When will indyref2 happen?

[Colkitto]

Even Gordon Brown has given up on a Federal UK and is now saying Scotland has a "Progressive future" inside the UK. 

Seems like it's only Scots Unionists are left fighting for the Union, which is pathetic in itself. The English and even the English Tories have given up on it 

[renton]

5 minutes ago, Colkitto said:

Even Gordon Brown has given up on a Federal UK and is now saying Scotland has a "Progressive future" inside the UK. 

Seems like it's only Scots Unionists are left fighting for the Union, which is pathetic in itself. The English and even the English Tories have given up on it 

Presumably because the English Tories have given up any pretence of 'the will of the people' and think they can just say No to everything, then ignore it until it goes away.

[John Lambies Doos]

I genuinely feel sorry for anyone who has the engrained servility of one eyed Broon.

Edit: aye right

Even Gordon Brown has given up on a Federal UK and is now saying Scotland has a "Progressive future" inside the UK. 
Seems like it's only Scots Unionists are left fighting for the Union, which is pathetic in itself. The English and even the English Tories have given up on it 

[tirso]

23 hours ago, git-intae-thum said:

In fact, given our BoP surplus with rUK, I wonder what figures would magically appear if we could work out the revenue take on the sale of all taxable goods, services and commodities. Particularly when compared with figures currently guestimates through GERS.

A monumental accounting task and unfortunately an impossible one. This due to the understandable lack of a legislative requirement for the necessary record keeping whilst we are part of the UK.

However there is clearly a hidden wealth transferral....And it's big.

Not saying you're wrong but surely the Scottish Government civil servants would include appropriate revenue for these streams.

They do it for oil so why wouldn't they do it for Energy?

I'm not saying GERS is necessarily accurate but its' the figures produced now by the pro-independence government.  It's what they based the white paper on.  I'm sceptical such a material amount wouldn't be factored in.

[Jeff Venom]

Think tank presumably means facade for one last aggressive campaign using whatever tricks and funding they can garner to preserve his beloved yoonyin.
Eat your cereal x 1,000,000 incoming.

[renton]

4 minutes ago, tirso said:

Not saying you're wrong but surely the Scottish Government civil servants would include appropriate revenue for these streams.

They do it for oil so why wouldn't they do it for Energy?

I'm not saying GERS is necessarily accurate but its' the figures produced now by the pro-independence government.  It's what they based the white paper on.  I'm sceptical such a material amount wouldn't be factored in.

To overhaul GERS would be a monumental effort, and possibly not even feasible. It hasn't really changed much since it's inception either.

[tirso]

4 minutes ago, renton said:

To overhaul GERS would be a monumental effort, and possibly not even feasible. It hasn't really changed much since it's inception either.

We've gone from being a net positive relative to the UK to a net negative.  That's a change and one the Scottish government would be keen to point out as false with all its might if this energy revenue swayed the difference.  Even as a footnote.

[trainspotter]

49 minutes ago, I'm Brian said:

Is it just me or has the Godzilla of Scottish politics been waking up an awful lot recently.

It's almost as if they realise a campaign is underway

 

It's possible he's feeling empowered by no longer being the worst UK Prime Minister in living memory.

[Tibbermoresaint]

27 minutes ago, renton said:

To overhaul GERS would be a monumental effort, and possibly not even feasible. It hasn't really changed much since it's inception either.

Amending GERS would be a very straightforward task. But some people will always prefer seeking excuses to tackling problems.

[renton]

1 minute ago, Tibbermoresaint said:

Amending GERS would be a very straightforward task. But some people will always prefer seeking excuses to tackling problems.

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/08/24/gers-is-not-a-meaningful-account-but-is-just-a-political-stunt-it-is-time-all-nationalists-treated-it-as-such/

Quote

• The data to check that some of the information is correct is just not available. For example, there is no way of knowing the value of goods and services flowing over the borders into England and Northern Ireland and so where value is really added is unknown. This means it is almost impossible to know the true levels of economic activity in Scotland and so guess whether the tax base is right.
• With so many Scottish companies being based in England deciding what profit arises in Scotland is nigh on impossible when there is no reliable data to base this upon.

Based on those two points alone, it doesn't appear to me obvious that installing the necessary framework and resourcing that would be in any way straight forward.

