Greece isn’t the word
In today’s Scotsman, Peter Jones makes the case for why an independent Scotland would have been plunged into the same crisis currently affecting Greece (and making the case along the way for why George Osborne’s austerity is inevitable and we should just shut up and accept it).
He insists strenuously throughout the article that he’s doing no such thing and is simply highlighting the flaws in the idea of a currency union between Scotland and the rUK, but to anybody who actually reads the article, it’s patently obvious that that’s exactly what he’s doing.
He is, though. There are 19 members of the Eurozone, the majority of whom are actually getting along pretty much as well as any other Western nation at the moment. Jones’ conscious decision to choose Greece as his comparison – rather than Finland, Netherlands, Austria or Belgium – betrays an unconscious (or maybe conscious) desire to portray Scotland as having the same fundamental problems as Greece, with only the Union keeping us from turning into a basket case economy.
If this article was even pretending to be an unbiased look at the risks of a currency union between independent nations, it would be looking at the Eurozone as a whole, or at the very least choosing a country whose relationship with the rest of the Eurozone was more akin to Scotland’s relationship with rUK.
Greece’s problems stem from ideology trumping practicalities when creating the Eurozone, with politicians lumping wildly divergent economies together and hoping they would somehow manage to co-exist under one currency. The Sterling currency zone idea was actually the opposite – a practical solution to the question of how to deal with the transition from being part of a union to being an independent country with an economy very similar to that of the currency partner.
It was a reaction to the reality that, even after independence, Scotland and England’s economies would be inextricably linked, and that there would be enough to be getting on with without setting up a new currency at the same time. The opposite was true of Greece’s entry to the Eurozone, because any sensible analysis suggests that if the rules that currently dictate Eurozone membership had been adhered to when it was created, countries like Greece would not have been granted membership.
Once Jones starts waffling about the current slump in the oil price (presented – as ever with Unionist commentators – as a permanent and stable phenomenon, despite telling us all just a year ago that oil prices are incredibly volatile), he inadvertently makes the case for an independent Scotland, albeit one with its own currency.
It looks increasingly likely that the only way for Greece to recover from its current troubles is to leave the Eurozone and bring back the Drachma, because under normal circumstances, a country in Greece’s situation would devalue their currency, allowing for an export-led recovery.
Being in the Eurozone denies Greece this key ability, and Jones’ argument is that an independent Scotland would also be denied that ability if it was in a currency union with the rUK, which is true enough as a statement of fact.
But at the very least, an independent Scotland in a currency union with the rUK would have the option that’s open to Greece at the moment, namely leaving the currency union and starting a new currency (and would almost certainly be working towards that goal from day one anyway).
The trouble is that Scotland in the UK has substantially less power than Greece, and is therefore completely at the mercy of Westminster if disaster strikes – as is currently the case, with Scots left helplessly hoping that somehow a Conservative government’s brutal ideologically-driven austerity policies will save the day.
Some sovereignty is rarely – if ever – worse than no sovereignty. Rather than proving Scotland was right to vote No last year, the Greek situation simply underlines the importance of nations having the power to make their own choices.
But the Unionist media doesn’t like to tell that story, when instead it can simply paint Scotland as a basket-case economy, shielded from its own naive foolishness and the dangers of the scary outside world only by Westminster’s selfless generosity.
Excellent editing as per usual, Stu.
So all he’s saying is we shouldn’t go into a CU with rUK if we go independent. Fine. I’m pretty sure the next referendum will not make the mistake of offering that kind of co-operation again. An independent Scotland will have the benefit – which neither Greece or Scotland has now – of our own currency and sovereignty to decide whether to change it or not, to reduce or rise interest rates, or whatever. Many in the Yes campaign argued that was the best option for Scotland long term, and the UKs fixation on how long the CU would be locked in for shows that’s what they really wanted – not “no currency zone” but one Scotland is locked into, as the EU have assumed Greece is locked into the Euro.
So if the unionists media is genuinely on the same side as the Greens, Jim Sillars etc in not wanting a currency union, they can take that line during the next referendum, which I’m sure the Scottish government will also be doing at that point. So that’s OK, isn’t it? We’ll all be in agreement on currency at that point.
Oh, just noticed that’s one of your Doug – good stuff!
I’m quite happy not to go into a currency union with the UK. I heard both sides of the debate, from Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp saying Yes, and Robin McAlpine saying No, during indyref, and I could see both sides.
However, the current UK govt is so vindictive, and so economically incompetent, that I don’t want to share anything with them.
I’ll go with Robin McAlpine now. We have to start working NOW on a bullet-proof currency debate, and be ready within two years to have a six-month indyref campaign.
Out of curiosity, why would Scotland’s economy be compared to Finland, Netherlands, Austria or Belgium?
We all must be on the same page with this, I was just putting together my own comment regarding Greece…and you’re of course absolutely correct in calling him out on his snidey implications by choosing Greece as his example. They just can’t help themselves, they have to trash Scotland over and over to rationalise their sense of ‘rightness’ in voting No.
I’d rather be broke and free, than tethered to gangsters for the rest of ma days out of fear…Greece if they decided democratically to reject the ultimatums and start over would become the trailblazers against the austerity consensus within Europe. There is another way, and we must support Greece in whatever ways we can should they reject that consensus.
You cannot batter a people into submission, and then ‘other’ them and expect them to be grateful for your ‘largesse’. This is nothing but bullying happening here, we here know this, perhaps more acutely than any other country, because of our uniquely placed predicament within the UK, and our recent travails involving the exact same propaganda techniques to keep us in our place.
The one thing Greece has that we don’t (yet) is that they are an Independent country and they, as they are showing, can have a quick referendum vote to decide on their own fate. My heart is with the people of Greece, they voted for brave politicians who are genuine democrats, just like we did.
We are stuck with said fuckwits compiling their crap from the handbook of the BT campaign, still running it by the looks of it. Get over it you twat, you won. He must think we are all stupid not to understand the nuances and differences between both countries and their current status within their respective political dynamics. Apples and fucking pears…numbnut.
Let’s start calling these pundits, commentators, what they truly are. Unionist Trolls.
They are the penchmen of their masters. 😉
It’s also a bit of a hostage to fortune to compare Scotland to Greece. If the next referendum is in 5-10 years time, it’s perfectly possibly Greece could have defaulted, changed currency, devalued and recovered, as Iceland did. And it could be doing better than many others in the EU, including the UK. Of course, by then no doubt there’ll be some other country in trouble Scotland can be compared to and Greece will be conveniently forgotten.
“Out of curiosity, why would Scotland’s economy be compared to Finland, Netherlands, Austria or Belgium?”
The question is, why wouldn’t it?
“Of course, by then no doubt there’ll be some other country in trouble Scotland can be compared to and Greece will be conveniently forgotten.”
You mean like how the “Arc of Insolvency” jibe mysteriously disappeared from unionist commentary when it became clear those economies were recovering from the financial crash far better than the UK was?
Perish the thought, Cath!
It’s amazing how ignorant journalists are about the debt mountain which the UK has created. It currently stands at £1.5 Trillion which is £42K for every tax payer in this country. America is even worse with over $100,000 of debt per citizen. And yet journalists are happy to point the finger at Greece, and to question the viability of Scotland becoming self-sufficient. Check here for more details. It’s quite frightening actually!
http://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/
Currency union without fiscal union is not a good idea – but not necessarily because of points that Peter Jones makes. Looking at the whole of the EU shows this e.g. first graph in http://dcomerf.blogspot.ch/2015/06/is-fiscal-austerity-contractionary.html shows clearly that countries in the Eurozone who engaged in austerity saw very bad economic performance, whereas the second graph shows that this was not true for non Eurozone countries.
Austerity in the Eurozone is wrongheaded in the extreme, but it seems to be effectively mandated. Cannot be sure that this would not also be true of a Sterling zone. Sharing Sterling was the flaw of the White Paper.
The gradualist approach made by Salmond pre-referendum, appears now in the shadow of the NO vote, to have been a major error.
And one that Scotland is now paying a heavy democratic price, easily demonstrated by the braying rows of English MPs voting down the FFA amendments last night.
We ought to have declared an intention to establish a separate sovereign currency & an intention to dump the Royal Family on condition of a favourable referendum.
Scotland could then have, if necessary, devalued its own currency to help invite an inrush of cheap foreign investment & give Scottish exporters an easy ride.
Sure, a 2 week booze up in Benidorm might have been made an unreachable destination for the peely wally residents of Glasgow for a few years but the trade off would have been a healthier job market, a higher tax intake for the government & an inevitable boom in investment.
Hey, NO voters, it didn’t have to happen like this.
As Nana Smith said in a previous article, why did Labour and the Tories vote together to block Scotland’s promised FFA when it would have relieved them of the burden of subsidising us?
Great article DD. I do like the title too.
I am always rather struck by often Unionist commentators grasp whatever flotsam or jetsam of doom is floating past their raft of misery. If oil prices were going up they would argue that a separatist Scottish currency would be too highly valued sucking in imports and destroying our pretty robust export economy.
A good article Doug and apologies for randomly sending a Facebook request last week. I bought a new phone and was setting up Faceache.
Anybody know how to get rid of that really annoying “People you might know” thing at the top of the page? I have unintentionally added a few people that way. It never says “Are you sure” with a cancel option. 🙁
I would have gone for a currency union at first but after hearing Giddeon tell us we can’t have one I realised that I didn’t want a vindictive Westminster to have any say over our affairs so I don’t see any problem with a Scottish pound!
How is it that Scotland is deemed by Labour and Tories uniquely incapable of running its affairs just like other small prosperous nations in Northern Europe, most of whom have no oil or gas reserves?
Last year Standard and Poors credit rating agency stated that: “Even excluding North Sea output and calculating per capita GDP only by looking at onshore income, Scotland would qualify for our highest economic assessment. Higher GDP per-capita, in our view, gives a country a broader potential tax and funding base to draw from, which supports creditworthiness.”
As George Kerevan says in The National
http://www.thenational.scot/comment/george-kerevan-scottish-fiscal-autonomy-is-best-option-for-all.4059
Currently, FFA is key, not just to making Scotland’s politicians fully accountable to Scottish voters (who pay the taxes). It is also cardinal to readjusting the economy away from consumption to productive investment.” By that I mean that unless Scotland controls its own fiscal destiny we will never be able to raise industrial investment, and improve productivity to global standards, in order to maximise economic growth.
A successful Scotland, free from Treasury tutelage, would give the lie to Project Fear – the myth perpetuated by Labour and Tory parties alike that Scotland cannot stand on its own two feet economically. After the SNP’s stunning victory on May 7, the Unionists have come up with a new variation on Project Fear
Brilliant piece. But if you can spot this piece why isn’t our elected MP’s ( SNP) not coming to the same conclusion. However after last night’s vote in the HOC the ball is firmly in the first ministers court. I hope she uses it wisely.
Last year we were being compared to Zimbabwe. So we are making great progress.
However, I would say the best comparisons would be Norway or Switzerland, neither of which are in the EU but do have trade agreements. The EU and the currency questions are far from settled.
I’d also say that as well as Scottish currency we should declare an intention to only join the European Economic Area at first, like Norway, until we decide to fully join Europe after a few years. That would take the wind out of two unionist sails!
I wouldn’t mind these sorts of opinion pieces if ever there was as a balance an equal number of pieces examining “Westminster’s selfless generosity.”
As a non-follower of the MSM who or what is this Jones?
O/T
House of Commons: Mundell is sitting with his usual dour face covered in sweat saying nought.
Priti Patel has just stated that we will get (be thrown some crumbs) 2.5 billion welfare budget … big deal 25% of our welfare budget … disgrace! Also says that children in poverty is at its lowest level since the mid 80s. You couldn’t make this up.
She was interrupted by Pete Wishart who seems to be absolutely raging saying ‘this is day three of the debate and Westminster has not passed ONE amendment.’ And went on to say something I couldn’t quite pick up on ‘you better not pass something or other in the House of Lords behind our backs’.
Scot, Kate Green Labour Stratford and Urmston is making some positive comments and supporting the amendments.
Priti Patel is refusing to let anyone intervene (really the SNP MPs) by saying that they are short of time. She’s been booed and told they have loads of time …. another 5 hours to go. Sick of it.
The Commons was half empty but is now ‘full to the brim’ for voting on Clause 19 Amendment 128 … changes the definition of disability benefit.
They must have been sitting in the bars or lolling in the sunshine throughout the debate.
Vote over. Another one bites the dust.
Ayes 252
Nos 312
dcomerf: “Sharing Sterling was the flaw of the White Paper.”
Yeah, personally I would have preferred the independent currency option all along. I always figured it would end up being temporary anyway, and I assumed it was about stopping folk from having to consider the potential upheaval of getting their money changed etc – but looking back, I think it was more about appeasing businesses and the financial sector rather than people.
In the end, currency was used against us anyway, so we should probably have just bitten the bullet and started making a positive case for our own currency in 2012, rather than making a defensive case for keeping Sterling and ending up making a case for something in between the two. It just invited claims that we weren’t confident enough in our own argument.
(Incidentally, we’re nowhere further along to making this argument, because many people still insist it wasn’t a big issue, I think simply because polling data suggests it wasn’t *the* big issue.)
If Scotland is a basket case economy, which I don’t believe, it is the fault of the union. They have had 300 odd years holding the purse strings, and we should be grateful; I don’t bloody think so.
‘Mon the Greeks.
While there are great benefits from being in the Eu, woe betide you if it does not suit them, as their point of view will be paramount over any self benefit a country might try to have.
With Greece they have pulled out all the stops, to frighten, blackmail, and undermine Greece. We of course have seen all this already, and it is not pretty.
Power to the Greek people, they have principle. Something that is lacking in the EU, who must have it’s way, no matter what. Sounds to me pretty well how we are looked upon and imposed upon in our unholy Union.
We should be driving a selective path of our own.
