the HSBC bank group from 2006 to 2010. The bank’s current management now admit serious “compliance and control failures” occurred at the Swiss bank before January 2011 when HSBC’s current chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, took over.”
So they then made this CEO Green dude UK.gov Trade Minister. TeamGB elitists didn’t know about mass tax fraud in HSBC, just like Gordon Brown and the Flipper had no clue the City was being run by maniacs and maniacs that got even richer from their 2008 crash.
UKOK history really is written by filthy rich fraudsters and their shills at the BBC, Slab obviously.
@Lollysmum
link to opendemocracy.net
link to neweconomics.org
Possibly the Deutsche bank writer of 9th February researched independently of the writer of 13th September and perhaps doesn’t even know that the 13th September was written.
Which reinforces the belief that 13th September was written according to the ‘agenda’.
@ Lollysmum 12:34
‘rUK probably having to go to IMF for help’
There would have been riots within 6 months when the TRUTH about rUK economics WITHOUT Scottish resources hit the fan.
Why do you think they shat themselves the week before the referendum.
Great depression?……rUK would’ve been bankrupt overnight.
Regardless of it’s price, oil greases palms.
@Lollysmum
link to neweconomics.org
Only reason we know anything at all about HSBC tax fraudsters or the fact that UK.gov Trade Minister Lord Green was running HSBC is merely down to an IT guy. You couldn’t make this up.
“The leak had come from HSBC’s IT technician in Geneva, Hervé Falciani, from whom French police seized the incriminating data.”
link to archive.today
Made another troughing Lord and hired by ConDems like Vince Cable who can only say, “We simply don’t know at present if Lord Green was aware of or condoned these practices.” But we do know that HMRC tax man funding and staff’s been cut and cut. Funny that.
Auld Rock…..used to be a dab hand at 9 pin, sounds like a plan!
Can someone remind me please…
Was there a FOI request done to ask how many polls Westminster and/or the Scottish Office had carried out in the twelve months prior to the referendum?
And did it ask how many of these polls were made public?
My memory is vaguely telling me that there was £460,000 paid for polls that the public never got access to? Is there an article or conclusion anywhere?
Thanks
Well done, Wingman.
@Staunch, who said:
“I don’t think they are talking about Scotland being a separate entity out-with the UK and prospering.”
From the article:
“Many of Europe’s most prosperous regions could be better off by going it alone and abandoning the nation states of which they are currently a part, according to a Deutsche Bank report.”
The report itself makes it perfectly clear that this is exactly what they are talking about.
The obvious conclusion … the first was a lie, and the newer one tells the truth.
To my mind, anyone who looks at the financial figures knows Scotland would be economically better off. Anyone saying different is lying with a political agenda.
That’s a very biased view, I accept. But no one has offered evidence suggesting it is wrong!
Deutsche Bank? In the murky corridors of WM, who knows what promises were made, or favours called in.
@AndyC
Uh?? 🙂
Unterdrückung, Ausbeutung und Herrschaft durch Lügen, die Visitenkarte des Westminster Regierung in jeder Sprache.
OT
Does anyone know if the SNP is the UK party with the highest % membership in relation to the size of it’s electorate / constituencies??
@ wingman
Sorry! It was for providing the link to ‘neweconomics’ for lollysmum and the speed at which you managed it!
Better off, worse off, it’s hardly the point though is it?
Accountability to the electorate is what we don’t have with a Westminster Government
With our own Team right here we have direct responsibility easily voted in or out depending on how efficient they are and with a smaller population much more manageable
The SNP make intelligent decisions evidence based on what we need done and do it the best they can given the constraints they are under.Presently we can’t lay a finger on London for the mess they make so that’s the best reason to vote SNP in the election and make them so damn unhappy with us we get what we need
I suppose it’s basically (If you don’t see things our way We’ll fu.k you up)
“Better off, worse off, it’s hardly the point though is it?
Accountability to the electorate is what we don’t have with a Westminster Government
With our own Team right here we have direct responsibility easily voted in or out depending on how efficient they are and with a smaller population much more manageable
The SNP make intelligent decisions evidence based on what we need done and do it the best they can given the constraints they are under.Presently we can’t lay a finger on London for the mess they make so that’s the best reason to vote SNP in the election and make them so damn unhappy with us we get what we need
I suppose it’s basically (If you don’t see things our way We’ll fu.k you up)”
Readers! This has started happening a lot again recently. I don’t give a piss if you censor swearywords or not, but PUT FUCKING PARAGRAPH BREAKS IN YOUR COMMENTS OR I WILL DELETE THEM. There’s a live preview pane, so there’s no excuse. Treat other readers with courtesy, don’t just vomit the contents of your brain onto the page in a heap.
