The lie that won’t die
The Scotland Office has today released yet another taxpayer-funded (though we’re not allowed to know how much) document about how rubbish and useless Scotland is. Issued in the name of Alistair Carmichael, it reheats and repeats all the same lines from the previous papers, but this time dumbed down a bit for thickos.
You’d think that having been churning out the same thing for two years, the UK government would have at least managed to get its story straight by now.
Here’s page 10:
Right. Crystal clear. No UK, no pound. Simple as that.
And here’s page 11:
Oh. Actually we COULD have the pound after all. It’s just that we’d have no control over interest rates, exactly like we have no control over them now.
We haven’t got to page 12 yet. We’ll let you know if things change again.
So-called “sterlingisation”.
Now that sounds really nasty.
Same old, same old, again. Complete with contradictions.
On the specific topic of the pound, after independence rUK will have fewer real assets (oil gone), higher debt to GDP ratio, lower GDP, lower exports, worse balance of payments. Do we really want to be formally tied to them via the pound, I often wonder?
One point is the so called transaction costs which will occur if no currency union. I seem to recall £500M figure and this is levied on a trade of £50Bn. As far as i can see this works out at 1pc or a penny in the pound. Not such a huge deal I would have thought, unless my figures are wrong. As i say just what i have picked up, but others may be able to quantify/correct.
Big Al is a car-crash
“Big Al is a car-crash”
You taking the Michael? 🙂
The Scotsman had a story on this ‘booklet’, yesterday, listed in the Politics Top Stories but it’s disappeared and been replaced with a JP error message.
Funny that they always point to Panama and Ecuador using the dollar (cause that’s far away and scary) and not comparing us to Jersey and Guernsey being in a currency union with the UK using the GB pound. The people I met in Panama seemed quite happy using the US dollar and friends in Jersey are also happy with their arrangement!
It all makes amazing sense, if you’re a very expensive MP in Westminster or a City bankster eg.
“We benefit from the UK’s position as a global leader in financial services and the financial sector is one of the most important in the Scottish economy – it contributed £8.8 billion to the Scottish economy and supported 8% of total
Scottish employment (nearly 200,000 jobs) in 2013.”
Just do not mention same teamGB finance powerhouse destroyed the economy single handed by 2008 and all under the very weird watch of the Treasury too. It wont happen again, so vote no. Rule Britannia
Or as someone else noted previously re AC, yet more “Thud and Blunder”
galamcennalath, the problem with having our own currency is that it might become too valuable and damage our exports being based on oil/gas, energy, food and drink export etc. as McCrone highlighted years ago. That’s why staying attached to Ruk in currency terms will keep the value of our currency low, to our benefit.
I’ve seen this claim about the £pound on Better Together posters and leaflets recently so they must think its a fear factor of value to them.
I really wish our YES politicians would come out with all guns firing broadsides to refute these regular lies by the unionists, and we could do with them being far quicker of the mark on the occasions when they do.
Saw an article on the Scotsman web page about a 46 (?) page leaflet that nobody had actually seen yet, and Alistair whatshisface.
No details about the contents, just the usual woffle about how it would blow holes in the SNPs policies.
Quickly moving on to the great Alistair whatshisface attempting to accuse the Yes campaign of smears and negative campaigning, followed by – you guessed it- smears and negative campaigning from Alistair.
By yesterday evening the article had vanished without a trace of Orwellian irony.
I see Johnstone press shares are down to 16p each today.
Fancy crowdfunding a newspaper Stu ?
Does the cost of these dodgy dossiers get included as campaign finance after the cut off date?
Their vote no finance stuff is extremely project fear with no actual fact to back it up, “On the basis of independent analysis, the UK Government has estimated that an average annual mortgage payment in Scotland could increase by £1,700.”
So they quote this lot
“Companies like RBS and Bank of Scotland have spoken of the risks of higher costs in the event of Scottish independence. Others like Standard Life and Alliance Trust are considering how they might relocate parts of their business to England if there were to be a vote in favour of independence.” is some kind of ukok cunning.