“Of course, by then no doubt there’ll be some other country in trouble Scotland can be compared to and Greece will be conveniently forgotten.”
In the 70s/1980s it was Bangladesh. That would be round the time the McCrone report stated that an independent Scotland’s currency would be amongst the hardest in the world.
“Last year we were being compared to Zimbabwe. So we are making great progress.”
Well we’ve moved from Asia to Africa to Europe. Unfortunately we don’t seem to be moving any closer to sense.
I always wanted a Scottish pound but understood that they were trying to make independence less scary with a shared currency and the monarchy. Softly softly didn’t work in 2014 so plan B needed for next time. And I really believe there will be another referendum in my lifetime.
“because any sensible analysis suggests that if the rules that currently dictate Eurozone membership had been adhered to when it was created, countries like Greece would not have been granted membership.”
I seem to remember that everyone knew at the time when Greece was being admitted, that the rules had been bent to let them in. Greece never met the criteria, but politics demanded they be allowed to join, and so it happened. It was no secret.
That in itself is proof of the way that “Europe” works – if there is the political will, then a way will be found. Exactly what some of us were saying last year about Scotland & the EU.
So, Gideon and the Thunderbird ruled out currency union before the referendum.
Brooneye, Edstone, Call-Me-Dave and Clegg promised Home Rule… which amounted to nothing more than control of airport tax, once their panic was over.
Those people would not voluntarily let Scots keep the steam off of our own urine. We must force the issue.
Call their bluff. SNP should ask voters for a mandate to repeal the Act of Union unilaterally: no currency union; no fuss; no sharing of UK debt; no long divorce negotiations. Each former party to the Union keeps its own natural resources and fixed assets. And when the bankers come looking for that £1.5 trillion, we point them in the direction of Threadneedle St.
Put that in a manifesto, and watch the unionists panic. Nothing on earth scares them more than a debt-free Scotland, with a government-issued, debt-free currency. rumpUK would financially implode overnight if that happened, and Scotland would need a US style Homeland Security setup to keep out hordes of desperate economic migrants from the ‘Home Counties’.
You’d see them throwing proper Home Rule at us, as long as we promised to keep sterling.
An excellent article.
This is really the point about all this currency union nonsense both now and at the time of the referendum. As I believe Joseph Stiglitz (or possibly Mark Carney) pointed out, currency unions can of course be successful, providing both economies are not wildly divergent.
Scotland’s economy (GDP) per capita, without the oil, is 99% of the UK per capita GDP, and so is economically similar in strength – with the added bonus of oil. The problem Greece has, is it is wildly divergent economically from countries like Germany, and the eurozone in general.
A currency union would have worked fine for an independent Scotland in the short term. What we heard then and still hear now from griping, cringing unionists (didn’t they win?) is nothing short of pure, unadulterated, ill-educated, economically illiterate, b****cks.
Redmond is trying the same tactic in the HOC as I write.
We know better.
Excellent article.
After watching what passes for debate in the HoC I for one don’t want to share anything any more. We have had our industries decimated and our people dragged down for long enough.
With the latest wheeze of evel coming along things are about to get a lot worse. Grind Scotland into the dust is evil plan. As someone said on twitter ‘fooling and ensnaring’
They take take and take again and give nothing in return but insults.
I’m done with them.
Found this page on a v. lefty site having strayed off Max Keizer’s site:
“Syriza’s Fraudulent Capital Controls”
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/06/30/cont-j30.html
As critical of Syriza as of the bankster elites, the author’s theory being that the financial elite will use Grexit & Drachma devaluation to buy Greece on the cheap.
While Scotland plainly isn’t like Greece, the same elite would be out to screw us in some fashion.
On Greece I hope he isn’t right but fear for their people.
We have to, at every possible opportunity, counter the mantra, “Scotland relies on oil & gas to be economically viable”.
The Unionists know there will be a second (hopefuly final) IndyRef at some future date. If this is ten years in the future then there will be ten years less O&G revenue for indy Scotland to build up a sovereign O&G fund. And you can bet your last barrel of oil they will be flogging that narrative when that next vote comes around. The BBC and the BritNat MSM are colluding to push this narrative into every story they can–“Scotland wouldn’t be viable without the oil.”
This MUST be challenged and countered at each and every opportunity. Last week on The Hearald I think I challenged that narrative in about three Herald stories. I simply turn the argument around and say something like: “The vast majority of successful independent countries do not produce a single barrel of oil and manage perfectly well–so why couldn’t Scotland? Why be so defeatist?”
We all know (at least here on WoS) that this narrative is utter pish. But they are determined to push it at every opportunity in order that it sinks deep into the NO-voting psyche. When you see it, challenge it.
It’s well documented that Greece never met the entry criteria for the single currency in 2001, but then neither did the Netherlands. It’s also equally well documented that Greece’s economy was healthy until the handover to New Democracy in 2004, when their 6 year tenure saw the debt to GDP ratio double, the public sector double in size and deficit begin to spin out of control.
The then prime minister Karamanlis has walked away from that train wreck completely unscathed, whilst the hapless Papandreou took the hit for signing up to crazy bail out deals. It’s a crazy world.
Just found a quote from Dame Judi Dench ( whom I love as an actress of warmth but am puzzled by an intelligent woman sticking her name on Dan Snows dross)
As a patron of the Karuna Trust ,
” The trust believes that the degradation of others is also our degradation, and that the triumph over prejudice and ignorance is a triumph for us all”
Wonder if she reads the Mail , the Telegraph or the Guardian online – she’ll find a wheen of folk denigrating Scots, Scotland , Yessers the SNP and the First Ministers both past and present. The denigration not confined to those below the line but also to those pretending to be journalists .
Wonder if she’ll look on that as besmirching the letter signers intent and perhaps lend herself to triumphantly educate the ignorant and prejudiced in the media.
The gradualist approach made by Salmond pre-referendum, appears now in the shadow of the NO vote, to have been a major error.
I don’t think it was. It had to be done, really, for a first referendum. It gave the UK a chance at indy-lite and creating a new UK that could allow its home nations sovereignty while still within a union. If the UK (and Scotland’s unionists) had been smart, they would have grabbed that with both hands as the perfect solution to a whole lot of problems. Unfortunately they are far from smart and assumed it’d be a walkover, destroy the SNP and put Scotland back in the box.
So the position we’re in now is one where they didn’t win all that well, lied through their teeth about “federalism” to win at all, and at the same time proved – a little like the EU are currently doing to Greece – that they have no good faith and aren’t interested in co-operation.
Now we know this, the next referendum can be fought with currency union knocked off the table, and the unionists and UK themselves will have spent years doing the hard work of demolishing the arguments for that as well. It’ll now be far harder for them to attack the idea of our own currency, having spent so long telling us that’s the only option and a CU would be daft.
Interesting to compare Paul Krugman’s stance on Greece (they they should vote No and get out) with his 2014 concerns on the Scots sharing the pound when they did not have political control of a lender of last resort – but when we did have the likes of RBS headquartered here. The Greeks don’t have a lot to be happy about right now – but the fact that they no longer have giant, broke banks within their jurisdiction asking for government sponsored bail-outs is a relative plus.
Question – When does a deficit become a blackhole ?
Answer – when it is Scotland’s share of the UK deficit.
The 2015 UK deficit is around £90 billion and Scotland’s share of that would be just over £7 billion. However the establishment propaganda machine will not call it “Scotland’s share of the UK deficit” preferring the fear factor that “Scotland’s £7 billion blackhole” might create. Perhaps the success of project fear for the referendum has given them confidence to try it on again.
I am sure the Scottish Nation is quite happy to accept our debts as any responsible Nation would but I also hope the Scottish Nation will not forget Project Fear, false promises and empty vows. Roll on INDYREF2 hopefully in 2017.
@Nana
You and me both Nana.
I’m very much on one of those days myself. Looking at the votes and treatment of our MPs over the past few weeks, the anti Scottish fuckwittery from the metro set, I’m itching for them to ask us the question already.
Far as I’m concerned Westminster was given a last chance to act like grown ups and in their arrogance and ignorance they blew it.
@scunner at 3:06pm
“While Scotland plainly isn’t like Greece, the same elite would be out to screw us in some fashion.”
The global financial elite are out to screw EVERYBODY: that’s the aim of the game of finance. And we’d be no exception to that. But Scotland is not like Greece, as you say. We have no reason to devalue our currency, if we create one.
We’re a net exporter, even when sterling is high. We could peg our currency’s value to sterling and still outperform rUK and Eurozone in terms of productivity and GDP growth. As long as we have a government controlled issuing bank that can control the money supply, we’d be protected from most problems thrown our way by rUK economic incompetence, or financial speculators.
The financiers’ best tactic for profiting from Scotland would be to offer us cheap loans. Hopefully we’d elect governments with the sense to politely decline, except maybe to fund growth-driving infrastructure projects.
.
@Macart
I was silly to ever think they would give some due diligence to the Scotland bill but no they ploughed on with their blatant disdain and disregard for the wishes of a nation.
I would gladly back any of our mps should they choose to walk away from that cesspit right now but I know that is not going to happen just yet.
I’m just so tired of it all.
Proud Cybernat at 3.12
“We have to, at every possible opportunity, counter the mantra, “Scotland relies on oil & gas to be economically viable”.”
Exactly. That Scotland is self supporting is the only battle we have to win.
Proud Cybernat says:
Yes its OK going on web sites but the voters we need to get at are those who do not use the internet and rely on BBC / MSM therefore we all need to be more pro active in sending letters to the press countering unionist misinformation.
Eventually editors will get the message
I think Greece should go for full fiscal autonomy.
Currency unions have a habit of being subsumed or falling apart.
The 19th century currency union between various states in what we now call Germany was used as a tool to achieve political unification which succeeded. The currency used eventually became the German mark.
Greece previously joined a European currency union in 1865 along with France, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium. It fell apart after about 60 years.
Sweden, Denmark and Norway formed a currency union in 1870 which Sweden terminated just over 50 years later.
The USA has had a currency union between the various individual states since 1863 but is now of course a single nation.
The Euro really started as the ERM about 35 years ago so, unless we move rapidly towards a formal United States of Europe, it will probably only have about another 20 to 30 years of life expectancy.
I think Greece should call it a day and go their own way.
As for Scotland? I always believed we should have declared for a separate Scottish currency (maybe resurrect the Scottish merk which would have had a modern value of just below £1.50).
As it is we have Scottish notes that represent what exactly? It’s not that they are not “legal tender” – no banknotes are “legal tender” in Scotland. But they are “legal currency” yet one for which there is no formal obligation for them to be accepted in any other part of the UK, Europe or the rest of the world.
Some currency union that is.
Macart says:
“Westminster was given a last chance to act like grown ups and in their arrogance and ignorance they blew it.”
Yes. I accepted the outcome of the referendum. A majority of Scots opted for FFA, Home Rule, near Federalism …. rather than independence. But as you say, WM are currently blowing away their winning position. So where does that leave us?
DD’s analysis about Greece is spot on. With FFA or independence, Scotland would not be another Greece. Clearly the whole Home Rule bribe is dissolving into DevoFA. So looks like we will be moving on to the other option of Independence probably sooner than later.
With Indyref1 something changed a 30% NO lead into a 10% lead. Of course all the hard work from everyone on the YES side played a big part. However, Project Fear and all the nonsense about currency union denial, did that help BT scare pensioners, or did it convert voters to Yes? Tom Devine reckons one of the step increases in the Yes vote was caused by Osborne refusing currency union.
By continuing Project Fear with Greece comparisons and killing The Vow, BT2 are helping us progress along the independence road at a pace none of dared to expect last September!
@Nana
No they won’t walk away, they’ll keep their word as promised.
As for those pricks who vote on issues they can’t even be bothered to turn up and debate on? I think they’ve made their intent toward Scotland crystal clear. Whatever meagre argument there was to be had out of devolution, pooling and sharing, oldest family of nations (and meagre is an exaggeration IMO), they’ve kicked it well into touch after this display.
Watching the Scotland Bill debate in Westminster, what strikes me is that having heard a lot of our people standing up for Scotland, makes me proud of them. They have been excellent, with very good points made, well and passionately.
They give me hope that they will make a difference.
There are other “Scots” there of course, who make me shake my head in despair. ie Murray and Mundell. What is also striking is how Westminster is politically maneuvered, and it is not subtle. The hall is mostly empty, when giving our all.
The Unionists do not listen, they just loudly fill the hall, sneer and talk to each other loudly, vote no, then laugh and walk out after the count. Job done. Shameful,never democratic.
@ Sinky
“…he voters we need to get at are those who do not use the internet and rely on BBC / MSM therefore we all need to be more pro active in sending letters to the press countering unionist misinformation.
The problem there is that the Unionist MSM control what is printed in the Unionist MSM.
Okay–some blue sky thinking about how to reach No voters with hard facts that bypasses the MSM.
My answer…. “Indy or Bust” – a boardgame for all the family. Each family member represents one of the 6 main political parties in Scotland of which three are Unionist (Cons, Lab ad LDs) and three are Indy (SNP, Greens, SSP).
The objective of the game is to win the referendum. Each question is weighted for difficulty but the harder questions win most votes. Parties can challenge each other and take votes off each other. All sorts of banana skins (bad TV interviews, poor performance in TV debates etc), leaked memos etc will further lose/win votes.
The side which accumulates 50%+1 vote wins the game. Of course all the questions will be nased on facts staright from the Rev’s Wee Blue Book.
Fun for the whole family and a means of educating people without them even realising it’s happening.
I’d prefer, in the event of independence, Scotland to join the euro. Basically, if we can make the break from these crooks, we should make it absolute. They’ve portrayed us as Nazis, idiots, weaklings, and more, and I think during the indyref campaign AS showed a weakness in asking for CU.
That coupled with the oap concerns about pensions not getting a bullet-point, simple answer by tv, cost us some votes.
@galamcennalath
“By continuing Project Fear with Greece comparisons and killing The Vow, BT2 are helping us progress along the independence road at a pace none of dared to expect last September!”
