Independence - how would you vote?

[banterman86]

No, the problem is media lies.

So why aren;t the constituent players in YesScotland also running disticnt camapigns to circumvent this?

[xbl]

It's also worth clarifying that neither of us claimed to be more qualified than Scheffer either. Despite this lie being repeated a few times.

His qualifications aren't a Batfink shield of steel from moronism and wrongness though. He's basically tried to breenge into an arena he isn't an expert in, and this is why he's been slapped down by the likes of Matthew Happold, James Crawford and Alan Boyle, who are actual top level experts in the field.

Did you call him a clown and a nobody?

[banterman86]

Little bit I was considering the point that could be Tory and LibDem individual campaigns, but it might look bad for the co-alition, or even then just as indifferent themselves.

I wouldn;t see that as a problem at all, as the AV referendum showed.

In fact, if I recall correctly, there were "Yes to AV" and a "Labour for AV" campaigns.

[xbl]

So why aren;t the constituent players in YesScotland also running disticnt camapigns to circumvent this?

What? How would this help with the media lies. The Green Party have a different view of independence than the SNP. This has been widely repeated, usually with headlines like "CIVIL WAR, ANARCHY" etc.

[H_B]

Did you call him a clown and a nobody?

I'm not sure if I called him a nobody, but I certainly called him a clueless fool and a clown.

Though only during the posts when I was being nice to him.

[banterman86]

What? How would this help with the media lies. The Green Party have a different view of independence than the SNP. This has been widely repeated, usually with headlines like "CIVIL WAR, ANARCHY" etc.

There is repeated confusion that YesScotland and teh SNP are interchangeable, given how much the SNP dominates YesScotland staffing

[xbl]

There is repeated confusion that YesScotland and teh SNP are interchangeable, given how much the SNP dominates YesScotland staffing

In what way? Do you have any examples of this?

[banterman86]

THE pro-Scottish independence Yes Scotland campaign makes great play of the diversity of its membership and support.

The SNP is the biggest “partner”, but many other pro-independence parties stand beside it. What’s more, as the organisation’s chief executive Blair Jenkins OBE repeatedly reminds us, its real strength comes from a grassroots overgrowing with compassionate, and almost exclusively ordinary and local, Scots.

Yes Scotand is most definitely not a front for the SNP. That’s the key thing. It’s above the muck and bile of party politics. It stands apart from that.

I’d be inclined to believe the indignant insistence of Yes Scotland officials that their organisation isn’t an SNP front if it didn’t appear so often to be one.

A couple of weeks ago, Jenkins gave a speech in which he described again what made the organisation fundamentally different to the opposing Better Together, an open alliance between the Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat parties.

To guests at a business dinner organised by Yes West Lothian, he explained: “Yes has been much more visible and audible throughout Scotland, a genuine grassroots movement with more than 150 local groups now up and running and new ones emerging every month.”

Jenkins was having none of the SNP front allegations, either. He addressed the charge head on.

“Yes Scotland,” he said, “has support from people of all parties and – like myself – none. On our board are Patrick Harvie of the Scottish Greens and Colin Fox of the Scottish Socialist Party; we also have distinctive non-party voices like Pat Kane and Elaine C Smith; and of course, the formerly Labour but now formidably independent Dennis Canavan is our Chair. Yet Better Together asserts in the face of this evidence that "Yes Scotland is simply an SNP front". The smears start here.”

Oh, those smears. Yes Scotland would never wallow in that black lagoon.

“Yes Scotland runs a positive campaign and we never indulge in personal or sweeping attacks. Better Together says – falsely and again without producing any evidence – that we are part of a "co-ordinated dirty-tricks campaign". The smears go on.”

Let’s take the hooey about never indulging in personal or sweeping attacks first. It’s the lesser of the two problematic claims Jenkins made in his speech.

Chancellor George Osborne’s visit to Scotland was greeted with a little Yes Scotland campaign: a wince-inducing open letter to George with the pay-off that the only thing an independent Scotland would “lose” for sure would be him.