Has that man Carmiachael no self respect? Seriously peddling the same tired old lies as scare stories, to try to prevent the people of Scotland making an informed choice in the referendum.
We know that a currency union WILL happen, as admitted by a senior government cabinet minister, just over a month ago, and even if it didn’t, Scotland would carry on using the pound, debt free.
This notion that the pound doesn’t also belong to Scotland, is hogwash. Just imagine, if it was England that was seeking independence, do you think they wouldn’t be ‘allowed’ to keep the pound? Of course not, and the reason why gets to the root of this hypocrisy from Westminster’s poodles, and that is that much as they pretend otherwise as far as Westminster is concerned the pound doesn’t belong to the UK, it actually belongs to England.
Project feartie strikes again. They just can’t seem to stop themselves.
msean,
A good question. Of course nobody in the ‘scottish’ media will ask such a question.
Meanwhile feartie David Cameron is still refusing to have a debate with the First Minister of Scotland. What a cowardly Tory English prime minister.
If you go to:
link to gov.uk
There is a box at the foot of the page asking ‘Is there anything wrong with this page?’
It’s an opportunity to tell them to try and get their story straight and not contradict themselves on consecutive pages.
I do think there is one good argument against a currency union, which is for it to work, both governments would have to commit to it for a fairly long term. However there is a good chance that within 10 years Scotland and rUK’s economies will have diverged significantly enough to make a currency union a less favourable option than it is right now. (Another argument is that both sides would have to agree to fiscal constraints – the City boys like to pretend that would be a problem for Scotland, but in reality they must also fear having their own hands tied by any agreements around prudent governance.)
Anyway, however it works out, in the short term we will still be using the pound.
heedtracker says:
Yes, we get all that, numb to it now. However, given our better finances, they NEVER consider that costs may be cheaper!
The YES politicians do bring rebuttal to the Unionists lies. They just do not get reported.
“In the event of independence, Scotland would receive a
share of North Sea oil and gas revenues, which would
have to be negotiated.” Negotiated by Con/Dems like Carmichael no doubt.
It’s laugh a line stuff from Ally Carmichael and his team of “analysts”. Everyone can pick their own favourites, but my own are the claims that the UK provides support for a “vibrant and secure” financial services industry, and that an independent Scotland’s banks (presumably they mean RBS and Lloyds) would represent a risk of over 12 times our GDP. They obviously have very short memories in the Scotland Office and have forgotten what happened under their UK watch in 2008, and have no idea how bank bailouts work in the real world. Or then again, perhaps they’re taking us for gullible idiots.
There is only one way to describe all this nonsense:
Officially sanctioned bluff and bluster
Can’t fool all of the people all of the time, but I suppose the real objective is to try and fool enough of the people before September 18th. It may work, but the problem is that when people finally see though the deception, they become very angry.
Ach well, that bridge can be crossed in due course. The important thing for now is to defeat Alic samin. Hang on, wait a minute, the bridge is on fire…… Oh Dear!
A large share at that.
@Sandy
“Fancy crowdfunding a newspaper Stu ?”
Wait till 19th and they will pay you to take it off their hands.
Encouraging to read the comments beneath the Peter Preston piece in the Observer misleading readers about the sales of the Sunday Herald after last week, which actually surged:
“while a Herald sale in the upper 30,000s is still a force, there’s no disguising the fact that fighting for freedom doesn’t help circulation one jot: absolutely the reverse.”
But the comments show that many of us see through the lies.
link to theguardian.com
Currency is unimportant it is just an exchange. What matters is balancing the Books. Scotland balances it’s book, in surplus and has done for years. The surplu goes to the UK Exchequer, sphohec offf and wasted.
The rest of the UK does not balance it’s budget. It raises less in tax (pro rata), borrows and spends more, therefore is better off than Scotland (unequal) which Scotland (pro rata) picks up the debt repayments. It’a a Pozzi scheme of unequal tax regime in the UK. A different draconian tax regime (80% on major Scottish industry) on Scotland, while the rest of the UK has a more favourable tax evasion tax regime. Making Scotland unjustifiable poorer and facilitating tax evasion through the City of London causing the National debt and poverty in the UK, disproportionately in Scotland,
The Currency, the Crown, the EU are all a distraction to try and (secretly) hide the real issues. In or out of the Pound, Crown or EU Scotland will still be a weathier, fairer country Independent, because it balances it’s books and is in surplus and has been since 1928 and before. It is Westminster poor economic governance/law which is causing the problems in Scotland/UK.