And a stand up job they’re making of it too. If they think the Scottish electorate powerless however, they may be in for a rude shock. The people have shown remarkable patience to date and they need to continue doing so for just that bit longer. They’ll get their chance to make their feelings known sooner than they think I reckon.
Is it just me, or is the BBC going out of its way not to refer to the ‘Hill’ as ‘Henman Hill’
You would be forgiven for thinking that they were contemplating another Referendum or something.
woosie says:
I’d prefer, in the event of independence, Scotland to join the euro. Basically, if we can make the break from these crooks, we should make it absolute. They’ve portrayed us as Nazis, idiots, weaklings, and more, and I think during the indyref campaign AS showed a weakness in asking for CU.
That coupled with the oap concerns about pensions not getting a bullet-point, simple answer by tv, cost us some votes.
Hi Woosie, I think there was a flaw here too. The Government of the UK were the only ones allowed to ask formally if we would be allowed into the EU and wouldn’t do so on our behalf therefore the whole currency argumennt was left with a gaping whole in it. That said though it wasn’t till afterwards that Salmond was right all along and we would be able to stay as a member of the EU.
It was yet another underhanded tactic so we must be prepared to tackle this one head on if we are to win the argument.
Good article. I hope Greece takes the decision to leave the Euro. It is their best option in my opinion. By controlling their own currency they can promote inward investment.(Carefully selective)
With regard to the Scotland Bill, remember laughing when the Vow was announced? Did we believe we would be given these powers? Even road signs can be vetoed by Mundell. Let’s hope that the rest of the population are beginning to see the light.
“at the mercy of Westminster if disaster strikes – as is currently the case,”
If that sentence is directed at Scotland I vehemently disagree with it. Scotland Independent and in a CU with UK would be no worse off than UK currently is.
I’m with Nana and macart, there is absolutely nothing that this Union offers to us or Scotland. The whole thing is such a sham watching the Bill.
Priti Patel on her feet reading what is obviously civil service prepared speech as to what cannot be given to Scotland. She is just reading it very fast as you would a newspaper, it’s disgusting, as its Access to Work remaining reserved.
Even on this, they are afraid of the SG making a success of getting more into work.
I’m a member of SNP, but they have to do more to explain in simple terms to people out there, who are not political geeks, and generally don’t pay attention to this detail.
I feel more and more depressed that we won’t keep momentum, unless everybody understands just how Scotland is held down and denigrated 🙁
Hearing that rally is being organised by RIC, this Thursday, Glasgow Buchanan St. ‘Steps’, 6 p.m. to show solidarity with the people of Greece.
Anyone else able to confirm this?
dcomerf: “Sharing Sterling was the flaw of the White Paper.”
Yeah but no but… Offering to share sterling was not, in itself, a flawed idea. That was carefully considered.
Instead, the real flaw was in the way the campaign was conducted around that issue.
Other options were clearly outlined in the White Paper – but not everybody had actually read it. So, when pressed on a “Plan B”, with no clear answer forthcoming, the MSM ws able to claim (wrongly) that there was no Plan B at all.
They should have reiterated more forcefully and more regularly that this was merely the preferred choice of several viable options.
My personal preference would have been an independent currency from the start – but the arguments for a Sterling Zone were perfectly plausible. At least as an interim measure.
OT While watching the HoC on the Scotland bill, I just listened to Priti Patel. She has been likened to Norman Tebbit Maggie’s henchman (or one of them) she supports the death penalty and that cigarettes should have the ban lifted.Nice!
http://www.archive.is/JEfAZ
The whole premise is fundamentally flawed. No meaningful comparison can be made between Scotland and Greece.
Greece does not have a first world advanced economy – Scotland does.
Greece had no industrial revolution – it was under Ottoman hegemony when most of Northern Europe began to industrialise. The 1913 Balkans war saw the end of wider Ottoman rule, the creation of Turkey and the Balkans component of modern Greece become part of Greece. Parts of that wider conflict were quite literally fought with spears, flintlocks and bows & arrows. I’ve seen them for myself in museums. Major parts of that region were ca.300 years behind modern Europe right into the 20th century.
Post 1913 the Greeks followed with 2 world wars, civil war and decades of military dictatorship right into the 70s.
They’re a very capable people but have had no real opportunity to develop what we would understand as a modern N European style economy. These things take time and a good measure of stability.
When lured into the Euro by Goldman Sachs and the well-meaning but Neo-con deluded Brussels elite, they were doomed. Apparently free and never ending credit was almost forced on them. Their relatively weak developing economy never had the capacity to take on the levels of debt thrown at them. And it’s not like the bankstas were unaware of that. I’ve little doubt they were and are expecting other EU nations to carry the can for their own dodgy Greek credit lines and bail them out yet again.
You’d be as well comparing Scotland to any number of developing countries. That Greeks are very capable and well-educated tends to mask the country’s relative lack of economic development – it may not be obvious prima facie. But understanding this is absolutely key to making any assessment of how and why the Greeks find themselves in this mess.
The demonising of Greeks is disgraceful. Of course there are a handful of examples of ridiculous scrounging in Greece. Just the same as we can find those things here. The neo-cons are demonising the Greeks in exactly the same way, singing the same tune, they use in Benefits Street, the DM, Express and so on. And in exactly the same way they persistently and falsely demonise the Scots as sponging off “hard working” English families.
Don’t be taken in by them demonising the Greeks in that way. If anyone should be able to see and understand how the MSM is trying to manipulate us – it’s us. Their worst crime is naivety in the face of the banksta-machine – and it’s not as if we didn’t get caught out by them too. The difference is that we had a very strong high-value underpinning economy that could carry us through. The Greeks didn’t and don’t – and that’s no crime.
This is real. I’ve in-laws with real decent paying jobs out there who literally have the Euros they have in their pockets and can’t get any more out of the banks. Some are saying they might last the week before the food begins to run out and they can’t buy more. We can’t even send them money via the banking system as it simply eats it and won’t give it to them.
The Greeks need our support in facing down the vicious neo-con extortion machine and its social criminality. So buy Greek stuff if you can and do go on holiday there (taking cash). They need our support – not the deeply ignorant and wrong tripe of Jones and his article.
I thought at the time of the referendum that being in a currency union with the RUK should only be a temporary thing,all the while preparing to launch our own currency.
Eventually the RUK would use any leverage against its smaller neighbour it had if we didn’t have the intention to do so. They wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to wield any power they had,like with that non starter,the Scotland bill comedy show on telly :).
The currency issue during IndRef1 was, if not *the* big issue/sticking point, certainly one of them.
Before IndRef2, whatever the decision is re currency it must be shown to be the correct choice for Scotland at that time, with the public given clear guidelines as to why it should be.
Personally, I would prefer Scotland to have its own currency. I understand why the Scottish government wanted to remain sharing Sterling should independence come into being, trying not to make independence seem so frightening for businesses and the public in general.
And yet we saw the result of this softly-softly approach – Westminster and the Establishment going into contortions of lies and fears: ‘It’s ours and not yours.’ ‘We won’t ‘allow’ a currency union.’ ‘It’s not viable.’ ‘Scotland will become a basket case.’ We will block any attempt at creating a currency union.’… ad nauseam.
Fuck’em, then. Let them keep ‘their’ Sterling. Watch it plummet like a stone as they are deprived of Scotland’s assets.
It would be a bit rough in Scotland for a few years, but our own currency would soon enough become one of the world’s hard currencies. Scotland would flourish. And it would be goodbye, good riddance and a great big GIRFUYz to the British Establishment and Westminster with their arrogance, contemptuousness and greed.
O/T
https://commonspace.scot/articles/1764/nicola-sturgeon-breaks-ranks-from-european-leaders-and-calls-for-debt-relief-for-greece
Christ oil may not be the be all and end all but it don’t half help.I work for an oil supply company that supplies actuators and other oil related products .If you look away from the actual oil to what’s left of our engineering sector which is heavily reliant on the oil industry.We are expecting anything from 60 to 80 redundancies announced tomorrow .
Every oil executive and Westminster politician from the last 3 decades just be strung up on a fucking lamppost from one end of Scotland to the other for the appalling misuse of our resources.
My wife and I have lots of Greek friends, mostly living in Athens.
We get really pis*ed off with the usual stereotype, that they never pay taxes etc.
Most of the friends are in medicine (Doctors etc.)
The wages they are paid compared to the UK for the same work and medical position, is no comparison.
I remember being in Athens when they used the drachma and the prices for basic provisions were a lot less than when they joined the euro.
Some of our friends have had to go back to work, (in their late 60s), having paid their way all their lives.
The best thing the Greeks can do is stick two fingers up to the IMF.
I read something at the weekend, which says Greece owes 130 Billion, and the UK 1000 Billion.
Give me Greek debt any day.
Ian the time and date for the RIC rally is here
https://commonspace.scot/articles/1762/democracy-vs-austerity-glasgow-set-for-greece-solidarity-demonstration
The currency position was definitely a major blunder as it gave our opponents the opportunity to say NO.
We should have stated that we intend to set up our own currency when the time is right, and in the meantime we’ll be using Sterling, thank you very much.
Of course we’re open to negotiations if the rUK government would like a more formal arrangement.
Well said Dal Riata. Nothing more to add.
Nana @ 6.25 pm
Ms Sturgeon also has an article in the on-line Guardian covering the same topic.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/30/referendums-eu-leaders-greek-exit-no-vote-austerity-nicola-sturgeon
Interesting that many of the comments are criticising the messenger rather than taking note of her sensible suggestions.
Would Scotland be compensated if we were to dissolve the union and what remained kept the pound?
Scotland is nothing like Greece. Scotland should be more like Norway if Westminster hadn’t secretly taken Scotland’s resources and spend £Billions on banking fraud and illegal wars. Westminster is s farce. The UK is in massive debt because of Westminster mismanagement. They are determined to take £10Billion a year from Scotland for Trident/illegal wars, tax evasion and banking fraud and leave Scotland worse off. The sooner Scotland gets out of this corrupt Union the better. Five years of this nonsense should do it. They have reneged on everything that was promised in the Smith Agreement.
Every ammendment being voted down!! The H.O.C. showing us what it means to be in this “Better Together” crap. Tory M.P”s are few on the benches for debates but come out the woodwork to kick us in the youknowwhats on the Division voting. The labour Party are even worse. I feel sorry for our 56 S.N.P .M.P’s. Great arguments but falling on the Establishment”s Poodles via Tory Parliament”s majority. After this we have to up the game and withdraw to our Scottish Parliament and tell them we are sovereign not WESTMINSTER??
I see the tories had at times as few as 5 of their complement at their place of work at times during the Scotland Bill debates. With the massed ranks of the SNP opposite I wonder if they ever contemplate barring the doors and taking over the government benches for a laugh. They could give that obstacle Mundell a wedgie while their at it.
After this afront to democracy where every amendment is voted down to spite the SNP and the people of Scotland, to put us in our place I wonder what point there is in engaging in the Westminster process.
It is not just the crumbling ancient palace that is unfit for purpose. The problem had been that we thought of the United Kingdom as a union (never of equals but a union). It is clearly no such thing.
Summer’s here but we are still getting pissed on.
Valerie
Almost certainly depends on how it plays out in the msn. Not much hope of folk hearing the reality then.
Another day in uk northern colony.
Why is the simplest answer always overlooked…We need our own currency either backed by gold (rather expensive to start up) or backed by OUR labour, we need to have a real and true, national PUBLIC central bank that doesn’t partake in fractional reserve lending or report to a private board or shareholders. This way we will become one of the richest nations on the planet as the usurious banking cartel would be finished and Scotland would seriously flourish exponentially.
A great article but it has the flaw of encouraging the myth that Greece is a basket case economy.
The case of Greece has a lot of lessons to be learned for Scotland in any future scenario. Think of what is happening to Greece compared to what happened to Iceland and what has transpired since the banking crash.
Even if a referendum in Greece says No the country is still at the mercy of the financial interests and manipulators.
The West were very reticent of Scotland shaking the apple cart, upsetting the various interests, hence the interventions by puppet Obama and co.
I fully agree with the view that Greece is being menaced with extereme usury with money loaned from countries for the sole purpose of paying through extortion the same countries corrupt banks and lenders in the first place, eg. largely to cover weapons sales from Germany to Greece that they never needed. This is partly the fault of previous weak Greece governments and politicians but that is not a burden that the people should bear (remember Iceland). So there is no moral high ground for the EU, and the EU has behaved worse than even the IMF.
The lesson for Scotland is that we are also open to Financial institutions and vested interests playing with our lives and economy. I am not at all an economist, but it is worth having a look at what factors influence the feasibility for financial crises and manipulation form outside interests. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_control#The_impossible_trinity_trilemma
I personally believe that the SNP, like the Greek government, have been blinkered in judging friend from foe and are far too trusting in Europe eg. as in fairer than the UK (though I am not against the EU).
This week is the week where a kabal is stitching us up like a kipper.
All Scotland Bill Amendments binned. EVIL will progress on Thursday making our MP’s second class,massive erosion of power and influence in a United Kingdom that can never again have a Scottish MP as Prime Minister, Chancelor or the Exchequer or any meaningfull high office.
If you think for one minute playing the Westminster game will deliver anything then this week is your reckoning.
This is our punishment for daring to question the sovereignty of the Union.
The system and numbers are loaded to the Establishment. Unless the SNP play some serious hardball we will be pissing into wind.
The Guardian posters are not very good at elementary Maths or accuracy. The SNP only stood candidate in 59 seats. UKIP stood candidates in more seats. Divide total of no of votes by no of seats to get average. Ie 3.8Million by 600? UKIP average. Total no of SNP votes by 59 to give average.
MJS Dundee @6.13 pm.
An excellent post MJM. Very well put.
A lot of other good postings from other as well.
I have noted that our small, democratic, peaceful country has been successively compared by the UK press and the No campaign to Albania, Belarus, North Korea, Nazi Germany, Zimbabwe, Serbia, and now Greece.