I’m hardly likely to complain about anyone going after the Chancellor: he’s an obvious target for the pro-independence movement. But I’d rather Yes Scotland were upfront about these things rather than them coming in the wake of Jenkins’s clearly bogus claim that they wouldn’t indulge in “personal or sweeping” attacks.

Of more interest is Jenkins’s angry insistence that Yes Scotland is not an SNP-front (a claim made despite the fact that the bulk of its financial support comes from either the party or its donors).

When Osborne challenged the Scottish Government’s claim that an independent Scotland would seamlessly move into a “sterling zone”, retaining the pound, we expected to hear Cabinet Secretaries fight back. Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon, and John Swinney (the SNP’s three crucial figures in this referendum fight) obliged. All accused Osborne of “scaremongering”, which seems the SNP’s kneejerk response to any political challenge to its narrative.

It was all pretty standard stuff of the 'he said-she said' genus. But the SNP cabinet secretaries were not alone. Yes Scotland decided to start throwing punches at the Chancellor, too. And it used identical lines to the Scottish Government.

While Sturgeon was talking “scaremongering”, a Yes Scotland statement was issued. It declared that Osborne’s “scaremongering” should be dismissed. It used as the basis for this the work of the Scottish Government’s Fiscal Commission Working Group. This is a group not established to give answers and guidance to Scotland but to Alex Salmond as he makes his political arguments.

Not only did Yes Scotland rely on Salmond’s group for its “facts”, it stoutly defended the Scottish Government’s “sterling zone” plans.

The proposal to keep the pound isn’t Green Party or Scottish Socialist Party policy - it’s the policy of the Scottish Government. But Yes Scotland – this all party and none group – had no hesitation in making it a central plank of its argument.

So if Yes Scotland isn’t a SNP front, what is it? A Government department, maybe?

The SNP has an abundance of talented senior politicians to engage in the dirty business of this referendum battle; it doesn’t need, in Yes Scotland, another attack wing.

Jenkins unfocused leadership of the organisation makes it unclear whether it's a touchy feely community movement or a pseudo political party. It seems the latter more often than the former.

Yes Scotland can do what it likes, of course, but how about a little honesty about what it is and what it stands for?

Because I've read Jenkins's grand words about what his organisation is and I'm starting to think he's either hiding something or making it up as he goes along.

http://www.thinkscotland.org/todays-thinking/articles.html?read_full=12110&article=www.thinkscotland.org

You won't like the source, obviosuly.

[vikingTON]

Assuming a geographical oil apportionment. I said pro-rata. Because the oil hasn't actually been split yet, nor is there an undertaking that it will be. I agree it should be, but it doesn't mean we're not running a significant structural deficit AT THE MOMENT essentially as bad as the UK's as a whole, albeit marginally better.

Erm no, this simply doesn't wash. The only means by which to sensibly determine Scottish economic performance is by including the revenue from the oil which it owns. Any other measure of performance is invalid. Your point is about as stupid as determining that Scotland can't afford public services because it runs a massive deficit if you don't include manufacturing. Or services. Or any other part of the Scottish economy that is indisputably Scottish in nature.

So once again, I'm expecting a mewling apology from yourself.

[Ad Lib]

Erm no, this simply doesn't wash. The only means by which to sensibly determine Scottish economic performance is by including the revenue from the oil which it owns. Any other measure of performance is invalid. Your point is about as stupid as determining that Scotland can't afford public services because it runs a massive deficit if you don't include manufacturing. Or services. Or any other part of the Scottish economy that is indisputably Scottish in nature.

So once again, I'm expecting a mewling apology from yourself.

At the risk of going all John Brown on you, "show me the deeds".

Like it or not, North Sea oil is owned and controlled not by "Scotland" or any derivative, but the United Kingdom, the drilling rights to which are granted to private companies for a levy. Unlike, say, distilleries or high-tech factories. Which are owned by the companies that, uh, own them.

Of course, that ought to change with independence, but we're not independent yet, nor is there any near-future prospect of Scotland having control of the revenues of North Sea oil.