The Scottish average surplus is siphoned off by the UK Treasury.
O/T Talking of leaflets, Stu, how are plans going for your Wee Blue Book? Would be very useful for many undecideds I know.
This isn’t a contradiction, it just highlights the process that would have to happen.
1. Leave the uk, leave the uk pound.
2. Currency now needed as no longer in the uk.
3. Adopt the uk pound but as an independent nation or seek alternative.
Too many people on either side trying to spin every word, it shouldn’t need to be as nitpicked as this.
“This isn’t a contradiction, it just highlights the process that would have to happen.”
Don’t be daft. There wouldn’t be a single day on which Scotland wasn’t using the pound. We wouldn’t “leave” it at any point.
Further proof, if any were needed, that Westminster automatically assumes all registered voters are stupid.
(Ok, a certain percentage of them seem to be, judging by what I hear from them at street stalls, but they’re in the minority, so if BT are pinning all their hopes on the Sheeple, they’re in for a nasty surprise on the 19th!)
‘Ken500 says:
12 May, 2014 at 10:33 am
The YES politicians do bring rebuttal to the Unionists lies. They just do not get reported.’
Maybe Yes are compiling a booklet with all this trash printed on the left page and, onthe right, print the Counter with references, to be published and issued to ‘every’ household or such like.
Publish date around one month before 18 September?
“As part of the UK, we work together to maximise the potential of renewable energy, with Scotland’s dynamic renewables sector benefitting from the sharing of the costs by customers across the whole UK”
There are lies and there are UKOK lies. Its kind of additive being lied to so much by your own UK.gov. First thing Con/Dems did in office was wipe out the solar energy industry but next up
link to clickgreen.org.uk
“Industry leaders and campaigners have reacted furiously to the Conservative Party manifesto pledge to block the development of the onshore wind industry should it record an unlikely outright win in next year’s General Election.
Hmmm they say we would’nt want Sterlingisation as we would have no control over interest rates etc
(tell me the how much we have over interest rates we have at the moment)They forget that if there is no formal currency union with the amount of debt they have at the moment and without Scotlands oil & other exports to bail them out the pound will crash and burn.
Johnston Press shares have fallen again to 14p this morning. How long will the bank holding £300m debt will tolerate this? The company has now been cut to the bone only to receive a token profit in the last quarter. I reckon the Scotsman and it’s sister Edinburgh titles will go for £2m cash in hand.
O/T apologies. Got a Euro election leaflet from the LibDems…with a FREEPOST address. Anybody who wants to explain to Danny Alexander and George Lyon why we disagree with them, can do so on some old weight they have lying around at: Highland Liberal Democrats, FREEPOST, Inverness, IV3 5BR. Double checked the address as I would have thought they’d be something after the FREEPOST but that’s what they in the leaflet.
See the lender of last resort thing? I’ve heard this one so often now it’s just about white noise, but to counter it, does anyone know if there is any legitimate reason why Scotland could not establish, either using an existing bank or creating an entirely new one, a state bank to act as lender of last resort anyway?
We are talking about a nation which will have a very healthy fiscal position; I appreciate such a thing would probably take some time but I suspect that this whole ‘last resort’ thing would only be a temporary issue at worst.
Anyone in a position to confirm or rebuff that? I confess, I don’t know enough about it, but I find myself thinking why has no one else thought of it if I have? I’m not the swiftest blade around.
Yet another disgusting thief. This makes my blood boil knowing people are having to depend on foodbanks.
link to onenewspage.co.uk
Keiser Report – Chris Cross? – ‘Scotland would not need a central bank’. Keiser supports Scottish Independence.
@Nana Smith
Bet that won’t be showing up in he mainstream media anytime soon.