Our politicians have been called Fascists, left wing extremists, communists, tartan Tories, and a dozen other epithets.
Our yes voters are called thugs, mobs, racists, economic illiterates, dupes and xenophobes.
I am amazed at our tolerance, but there is a limit and the braying and contemptuous Tories voting down anything to Scotland’s advantage are pushing us towards that limit.
SNP are the only hope Scotland has , unfortunately the unionists will fight tooth and nail to preserve the status quo, it really doesn’t matter how many are hurt in the process. Westminster hasn’t learned from history and seem intent on continuing to press the wrong buttons. No matter what transpires in the next decade , the SNP will get the blame.
John Redmond sprouts nonsense. A currency Union was only envisaged in the short time until people in Scotland could decide. Currency is only a form of exchange. All the EU countries have to carry a ratio of debt to ensure stability. Unlike the UK Treasury which prints money.
We are currently in the position of a slave who tried to do a runner but was caught by his owner and brought back, and has now had any previous small liberties taken away; stronger chains have been shackled to our ankles and our shoes removed.
The boss man is now taking kicks at us and laughing.
Being nice to ‘the man’ doesn’t work folks. The slave should have killed the bastard when he had the chance.
The currency issue was no more than a hook to impale the Yes campaign on in the run up to the referendum. It was a deliberate, co-ordinated ploy of the all elements of the British establishment to focus on an issue that was outside the ken of the ordinary voter. It was and will ever be insoluble. The SNP went out of its way repeatedly to provide a rational argument which was always going to be shouted down. They should have said ‘we have explained our position’ and refused to be drawn further. We allowed our opponents to define the agenda for debate. THAT is the lesson we must learn from the currency issue.
We need also to stop thinking that we have to go on forever ‘winning the arguments’. It is now as clear as daylight, to anyone who wants to know, what the real issues are regarding independence. Deciding in favour of it means taking the risk. When it is patently clear that the majority of Scots want to take that risk there should be another referendum – not a day sooner. To do so sooner is just to inflict unnecessary pain on ourselves.
Decimating SLAB was key to us being able to progress after they sold out Scotland in the Referendum. The behaviour of Labour at Westminster should show us that we now have to defeat that party at all levels. They are the heart of unionist support in Scotland. Day in, day out they spread the unionist message of fear and smear. It is what they have done for at least the past 50 years. Only when we have thoroughly undermined all their influence will the majority of Scots feel confident enough to take the risk of putting their faith in themselves. Then the phoney unionist arguments will fall on deaf ears.
@G H Graham says: 30 June, 2015 at 2:12 pm
“The gradualist approach made by Salmond pre-referendum, appears now in the shadow of the NO vote, to have been a major error.”
Sheesh! Can we get you to stand in for Salmond as a special advisor to the Scottish Government, D H?
After all you do seem to be much more of a political tactician than that absolute duffer Salmond who has prevented Scottish Independence all those years.
Look G H, if it comes down to you or Salmond having their fingers on the pulse I’m going for Salmond’s views every time.
I’m not the only one, and I remember the Rev Stu saying almost exactly the same thing as I.
No matter if we won or lost the referendum FFA, Devo-Max or any other set of powers that would benefit Scotland was never going to happen. We said the Better Together liars had no powers, they were almost all without political power of any sort to promise anything, and a bunch of proven liars. We said that win, draw or lose anything promised would never pass the de facto Parliament of England in the commons and anything that did slip through would fail in the Lords and then bounce back and forward between the two for years and years. It was never going to happen.
We said the very same about the GE so we are not surprised that the SNP contingent are being treated as irrelevant in the Commons. What we also said was that we had to go through the motions to expose the scam to the Scottish electorate and that is what we are watching now. So keep the heid and bear with it for now this phase is indeed a big step forward.
@ nodrog says at 3:39 pm
”Question – When does a deficit become a blackhole ?
Answer – when it is Scotland’s share of the UK deficit.
The 2015 UK deficit is around £90 billion and Scotland’s share of that would be just over £7 billion. However the establishment propaganda machine will not call it “Scotland’s share of the UK deficit” preferring the fear factor that “Scotland’s £7 billion blackhole” might create.
”
Nodrog this is one issue that really annoys me. They are banking on the fact that very few people have an understanding of economic affairs (like myself, lol).
No one, such as the MSM, seems to want to mention that the UK has a 90 billion plus deficit, debt of 1.5 trillion and hasn’t gone under, YET. I just wish one of the SNP MPs would say something about this in the Commons. I’ve also been reading up on ‘deficits’ and as far as I can make out most countries on the planet, including the US, have deficits and cope with them, in fact it seems to be the norm.
@ Les Wilson says at 4:28 pm
”The hall is mostly empty, when giving our all. The Unionists do not listen, they just loudly fill the hall, sneer and talk to each other loudly, vote no, then laugh and walk out after the count. Job done. Shameful, never democratic…”
Les this whole Westminster debacle is just utterly disgusting. I could hardly bear to watch it so have no idea how our MPs are managing to put up with this: one amendment after another being rejected.
This isn’t coming from Mundell although I’m sure he’s more than happy to go along with it. This is coming from the top. Cameron has obviously told them to ‘sort the Scots / SNP out’. Deliberately avoid the debate and then just wander in en masse and vote NO to EVERYTHING. To add insult to injury the English are demanding EVEL due to the unfairness of the situation but can’t see or don’t want to see what we are having to contend with.
You’re right Les we’re not living in a democracy. We’re shackled to a dictatorship made clear by being ruled by a Party that two thirds of people in the UK didn’t vote for and with their one and only representative in Scotland holding sway over the lives of 5 million people. One wee man that speaks with a forked tongue … with a Murphy type creepy voice. I’m not violent by nature, far from it, but would love to give him a hard slap on the kisser.
They’re just not one bit interested in Scotland (other than our resources), are not listening, never have done and never will do. Well hell mend them. It’s this arrogant, dismissive, patronising attitude towards us that led to a near win Referendum and 56 SNP MPs being sent to Westminster. Our MPs were sending a warning shot across their bows today by mentioning India and Eire (Parnell). Are they really so blind that they can’t see where this is going …. to end …. sooner than later?
@ nodrog says at 3:39 pm
”Question – When does a deficit become a blackhole ?
Answer – when it is Scotland’s share of the UK deficit.
The 2015 UK deficit is around £90 billion and Scotland’s share of that would be just over £7 billion. However the establishment propaganda machine will not call it “Scotland’s share of the UK deficit” preferring the fear factor that “Scotland’s £7 billion blackhole” might create.
”
Nodrog this is one issue that really annoys me. They are banking on the fact that very few people have an understanding of economic affairs (like myself, lol).
No one, such as the MSM, seems to want to mention that the UK has a 90 billion plus deficit, debt of 1.5 trillion and hasn’t gone under, YET. I just wish one of the SNP MPs would say something about this in the Commons. I’ve also been reading up on ‘deficits’ and as far as I can make out most countries on the planet, including the US, have deficits and cope with them, in fact it seems to be the norm.
@ Les Wilson says at 4:28 pm
”The hall is mostly empty, when giving our all. The Unionists do not listen, they just loudly fill the hall, sneer and talk to each other loudly, vote no, then laugh and walk out after the count. Job done. Shameful, never democratic…”
Les this whole Westminster debacle is just utterly disgusting. I could hardly bear to watch it so have no idea how our MPs are managing to put up with this: one amendment after another being rejected.
This isn’t coming from Mundell although I’m sure he’s more than happy to go along with it. This is coming from the top. Cameron has obviously told them to ‘sort the Scots / SNP out’. Deliberately avoid the debate and then just wander in en masse and vote NO to EVERYTHING. To add insult to injury the English are demanding EVEL due to the unfairness of the situation but can’t see or don’t want to see what we are having to contend with.
You’re right Les we’re not living in a democracy. We’re shackled to a dictatorship made clear by being ruled by a Party that two thirds of people in the UK didn’t vote for and with their one and only representative in Scotland holding sway over the lives of 5 million people. One wee man that speaks with a forked tongue … with a Murphy type creepy voice. I’m not violent by nature, far from it, but would love to give him a hard slap on the kisser.
They’re just not one bit interested in Scotland (other than our resources), are not listening, never have done and never will do. Well hell mend them. It’s this arrogant, dismissive, patronising attitude towards us that led to a near win Referendum and 56 SNP MPs being sent to Westminster. Our MPs were sending a warning shot across their bows today by mentioning India and Eire (Parnell). Are they really so blind that they can’t see where this is going …. to end …. sooner than later?
@MJack says: 30 June, 2015 at 2:16 pm:
“I would have gone for a currency union at first but after hearing Giddeon tell us we can’t have one I realised that I didn’t want a vindictive Westminster to have any say over our affairs so I don’t see any problem with a Scottish pound!”
Don’t you get it even yet, MJack? The reason they entire Establishment came together to tell us we were not getting to share, “Their”, currency was because they were shitting themselves in case we did. They knew as well as I do they could not prevent an independent Scotland using Sterling if the Scots wished to.
They knew that a strong and growing stronger Scottish economy would harden the pound against the other World currencies and Scotland could cope with that but the rest of the UK could not. Scotland would go on prospering and it would be the Scots economy, not the English, that would end up regulating such things as exchange rates and interest rates.
Can’t you see their tactics even yet? Just about everything they have claimed is the exact opposite to the truth and the propaganda.
Sturgeon breaks ranks from European leaders and calls for debt relief for Greece
Not the most recent essay, but relevant still in view of Nicola Sturgeon’s opinion:
https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/greeces-trojan-horse/
https://www.facebook.com/ScottishUDI
Nicola Sturgeon compiles a fair piece for the Guardian on the possibilties of a Grexit and how it is the people of Greece that have had to bear the terrible brunt of the austerity measures imposed upon their country… and what do you get BTL? Comment after comment from the English hard-right and trolls/flamers being liars, abusive, offensive, hateful, anti-Scottish… you name it. Disgusting.
I used to comment regularly on the Guardian BTL, but since the beginning of the Scottish independence campaign when the Guardian outed itself as being, not the “left-leaning” organisation it claimed itself to be, but just one more member of the corrupt bought-and-paid-for right-wing UK mainstream media, I rarely bother. Any Scottish-based article BTL (if they actually allow comments) is now infested with the likes of those now stinking out Sturgeon’s article BTL.
Moderation? It used to be relatively fair, but now most of the offensive trash is allowed to stand – as long as it’s against Scotland. Try the same in the other direction and expect to be quickly moderated, if not ‘disappeared’ completely.
There are a number of stalwarts fighting the good fight there on Scotland’s behalf, and very good they are too. But the numbers are nowhere like what they once were – and who can blame them. Why bother when faced with such depressingly offensive flaming time after time.
MolliBlum at 6.03
Exactly. Some of us are still at it, believing what our opponents are insisting were our mistakes so we can attack our own side.
The currency union on independence was an entirely sensible position which is why it was relentlessly attacked. Any position we took on currency would have been relentlessly attacked and the currency union was perhaps the least bad of the proposals from that point of view.
This is not to say that I don’t think that other options had their appeals but I believe the mean attitude towards shared currency translated for many into a sensation that they were threatening to deliberately ruin us and did us no harm whatsover
An independent Scotland of course would have been free to set up its own currency at any point in the future anyway.
More importantly it had no affect on the voting as far as I could see as it figured near the bottom of any concerns and not one person mentioned it to us in a very extensive canvas in this area.
Some people seem to have already forgotten that we nearly won (or in fact did win)despite a massive and continuous campaign against us in virtually all of the media which has been going on for the best part of four decades telling us we are too poor and too stupid.
If we rise to the bait and continue arguing about a multitude of diversionary intricities that are flung in front of us by our opponents we will not concentrate on winning the only important argument – which is that Scotland (with or without oil and gas revenues) has a perfectly viable economy and is self supporting.
We win that argument,we win independence
Dal Riata: but since … the Guardian outed itself as being, not “left-leaning”
Led by Mr Topiary ‘Tache himself!
(In years to come we’ll read he was moonlighting for MI5)
Robert Peffers at 8.35
Well said
@Valerie
Yes it is a sham Valerie and as Robert and so many others have said, we knew this farce was in the offing long before its actuality. Even during the referendum most of us were arguing this would be the case in event of a no vote.
Unfortunately we must now go through this painful period and be patient. We must allow this treatment and its consequences to seep well into the electorate’s consciousness. That I’m afraid is going to be our job. We can’t count on the media, they’re not our media or anything like it. So its up to the anoraks to get the word out and spread it to any and all who will listen.
We all know the drill by this time. Talk to anyone and everyone, post it on facebook, twitter, blogs, websites, talk to friends, neighbours, workmates and encourage them to do the same. Their treatment of our votes and representatives will get round all right.
Update from the Orkney / Shetland fundraiser http://www.theorkneyvole.com/2015/06/30/he-people-behind-the-crowdfunding-campaign-for-the-legal-case-to-hold-orkney-and-shetland-mp-alistair-carmichael-accountable-for-his-behaviour-before-during-and-after-the-2015-general-election-campai/
Robert Peffers honey – love it xx.
Cadogan Enright
thanks for the update.
@MJack says: 30 June, 2015 at 2:20 pm
“I’d also say that as well as Scottish currency we should declare an intention to only join the European Economic Area at first, like Norway, until we decide to fully join Europe after a few years. That would take the wind out of two unionist sails!”
Don’t be stupid and consider the actual truth instead of soaking up the Establishment propaganda bullshit and swallowing as if it were honey.
The name of the EU member STATE, is The UNITED KINGDOM, and a Kingdom is a Royal Realm while the word United means there are more than one realm within that United Kingdom. In fact there are only two royal realms as signatory kingdoms on the Treaty of Union.