(I had no sleep last night due to some arseleaker’s alarm going off for ten hours, and I am in a VERY cranky mood.)
This is the biggest of the Big Lies. Bigger than the currency issue. If our media pushed the true extent of Scotland’s wealth we would be independent already. We *have* to get the economic case understood by the majority as soon as possible.
[…] A sudden change of fortune […]
On the 12 September, 2014 Fraser Nelson reproduced online in The Spectator the paper published by Deutsche Bank (‘Scotland: Wrong Turn’: see link to research.comms.db.com ) which had a foreward written by David Folkerts-Landau, Group Chief Economist & Member, Group Executive Committee, Deutsche Bank AG.
Nelson introduced this by advising that we should give special weight to Deutsche Bank analysis as: ‘… private advice, issued by financial analysts to their clients, is interesting: these guys have no interest in spin, only accuracy. If they issue duff advice, their career is over.’ In other words, sit up and take notice you voters in Scotland an objective authority is addressing you!
This extract from what Folkerts-Landau wrote back in September gives a real sense of objectivity, a lack of spin and concern with accuracy … does it not:
‘Why anyone would want to exit a successful economic and political union with a G-5 country – a union which another part of Europe so desperately seeks to emulate – to go it alone for the benefit of… what exactly, is incomprehensible to this author.’
Given the Bank’s latest research, I wonder if its Chief Economist still finds the matter ‘incomprehensible’? I hope the Bank’s clients are keeping up with its advice!
More on the Financial State of the UK in relation to Scotland – Jimmy Reid Foundation.
link to reidfoundation.org
Vorsprung durch technikalities.
Bis spater Westminster…deine T ist aus!
@ Rosa Alba, 12:59pm
I absolutely agree with your analysis. The “all right Jocks” just don’t care and a lot of the pensioners are feart.
The lies and fearmongering work on the timid and the selfish.
Anyone who had conversations whilst canvassing will understand that there are people who will just never consider anything other than the position of subservience to which they have been conditioned by years of being told by media, Westminster, schools, etc and, worse, their fellow Scots, that Scotland is too poor, Scots aren’t good/capable enough and we should know our place. It matters not to them how many studies/reports to the contrary are produced because it is easier not to think about the possibility and prospect of looking after ourselves. Somebody else can do that, so why bother?
I too would caution against dismissing the muddled antics of unionists and reading too much into the current opinion polls. There are still an awful lot of cloth ears out there. There is much work to do to combat the duplicity of Westminster parties and their paymasters.
Is Scotland politically awake? Well, I imagine a bit more of it is than in the past but there are still a lot of people dozing.
From: Deutsche Bank
To: EU Partners
CC: IMF
Dear All
Fuck you very much for supporting Greece. Here are some home truths for your electorates.
Yrs. Sincerely, &tc.
For the two documents to come from the same bank within 6 months of each other is little short of incredible. However, I think we all felt the first was produced as a favour and fell in with other bilge like a Yes vote being as catastrophic to the world as the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand and Scotland giving succour to the dark forces of the Sith Lords (or whatever Robertson was on about)
Not too off-topic I hope:
I was in a bar in Stornoway last weekend, where some Gaelic TV crew were interviewing my friend about “why has Stornoway et al gone downhill a bit etc”.
I declined to be interviewed but spoke with the journo and got onto generally why everywhere is seeing the same problem: we inevitably got onto the referendum and west of shetland oil.
She didnt have a clue and could only say she heard the oil was too deep to extract!
I asked why her TV camera wasnt following Cameron when he was parachuted in for an opening ceremony for the new oil terminal!
I fear folks we may indeed be too stupid to be independent.
There are days I feel like punching myself in the face!
They are now free to express themselves, as they foolishly think it’s just a hypothetical scenario. When the hypothesis became real during the referendum. The unionists across europe closed ranks, and bullied wee Scotland. In other words top brass at EU and UK, told them to paint a black picture, and they obliged. The situation hasn’t changed but the politics have.
That’s why big businesses don’t matter. Their opinions are politicised. Think INEOS no to independence but yes to fracking! Licence granted for political interference in favour of the union. This happened wth countless big businesses all over Scotland. Unfortunately it did frighten some horses enough to vote no. We must ignore big business and look after each other because they clearly couldn’t give a damn.