(Or else it’ll be buried in a tiny little article between two massive articles about how Alex Salmond uses Yes funds to go on tropical holidays with a boatload of hookers and mugs pensioners for fun!)
I wonder how many other lords are at that “clocking-in scam” and just haven’t been caught at it yet?
‘YES compiling a booklet’?
They had better hurry up, they are running out of time.
This is not the only lies that BT are peddling today.
Vote no borders are running ads, leaflet type, in the record today with alleged Scots saying things like ‘I don’t want to get a passport to visit my family in England’ and cross border NHS corporation.
Meantime the DM & the express are running with the scare story about the Scotch industry being worried about exports due to the uncertainty over Scotland’s acceptance into the EU.
Nothing about the uncertainty due to the Tories in out referendum on the EU though.
Of course both DM & express are both having a go at the Weir’s donations to the YES campaign calling it unhealthy. It’s not unhealthy to take donations from people who don’t stay in Scotland or those who deal with war criminals though.
I won’t post any links for these rags.
I just want to say a big thank you to Mr & Mrs Weir for their generosity.
@ Peter Macbeastie
I have been asking the same question for ages. This “no lender of last resort” is just stated as a given and I have never seen any discussion of why that should be true. It depends on us having a sovereign Scottish currency, of course: and that is not currently the preferred option (though I think it should be). Be nice to see some real discussion on this issue: but it does not seem to be on anyone’s agenda at the moment.
There will be a currency union,because the rUK will require it to please the markets. Otherwise things will become uncertain and volatile for them. It also suits us in the short term,before we fly the coop, my fear is that the rUK will want a long term agreement on currency union for 40 or 50 years.
PS: Clocked the Daily Record in the cafe this morning. At least 9 ‘No Borders’ adverts about 50% A5 size bottom LH side and bottom RH side of opposing pages.
Each with a grass rooter’s ‘wee personal’ story vote NO.
The Record standing up for Scotland Aye Right!
Related to undecideds. had a proper look at the DuggyDug animations again yesterday along with teenager and toddler.
They both liked them, and they do make some points easy to understand to those not involved with the campaign so far.
They will only be any use if they get shared widely.
link to duggydug.com
Maybe time this started to happen.
On FB pages, tweeted to the right people they could shift a few people.
“See the lender of last resort thing?” This is another bettertogether vote No pile of pants too.
Lender of last resort simply means that if you do decide you are a lender of last resort, any bank can set up a token HQ office in Scotland instantly making all of us, every single taxpayer, entirely liable for the insane risks said banks take and the giant debts they run up.
Its a ukok farce made even worse by same mass City bankster tax evasion, either on profit or giant unearned bonuses they pay their “talent,” or each other.
Or,even after the last 2008 crash, why has no City banker fraudster ever been tried in a teamGB court of law?
Sure Fred the Shred lost his knighthood but that’s it. Ask Crash Gordon and the Flipper, they were in charge.
UKOK banking, it’s their profit and our losses.
daily retard=enemy within. a mendacious rag that appeals to dimwits and complete spackers.
Ref Lender of last resort.
In the mid 70’s the Labour government had to go cap in hand to the IMF to borrow US$ 5 billion. The lender of last resort was NOT the BoE !
For those of a certain age they will remember at that time the currency restrictions when travelling abroad ? The maximum sterling one could take out the country was limited to fifty quid
@Peter Macbeastie.
What puzzles me about the lender of last resort is the fact that the UK had to go to the IMF in the 70’s( so what about the BoE then?)
So isn’t the IMF the de facto “lender of last resort” anyway?
Not that anyone would want to go to them, better to manage your economy in a way that makes it unnecessary.
@ Peter MacBeastie: the UK has used the term Lender of Last Resort as a sort of comfort blanket that Scotland would lose following independence. The Bank of England is the UK’s central bank,lender of last resort, and is jointly owned by England, including Wales and N Ireland, and Scotland. An independent Scotland of course could form her own central bank if suitable terms on a common currency and effective joint management of economic management and interest rates with rUK cannot be agreed.