The two are the three country Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland and they are equally sovereign signatories. However, as to legal sovereignty the two are very different. In Scotland the People are legally sovereign so when they elect a person to represent them that person is delegated to exercise the people’s sovereignty. In the three country Kingdom of England their monarchy gave away their sovereign right, (in 1688/9), to the English Parliament and they became a Constitutional Monarchy. That means, although their electorate elect representatives, these representatives are delegated to exercise the legal Sovereignty of the Monarchy who delegated it to the Parliament.
So here’s the real deal. If the two kingdoms revert to the Status Quo ante of being independent of each other then there is no remaining EU Member State but as the people of the former member state are also EU citizens the EU has no way, rules or regulations to expel citizens. They must thus treat each Kingdom as still existing equal member states, (but obviously both must renegotiate new terms).
So why did Scottish people suck up the words of EU Commissioners while rejecting the words of EU parliamentarians? A Commissioner is a paid, (commissioned), employee of the EU Parliament and has NO decision making powers. They are the EU’s Civil Servants.
Furthermore, when a bipartite union ends there is no way that one partner is still united while the other is not. I.e. When two partners divorce they are both divorced and it is a bipartite United Kingdom not a quadratic union of countries.
So get real and look for the truth instead of Establishment bullshit.
So here’s a wee thought for you – as the EU has no mechanism to expel an EU member state or even an EU citizen from the EU just what can they do about Greece as long as Greece does not ask to leave the EU?
Now there is no precedent of a member state leaving the EU but there is for leaving the EU’s predecessor community.
This from Wiki : –
Withdrawal from the European Union is a right of European Union (EU) member states under Treaty on European Union (Article 50): “Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.”
While no state has ever withdrawn from the EU, Greenland, part of the Danish Realm, voted to leave the EU’s predecessor, the European Economic Community (EEC), in 1985, and Algeria left upon independence in 1962, having been a part of France until then.
No member state has ever held a national referendum on withdrawal from the European Union, though in 1975 the United Kingdom held a national referendum on withdrawal from its predecessor, the EEC; 67.2% of voters chose to remain in the Community.
@MJack says: 30 June, 2015 at 2:20 pm:
I’d also say that as well as Scottish currency we should declare an intention to only join the European Economic Area at first, like Norway, until we decide to fully join Europe after a few years. That would take the wind out of two unionist sails!
@ Dave McEwan Hill says: at 8:47
”If we rise to the bait and continue arguing about a multitude of diversionary intricities that are flung in front of us by our opponents we will not concentrate on winning the only important argument – which is that Scotland (with or without oil and gas revenues) has a perfectly viable economy and is self supporting. We win that argument, we win independence.”
I’ve just followed up on a comment I came across in The National.
Credit Suisse Research Institute – The Success of Small Countries (2015)
The Credit Suisse Research Institute identifies and provides insights on global themes and trends. The objective of the Research Institute is to provide our clients with leading-edge insights by leveraging internal and external expertise, thus reinforcing our integrated global bank approach.
The Institute was established in December 2008 to explore new emerging or influential topics. Working with some of the world’s most distinguished experts, academics, institutions and Credit Suisse’s global network of 400 analysts, the Institute makes this information available throughout the bank for the business units to create innovative products, solutions and services for Credit Suisse’s clients.
Clients increasingly require global reach, local expertise and competitive products and services from the financial services industry. The Institute’s investigations are conducted with the goal to furnish clients across divisions and regions with an in-depth analysis of fundamental social, economic, scientific, environmental and demographic trends that are expected to impact global markets in the future.
‘In several regions of the world, independence movements exist or have existed (e.g. Quebec). Purely for the sake of comparison we have included them in the human development score table on page 8.
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite measure of health, education and income.
Given the prevailing interest, we calculate the HDI scores for Catalonia, Flanders, Wallonia, Quebec and Scotland … In terms of wealth per adult, small countries are just ahead of large countries on average ….
Quebec would rank the highest among these regions/countries and 13th globally, compared to 11th for Canada. However, based on our calculations, both Catalonia and Scotland will rank higher than Spain and the UK, respectively.
Scotland would rank 23rd if we include a geographical allocation to Scotland’s GNI related to the North Sea oil output, versus the current 27th place for the UK and the
hypothetical 30th for the UK ex-Scotland. ** Note that even excluding any allocation of oil output, Scotland would still rank ahead of the UK, but just so.**
@MJack says: 30 June, 2015 at 2:20 pm:
“I’d also say that as well as Scottish currency we should declare an intention to only join the European Economic Area at first, like Norway, until we decide to fully join Europe after a few years. That would take the wind out of two unionist sails!”
Give us a break, MJack. Did you know that Norway has already warned Scotland that only joining the EEA is a bad idea as such members pay exactly the same dues as full members but have no rights to vote or make decisions. Furthermore, and I may be wrong, I believe you do not apply to join you get invited to join. Anyway as EU citizens we are already members.
The Greeks are being stitched up by the the EU, ECB and the IMF. Unfortunately they really are in a no win situation.
Vote for more austerity, then that is what you will get.
Vote for no more austerity then we we are in the twilight zone and anything can happen.
The poorest have nothing to lose by voting No and I believe they will, however if the Yes vote succeeds I see trouble on the streets.
The bankers and The Bildeburg group shoulder the blame for all of this, I’m sure all this was discussed at their recent meeting and decisions made.
The wrong decisions for us, the right decisions for them?
Much despair on show here this evening. And no, I’m not going to give it the usual spiel about keeping the chins up etc because I’m utterly sick of it too.
This is what they want. They’re grinding us down, insulting us, rubbing our faces in it. We knew they would, and there must be many hundreds of comments in past threads stating as much explicitly. But there’s no great satisfaction to be had in saying ‘we told you so’ to the switherers and fence-perchers – it’s as futile as the latest macho bluster from the Daily Record.
Hold your gunfire folks. The Tories and Mundell are so stupid they are playing into the SNPs hands. Recruiting sergeants each and everyone of them and why Salmond is so relaxed about what he is witnessing. Yes, I am disgusted about the attitude of the Unionist parties during the debate and vote on the Scotland Bill and would dearly like to smack Mundell about the face, however, I am content knowing this is playing into the narrative to win the next Independence referendum. Mark my words, Robertson and Sturgeon know this. As I said to a dear friend in 2007, ‘it is written in the stars’ that this country will become Independent.
Sod saying we’re joining the EU or EEA.
Wind them up by declaring a St Andrew’s Union & that we’re joining up with Greece & Russia.
@Robert Peffers 2:16 pm
Well said and how true Robert. They are trying to rile us into playing their prepared game by rubbing our noses in the dirt, belittling, vilifying, lying and as for the absolute disgrace of Priti Patel’s arrogant and ignorant performance in the English Parliament today, and Mr Muddle sitting behind her wetting himself like the good Bulington chap he is, a proper nasty tractor & quail without a spine.
The establishment are hoping we either go back in our box like all good little natives with our tail between our legs or we react in a way that allows them to put us under the cosh and knock us back into the serfs quarters, and I ain’t going willingly or any other way.
They, the establishment and the whole complete rotten and corrupt system have dropped the pretence and are beginning to show their true colours and the big stick is not so far away.
The end of this sick Union of the “elite” is in its death throws and the silly bastards can’t see it coming. FTA
Petra: @8.30pm
Aye Petra, ‘The National Debt’ the one giant elephant in the room that most of the MSM and Westmidden ignore.
The following article was from May of last year:
The Interest on the UK’s £1.27 trillion debt to hit £1bn a week
Although the above was when the UK debt stood at £1.27 trillion it has now passed £1.5 trillion.
It now stands at an eye watering £1,5trillion+ and climbing by £5,170 per second.
.
The EU, ECB and IMF’s only goal in these so called negotiations is to rid Greece of the Syriza party. This is their fear that the “contagion” spreads to Spain, Portugal and elsewhere.
Containment is the name of the game. For all our sakes we cannot let the likes of these win.
The struggle goes on.
Dave Mcewan-Hill – “we win that argument(the economic one) we win independence”. Agreed. Now explain how to win the economic argument. Currency, pensions, ageing population, taxes raised versus govt spending, wages, the EU, and of course oil – these issues will be used relentlessly against independence again and as far as I can see we still have no coherent stance apart from the Wee Blue Book – IMO we need a website dedicated to precise reliable economic data that we can access at anytime to prove the case for independence. For instance what is the likely Govt spend of an Independent scotland ? how much tax would be required, how much borrowing ?
Indiegogos Greek bail out fundraiser crashes under world interest:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/igg-errorpage/greece_message.html
We must stand by the people of Greece. The EU banksters are trying to make them the scapegoats for the debt THEY got the Greek people into.
All my lovely cherubs – heads up, there is nothing happening that is a surprise!
We warned about all this – now go forth and multiply that vote for a modern European democracy.
European because that is where we are geographically – The people of Scotland will decide on the political reality.
Now stop being a bunch of whateverwotzies and get out there!
While we should be grateful that the Rev is prepared to read the Scotsman on our behalf we all know where Peter Jones is coming from, In the run up to the General Election on 5th May he was recommending that voters should “hold their noses and vote for whoever they thought could defeat the Scottish National Party candidate”; a revealing insight into his thinking and the final result indicating the extent of his influence.
When all around us lose their heads.
I cant believe some of the more noteable posters on here.What the FK did you,s think would happen to the Scotland Bill.
We have CATCHED SCOTLAND or did some of you,s forget those words of Westminster. I know some of you.s arent into History,but if you dont learn from the past,we cant move forward into the future.
Im not SNP or any other party ,but I have faith in the 56, to see the Scotland Bill through to the Bitter End & it will be Bitter End, thats all Westminster know’s.Anyone thinking from the Day & Hour of the Vow & Smith, that Westminster we,re listening to the People of Scotland were deluding themselves.
NOTHING is what’s on offer & NOTHING is what we,ll get, but it does show up the Westminster Gov, Tories & Labour. They’ll Rub Salt in the wounds of the Scottish People & Tax US for it.
Set your sights on LOOKING FORWARD TO HOLLYROOD ELECTIONS.
Cmon Greece, make them Dance to your tune ZORBA THE GREEK.
Crowdsource campaign to fund Greece started by shoe shop worker from London.
http://rt.com/uk/270775-crowdfunding-greek-bailout-debt/
http://scottishindependence.com/2015/06/alex-salmond-the-establishment-has-lost-and-nationalists-have-won/
Has the added delight of the whole of the Celtic/Inter Milan European Cup Final on 25th May 1967 further down in the same post.
2017. What better year for a independence referendum. We could hold on the 60th Anniversary of Celtic’s win -surely Scotland’s greatest sporting on 25th May (Four weeks after we wipe Labour out in the Council elections) or in November 2017 on the 60th Anniversary of Winnie Ewing winning Hamilton
@Ken500 says: 30 June, 2015 at 7:53 pm:
“John Redmond sprouts nonsense.””
Yeah! But! Ken500, John Redmond always has spouted pish.
Did you expect any other kind of spouting by him?
Good article, Doug.
If the MSM had spent the 40 years before the referendum giving a truly impartial account of Scotland’s economic position, I’m utterly convinced we would have voted Yes. That the GERS Scotland figures were demonstrably initiated by Ian Lang in the early 90s for political purposes (“w’ur too poor”) is simply airbrushed from the unionist narrative.
Post-crash, unionists of all hues (including eg the ‘progressive’ New Statesman’) laid into Salmond’s ‘arc of prosperity’ theme with gusto. The arc being Norway, Ireland and Iceland. Because, you see, not content with telling their fellow Scots they’re endemically poor, they felt the need to insult two of their European neighbours by letting them know they’re also economic basket-cases. But how things change within 3/4 years. Because look! What’s this?
IMF List of Countries by GDP per capita (2014):
Norway (6th)
Ireland (13th)
Iceland (22nd)
*UK* (27th)
(Source : Wikipedia)
As Magrit Curran would say, “bloody fu’riners”….
The direct impact of the austerity measures in Greece on population health- 50000 Greek diabetics unable to access insulin,20% suicide rate in men, malaria outbreak-the first since 1970,HIV outbreak -Medecin Sans Frontieres launches emergency medical relief for the Greeks(although it normally operates in the war torn regions of the globe). Athens had to reduce health spending from 10.6 billion euros in 2009 to 7 billion in 2012 in the middle of an HIV outbreak, increased homelessness and rising suicides. A Greek tragedy indeed.
Kentikelenis, A, Karanikolos, M, Papanikolas, I, Basu, S, McKee, M, and Stuckler, D. Health effects of financial crisis: omens of a Greek tragedy. Lancet. 2011; 378: 1457–1458
Meanwhile in Scotland- the effects of the welfare cuts seen almost immediately in GP surgeries in the most deprived areas of Scotland;
http://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/healthwellbeing/research/generalpractice/deepend/reports/
Report 16 of GPs at the Deep End report on the effects of austerity.
The monstrosity is that austerity does not save a failing economy -it is part of the problem not the solution.Germany recognised this in 2009 when it implemented a 50 billion euro stimulus to its own economy (of course our Nordic neighbours have known this for some time including Iceland who followed its own vision and increased health spend by 20% during its banking crisis)acknowledging that social protection systems are vital to helping a country’s economy grow.
The IMF had to admit that it had underestimated the harms caused by austerity -not only was austerity not helping the Greek economy recover (Government debt levels reached 160% of GDP in 2012)but the IMF and European Central Bank were channelling money through Greece directly back to the creditors who had contributed to Greece’s catastrophic financial bubble. In other words Greece’s bail out was not helping Greece but the public funds were being used to bail out the world’s banking elite.
The distance between the rich and poor matters-Plato argued that no one should be four times richer than the poorest in society- a very ancient and radical argument that would help address many of the wrongs that are being visited upon the world’s citizens.
Don’t be surprised if the “City Traders” the world over, are rubbing their hands in glee, at the thought of Greece failing.
No doubt they will have huge bets on the result with dodgy trading.
We should stand shoulder to shoulder with our Greek friends, and tell the city boys where to go.
I hope the Greeks tell the IMF to GTF.
