Poster
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Does this mean that they were lying to us during the Election? Surely not.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7075988.stmHe will tell a Labour youth conference in Glasgow: "Scottish Labour does not believe that Scotland would wither and die as an independent country."
The best way to keep a secret:- Tell everyone not to tell anyone.
Looking for loopholes
The May Labour strategy was poor. It was based on a completely negative message of disaster and doom should the SNP win. The Labour media supporters mucked in with that stupid noose on the front page of the Record (or was it the Bun) on election day suggesting the Scottish people were about to commit suicide. Given the Tories tried the same scare tactics on Labour back in 97 and failed one would have to question the sanity of those in charge of the campaign.
The SNP won and the world continued to spin. Worse the SNP actually seem to have a lighter touch and a steadier hand than those we were told we could not do without. A rethink is definitely overdue from Labour - especially as Cameron appears to have decided that the Tories need to cut their loses and abandon the Union. The recent major article in the English Daily Mail (not the Scottish edition) by Tosser Hastings was so anti-Scottish that it was laughable. The rebuttal in the Herald yesterday showing that Scotland was, out of the 10 main UK regions, third least expensive highlights just how badly wrong the whole "dependent Scotland strategy" was.
If Scotland does become independent over the next 5 to 10 years I personally think the Union will have been put to the sword by the Unionists - Ironic or what? No wonder Big Eck smiles from dawn to dusk and looks like a politician at peace with the world.
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum
>H
For all the stuff i've seen in the papers about economists & journos coming up with figures which prove either side of the story, I struggle to reconcile the idea of an independent Scotland being one of the richest countries in the world, with my experiences of the country. I can't see where the money resides and i didn't really see enough industry to create it...,
"The truth of Scotland's economy", wrote Jenkins on Wednesday, "is that, like most of Salmond's voters, it depends on London money and must be weaned off it." No, Simon - the truth is that this both ignorant and patronising.
It has always been a myth that Scots are subsidised by England, but it has never been more of a myth than today. As the Herald points out in an analysis based on the official PESA figures, spending per head in Scotland is actually lower in Scotland than in London - £9,631 against £9,748. The highest spending is found in Northern Ireland, at £10,271 - but let's not go there.
London taxes do not subsidise high Scottish spending and those who make this claim know they are not telling the truth. The hundreds of billions in oil revenues which have flowed south over the last three decades more than outweigh any fiscal advantage enjoyed by Scots.
But even taking oil out of the equation, the argument is a fallacy. The raw tax take from Scotland at £49bn is only marginally lower than total public spending of £49.2bn. In fact, there is a strong case that, to achieve parity of services, Scottish spending should be higher than it is right now relative to England. Scotland has a third of the land mass of the British mainland with less than a tenth of the population. This means that services are more costly to administer. Roads in areas with low population; schools on remote islands; hospitals in areas of multiple deprivation like Glasgow.
And what the Jock-baiters conveniently omit from the balance sheet are the colossal sums spent on infrastructure projects in London - £6bn for the Jubilee line, £9bn for the Olympics, £16bn for Crossrail - all of which are supposed to represent some tangible benefit for Scotland which somehow never makes it onto the balance sheet. Any economist will tell you that London and the south east benefit disproportionately from '"non-identifiable" spending on defence, civil administration and other functions, which makes a nonsense of any claim that the metropolis is hard done by.
I loathe this kind of politics; it is as demeaning to have to write about it as it is to have to read it. But the metropolitan press has shown an irresponsibility in its treatment the Scottish condition in the last week which cannot and must not be allowed to continue unchallenged. London has turned into an egocentric village, obsessed with its own reflection in a self-serving media. London has persuaded itself that the rest of the country owes it a debt of gratitude for the way it gobbles up resources and debases our national culture. And it regards the rest of Britain as provincial and backward.
Scots are not fools; they can add up. They realise only too well that, as an independent nation, Scotland would be one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Scotland has suffered from generations of demographic attrition as London has sucked talent, capital and energy south, sending back a stipend delivered by the Barnett Formula - a fiscal device which, contrary to that other metropolitan myth, is designed to reduce Scottish relative spending rather than increase it.
Of course, Scots could go it alone within Europe tomorrow and thrive, but they don't because of a sentimental and increasingly anachronistic sense of filial obligation to England. They don't want to break things up, risk bad feeling, let emotions get out of hand. Like Robert Tressell's ragged trousered philanthropists, they feed London their wealth and skills; keep quiet about the oil, put up with people like Kelvin Mackenzie and Simon Jenkins because, well, they think its the right thing to do.
The default attitude of many metropolitan commentators is that Scots should put up or shut up - well it may come to that. But if we are heading for the velvet divorce courts, then people like Simon Jenkins may be in for a shock when it comes to dividing up the assets.
That said though, its pretty obvious it wouldn't wither and die, regardless of North Sea oil.
re-member
BT Rep: +1
Once the oil has been depleted..then the picts will want to re-join the Union..
Poster
BT Rep: +1
Should that scenario arise, I doubt it will, we will ask to join up with the Scandinavian countries and cut you loose altogether.Originally Posted by thewizeard
I have this strange feeling that we will take the north of England with us.
The best way to keep a secret:- Tell everyone not to tell anyone.
Looking for loopholes
If the Global Warming predictions are accurate then a lot of England will be looking to move to Scotland, Wales and Ireland anyhoo. We won't so much re-join as be joined.
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum
Poster
BT Rep: +1
I agree, if I believed in global warming that is,The central belt of England and Ireland would be flooded under such a scenario. Because of the attitude of some of them I am disinclined to let them join us.
The best way to keep a secret:- Tell everyone not to tell anyone.
mostly harmless
We'll just invade you, you silly sods
Poster
BT Rep: +1
Its hard to invade over a lot of water. Come to think of it you would be invading over a lot of oil.We'll just invade you, you silly sods
The best way to keep a secret:- Tell everyone not to tell anyone.
.
Not really, we'll have used it all by then.Its hard to invade over a lot of water. Come to think of it you would be invading over a lot of oil.We'll just invade you, you silly sods
.Political correctness is based on the principle that it's possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.
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