Importantly a Scottish central bank would have considerable resource collateral in support of its financial policies, but where would that leave the rUK saddled with a chronic balance of payments problem and £1.5 trillion debt?
I was asked about currency whilst canvassing yesterday, and responded, ” Would it make any difference to you if we adopted the US dollar, or the euro, you already have used them surely whilst on holiday? Or our own currency? It is the collateral backing of the currency that counts. Aye right enough I suppose”.
And don’t forget the view expressed some time back by an English, UK government minister – unemployment in the North is a price worth paying.
@Gerry
Great minds think alike and all that 🙂
Typical colonial attitude. “Do you want to end up like Panama or Ecaudor? Diddy countries, stuffed with lazy, johhny foreigner types! No. Then vote NO and remain a region of the Glorious British Empire!”
Alistair Carmicheal really does compare the Scottish electorate to that of an audience of six year old children.
He think’s he is Scotland’s answer to the Illusionist, David Blaine.
We are all meant to sit back in wonderment and amazement at the benefits of staying within the UK.
But as with all illusions, there is nothing there, it is all smoke and mirrors.
It is a con trick, and it’s a trick that we have all seen many times before.
And Carmicheal is that stupid, that he thinks that he can keep repeating the same old routine and get the same results.
Carmicheal is not an illusionist, he is a clown!
See these wee Vote No Borders adverts in the Daily Record today, we need to keep plugging the fact that they are a tory front, all the evidence is there to prove it.
I think I will do a daily VNB tweet from now on. Most Daily Record readers hate the tories, they would be disgusted if they realised that these adverts are actually coming from them.
O/T
The ‘Daily’ Herald publishes the McCrone report on its on-line version. Secret and genuine 1970’s typing too… 🙂
The bad news for Coco the Clown Carmichael is that people in Scotland are getting wise to the never-ending smear, lies and scaremongering that him and his fellow unionist stooges bring down everyday on Scotland at the behest of his masters down in westminster. I would suggest that history will not look kindly on him and his fellow snake oil salesmen (Douglas Alexander, Ian Bayonet Davidson et al).
Their souls must be as black as a frying pan.
OT The tide is truly turning: blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/05/state-of-the-union-not-good/
You know what?
They are not even trying now and are just going through the motions.
Motions is a good word as it adequately describes what they are producing.
Interesting that the price of Johnston Press shares have halved in a month from 29p to 14.5p today.
They publish the lying Scotsman whose sales are plummeting.
It was a great and balanced paper once and could be again with a change of ownership.
Could be worth looking at relieving them of this burden and turning it round.
@ Bugger.
Is that like the old saying” You don’t swim in the Clyde, you just go through the motions”?
I used to row on it as a kid.
You are right.
The second version is just as false as the first. Outwith a currency union there would be no legislative force imposing interest rates set in London on Scotland. It’s only within a formal currency union that such a thing could happen and even then only if Scotland held on to it’s share of the BoE and had representation on the board that sets those interest rates. In which case we’d actually have a more consistent presence and perhaps more control over our interest rates.
Yes they can’t give up can they.
However today we have a Financial Services Company, based in Edinburgh, stating.
“Baillie Gifford became the latest Scottish-based financial services firm to reveal whether it would look to move out Scotland if it becomes an independent country.”
And a spokesperson (senior partner) stating.
“I really don’t want to be flippant about this but investment trusts have survived through world wars and depressions and so I am sure they will thrive after September no matter what the results.”
Hurray to them.
@ Gerry and Kendoon
Why did they not cite Hong Kong and Singapore as countries who pin the currency to the US$?
Sorry, I forgot to add, same spokesperson said.
“We do not take a political stance on this but we as a firm are committed to staying in Edinburgh whatever happens in the referendum,” he said.
O/T – I have finally had enough of the biased coverage from the BBC so phoned them up this morning to complain of bias and blatant propaganda against the Yes campaign. It is much better than complaining on line – Telephone number is 03700 100 222.
I spoke to a very nice young man from Northern Ireland who listened and wrote down all my complaints and said he would pass them onto senior management. I asked how to cancel my BBC licence fee and he very helpfully gave me the number of the licensing department which is 0300 790 6131.