@The Rough Bounds says: 30 June, 2015 at 7:56 pm:
“The boss man is now taking kicks at us and laughing.
Being nice to ‘the man’ doesn’t work folks. The slave should have killed the bastard when he had the chance.”
The slave was not then angry enough – but the slave is watching parliament TV nowadays and the anger is welling up to bursting point. Watch this space.
@ Ken500
@ Robert Peffers.
How do you,s know, do you,s speak Welsh (smilies).
@ronnie anderson –
I understand your frustration, but getting pissed-off about what’s happening is not necessarily down to ‘surprise’ at the treatment of the Scotland Bill.
What I’m hacked off about is the humiliation that is accompanying the process. It’s sadistic provocative abuse. Just as well the 56 SNP MPs are professional politicans – most of us are not, and what is happening goes way beyond what most ordinary citizens would accept in the course of their ‘job’.
A few years ago, Alec Salmond was suggesting that an iScotland could adopt the Euro. What happened to this idea?
On the debt statistics, some context:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/government-debt-to-gdp
Greece’s government debt/GDP ratio is reported at 175 percent of GDP, compared with 90 percent for the UK. That is a huge difference. New Zealand – a small country like Scotland – is currently reported at a government debt to GDP ratio of 36 percent (same source).
Watching the proceedings at HoC is strangely fascinating. Every stage in the process is interesting. A website which captured special moments with explanatory notes would be good.
How small the Chamber looks.
I can’t believe I’m spending so much time glued to HoC debates!
Who is that person sitting on a “throne” opposite the speaker, beside the SNP members? What are they doing?
56 is not enough. We need to get the “Northern League afiliated with the SNP” up and running.
Yeah but it’ll only take more seats from Labour. True but then the Tories need Labour to continue the duopoly. 25% of all voters moved in GE15 see
electoralcalculus.co.uk/Analysis_votermigration.html
and when you have people in Ipswitch asking why they can’t vote SNP, well here’s a way, the “Anglian Confederacy”. Who knows maybe even a “Ba’th Party” in the West?
What might our English afiliates manage? 12%, UKIP levels, but if we have concentrated them another 60 or so seats. A lot of mischief there.
@ Capella
The one with the mutton-chop whiskers is Robin Fell, Principal Doorkeeper. Various other people also sit in that seat from time to time.
http://www.totalpolitics.com/print/427412/here-come-the-men-in-black.thtml
@Macart says: 30 June, 2015 at 9:07 pm:
“Unfortunately we must now go through this painful period and be patient. We must allow this treatment and its consequences to seep well into the electorate’s consciousness.
That indeed is my impression, Macart but here I’m going to make a prediction. You say, “That I’m afraid is going to be our job. We can’t count on the media, they’re not our media or anything like it. So its up to the anoraks to get the word out and spread it to any and all who will listen. “
I’m thinking that this present display in the Westminster debating chamber which will be followed by even worse in the Lords and then, when the coming austerity cuts arrive, the job of we activists will by a lot less hard than either the referendum or the GE campaign.
The difference will be that the unconverted will not need convincing that Scotland is under the Westminster cosh for most of the former unbelievers will be suffering enough for them to come asking our help and advice.
Mind you if you feel anything like I do your first reaction will be a desire to kick them in the goolies, or other vulnerable organ.
This desire must be resisted at all costs. After all the poor dears have just been taken in by those nasty Unionists from the Establishment, and besides which, we need their votes.
Ian Brotherhood & ronnie anderson
I suppose on reflection the worst option for us all would have been if Westminster had paid lip service to the SNP and given just enough meaningless concessions to hang onto the ‘delivery’ of the vow.
Then we would be back to arguing against the Westminster narrative that we are getting everything promised. That would have been the clever play – a little extra power here and there, now fuck off.
They have not the wit for that move. As it stands I can’t see the Scotland Bill debates as anything other than a massive own goal for the forces we are fighting against.
It won’t register amongst the population without some effort. We need those who have a voice to broadcast this to everyone who will listen
The Libdem on telly keeps following the tory lead,nothing new there then. Maybe Libdems should stop parroting Tories and tell Scots what their position is on federalism and devolution and how the votes they cast/maybe abstained on the Scotland bill merges with that…
@Anne Galloway says: 30 June, 2015 at 9:54 pm:
!Hold your gunfire folks. The Tories and Mundell are so stupid they are playing into the SNPs hands. Recruiting sergeants each and everyone of them and why Salmond is so relaxed about what he is witnessing. Yes, I am disgusted about the attitude of the Unionist parties during the debate and vote on the Scotland Bill and would dearly like to smack Mundell about the face, however, I am content knowing this is playing into the narrative to win the next Independence referendum. Mark my words, Robertson and Sturgeon know this. As I said to a dear friend in 2007, ‘it is written in the stars’ that this country will become Independent.
Good advice, Anne, and it isn’t just written in the stars – it is a very well known quotation:-
Literal translation:-
Victor Hugo
Alternative translation and paraphrased variant: “One cannot resist an idea whose time has come”.
Robert Peffers,
A wee tip.
Better to make your points without including invective or insults. Makes it more likely that undecided voters won’t view you as someone who is angry at everyone. Soon, they will think you’ll turn your anger towards them.
I learned that while listening to & providing my own expert witness testimony at a hearing in front of the United States Senate in 2008.
I’m with those cautioning patience.
I’m not in the slightest surprised by WM’s actions. We knew this would come to pass.
They are trying to goad us into holding another indyref before we’re ready knowing that if it’s going to be close they WILL be able to rig it (again?). We need to keep our powder dry. Let wee Mundelly have his hour of glory dictating the tory’s agenda ably supported by his wee mate Murrayminted.
As their lack of respect for Scotland sinks into the psyche we will get our 60+% solidly behind indy within a couple of years.
As someone else said (was that you Ronnie/) we need to concentrate on clearing the unionists out of Holyrood next year.
Our chance will come.
It was not featured in any of the Scottish news, but it was announced today that Scotland’s TSB bank can be sold to the Spanish bank, Sabadell.
@ crazycat Thanks!
Some of the SNP MPs are real stars in these “debates”.
Ian Murray was surprisingly emolient today and not as viperous as usual.
Priti Patel stonewalled every question as is her arrogant style.
But I did think David Mundell looked very uncomfortable. Maybe it was the heat.
One Labour MP and a NI MP, sorry didn’t catch their names, were genuinely helpful. Maybe there will be a change of attitude in the rest of the opposition once they recover from the shock.
IvMoz@10.04
What an excellent suggestion. Could be the beginning of a Brave New World. No kidding.
Just a wee gripe on my part. Have you all noticed that our parliament, Holyrood, i.e Holy Cross has for some reason become pronounced as Hollyrood, as in Hollywood?
Is this deliberate, as in insulting someone by getting their name wrong all the time, or just ignorance of the mediaeval provenance of the name? Whichever, it really pisses me off.
@ronnie anderson says: 30 June, 2015 at 11:01 pm
@ Ken500
@ Robert Peffers.
“How do you,s know, do you,s speak Welsh (smilies).”
Naw! Ronnie, but I do know a charming
bi-lingugglErr! twa leidit, lady who does.Why can’t the SNP set up their own ” respected economic think tank” to counter the BS we get constantly and set some cats amongst the pigeons with new “unassailable facts” which prove Scotland is self supporting and could be very successful.
Time to get them on the run.
Grexit seems like some kind of punishment. How the rest of the Eurozone think they can implement it is going to be interesting. For one thing are they simply going to return all the funds lodged in the European Central Bank that back notes issued by Greece? Are they going to confiscate them and hope the notes rendered worthless by that move aren’t widespread enough that if causes financial chaos? Or are they simply going to remove any Greek representation from the governing board?
Actually if you look at it from the point of view that you can render valueless a particular issue of euros rather than the currency as a whole Greece might simply decide that any be in that now worthless version of the euro. This is, perhaps, why Salmond made it clear any borrowing undertaken by a newly independent Scotland would be in Sterling.
@ X Stick ah hud ma hawn up, this Westminster Farce will play itself out,we need to be focused on Hollyrood Elections & work on the Council elections at the same time,giving People plenty of time to digest the information.
Am amazed anybody thought sending a full contingent of SNP MPs would ensure none got mugged in Westminster.
Nevertheless, only the blind and the bigoted will fail to see precisely how much Westminster really cares about Scotland.
@Ian Brotherhood says: 30 June, 2015 at 11:02 pm
“What I’m hacked off about is the humiliation that is accompanying the process. It’s sadistic provocative abuse.”
If truth be told, Ian, the ones who actually are feeling humiliated are the Unionistas. It is because they have really been humiliated they are, by their way of it, hitting back. Thing is they humiliated themselves.
“Just as well the 56 SNP MPs are professional politicians – most of us are not, and what is happening goes way beyond what most ordinary citizens would accept in the course of their ‘job’.”
That, Ian, may well be the professional politicians master plan. We really do need to have the Scottish voters get riled up a bit – not enough to riot – but angry enough to seek to rid themselves of the Establishment that now treats them so badly and who are about to punish the Scots voters even more with unfair cuts while they are also boosting the very rich to the extent of more than doubling their wealth.
It is as plain as the proverbial pike staff that the only way that extra wealth could end in the wealthy people’s bank accounts is from the now empty pockets of the poor as these are mainly the ones being deprived of what little they had.
@ Grousebeater – that is a joke?
@ majestic 12. 12.02
Totally pisses me off too.
The media, if memory serves me right, have always pronounced Holyrood to rhyme with Hollywood totally ignoring the ancient meaning.
@ Majestic 12 its awe predictive texts faut HOLYROOD .sos
That Priti Patel is a cold one,total lack of empathy with the feelings of others.
Even sociopaths can feign emotion, (Cameron when he said `it would break my heart if Scotland dissolved the UK`)but Priti would read out a death list the same as a shopping list.
Future leader of the Tories ?
On my Tarff Advertiser blog I am positing the Eurozone is broken because of the stultifying economic pursuit of ‘austerity’ by the ECB simply to protect the German economy’s use of an undervalued Euro which requires so called basket case European economies to keep its value down.
I agree with Stu the solution is to let Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece to exit and shrink the Eurozone back to the countries who can afford the cost of letting Germany have, what is in effect, a devalued mark.
Greeks fiscal problems have been caused by international financiers lending at usurious rates since the 1980’s, using accounting tricks to hide the recycling of loans, so the Greek oligarchs could take their cut from top and bottom plus a percentage of EU grants, while keeping the Greek Generals happy and in their barracks.
Interestingly the banks most exposed to a Greek default are German, especially Bavarian based banks.
@G H Graham says: 30 June, 2015 at 11:46 pm:
“A wee tip.”
Your wee tip is neither required nor accepted.
“Better to make your points without including invective or insults.”
That’ll be in your own not so humble opinion – of course?
“Makes it more likely that undecided voters won’t view you as someone who is angry at everyone.”
Thing is I’m not angry – whatever made you imagine I was?
“Soon, they will think you’ll turn your anger towards them”
Sorry to hear of your paranoia.
“I learned that while listening to & providing my own expert witness testimony at a hearing in front of the United States Senate in 2008”
Yeah! G H, but then I’m not either listening to, nor providing, my expert witness testimony before a United States Senate.
What I’m doing is commenting on a forum that is well known as being concerned with, mainly, Scottish political matters, but is famous for irreverent and humorous banter.
ATM: I’m concerned that there is a fair number of quite despairing comments and, from my very long association in the Scottish independence movement, I’m pointing out that such despair is both unwarranted and unnecessary as many commenters, including the Rev Stu, were pointing out that the way things are now going at Westminster are exactly as expected.
I’m also pointing out that the treatment of the SNP members at Westminster is no bad thing. For, in spite of some people’s opinions, the Scottish electorate are now perhaps the most genned-up and engaged electorates in at least the UK and even in the whole EU.
It is thus quite futile for some to attempt to dampen down their spirits. BTW: Some of the more regular commenters have returned and normal service seems to be creeping back.
Hi Mad Jock McMad.
I thought your article, “The Lady with the Gioconda Smile” should have been shared far and wide.
I did try, mentioning it in here at least a couple of times, and on Facebook, but nobody seemed to merit the underlying concept worthy of further discussion.
http://tarffadvertiser.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/the-lady-with-gioconda-smile.html
We can only try…
testing testing
Is that you being testicular, Ronnie?
8=)
@majestic12 says: 1 July, 2015 at 12:02 am
“Just a wee gripe on my part. Have you all noticed that our parliament, Holyrood, i.e Holy Cross has for some reason become pronounced as Hollyrood, as in Hollywood?
Och! The have been doing that since the place was built. I must say, though, that since there has been more Westminster debate shown on TV and heard on radio it has become more noticeable again. When I still watched TV at home I carried out a campaign of complaining to the BBC every time I caught them doing so and it began to die down.
I found the most effective ploy was to say the particular person required remedial English Language lessons.
@ BrianDTT always best to test at any age, ok nae lumps.
@doug mcg says: 1 July, 2015 at 12:03 am:
“Why can’t the SNP set up their own ” respected economic think tank” to counter the BS we get constantly and set some cats amongst the pigeons with new “unassailable facts” which prove Scotland is self supporting and could be very successful.
The SNP have been doing that for years, Doug. Trouble is the media is Establishment controlled and getting the reports out to the public has been the problem.
It is no accident that the great rise in support for independence has co-incised with the rise in membership due mainly to the referendum. There has bee n much more SNP and other independence party literature, including the Wee Blue Book, distributed to the general public than ever before in SNP history. There has not, though, been an increase in media coverage except for the unionists.
Here is the SNP website
and here the SG website
There is often good stuff on these.
http://www.snp.org/
Now, now Robert Peffers and G H Graham you know I have the greatest respect for both of you – please shake hands and do not squabble. We need all of us xx
@ronnie anderson says: 1 July, 2015 at 1:30 am
“testing testing”
Failed – failed.