Heard a guy called Massie, some kind of journo? being taken apart by one of Scotland’s Finest at dinner time on the wireless. This was anent the “stop & search” policy used so effectively by the polis against knife-crime and the same polis being used as a political football by (Labour) politicians. Massie cited the Met as an example to be followed in proper policing & everything else, but omitted to mention that only a few short years ago, such was the state of English policing that London went up in flames and the other English cities followed in short order. Such was the panic that Alex Salmond & the Scottish Government were begged to despatch the Polis south to crack a few skulls & restore order.
Is this doughball journo the fruit of the loins of the ex-colonial, cravated, hauf-biled & Torified Edinburgh toff, Allan Massie who I mistakenly thought was dead?
How could they tell, one wonders.
Stu, pardon my ignorance but do you mean miss a line after a paragraph?
Some of us never went tae good schools!
@stewartb
Yes, been looking for more information on this myself. The paper described in the first article both as a “study” and “report” by Deutsche Bank appears to be nothing of the sort.
It is described in both the FT and Business Insider as a “note to clients”. In other words, it is a personal opinion piece being reported as research.
David Folkerts-Landau the author of the note is German born but was sent from his home to boarding school in Scotland at the age of 14. Couldn’t find out which one.
After studying at Harvard and Princeton and a brief teaching post in the USA he joined the IMF in 1983 before coming to London for good in 1997 to join Deutsche Bank.
Establishment to the core.
Might be an interesting watch (on the iplayer of course).
Planet Oil will be shown on BBC Two Scotland at 21:00 on Tuesday 10 February.
@ Fred, 2:37pm
LOL, just LOL!! 🙂
Everybody knew that we were not
1. TOO WEE: There are loads of countries with comparable (and even smaller) populations doing quite well thank you.
2. TOO POOR: It has been well proven that we could be one of the richest countries in the world.
3. ER………..What was 3 again?
It’s almost as though every single piece of information produced by the unionists was a lie!
O/T a wee bit but another rant from our friends at Grangemouth, i swear they are determined to shut that place.
Grangemouth plant ‘needs fracking’ New
Chemicals giant Ineos says its Grangemouth plant may not have a long-term future without a UK shale gas industry.
@ Fred, 2:43pm
Fred, Stu means that he wants posters to use paragraphs appropriately to break up the text making it easier to read.
Put a double line space after each paragraph (just like I did there) 🙂
All will be well with the world then.
@Betty Boop, Thanks for that Betty, an auld bugger, still learning this contraption, wilco.
That’s what I like about Wings, every day’s a school day!Some day I will cut n paste tae! 🙂
@AndyC
Nah, they would have agreed to a currency union poste haste after a Yes vote and thus kept our exports in the Sterling zone and so prevented, in the short term, the meltdown in the current account figures that would have seen the asking rate on gilts go through the roof.
Of course whether in that breathing space before we left Sterling rUK did what was necessary, such as allowing Sterling to properly devalue despite the City and actually invest in exporters instead of service industries then it might stave off bankruptcy.
FINNMACOLLIE says:
“1. TOO WEE
2. TOO POOR
3. ER………..What was 3 again?”
stupid
adjective
lacking intelligence or common sense.
synonyms: unintelligent, ignorant, dense, brainless, mindless, foolish, dull-witted, dull, slow-witted, witless, slow, dunce-like, simple-minded, empty-headed, vacuous, vapid, half-witted, idiotic, moronic, imbecilic, imbecile, obtuse, doltish;
Every village, town, city, country has its idiots! However, as a generalisation, I would suggest only two of the above apply widely to much of the population of Scotland:
lacking common sense and ignorant
However, those many individuals displaying those versions of stupidity have a decent excuse! We have all been subjected to years of manipulation, propaganda and downright lies from politicians and their media buddies.
At which point truth banishes ignorance and common sense prevails to reveal what is really going on, clearly takes longer for some people than others!
It is a relentless progression. More and more Scots every day ‘see the light’.
The foray into the referendum campaign, with less than a week to go before the actual vote itself, by Deutsche Bank, who oddly hadn’t found it necessary to voice an opinion at any other time beforehand, was/is such a blatant piece of dark-arts collusion between the British state, its operatives, both open and not so, and the English establishment and their worldwide ‘contacts’ that it was/is mindboggling that anyone could view it as being anything honest, anything ‘clean’.
The corrupt Deutsche Bank being given substantial air- and press-time by the corrupt UK media to lie and fearmonger was just another chapter in Westminster’s now favourite bedtime reading, its own tome: How We Perpetrated The Great Fraud On Scotland And The Scots (referendum 2014).