[vikingTON]

By your argument, none of Scotland's economic sectors are owned or controlled by 'Scotland': as a consequence, no comparison can be made at all.

Those are your two choices: either retract your original claim as Scotland owns nothing, or include everything Scotland does de facto own in a meaningful comparison. Your initial claim has been torn to shreds, and I'm still expecting a mewling apology.

[Baxter Parp]

http://www.thinkscotland.org/todays-thinking/articles.html?read_full=12110&article=www.thinkscotland.org

You won't like the source, obviosuly.

That's a blog opinion piece, not an example. What's more, it's wrong, Canavan and The Green Party are on record saying that they'd prefer a new currency and indeed, the Green Party councillor Chas Booth said as much last night on the Newsnight discussion. What your chum has done is mistaken party policy (i.e. what an elected government would do if Scotland votes for independence) with the campaign for independence.

[Ad Lib]

By your argument, none of Scotland's economic sectors are owned or controlled by 'Scotland': as a consequence, no comparison can be made at all.

Those are your two choices: either retract your original claim as Scotland owns nothing, or include everything Scotland does de facto own in a meaningful comparison. Your initial claim has been torn to shreds, and I'm still expecting a mewling apology.

Everything that is not owned collectively by the UK government which is wholly contained within Scotland, or which is owned by a company registered in Scotland or a business conducting its affairs discretely in Scotland if not incorporated, is discretely part of the Scottish economy.

[Ad Lib]

That's a blog opinion piece, not an example. What's more, it's wrong, Canavan and The Green Party are on record saying that they'd prefer a new currency and indeed, the Green Party councillor Chas Booth said as much last night on the Newsnight discussion. What your chum has done is mistaken party policy (i.e. what an elected government would do if Scotland votes for independence) with the campaign for independence.

Yawn. This has been discussed before. Party policy matters on sovereign rights because the SNP will be overseeing the transition. YesScotland should be neither defending nor condemning the SNP's f**k up.

[Baxter Parp]

At the risk of going all John Brown on you, "show me the deeds".

Like it or not, North Sea oil is owned and controlled not by "Scotland" or any derivative, but the United Kingdom, the drilling rights to which are granted to private companies for a levy. Unlike, say, distilleries or high-tech factories. Which are owned by the companies that, uh, own them.

Of course, that ought to change with independence, but we're not independent yet, nor is there any near-future prospect of Scotland having control of the revenues of North Sea oil.

Come off it, you can't predict the economy of any country by ignoring all or some of its resources, that's plainly rubbish. You're just making yourself look foolish.

[vikingTON]

Everything that is not owned collectively by the UK government which is wholly contained within Scotland, or which is owned by a company registered in Scotland or a business conducting its affairs discretely in Scotland if not incorporated, is discretely part of the Scottish economy.

And oil isn't?

You're making a complete and utter fool of yourself now.

[Ad Lib]

And oil isn't?

You're making a complete and utter fool of yourself now.

No. Oil is collectively owned by the UK government. Wrongly, but it is.

[Ad Lib]

Come off it, you can't predict the economy of any country by ignoring all or some of its resources, that's plainly rubbish. You're just making yourself look foolish.

They're not "our" resources. Not yet, anyway. Again, for the avoidance of doubt, they should be. But they're not.

[Baxter Parp]

Yawn. This has been discussed before. Party policy matters on sovereign rights because the SNP will be overseeing the transition. YesScotland should be neither defending nor condemning the SNP's f**k up.

There will be an election soon after independence and whatever party wins will be able to change the currency to whatever the hell they like. Party policy has nothing to do with the campaign for independence.

[Ad Lib]

There will be an election soon after independence and whatever party wins will be able to change the currency to whatever the hell they like. Party policy has nothing to do with the campaign for independence.

The currency needs to be sorted out BEFORE independence as part of the transitional negotiations. That's the only way the SNP's currency union idea is practically possible. Otherwise we'd be unilaterally adopting another country's currency from day one, which for the reasons explained at some length on here would be a bad idea.