Positive-case-for-the-Union update #13
Posted on
February 16, 2012 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
A possible sighting coming up later today, readers, according to The Scotsman. Keep your eyes and ears peeled, this could be the big one.
We’re standing by.
I have no doubt we shall hear how important a role Scotland has played throughout the history of the United Kingdom. Good,it's about time a primeminister was honest.
But,would'nt it be sweeter to here that Scotland has won Independence and can begin by re-writing the histories of Scotland with truth,with the beginning's of it's own history once again taking it's own place in this world!!!
I think there is a positive case to be made that the workers locally at Faslane are better off, as they have a guaranteeed income for the maintenance on nuclear weaponry, and jobs can be guaranteed with future wars if led from London.
I think it explains why Baillie bucked the trend and increased her majority in 2011.
People will vote for who they perceive wil make them personally better off. Giving every person a share in an oil fund, their own bank account with future monies in it which they can get when they are older, a form of oil superannuation, would be worthwhile and hard to ignore. If the fund is for government and not individuals then people will be suspicious as things change over time.
Even if it is only 6000 per person after the 9% UK debt is repaid whilst RUK debt continues to increase..
However, there is almost no positive case on a Scottish macro level that I can see, or that has been explained for a post 2014 scenario.
With regard Rangers, if the English FA allowed Rangers to join the English League at say League 1 level they would grab it now, not the EPL or nothing view they held until recently.
I suspect that would benefit the Union as Cameron pushes his Team GB philosophy. A gesture of goodwill to write off the tax money would have rangers fawning towards London even more than today.
I am sure the pressure can be brought to bear politically, for as we know, Rangers stands for a lot more than football and remains a bastion of collective Unionism where little exists elsewhere.
Heard a brief preview on Today programme. Safer together because we have the fifth(?) biggest defence budget in world; stronger together because of seat on Security Council; wealthier together as the sixth largest economy in the world. Well… nobody feels wealthy except City bandits, and the first two are prime reasons to leave the union!
"We" are stronger, safer, richer together.
Who's "we", Dave?
I think it was reported that Brazil overtook us for 6th place at the back end of last year Dave really needs to keep up. That was after Moore went on his wee trip there so it wasn't too succesful like many other things that seems to have been brushed under the rug At least AS has always something positive to report from his trips abroad
@redcliffe62: Nobody should believe that everyone would be better off in the event of independence. Omelettes and eggs. But if you compare what the UK, and by extension Scotland, spent on defence and keeping folks at Faslane in a job with what was spent in – for example – New Zealand, the numbers are scary.
In 2010 it looks like there were about 6,000 less people – military and civilian – employed by the New Zealand Defence Force than by the MoD in Scotland (approx 14K vs 20K). So there's the downside.
On the upside, over the period from 1997 to 2010, investing the difference between NZ defence spending and notional Scottish defence spending and allowing for 1% real growth would have produced an "oil fund" of 40 billion (2009) US dollars. And continuing that trend to 2016 would produce a fund value of nearly 65 billion dollars and of over 80 billion by 2020. So pretty soon you'd be talking about real money.
To govern is to choose, as some long-dead French guy said. So, if it were up to you, which of these choices – 6000 defence jobs or a large oil fund – would you make?
He has worries about the NHS
Is that your NHS, which you are doing your best to kill, our ours, which is not the same and we are doing our damndest to save and improve, Dave?
Having heard the positive case that was up to 300 years in the making I have come to the conclusion that Dave is actually a SNP sleeper cell agent. He's worth a hundred SNP members to the independence cause.
If that drivel was the best they can come up with from all their writers, think tanks, spin doctors and researchers after all their promises it is not going to cause anyone in the "yes" camp to lose sleep.
The big question for me is if RevStu is now going to update his clock counter or does this miserable effort fail to count as a real case at all?
As per above;
I agree Angus, I simply make the point that there are aspects which would support the status quo for personal gain, which is understandable.
For most people they will be better off if Scotland was independent.
We need to see both sides of the story and cut our cloth accordingly. Even state that some jobs may be lost at Faslane but elsewhere many more will be made and there is good and bad in every decision. That would stop the scare story on this matter.
London trying to say spending billions on nuclear weaponry is a good thing so it is a key aspect.