The man in the following paragraph has, of course, already admitted to illegality carried out on behalf of Westminster:
“He [Sir Nicholas MacPherson] said that in such an “extreme” case as last year’s referendum, in which “people are seeking to destroy the fabric of the state” and to “impugn its territorial integrity”, the normal rules of civil service impartiality did not apply.”
“Does anyone know if the SNP is the UK party with the highest % membership in relation to the size of it’s electorate / constituencies??”
Back of envelope calculation:
Scottish electorate approx 4.5million, SNP membership 93,000 = 2%
UK electorate guessed at 60million, Tory membership guessed at 200,000 tops, = 0.3%.
Computer says yes, by an order of magnitude!
I wonder if this is just the banks starting their campaign against the UK leaving the EU? In this case, it would be a warning to Westminster going “hey, we helped you win the IndyRef, but we’ll start undermining the UK if you try to leave the EU.” Or something like that.
I did an expose on Folkerts-Landau during the campaign. It begins:
David Folkerts-Landau, Chief Economist of Deutsche Bank, who has claimed that Scotland would have a “Great Depression” if independent, has a second home he bought for US $11.6 million dollars. His first home is in London – where he would have been well-placed to notice that Deutsche Bank was at the very heart of the LIBOR interest rate fixing scandal. Naturally neither Folkerts-Landau (he and his wife are friends of the Camerons) nor any other senior banker was jailed for that long term criminal illegality.
link to craigmurray.org.uk
Cue Morag. Kinvenie and Indyref2 to warn you not to read it as it is written by an adulterer.
@ craig murray – now now.
@Xaracen
Fair enough, maybe I’m just so cynical of the press by this point I try to read between the lines of each and every comment they make.
And yes, I realise fully that it said that in the article, the point I was trying to make was it felt more like they were trying to lay the ground-work for turning public opinion in Scotland against wanting to remain in the EU. Regardless if this was as an entirely separate, autonomous and independent nation (YES please!) in it’s own right or by remaining as part of the UK.
Of course it could simply be another shining example of reporting incompetence or indeed, surprisingly, there may have been some genuine sentiment contained in the article and more truth contained therein than we, the general public, have long since come to expect from the union press.
Great work Rev.
Banks fucked up the global economy and now we’re finding out that the banks fucked up Scotland’s independence bid too.
It’s about time we ended the power of the banks.
Hey Betty Its alwright for you I got a F in English I don’t know what an effin paragraph is lol
The UK economy has been in dire straits since before the discovery of oil: all that did was allow profligate dilettantes in Westminster to carry out their social engineering (remember the way the security and police services were employed against the miners? and the expansion of benefits as the dole queues grew?) without any serious thought for the long-term problems of an imperial power losing its free income from former colonies. No investment in productive capacity and the expansion of casino capitalism have given the rulers of the UK huge problems, and it’s difficult to see a solution that doesn’t depend on being floated by others’ largesse. The loss of the income flow from Scotland would be a much more severe blow than anyone is prepared to admit – which is why Westminster panicked.
As mentioned earlier this may be Europe bullying the UK over leaving the community (ha ha, they don’t like it up ’em). I wonder if they would now be prepared to publicly discuss Scotland’s entry to the community if we were to become independent.
For the record I am going off EU entry due to neo con policies such as TTIP. It will be interesting to see how the EU treat Greece and hopefully Spain in the near future.
FFS Craig. Will you give it a rest. Your very excellent contributions to our great public debates (like the one you just published at 5.52)are undermined by the wee bitchy asides.
Kennedy at 8.35
Scotland is in the EU and going independent will not put it out.
All that will happen is that from an internal position new terms of membership will be negotiated (as also will be the case with rUK).
Dave McEwan Hill at 9:27
Thanks Dave. I remember BT saying we had to reapply as a new state and Spain would veto us. I knew it was scaremongering but did not know what was fact and what was fiction.
I still think Europe needs to change. Some left governments (Greece/ Spain etc) could balance the right governments and make the community work better.
WOS
The statistics for oil tax revenue for 2013-14 are available. Show a further 25% drop in revenue on the 40% lower figure you report, which I guess will be mirrored in 2013-14 GVA. And even that data is for the year before the recent drop in oil prices.
So in “most” years other than 2012-13, 2013-14 and the current year.
Finnacollie reply,number3 TOO SCARED
@Craig P says:10 February, 2015 at 1:39 pm:
“This is the biggest of the Big Lies. Bigger than the currency issue. If our media pushed the true extent of Scotland’s wealth we would be independent already. We *have* to get the economic case understood by the majority as soon as possible.”
