Professor James Mitchell of Edinburgh University, 2 December 2013:
“Under what circumstances would a UK Government (or Scottish for that matter) incline towards cooperation or conflict in its relations with its neighbour? The key is motivations.
Today’s Sunday Herald has a rather low-key piece (it’s just the 7th-placed story in their “Referendum News” section) on the ramifications for a Yes vote of the 2015 UK general election. It comes the day after several papers carried vitriolic attacks from Unionist politicians on the SNP’s Angus Robertson for suggesting that the UK government ought to consider delaying the vote for a year to enable independence negotiations to be completed.
“This is yet another brazen stunt by the SNP to drive a wedge with Westminster”, raged the Scottish Conservatives’ Jackson Carlaw. “It is highly presumptuous of Angus Robertson, a man with clear delusions of grandeur, to be talking about postponing the next general election”, he continued, while Labour’s shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran bleated about an extra year of Tories.
But it’s rationally almost impossible to make any other argument.
If you don’t have time to read 170,000:
“Xmas dinner at the food bank”. The best of both worlds, there. Sleep well.
So we’re pretty embarrassed that we’ve only just put these two things together. We’ve been spending a fair bit of time recently pointing out that there’s almost no chance of the Barnett Formula – in essence, a mechanism for returning to Scotland some of the excess money it sends to Westminster in the form of oil revenue and tax receipts – being retained after the next UK general election.
We’ve also spent a good six months highlighting that the possibility of Holyrood being given “more tax powers” after a No vote is actually a trap, not in reality offering more power at all, but more responsibility. (Because it does you no good to have to collect your own tax revenue – the power lies in deciding how your tax revenue is spent.)
And duh, it’s taken us till now to see the connection. Boy, is our face red.
That’s how often they tell us.
Our emphasis, from today’s “Telegraph View”.
The Barnett Formula is worth, by our sums, approximately £7bn a year to the Scottish economy. Bear it in mind when you’re being told about the “black hole” in Scotland’s finances after a Yes vote, because even if you vote No you can wave bye-bye to Barnett, and then Scotland really WILL be looking into a black hole.
We’re getting fair warning, folks. Pay heed.
Visiting Scotland by train has always been an uplifting experience for me. There’s something very special about crossing the border into Dumfries and taking in those spectacular vistas as the train rumbles northwards. I’ve always considered this wonderful and spirit-enhancing landscape to be a metaphor for Scotland itself, full of glorious potential just waiting to be realized.
This journey also takes us through the lands of “Yr Hen Ogledd” (the old north), the heartland of the old Brythonic language, the prototype of modern Welsh and the seven kingdoms which established themselves in the intervallum of several centuries after the Romans left these shores in 400 AD.
Here’s the Labour First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, one year ago:
Jones is all over the papers today with his bizarre delusions-of-influence assertion that he would have some sort of veto over a Sterling currency union between the rUK and an independent Scotland (“Wales could block efforts by an independent Scotland to join a pound-sharing pact”, reports the Scotsman).
For perspective, imagine Alex Salmond being given a veto over the result of a UK referendum to leave the EU. Stop laughing, the article’s not finished yet.
Earlier today, “Better Together” put out this bizarre graphic, before hastily deleting it.
At the time of writing it hasn’t reappeared on their Facebook page. We’re not sure why it was pulled – perhaps they were just embarrassed by the sheer absurdity of this latest “too wee, too poor, too stupid effort”, or the ease with which Yes supporters could mock it as a claim that an independent Scotland wouldn’t be able to afford buildings more than two storeys high.
Or maybe it was something a little more fundamental.
There is no technical fault. This is really happening.
Anas Sarwar, there, raging about people not voting to abolish the bedroom tax.
Yes, THAT Anas Sarwar.
Don’t pinch yourself. You’re not dreaming. He’s actually doing it. Go and see.
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