(Chuckle) I’ll get my coat!
As Paula Rose says Guys, RobertP & GHG , its not nice to see to well respected Wingers squabbling .
@Robert Peffers 11.21
Know the pack drill Robert.
My hand is always out to new converts. 🙂
I take it they must have taken down the Saltire that flew above Downing St just prior to Indyref#1?
Union Jacks at the ready for Andy and the ‘Lionesses’, no doubt.
BDTT@ 1.22am
Thanks, Mad Jock McMad for explaining why Nicola has the La Giaconda smile, without lecturing, hectoring or supercilious condescension.
o/t
It seems that “austerity” IS ONLY FOR SOME!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/crossrail-2-proposal-receives-100m-budget-boost-from-chancellor-10356678.html
So the EU`s mask has slipped and we now see the same neo liberal powers at work in Greece where the poor will be made to pay for their bankers and corrupt politicians mistakes.
I like their new government they are standing up to them and the people of Greece should get the hell out as soon as possible,throw all their bankers and corrupt politicians in prison and take away their ill gotten gains and tell the IMF and its US backers to go spin on it, go on Greece default and bring the whole rotten house of cards down.
I have let my thought on the EU be known before and if they want to have a prosperous independent Scotland working in harmony with other EU citizens they imo need to buck up there ideas,i will not be pleased to see my country escape one set of mad despots to be controlled by the same despots in a different union.
Now before i get jumped on i did not say we should not give it a try first to see lets just not wait 300 years this time to bale if its garbage.
I am no economist, it looks like the UK is a debt ridden nation that produces very little, infact virtually nothing.
About one third of all the UK’s exports is Scotch whisky, and because our whisky leaves via English ports, it is included as a rUK export, not Scotland’s.
Do we want to be in a currency ‘union’, with a debt ridden banker led economy belonging to the English nation of shop keepers and bankers?
Had a quick scan round the ‘Scottish’ titles in the newsagents this morning. After the farrago of Westminster’s votes on Scotland, take a wild guess at which was the only Scottish title trying to deliver the facts to the electorate? The only title that thought perhaps the future governance, constitutional settlement and welfare of the Scottish people was worth a front page? That maybe Scots may want a heads up on the non delivery of vows, pledges, respect agendas?
Answers on a postcard.
Oh and if I hear the term ‘in the spirit of’ one more fucking time from fluffy or any other tory, my boot is going through a screen.
We don’t want something that was ‘in the spirit of’, we want what was promised, ‘guaranteed’ no less. Smith’s commission was a complete west end farce. A show piece for the natives, who to our credit participated to the tune of over 14k submissions, which were then summarily binned by the self righteous establishment pricks sitting round that table laughing at the SG team. Thirty days to settle just what the people of Scotland wanted, sift through, deliberate upon and debate over fourteen thousand submissions… my erse.
The debates in chambers barely attended by UK establishment parties, who then miraculously turn up in numbers to vote having had SFA input to the debate other than to vote the way they’re telt. So having obligingly massively out voted Scotland’s representatives on every single amendment to date, (that’s EVERY SINGLE ONE), they have a jolly good cheer and back to the bar.
Eye watering isn’t it?
How now any vow?
I’m not an economist either but some say that in our financial system (fractional reserve banking) if there is no debt there is no money. Money is created by banks through debt.
See “Money As Debt” on youtube.
The alternative would be government creating money and managing the quantity in circulation through taxation.
Greek crowdfund now at €570,000. 0% of target!
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/greek-bailout-fund#/comments
Derek M ,
Agreed .
I’m on the fence over Europe on the basis that I only hear big business preaching how important it is.
I tend to think our Exports would be just as desire able either way.
No cost Trade agreements can be a good option.
What are the true implications for us on the bottom rung on Min / Living wage in or out ?
Let’s not muddle the water as I-Scotland is our goal for now….. Like yesterday would suit me .
Jings Jenny Marra being questioned and corrected on GMS but it’s still SNP Bad ! Is it not NHS in each area to “manage” these hospitals .
FFS JM does the Scottish Gvt have to get hands on and do everything.
@majestic12. 12.02
I too find it wholly rude 😉
Posting on here, we regulars are probably preaching to the already converted. We know we are being royally shafted by the Tories and their Unionist toadies – but, the silent majority out there, probably including many who voted SNP in May, has not yet noticed.
They will not be made aware of what is going-on by the compliant Unionist media, but, if the SNP plays their cards right, they very soon could be.
I would suggest, it is time the SNP talking heads, who are put-up to represent the case for Independence in the media, and in particular on BBC Scotland, MUST start playing hard-ball.
No more politeness. If Fluffy or Murray, or Dipity Dug spouts pish, the SNP’s rep should, loudly, simply say: “That’s pish”.
When Brewer or the Smith lassie spouts Unionist propaganda, tell them: “That’s pish”.
When they interrupt – shut-up, and stay shut-up. There is nothing worse on TV or the radio than “Dead air”. So, say nothing, they will panic and waffle.
When they let you back in, tell them: “If you do not let me have my say, I will shut-up and stay shut-up until you shut-up and let me have my say”.
It will be awkward for a wee while, but, if the SNP stays united and on-message; they will prevail.
Always worth a wee reminder and sharing…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGpayte7KTE
http://redpilltimes.com/alexis-tsipras-has-set-off-a-chain-reaction-that-may-shake-up-the-corrupt-eu-to-its-core/
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?
http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500248772/Universal-Credit-costs-leap-by-more-than-20-to-158bn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z016TP7zrzs
https://www.foe.co.uk/news/frackgate-osborne-fracking-scandal
Well well and there we were being told only cybernats were abusive.
Andy Murray targeted by unionist trolls
https://www.facebook.com/uknewspapers
@ Gary45% says at 10:57 pm ”Don’t be surprised if the “City Traders” the world over, are rubbing their hands in glee, at the thought of Greece failing. No doubt they will have huge bets on the result with dodgy trading. We should stand shoulder to shoulder with our Greek friends, and tell the city boys where to go. I hope the Greeks tell the IMF to GTF.”
Gary I would imagine that the vulture-like estate agents and property developers are also waiting with baited breath: waiting for some poor sod to lose their home and then they’ll move in and buy it for peanuts. And no doubt some of the ‘big boys’ will be watching and waiting, plotting and planning too such as Russia and IS (Daesh). What an unmitigated disaster.
@ Phronesis says at 10:55 ”The monstrosity is that austerity does not save a failing economy – it is part of the problem not the solution. Plato argued that no one should be four times richer than the poorest in society – a very ancient and radical argument that would help address many of the wrongs that are being visited upon the world’s citizens.”
Thanks for the link to that ‘austerity cut’ report Phronesis. Strange isn’t it that Governments such as our own (Tory) can’t see what the ordinary man in the street can see and that is that there is a direct link between rising poverty levels and a diminishing economy. Philipa Whitford and Tommy Sheppard have both put compelling arguments across more recently …. but fallen on deaf ears. Report after report highlights the connection between poverty and mental and physical ill health; substance abuse; poor educational attainment; a rise in crime; fuel poverty; rise in death through hypothermia; starvation; child abuse; rickets / malnutrition; breakdown in marriages leading to more single parent families / homelessness / shortage of houses; domestic abuse; traumatised children; suicide and death etc etc.
The billions they make in cuts is totally wiped out with, for example, rising NHS, Social Services and Policing costs. More than anything they are left with a sick society that procreates even more troubled children (future adults) and an angry society that’s more inclined to riot and so on.
If the name of the game for this Government is to further line the pockets of the rich they’re not going about it in the right way at all. Their accomplices in this, the MSM, has a lot to answer for too as they continue to promulgate the Governments ‘scrounger’ type myths and withhold pertinent welfare and economic facts.
The greed of a few on this planet is causing untold misery for the many and one wonders how it’s all going to end.
@ Gary45% says at 10:57 pm ”Don’t be surprised if the “City Traders” the world over, are rubbing their hands in glee, at the thought of Greece failing. No doubt they will have huge bets on the result with dodgy trading. We should stand shoulder to shoulder with our Greek friends, and tell the city boys where to go. I hope the Greeks tell the IMF to GTF.”
Gary I would imagine that the vulture-like estate agents and property developers are also waiting with baited breath: waiting for some poor sod to lose their home and then they’ll move in and buy it for peanuts. And no doubt some of the ‘big boys’ will be watching and waiting, plotting and planning too such as Russia and IS (Daesh). What an unmitigated disaster.
@ Phronesis says at 10:55 ”The monstrosity is that austerity does not save a failing economy – it is part of the problem not the solution. Plato argued that no one should be four times richer than the poorest in society – a very ancient and radical argument that would help address many of the wrongs that are being visited upon the world’s citizens.”
Thanks for the link to that ‘austerity cut’ report Phronesis. Strange isn’t it that Governments such as our own (Tory) can’t see what the ordinary man in the street can see and that is that there is a direct link between rising poverty levels and a diminishing economy. Philipa Whitford and Tommy Sheppard have both put compelling arguments across more recently …. but fallen on deaf ears. Report after report highlights the connection between poverty and mental and physical ill health; substance abuse; poor educational attainment; a rise in crime; fuel poverty; rise in death through hypothermia; starvation; child abuse; rickets / malnutrition; breakdown in marriages leading to more single parent families / homelessness / shortage of houses; domestic abuse; traumatised children; suicide and death etc etc.
The billions they make in cuts is totally wiped out with, for example, rising NHS, Social Services and Policing costs. More than anything they are left with a sick society that procreates even more troubled children (future adults) and an angry society that’s more inclined to riot and so on.
If the name of the game for this Government is to further line the pockets of the rich they’re not going about it in the right way at all. Their accomplices in this, the MSM, has a lot to answer for too as they continue to promulgate the Governments ‘scrounger’ type myths and withhold pertinent welfare and economic facts.
The greed of a few on this planet is causing untold misery for the many and one wonders how it’s all going to end.
Thinking about Indy2 when it comes. We really need to think about what happened last time. We need to plan meticulously and knowing how they work will be repeated, it worked first time around so they are likely to take a similar approach. We need to plan.
We also know how the Media will behave, and how they will again remain increasingly hysterical with fear tactics. We know that postal votes are likely to be heavily fiddled.We know M15 will be involved.
So we pretty well know our opponents and how they act. We need to analyse the data, we need to set traps, we need to upset their plans, we need to surprise them with unexpected tactics and throw their procedures of propaganda into disarray by the tactics we take. Some deep thinking is required and smart moves must be found.
Time for our best minds to start building a clever way forward, that will undermine their gutter tactics. Knowing what we know from recent history needs to be taken in, they will be predictable. Something we should use against them. We need tactic groups set up, and formulate strategies.
If we do not do these things, we may lose again, we do not want that to happen, we need out of this Union so let us work on our tactics.
O/T links
http://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/wings/2015/06/scottish-independence-victory?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rabble-news+%28rabble.ca+-+News+for+the+rest+of+us%29
http://redpilltimes.com/alexis-tsipras-has-set-off-a-chain-reaction-that-may-shake-up-the-corrupt-eu-to-its-core/
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2567326
Received my newsletter today on latest TTIP update. Information on local groups across Scotland for anyone interested.
http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/resources/ttip_scottish_update_06_2015.pdf
“The ‘NO’ campaign to reject Greece’s bailout is in the lead”
https://archive.is/sND3K
@Macart 8.05
Surely by now, even with the [mostly] woeful reporting about the “Scotland” Bill, most No voters realize they’ve been conned? Here’s hoping. The SNP must now put the option of a 2nd referendum in their Holyrood 2016 manifesto.
The amendments were defeated. 🙂 really!
Herald bigging up the labour party Ian Murray’s physog front and centre it was the tories what done it!
https://archive.is/j55XE
It is a dreadful time in WM for Scotland and her people but it is part of the process of making it clear to the ‘NO’ voters that their comfort zone in a better together will not work.
A step nearer Indi 2.
Daily Record ”It’s up to those who feel it (Scotland Bill) falls short to state their case.”
It’s high time we all contacted the Daily Record and told them to start telling their readers the TRUTH …. State our Case.
‘IF the Scotland Bill’s delivers on its promises then our parliament will be all the stronger for it, but those who feel it falls short must state their case, says RECORD VIEW.
Scottish secretary David Mundell insists the Scotland Bill will be ready in time for next year’s Holyrood election. It’s a good sign that the Scottish Secretary is keen to push on with legislation to improve devolution.
The Bill is supposed to be the result of The Vow his party and others on the No side of the referendum campaign signed up to and offered to the public last September. It doesn’t please everyone, naturally. Holyrood’s all-party devolution committee have already complained it doesn’t fully reflect the Smith Commission recommendations on further devolution.
On the headline items, many will disagree with Mundell’s words. The SNP have made clear they don’t believe the Bill properly ensures Holyrood’s permanence. And Nationalists, such as John Swinney last week, regularly complain about “vetoes” left at Westminster over key powers.
But once the Bill is enacted, Holyrood will have much greater powers to make decisions and changes affecting all our lives. It’s up to those who feel it falls short to state their case. We’ll be watching, like everyone else, to make sure the UK Government lives up to the rhetoric. Failure to deliver The Vow would have serious consequences.
With the Bill in train, most people will be keen for politicians to move on from the groundhog-day battles on points of process. If the legislation delivers on the promises, the Scottish Parliament will indeed be all the stronger for it. And with that, voters will finally be able to hear what our politicians plan to do with the powers.
————————————————————————————————-
Daily Record poll – ‘Do you believe the Scotland Bill will improve the powers of Scotland?’
Result: 79% of people say NO.
Apologies for that last ‘doubler’ of a post!
@Dan Huil
I reckon they’ve got a good case for it to be getting on with Dan. I think they’ll want to put belt and braces on it though to be dead certain its what the majority of people want. Right now the 56 are being seen to participate and get humiliated for their trouble by the establishment parties. People are being made aware that even the watered down Smith fudge is in trouble and that every pro Scotland amendment is being trashed by people who can’t even be bothered to attend the debates. All grist for the mill.
