DMCs

Meant to say can.

The issue is that unlike with an employer or private pension there is no "bargain" and you haven't signed anything or agreed on any terms. The state can't simply pass a law and abolish your state pension whenever it wants and there is nothing you can do. This applies to the UK government as well as an independent Scottish government. So it comes to negotiations and management of public opinion or trust. This is the most relevant historical example. I don't know what happened there and I can't find any articles on it. Would be interested to find this.

I don't have the sources in front of me but there are examples of the British government saying this or relevant Whitehall civil servants saying this. One thing is that all of this would be subject to post independence negotiations and we don't have a truly relevant historical example to look at. The UK gov would go in wanting to reduce their liabilities while the Scottish government would go in wanting to avoid taking on as many liabilities as possible. So it could come down to what each party prioritises in terms of current national debt and current liabilities including state pensions or public sector pensions.

Because it's a tax and he is required to by law. They also have to contribute in NI taxation. That's not going to a fund for you.

If it's 7% in the most unionist region it's highly unlikely to be 6% nationally.

Many public sector pensions too including NHS DB pensions.

Yes, correct. However the figure to qualify for a year is very minimal nowadays (only just over £6k p/a in income) and once a year counts as having been qualified it's the same whether you earn £10k p/a or £10m p/a. Which is why it's only very indirectly based on your contributions.

It does because you were saying that the state pension is based on your contributions when it really is only very indirectly. It's not like a private or employer pension where a pot is invested in periodically and could grow if certain stock prices increase over time. It's a benefit like JSA.

I have in my earlier reply to you. Pensions are paid from current government revenue.

Completely incorrect.

In that situation it's a bit vaguer and would depend on a couple of factors in the post-independence negotiations relating to whether British citizenship is still held by Scots in an indy Scotland and whether they come to an agreement on pensions. There are either two scenarios: 1 - Current pensioners keep getting their pension as promised but the Scottish government takes up the liability instead of the British government. Future state pensions of any kind are paid by Scottish government. 2 - Current pensioners get their pension as promised from UK government (similar to how UK gov pays pensions of those retired in Spain) but all future state pensions of any kind are paid by Scottish government. So in scenario 1 if the post-indy Scottish government cut the state pension then I'd imagine there would not be cuts to current pensions only future pensions so the Scottish government would take the full liability. Scenario 1 is probably more likely but the issue is that we don't really have a relevant historial example to draw on. Post indepdence movements in Europe were either too long ago or in the Eastern bloc.

I don't think you understand how pensions are paid. There isn't a pension pot because there never was one. The state pension has always been paid by current taxation and the figure received is only very indirectly related to actual NI contributions. Someone who earns £118 a week for a year and someone who earns £25,000 per week for a year gets exactly the same state pension figure for that year despite the first person paying £0 in NI contributions per annum and the second person paying nearly £30k in NI alone. There isn't a pot of your pension contributions in a vault somewhere. This is how state pension payments work in developed economies. "you will start paying into a Scottish Pension Scheme and still be entitled to a uk pension if you paid into it." This isn't true. You will only be entitled to a UK pension if living in an indy Scotland IF you were already getting and drawing down that pension when independence happens. If independence happens then the Scottish government is responsible for pension payments

7% in the polls in the South Scotland is terrible. That's the SNP's worst region and would surely mean less than 6% nationally resulting in 0 seats. That's a gift for the SNP if it means less Labour or Conservative list votes in South Scotland.

What's the story with Hartley?

I totally agree on this point which is potentially a word of warning to Eddie Howe. Ultimately you are unlikely to get loads of time at the OF. Which means does he really get one full season to build, as a minimum, before being truly questioned. I think if last season had been played to an end you've ended up in a weird situation where quite a lot of fans would have been Gerrard-out but the board wasn't close to that.

I agree. I think you could see around that time that Gerrard wasn't sure how to fix it and wasn't in as good a mood. What they did with the time away was great but the pressure was building up. I think most fans were still behind him though. Myself and many I know included.

Very good appointment. He will need time though as he's never managed a club with anywhere near the pressure nor has any European experience.

The Boro fans all hate him and think he's shite now. I know it's on a bosman but I'm not massively keen.

Really strange line up for me.

Yes some AZ that we've had has come up from the EU. About 10 million doses supposedly. AZ isn't the real issue here. The issue is that his briefing doc goes further than that and talks about blocking Pfizer too. Which would be a disaster for staying on track with our second doses. Ok if first doses have to be slower but this is worse. Pfizer themselves have pushed back on any export ban as they know that they need materials from UK for their own production in the EU.

Really scary path that Europe (that means us too) could be going down here. Boris and the British Government have been quite publicly quiet on this which I'm taking to be a good sign that a mutually beneficial arrangement is being worked on behind the scenes.

Sounds very promising that Tavernier will sign a new deal then.

They take a wee while most of the time. Maybe less worry about Police input this season for most games though.

Because the Pfizer one needs components made in the UK so the UK could retaliate by blocking export of that to the EU and then everyone loses. As far as I'm aware at the moment the EU are only considering action regarding this Dutch facility which wouldn't actually cause too huge a problem with our own domestic production + some delivery from India.

I've seen the clip and that's not racist for me. Just an unfortunate choice of words but with no racist intent. He seems drunk as well.