I then phoned the licensing department and explained how the BBC were acting against their charter for impartiality on the Scottish independence referendum and were producing propaganda for the No campaign and had no wish to further fund an organisation which was acting against my own country, Scotland, in contravention to its own rules.
I wished to cancel my license fee and after a minute or two, the nice lady came back to me to say that was it cancelled but I could be prosecuted with a £1000 fine if I continued to watch television. I said as was aware of this but was quite prepared to go to court over this issue as it was so important.
She also reminded me to cancel my direct debit – so she was also very helpful.
So it is all very quick and easy to break links with the BBC completely and I feel much better now – a really clean feeling.
It is the best thing I have done yet for the Independence Campaign.
Freedom !
Meant to add, you can only kick a dog so many times before it will attack back. Carmichael is not very bright if he cannot see this. Day in day out the negative drip feed of scares and distortions of the truth and and misleading headlines is enough to turn anyone into a yes voter.
Unionist propaganda psychologically running Scotland down, truly is the boy who cried wolf too many times.
The link to the Baillie Gifford statement and others such as Aberdeen Asset Management (who also stated they are remaining in Scotland if it goes Independent) is here.
link to fundweb.co.uk
Let’s be clear.
This is the way of the British Empire; wealth at home through exploitation in the colonies.
Scotland is and always has been
the UK’s life support system.
Mr Carmichael’s job is to lie constantly about that fact.
His livelihood depends on it.
The issue is how many Scots believe the lie.
Sadly, too many.
But by Sept 18th, there will be far fewer.
Yes will triumph.
Let Mr Carmichael attend the reconciliation service.
And let him stand before those gathered with him and admit publicly his every lie.
So also with Lamont, Sarwar, Alexander, Mundell and all the rest.
Then let them renounce public office for a term of 5 years.
After that, we’ll see.
O/t
Just been listening to John Beattie on R Scotland discussing the Scottish Parliament. He read out two anti Parliament texts, then had a discussion with Henry Mcleish and some newspaper hack, Absolutely unbelievable! BBC have sunk to new depths! Shame on you J Beattie!
I’m off for a long walk with my collie to try and de stress!
Flower of Scotland
Be nice to your collie, he is more intelligent than the Last Viceroy of Scotland. He also had a nastier bite.
I don’t know if it’s only me but even with the Sunday Herald coming out for YES,I feel that the MSM is going harder than ever against us.
Is it now more important than ever that the WOS booklet comes out,to convince folk and give them time to think about what the referendum really means?.Time for some ‘crowdfunding’Stu?
So there,s not enough Parliamentary Buisness MPs get a
extra 19days off. How conveniant stand by for a assault
by Bbc/Stv, Public meetings, lets get geared up people to
attend those meeting & challenge those MPs at every turn
keep your eyes peeled as to Place/Date/Time of these
meeting & share them far & wide. Again public purse (ours)
paying for BTs propaganda machine.
Lender of last resort is only responsible for business taking place within a states jurisdiction. That’s one of the reasons a head office has to be in the state where said business takes place according to EU regulations. It’s why Scotland could easily have bailed out those parts of RBS and HBoS it was responsible for and the rUK would have been free to save the Halifax and NatWest entirely or just their customers.
@Ken500
Currency is vital to fiscal sustainability; if a nation does not issue its own currency then before it can spend the government has to acquire the currency. This makes it vulnerable if it needs to run a government deficit. It is at the mercy of markets. Look at the Eurozone nations with large external deficits.
Correct, which is why the UK can sustain its external deficit, and has done so for decades. The government deficit accommodates the external deficit and non-government net saving. Without its own currency, in order to run a government deficit it would have to acquire whatever currency it was using, and the markets would have control.
Westminster is right to refuse a currency union, but the reason, the thing they don’t say, is that in a genuine CU between iScotland and rUK it is the rUK that would be the weak partner, not Scotland.