Anyone who imagines that oil is the only rip-off the Establishment does over Scotland really does need to wise up. The next most glaring example is the Crown Estates Fiddle where the Scotland has the longest shoreline in Europe The Crown Estates are one of the largest property owners in the United Kingdom. They have a portfolio worth £8.1 billion. In 1830 King William IV revoked the income from the Scottish Crown Estates and the hereditary land revenues of the Crown in Scotland were transferred out of Scotland and merged with the English Crown Estates which, of course, already contained both Ireland and Wales from 1542 & 1284 respectively.
The SNP called for a return of the Scottish Crown Estates but this was refused. Remember that every pier, jetty and anchorage must pay the Crown Estates. As do every discharge pipe, every oil rig or other sea based installation.
Then we have the Scotch Whisky and other exports classed as English by leaving via English air & Seaports.
Another fiddle is that every fine levied by either courts or on-the-spot goes directly to the Treasury.
Then there is the Aggregates Levy. A UK environmental tax on the commercial exploitation of aggregate (sand, gravel and rock, with some exceptions). In Scotland only a small percentage of the Levy receipts is received by the Scottish Government.
There’s more, much more but you get the picture. Last time I checked, (some time ago), Scottish food and drink was quickly overtaking Oil & Gas as Scotland’s richest export. It may indeed have overtaken Oil & Gas by now.
Then we have the many fiddles of the electric power charges. The charges in the north of Scotland are £21.49 for every kilowatts of power they add to the grid but in southern English areas this is a, “negative charge”. For example in the South West of England electricity generators are paid £7.04 for every kilowatt they add to the grid.
So, in Cornwall, they get a subsidy while in the Scottish North they get penalised to the tune of a total £28.53 per kilowatt. It is estimated that Scottish based companies currently pay £100 million more than they should as a result. Then the salt in the wound. The very areas richest in renewable energy resources see the local residents in those areas paying extra per unit for the power they buy.
And that is just a gentle scrape of the surface of the many rip=off we Scots must pay for the great privilege of belonging to the English Establishments rotten Union.
Auld Bob now starts singing, “I want to break free”, and exits stage left.
There are more deserving areas than Scotland!
link to capx.co
A banks singular purpose is to make money. At a macro level, it attempts to influence political & economic decisions so that it can predict the outcomes. This is how its “investment” team makes money; by gambling with deposits on events it thinks will happen.
Meanwhile the BBC wont publish the latest Deutche Bank report because the BBC is not interested in impartiality; only in maintaining the status quo for and on behalf of the British Establishment in London.
“Scotland heading for a ‘Great Depression’ after a Yes vote
Well, of course. Wouldn’t you fall into a great depression if you had sold your country to another a second time?
Doug @2.06 a.m.
Your link to the CapX reveals an interesting paragraph.
“The Tory leadership could hardly have acted more selflessly or meekly during last year’s Scottish referendum campaign. It raised the money for a financially bankrupt Scottish Labour establishment to fight to defeat separatism and to keep an almost Tory-free Scotland within the UK”.
Yet again – rhetorical question – we should all ask ourselves, “why?”
Is this the Fatty Foulkes who used to sign in for his money at the House of lords than got the plane up to Edinburgh to get his cash as an MSP from the Scottish Parliament, who charged the taxpayers a fortune in lodging costs for actually living in his mother’s house in London, who got arrested,charged and convicted for knocking over a old woman during a drunken rampage coming out from the Common’s bar etc etc etc
The sort of person we wouldn’t want in the SNP
“Scotland heading for a ‘Great Depression’ after a Yes vote
A study by Deutsche Bank said a Yes vote for Scottish independence would ‘go down in history as a political and economic mistake’ on a par with Winston Churchill’s decision in 1925 to return the pound to the Gold Standard or the failures by the Federal Reserve in America that triggered the Great Depression in the 1930s.
It warned that Scotland risked a similar depression if voters backed the Yes campaign on Thursday, and described the desire for independence as an ‘incomprehensible’ one which could have negative consequences ‘far beyond’ what people had imagined.
Gordon Brown said the Deutsche Bank report showed that Scotland was ‘in danger of falling through an economic trapdoor’.”
‘Rev Stu comments, “We can only assume something pretty amazing must have happened since then.”
Wrong again, not really a reverend, since the Scottish people didn’t vote to break away from the rest of us. A forecast of what would happen after a Yes vote is not falsified when a No vote actually happened.
Will Podmore……obfuscation.
Thought I’d put a paragraph break in ‘cos the Rev likes them.
Bill H.
Will Podmore
On Monday the Deutsche Bank announced Scotland as one of the areas of Europe that would be better off going it alone (the others were Catalonia and Flanders).
Do try to keep up