The Battle Of Osborne’s Nose
Posted on
April 27, 2013 by
Chris Cairns
The world's most-read Scottish politics website
-
About
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
-
Recent Posts
- 12-12
- 12-09
- 12-07
- 12-03
- 11-28
- 11-25
- 11-23
- 11-22
- 11-18
- 11-17
- 11-12
- 11-09
- 11-06
- 11-04
- 11-03
- 11-02
- 10-29
- 10-26
- 10-26
- 10-21
A tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
Fantastic rebutal of Osborne, Alistair Darling and Gordon Browns scare stories, and financial mismanagments over on Newsnet.
Just read an article written by Greg Moodie on NC
admittedly its been there since 04/04/13 but haven’t seen it until now
and the thought it carries is in its own right an excellent reason to vote yes on its own,
his point is that post a yes vote 40 odd Scottish Labour mp’s will be out of a job and forcing them into workfare cleaning floors in a Poundstore for bugger all would be such sweet revenge , oh sweet jesus make it happen
On currency there was an good interview on GMS this morning, first half hour, with Dr Simon Lee of Hull University. According to him, the pound may well tank in coming years, and, we’d be better out of it with our own currency as we’ve a solid economic base.
A link to his page.
link to www2.hull.ac.uk
Lol, good companion to the Newsnet piece (Blazing Saddles and the Tory Suicide Bumbler).
I’m sure you could squeeze in a bogieman reference.
Tsk, ‘a’ good interview
Here’s a link for the Alex Massie/Pat Kane discussion from GMS this morning on the campaign, passion etc. Mr Massie concedes there are some unspeakably stupid people in the unionist camp.
Great caricature.
Cracking cartoon Chris.
sad to report that I have just been in search of BT’s Tain event and was looking forward to getting some answers from them. Unfortunately, it is none-event. No-one there, not even the organisers. Nobody at all…. Just look at any empty space and you are looking at the Tain event!
Desolate!
Just look at any empty space and you are looking at the Tain event!
I’ve looked at an empty space, as you suggest, and I estimate up to 200 people are in it. So a very encouraging turnout for BT.
Albalha
On GMS I thought the lady from Murray Asset Management was Donald Rumsfeldian. There is stuff we don’t know we don’t know but things would be different, They might be better but they might be worse.
I don’t think I would be in a hurry to ask her to management my assets. I couldn’t work out if she felt duty bound to be negative but couldn’t find the words or just was genuinely incoherent.
The BT MSM have made a mountain out of this whilst assuming we would be in the EU faster than a ferret up a drain pipe. The horse in the pie is that the original report was highlighting a far deeper structural problem in the UK pension provision and that this is not going away if we vote No. Indeed, from exactly the same figures it could be argued we might well be better off voting Yes.
Good article in the Times by Sir George Mathewson attacking George Osborne’s intervention on currency issue. link to thetimes.co.uk
And news that Three UKIP candidates appear on a BNP membership list leaked in 2009. A fourth prospective UKIP councillor stood down last week over her previous links with the far-Right party.
More than 50 people who are listed as candidates on UKIP’s website have not been registered and will not appear on ballot papers.
And to think both the main stream parties in England are pandering to this outfit in their lurch further to the right.
RE George Mathewson.
Gideon seems to have achieved exactly what he set out to do.
Good stuff.
@HandandShrimp
Agreed, though I thought Mr McWhirter dealt with her views when he talked of Eurozone countries etc.
What struck me was the overall objectivity of the England based academic and the more, clearly, partisan Scottish based currency person, which seemed to contribute to her unknown unknowns take on things.
There are many south of the border looking at our chance of independence with a sense of longing, if they had the chance to ditch Westminster control they would.
George Mattewson has been an Independence supporter for some times now.
For those that cannot see the article in the Times, have a read at the one that NNS did:
link to newsnetscotland.com
The Tain event was yesterday.
link to bettertogether.net
Jiggsbro:
I’ve looked at an empty space, as you suggest, and I estimate up to 200 people are in it. So a very encouraging turnout for BT.
But very worrying news for us. Our maximum is about 3000000 YES votes. If BT can get 200 out of every empty space in Scotland, then we’re a’ doomed, I tell ye!
Just come home from leafleting in Johnstone (Renfrewshire) on a sunny but cold day.
Generally a good response with only one definite ” ‘am votin’ no ” from a young man wearing a Rangers shirt but several yes’s. Looks like there could be a swing underway. Last week went to a YES meeting in the small village of Kilbarchan on a black, rainy windy night 35 attendees (I counted them) so sucks boo to NAW in Furryboots city. now for tea and a bacon toastie.