Just for clarity, RBS owns the Bank of Ulster and Natwest, Natwest being a much larger bank than RBS at the time of the buyout, and at one point was targeted by the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation ( the group that rebranded the Midland bank as HSBC, which incidentally used to own the Clydesdale for a while. ) Lloyds owns the Bank of Scotland as it bought Halifax BoS just before it realised it couldn’t afford them and we as tax payers technically own shares in the whole shebang. The Clydesdale bank is owned by an Australian banking group who also own the Yorkshire Bank. There are no ‘Scottish’ banks, the entire concept is a semantic smokescreen.
It would appear that the lender of last resort for the BoE is alive and well in the land of Uncle Sam!
link to businessforscotland.co.uk
@Peter Macbeastie & others
Do we need a lender of last resort?
As I understand it, Panama sailed through the credit crunch because they didn’t have one as they use the US dollar. They didn’t have the boom or the bust and their banks are in good shape because they had to be prudent in their situation.
Thanks to all who responded to my earlier question.
What I am taking from it is A) it wouldn’t be much of a problem, and B) the only impediment appears to be that it would mean setting up our own independently backed currency which is not, apparently, the preferred option even though just about everyone I’ve spoken to who has expressed a preference seems to like the idea of it.
And of course, it’s very interesting that once upon a time the UK had to run to the IMF for a bailout. I would wonder why Scotland could not do the same if it all went to hell in a handcart.
Caroline; what you say about the larger banks is entirely correct. However, there are still Scottish banks, albeit much smaller and run along complete banking principles (as opposed to business principles, which is one reason RBS landed in the smelly.) The best known of these is probably the two branch Airdrie Savings Bank.
There would, I suspect, be nothing to stop the Scottish Government setting up a wholly government owned bank and funding it directly while allowing it to act commercially as well.
What I don’t understand is why no one at Yes Scotland or the SNP is pointing this out when Better Together come out with their traditional ‘you can’t use our pound’ crap. There are two lies in those five words. Yes, we can use it, and it’s not your pound to tell us what we can or can’t with it anyway.
Bjsalba; quite possibly not. But then I don’t pretend I know enough about economics to say yes or no to that one.
I don’t know much about Panama either. Big canal. And that’s about all.
We Scots have blindy accepted that our lifetime`s taxes and N.I.contributions belong to – Owned by – this foreign state that will be R.u.k..
These taxes and N.I.C.`s belong to us – not them.
Scottish assets,held by a foreign state.
Westminster wants us to accept miserly weekly pensions doled out by R.u.k. whilst they keep the REAL MONEY. OUR MONEY.
When we refuse to fight for those monies that belong to us, why do we expect sympathy or a currency union from a bankrupt system that needs our money and our Mineral Rights.
If it wasn’t for this gigantic “off book” assistance in resources and manpower from government agencies BT would already be floating upside down in the water. It’s about as far away from grassroots as you can get.
To Rev. Stu.
Maybe I missed it but it would appear that the Grand Lodge of the Orange Order in Scotland Support the Removal of jobs and the Ancient Rights of fellow Scots.?
Ancient Rights and jobs removed from Scotland and Shifted to the bigots in Belfast and Ulster.?
Passport Processing in 2007 Shifted to Belfast by Brown and Darling on the 300th.Anniversary of the
Act of Union of 1707.
187 jobs lost at Glasgow Passport Office.
Clyde Coastguard H.Q. Shifted to Belfast in 2011.
The oldest Scottish Regiment in the British Army will be permanently based in Ulster.
After closing 2 of the 3 x R.A.F.Bases in Scotland, Scots get to pay tax to build and kit-out abrand new R.A.F.Base in Ulster.
ALL the above can be verified in “Hansard”.
Presumably, all those affected above will be marked Absent from the March of the Grand Lodge of the Orange Order of Scotland strategically timed to take place on the Saturday prior to Sept.19th. 2014..
“They” support bigotry in Ulster – shamefully Before they even try to retain jobs and the Ancient Rights of Scots.
I AM SHAMED BY FELLOW prods.
Shamed by people who purport to be Scots
P.S.
forgot to mention that Scotland`s Ancient Borders are also now controlled in Belfast since 2011 when the Con.Dems. Shifted the Borders Agency H.Q. FROM Stranraer to Belfast.