What’s really going to put the gold star on it will be the rapid ratification, by comparison, of EVEL and the moves to circumnavigate Scottish law on the human rights act. That and Osborne’s swingeing cuts following his mid term budget should do it. With a year to suffer the consequences of all of the above, I suspect people will be banging on the doors at Bute house demanding the SG get busy on that manifesto.
@Petra says
Some things need to said twice! 🙂
Several people above seem to be upset that Holyrood is being pronounced as ‘Hollyrood’.
Holyrood is a district of Edinburgh and it would be well nigh impossible to find a native of Edinburgh who pronounces it as ‘Holy’rood”.
We in Edinburgh are just as annoyed when the Weegies at PQ pronounce our Calton district wrongly as ‘Caalton’ as per the Weegie district whereas as we in Edinburgh know that the coreect pronounciation is ‘Cawlton’ – don’t all rush to attack me.
On a different tack – since the SNP triumph on 7/5 our Fantastic 56 at WM and our majority govt. at Holyrood have been attacked by The Guys In The Black Hats as ‘One Party Government’.
Anybody who has been watching The Parliament Channel and the deliberations on The Scotland Bill will have witnessed a perfect illustration of ‘One Party Government’ as with a near empty house, apart from SNP members, Divisions are called, the chamber promptly fills, the vote is taken, predictably defeating the relevant motion and they all (well nearly all) troop back to the bar.
As was predicted by YES in advance of the ref. on 18/9, as a result of the NO vote we are now being p-ssed upon by our colonial masters.
Surely we are now witnessing the start of the death throes of the Union as the inevitability of an early winning
REF2 becomes apparent.
REF2 must be in the 2016 Manifesto with the proviso that it will only be called at a suitable time chosen by the govt. – not necessarily during the term of the next govt.
What does’nt kill us makes us stronger.I dont believe anything thats happened in the defacto goverment of england has been any great surprise to the 56.We must continue the education of our fellow citizens by word of mouth, this has been very successful so far.Keep the faith!
Scotland raises £54Billion and spends £54Billion, but could raise more. A tax on non productive land, tax on ‘loss leading’ drink. Cut Trident/illegal wars, tax evasion and banking fraud evasion banking fraud. Westminster has cut taxes raised in the UK from £600Billion a year to £466Billion a year. A loss of £134Billion a year. The rest of the UK raises £412Billion in taxes (pro rata with Scotland it should be approx £540Billion) and borrows £90Billion but expects Scotland to be responsible for their debts. They do not want to pay enough to cover essential services. Scotland would always have been in surplus if Westminster hadn’t taken secretly taken the equivalent of £Billion out of Scotland and wasted it. Thatcher and the McCrone Report.
Redmond was Thatchers right hand man. It ended up with 3Million unemployed and interest rates at 15%. The Bank deregulation, led to the banking crash. Demutualisation of the Building Societies owned by their members, and taken over by the Banks to gamble.
The UK public services, rail, energy, banks etc are run by State owned/controlled companies from other countries. Westminster just cut £38Billion essential funding for rail electrification in the North (and Scotland?) but intend spending £70Billion on HS2 which has no business case and will make journeys in he North and Scotland even longer.
The Tories are cutting disability living allowance which will mean more disabled people will be unable to work and will require residential care. This is totally unfair and will cost more.
The carry on at Westminster and the renege on the Referendum promises will only make people angry and will further support for Independence.
The EU costs nothing and gives benefit. If the UK Union was the same as the EU Union Scotland would have full fiscal autonomy/Home rule/Independence.
Some details here.
http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/the-united-kingdom-in-numbers.html
@Dan Huil says at 9:11 am / @Macart 8.05
Surely by now, even with the [mostly] woeful reporting about the “Scotland” Bill, most No voters realize they’ve been conned? Here’s hoping.”
But will most NO voters realise that they’ve been conned at all? Not if no-one is telling them as an example do they know that our Scottish Parliament is still not permanent or that the vetoes mean that our Politicians will have to go cap in hand to wee Mundell?
The result of their poll indicates that the Scots don’t trust the Tories / Westminster but I doubt that they know the ins and outs of it. If they did this would garner us another few thousand votes.
The Daily Record says ”It’s up to those who feel it (Scotland Bill) falls short to state their case.”
It’s high time we all contacted the Daily Record, the greatest culprit of all, and told them to start telling their readers the TRUTH …. State our Case.
‘IF the Scotland Bill’s delivers on its promises then our parliament will be all the stronger for it, but those who feel it falls short must state their case, says RECORD VIEW.
Scottish secretary David Mundell insists the Scotland Bill will be ready in time for next year’s Holyrood election. It’s a good sign that the Scottish Secretary is keen to push on with legislation to improve devolution.
The Bill is supposed to be the result of The Vow his party and others on the No side of the referendum campaign signed up to and offered to the public last September. It doesn’t please everyone, naturally. Holyrood’s all-party devolution committee have already complained it doesn’t fully reflect the Smith Commission recommendations on further devolution.
On the headline items, many will disagree with Mundell’s words. The SNP have made clear they don’t believe the Bill properly ensures Holyrood’s permanence. And Nationalists, such as John Swinney last week, regularly complain about “vetoes” left at Westminster over key powers.
But once the Bill is enacted, Holyrood will have much greater powers to make decisions and changes affecting all our lives. It’s up to those who feel it falls short to state their case. We’ll be watching, like everyone else, to make sure the UK Government lives up to the rhetoric. Failure to deliver The Vow would have serious consequences.
With the Bill in train, most people will be keen for politicians to move on from the groundhog-day battles on points of process. If the legislation delivers on the promises, the Scottish Parliament will indeed be all the stronger for it. And with that, voters will finally be able to hear what our politicians plan to do with the powers.’
————————————————————————————————-
Daily Record poll – ‘Do you believe the Scotland Bill will improve the powers of Scotland?’
Result: 79% of people say NO.
@Tackety Beets says: 1 July, 2015 at 8:13 am:
” … Is it not NHS in each area to “manage” these hospitals”
Aye! Tackety Beets that’s it exactly. The Unionist parties control most of the local authorities and they are the ones with local councillors on most of such things as NHS Hospital Boards, Education Authorities and just about every other thing including roads. They are the ones directly cutting such things as nursing posts, teachers jobs and neglecting road repairs and such like.
Then they complain it is all the fault of the Scottish Government and the Biased Broadcasting Clique are only too happy to run with their bogus complaints.
Call me Dave I think I’m going doolally today! I’ll blame it on the sun, lol!
I now see that I posted unfinished comments earlier at 9:28. Expect an update on that. Once again apologies in advance.
The ECB rate is -1%. They are lending to Greece at 10%, so every six months they want the money back +10%. It will cost far more than a £5Billion bail out if Greece leaves the Eurozone.
Merkel refused the Ukraine a loan and look what happened. Thousands died.
Perhaps for the next Holyrood election there could be a manifesto pledge for a 2nd referendum. Subject to people requesting one rather than it staying totally in the hands of the politician. All the pro-parties could write that into their manifestos. If say a third of those on the electoral register sign a request it automatically triggers a referendum subject to a majority vote at Holyrood.
a supporter: “If that sentence is directed at Scotland I vehemently disagree with it. Scotland Independent and in a CU with UK would be no worse off than UK currently is.”
The sentence you’re disagreeing with wasn’t talking about Scotland being independent, whether in a currency union or otherwise…
Some folk are getting angry at our MPs being treated badly at Westminster
Can I just say, they knew that before they went, it’s all part of the Westminster nonsense
It must be remembered our representatives are hoping to be the last of their kind, so the abuse they’re taking (For us)
is so that the No voters and undecided voters of Scotland can see for themselves how much respect Scotland is accorded
The die hard bitter lot won’t change their minds but a huge chunk of Pre Labour voters came to see what was right and more will follow
When the time is right it will be enough
One last word to the “Want to stay British” folk
Who said you can’t be British if you want to be?
WM’s woeful response to the democratic will of the Scottish people….where to next?
The SNP should stand in Holyrood 2016 on a manifesto to pursue DevoMax, and should that not be delivered within say 12 months by WM in a new fit for purpose Scotland Act, then Indyref2 will be the appropriate and promised response. Clear and simple position.
Either, they devolve most powers … Or we take the lot.
We do need to start thinking, now, as to how the currency arrangements in an iScotland would work. The euro is becoming the textbook case of what happens when you get a monetary union without fiscal counterbalances, which is what an iScotland using sterling would face. The euro works fine for those northern European economies which can display some fiscal discipline. Greece could not, and has suffered the inevitable consequences (in that if it still had the drachma,the drachma would have devalued pretty completely by now, and the resulting cut in real wages, via inflation, would have been fairly substantial anyway).
So: what sort of restrictions on debt-raising, e.g., in an iScotland using the pound could be tolerated?
@ nana
Good talk by Cat Boyd for Rabble.ca. Puts the new left development post referendum into some perspective. More news and comment missing from the MSM!
Thanks for posting longish link. Here’s a short tiny url version:
http://tinyurl.com/njg7b9c
I take it the “Redmond” referred to few times is meant to be the non-Welsh speaking John RedWOOD one time Secretary of State for Wales and first class numpty!
http://rt.com/business/270934-greece-tsipras-bailout-default/
Chunky Mark – one of the few people around who’s actually imparting some valid facts.
Dying Woman Fit for Work Lives on Toast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z016TP7zrzs
What Evil Planet are the Tories from?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiS9iwNB_j8
And another version of the McCrone Report. They were telling us we were a financial liability then, duped some of us, and are continuing to do so now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL8rPmkkcAY
Just had another thought
Instead of a vote for Independence
Should it not just be a vote for “Dissolution” Of The Union
Doe that sound nicer than Independence ( Less Scary )??
Or a vote “YES” to “Join” the World
I’d vote Yes for that
There are some interesting links between the Scots and the Greeks:
Each country’s national dress is a kilt.
We both have St. Andrew as our patron saint.
Our flags are blue and white.
Our countries are spread over many islands.
We both have very ancient languages. Greek and Gaelic. Our own national language of Gaelic is, next to Greek, the oldest written vernacular in Europe.
We should show some solidarity with them in this time of trouble.
Apart from exposing unionist pre referendum lies I can see little point in begging for some devolved powers when we can take the lot and this should become the preferred position in the not to distant future.
Daily Record poll – ‘Do you believe the Scotland Bill will improve the powers of Scotland?’
Result: 79% of people say NO.
Sounds like good grounds for rejecting it.
Hot clammy weather + social injustice has triggered riots in English cities before. Nothing like a good going riot to wipe the grins off Tory faces 🙂
I agree with others on here, dissolution of the “Union”,
Would be the way to go. If we are certain that in law, we have a right to choose this,then that is what we have to do.
Makes our lives a tad simpler.
I doubt Westminster would remotely think we would do that, so to blind siding them would be a real possibility.
Breaking News: Topical new verse has been added to the EU anthem:
Lord grant that IMF
May by threat & bluff
Victory bring
May it Syriza hush
Become a busted flush
Rebellious Greeks to crush
God save the Euro.
Screw any currency Union. It was one big mistake in the Referendum to advocat6e keeping the Brit Peso and having a common currency zone.
Just what is so wrong with an Indy Scotland having its own currency. It would be a relatively stable currency unlike the rUK Peso which wouldn’t have anything substantial to back it up.
The Greeks were hoodwinked and defrauded into joining the Euro by corrupt sleazy criminal right wing politicians and bankers. I hope they tell the IMF/EU etc and the racist BBC etc to eff right off.
Speaking of corrupt sleazy criminality, who in the eff is propping up Johnston Press?
Greece is an mporting country. Scotland is an exporting country – oil ,gas,power, fish, whisky,agri-products, technology. And to Westminster, money.
Those who speak against Scotland’s prospects are of two types: those who do not understand the economic argument; and those who do and are afraid for rUK.
@Iain:
Screw any currency Union. It was one big mistake in the Referendum to advocat6e keeping the Brit Peso and having a common currency zone.
Just what is so wrong with an Indy Scotland having its own currency. It would be a relatively stable currency unlike the rUK Peso which wouldn’t have anything substantial to back it up.
I’m not so sure – so much of Scotland’s economic activity is with rUK that having a separate currency would create a lot of impedance – and I take it that adopting the euro is out of the question? Anyway, thanx for being prepared to think about this issue.
Scotland could have its own currency (the Merk?), following, or tied to, Sterling, I believe.
No doubt someone who knows about these things could explain the ins and outs.
sorta OT but not entirely – could I please ask each and everyone of us to to support the people of greece?
they’re standing up for all of us that don’t like this neo-liberal/conservative set-up. They’re being bullied and frightened like Scotland was during the referendum.
Scotland’s been there, done that, got the t shirt so in lending a helping hand we can all play a part – no matter how small – maybe just a text or a chat with friends, down the pub or at work.
please do what you can
https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/6-reasons-to-support-the-vote-for-oxi/
Right – “the Greek situation simply underlines the importance of nations having the power to make their own choices.”
So vote to leave the EU!
Plodmore: Vote to leave the EU!
No thanks. We ARE European.
No, WE are European!
8=)
Yes of course those of us who don’t live in the other continents are European. Who denies it? But to sign up to a capitalist cartel like the EU is a different matter.
What has the euro done for Greece? It has cut Greece’s national income by a quarter and increased its debts by half. Unemployment is 25 per cent and youth unemployment is 55 per cent. Even the IMF has been a little bit more flexible than the EU.
The Greek working class has voted against the euro’s consequences. They have voted against the debts and depression imposed by the EU.
But the Greek workers still want to stay in the euro. To want the euro without ‘austerity’ is to want crucifixion without the pain. Its trade unions have called 32 general strikes, instead of developing a strategy for rebuilding Greece as an independent sovereign country.
Greece has to reject the euro and its membership of the EU. Without that clarity, there will be no progress.