I think a photo competition could be in order. 🙂
Brian Ashcroft has an article on his blog, link to scottisheconomywatch.com
He claims that of the $40bn our oil and gas adds to the balance of payments, you have to subtract the $19billion (apparently) that goes to “profits and remittances after tax to non-UK residents”.
Is this correct? It rings wrong to me.
I think its quite telling that this normally outspoken Blog which seems to have a counter-argument for everything, has been unusually muted over the UK governments latest intervention regarding currency.
Have the authors read the treasuries’ detailed report (with its numerous real-world examples) regarding the pitfalls of the YES campaigns currency proposals?
If you have read it, do you feel able to challenge any of its points? I am genuinely interested.
“I think its quite telling that this normally outspoken Blog which seems to have a counter-argument for everything, has been unusually muted over the UK governments latest intervention regarding currency.”
link to wingsoverscotland.com
@ Robyn
whoops! Red face time, however, I can assure everyone that the same space was vacant all day yesterday so same figures apply for turnout.
Muted? I think there’s a limit to how often anyone can get exercised about the same identical spurious scare story being trotted out for the umpteenth time, even if it has been given a rather cursory lick of paint.
NSTST
Muted? Look again.
As to the Treasury. Name a set of figures they have got right in recent years. They are not the Oracle of Delphi you know (as Brown discovered to his cost on sale of gold and the 10p rate of tax and Osborne found to his cost on pasties and grannies).
It is a political document and Osborne has been making politics with it. Once the dust settles and people realise that the various pension experts are saying “hang on a minute” (like the chap from Hull university on the radio today) they will also realise that there are just as big if not bigger problems down the line if we vote No. Voting No does nothing to the £237 billion black hole identified. It is still there.
@ Boorach, vacant just about sums up Better Together!
Noticed it is the launch of BT Inverness at Beaufort Hotel and Inverness Castle today. Wonder how that is going as it started earlier this afternoon and continues with canvassing events, etc.
Spent the morning in Inverness, and saw a busy Yes Scotland stand outside Marks. No sign of any BT activity. The Yes stand had about a dozen folk of all ages and creeds actively engaging with people on the street, with some pointed debates going on. Looked all very healthy.
Interestingly. I’ve noticed a Better Together Inverness sponsored ad coming up on my FB page. Sneeking a look at their page, it all seems to be local Labour party people – led by the list MSP Dave Stewart, and his wife (both decent and honest folk BTW, whom I know – just misguided.)
Fascinating that they feel they have to take out a paid FB ad though, and maybe thats thats what they are spending their £500K from Vitrol on – buying Social Media exposure that the Yes side gets through simply having real people on the ground, both physical and virtual.
This story is just a little far fetched don’t you think. We all know he needs his nose for brown-nosing bankers and the likes of Ian Taylor.
Dear NSTST, did you listen to Good Morning Scotland today?
There was a chap called Simon Lee on this morning also had qualms about the SNP’s pro-Sterlingzone proposal. But, just like Jim Cuthbert, he was worried about the dangers to Scotland of the proposal. He said:
“if I was looking at this from a Scottish perspective I would be thinking about the possibilities of a separate Scottish currency …because I think that one of the things one has to take into account is that if you separate out Scotland from the rest of the UK, and particularly from London, if you take the debts on the balance sheets of the banks in London into account, then if Cyprus was a warning to other European economies about having an overinflated banking sector and how that can destabilise the currency, then on those criteria the most vulnerable currency in the European Union is the pound.
I think there’s a very real danger that what we are going to see in the next couple of years is that the UK, as we found in September 1976, will have to go to the International Monetary Fund for assistance. I think that sooner or later there will be a run on the pound, partly because of the prospects for growth being so poor, but also the cumulative effect over a generation of failing to build enough industries to export and to actually create a balance of payments surplus is eventually going to effect the economy of the United Kingdom. In those circumstances the advantage strategically to Scotland of having its own currency backed by its oil and natural gas resources would be very, very significant indeed.”
(My transcript, my mistakes, from link to bbc.co.uk starting at about 10’40” in.)
But Stu, most of those points you raise in that article are addressed in that highly detailed treasury report, such as disadvantages of unilaterally using the currency, and the case of the crown dependencies producing their own currencies.
The report gave many real-world examples to back up the arguments they were making.
Whilst the overall report has been critisized constantly (as well as Mr Osbourne himself), the actual arguments put out in the report have not be successfully challenged in my opinion.
“Whilst the overall report has been critisized constantly (as well as Mr Osbourne himself), the actual arguments put out in the report have not be successfully challenged in my opinion.”
Oh well.
That’s a cracker.
On this very subject, I spotted this link from Dances with Haggis over on NNS. Its a beaut.
link to scmp.com
Now that’ll leave a ‘merk’. 😀