ALL our Ancient Rights Removed – and Granted “Royal Assent”.
DESPICABLE.
LORD TRIMBLE has employment – versus Scotland – in the House of Lords, but what will Ulster do for jobs when Scots bring tens of thousands of jobs HOME from Ulster.?
After we take back our Ancient Rights.
His rant of last week needs “Perspective” – in Scotland.
Rev…. just a point on the FOI request that you link to at the beginning of this article. The FCO (or other Public sector org) will not tell you the costs as you ask for these related to an individual or company that’s standard practice in public sector as this information is deemed to the company or individual as commercially sensitive….. Now if you were to ask the cost for external legal consultants/advisors (like the Sunday Post did) then they are obliged to tell you
Hope this helps – or excuse me if you were aware of this already!
@bjsalba and Peter Macbeastie
Panama is a dollarised economy with no central bank or lender of last resort, and it avoided the worst of the effects of the crash. Ecuador is another dollarised Latin American nation, but it does have a central bank which does act as LOLR. It too avoided the worst of the crash.
Australia has its own currency, and a central bank. It is also quite heavily financialised, though less so than the UK or US. Despite that it also avoided the crash – it didn’t even enter recession – thanks to significant deficit spending by the government.
There are numerous options for structuring economies and financial systems, some with central banks, some without, some with lenders of last resort and some without. It depends on what economic and financial model Scotland wants to operate. What is clear is that the Anglo-American model of heavy financialisation causes problems for society as a whole, especially when, in a crash, the government chooses to penalise the wider population for the actions of the bankers.
@Peter Macbeastie
The decision to turn to the IMF in ’76 was one of many boneheaded decisions by the government at the time – mostly related to an insane desire to maintain sterling’s value way above what was reasonable. With the collapse of Bretton Woods, and the constraints it placed on governments, in ’71 there was no need for a ‘bailout’.
With a, hopefully, less boneheaded government, and with its own currency, the situation wouldn’t even arise.
Absolutely. Or just regulate away the fraudulent, casino style Anglo model. Let them leave for London; a significant portion of banking employment is in boring high-street banks, and those jobs would stay.
via the bank that we own I`ve been trying to ascertain the percentage of R.B.S. Shares held by “THE TEAMSTERS PENSION FUND”, the American Truckers Trades Union in 2006-2007. before the bank went belly-up.
F.oI. = zero.
R.B.S. = zero.
Alisdair Darling = zero.
Gordon Brown = zero.
Osborne = Aye,right.
When the Teamsters Truckers Union has many times more members than the population of Scotland, let alone shareholders, one should be able to find the percentage of R.B.S.Shares held by one American Pension Fund.
Can anyone advise.?
They didnt put in that ( according to yesterdays Sun newspaper, page 2) Hammond has warned Osborne that any more cuts to the defence budget would ” wipe out our military ship building industry” Well we now know the yards are safe in the UK
David Cameron should be “sterlingised”.
Yes. The lie persists and is making itself work. My don’t knows are now “no goani vote”
We have lost unless there is “an event”.
I said it before. Blow up the *ucking TV Masts.
When more than 90 per cent of RBS Shares were held outwith Scotland and more than 60 per cent of RBS Shares were held outwith GB – we easily see that Brown and Darling plundered our taxes to reimburse the rest of the world that owned the Majority of RBS Shares.
Public sector Pension Funds have to publish annual accounts.
The Teachers Pension Fund of Ontario LOST ZERO in 2008/09. despite owning more RBS Shares than all Scotland.
This Pension Fund, at the height of the RBS Collapse posted zero losses after the shares fell from 1,300 pence to 8 pence a share.
In 2010/11 this Fund Posted Profits at over £2 billion.
The American truckers trades union – the TEAMSTERS PENSION FUND – was one of the largest shareholders in RBS.
When we tear apart the illusion that Brown and Darling saved the Scottish banks – we can convince “don`t knows” that the Last people they should listen to — is B.`n` D..
p.s.
Let`s not never forget that the Lender of Last Resort,the Bank of England had to be complicit in the CON. versus all the small shareholders of RBS..