It's easy enough to point out that GERS is crap, but substituting a useful document feels like a totally different problem and not a particularly useful solution anyway. GERS can only be crude guesstimate of how Scotland performs under the current devolution settlement, it says nothing about how Scotland could or would perform when independent. 

[Tibbermoresaint]

4 minutes ago, renton said:

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/08/24/gers-is-not-a-meaningful-account-but-is-just-a-political-stunt-it-is-time-all-nationalists-treated-it-as-such/

Based on those two points alone, it doesn't appear to me obvious that installing the necessary framework and resourcing that would be in any way straight forward.

It's easy enough to point out that GERS is crap, but substituting a useful document feels like a totally different problem and not a particularly useful solution anyway. GERS can only be crude guesstimate of how Scotland performs under the current devolution settlement, it says nothing about how Scotland could or would perform when independent. 

I'm well aware of the deficiencies of GERS, thanks, I'm merely pointing out that your claim that amending it would be a monumental effort is bollocks. Of course you'd have to have the will to do it rather than seeking excuses not to do it and not everyone has that.

[renton]

Just now, Tibbermoresaint said:

I'm well aware of the deficiencies of GERS, thanks, I'm merely pointing out that your claim that amending it would be a monumental effort is bollocks. Of course you'd have to have the will to do it rather than seeking excuses not to do it and not everyone has that.

Look at the two points I highlighted. How would you circumvent those?

[tirso]

9 minutes ago, renton said:

https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2018/08/24/gers-is-not-a-meaningful-account-but-is-just-a-political-stunt-it-is-time-all-nationalists-treated-it-as-such/

Based on those two points alone, it doesn't appear to me obvious that installing the necessary framework and resourcing that would be in any way straight forward.

It's easy enough to point out that GERS is crap, but substituting a useful document feels like a totally different problem and not a particularly useful solution anyway. GERS can only be crude guesstimate of how Scotland performs under the current devolution settlement, it says nothing about how Scotland could or would perform when independent. 

I don't understand how that is not linked to how Scotland would perform in independence.  The economy of independence will start from there no?

[Tibbermoresaint]

5 minutes ago, renton said:

Look at the two points I highlighted. How would you circumvent those?

Your two points aren't relevant to the discussion which is about tirso's post:

56 minutes ago, tirso said:

Not saying you're wrong but surely the Scottish Government civil servants would include appropriate revenue for these streams.

They do it for oil so why wouldn't they do it for Energy?

I'm not saying GERS is necessarily accurate but its' the figures produced now by the pro-independence government.  It's what they based the white paper on.  I'm sceptical such a material amount wouldn't be factored in.

It would be very simple to amend GERS, which is just a spreadsheet, to include additional sources of income received and expenditure incurred.

 

[renton]

Just now, tirso said:

I don't understand how that is not linked to how Scotland would perform in independence.  The economy of independence will start from there no?

Quite apart from not being able to accurately measure accurate economic activity in Scotland, GERS also assigns a per head basis on a number of metrics (for example, tourism). Scotland also pays it's per head share on UK liabilities ranging from Crossrail to defence (Look at the forces kept in Scotland vs. what Scotland pays as part of the UK). Note that Scotland also only controls part of it's own tax base and has no control on fiscal policy. 

In other words, as far as I can see  there are a great deal of glaring inaccuracies in GERS to start with, but the other side of the equation is extrapolating how Scotland would perform under independence. Any 'deficit' in GERS is purely notional and would be dependent on any number of factors including our divorce settlement with the UK and future trade relationships with the UK and the EU. 

In that respect it's not really where the economy of independence would start from.

[renton]

1 minute ago, Tibbermoresaint said:

Your two points aren't relevant to the discussion which is about tirso's post:

It would be very simple to amend GERS, which is just a spreadsheet, to include additional sources of income received and expenditure incurred.

 

The two points are highly relevant assuming you'd want your additional sources to be accurate, no?

Edited July 18, 2019 by renton

[Tibbermoresaint]

7 minutes ago, tirso said:

I don't understand how that is not linked to how Scotland would perform in independence.  The economy of independence will start from there no?

No.

[Tibbermoresaint]

1 minute ago, renton said:

The two points are highly relevant assuming you'd want your additional sources to be accurate, no?

No. The question was whether it could be amended. It can be.

[tirso]

9 minutes ago, renton said:

Quite apart from not being able to accurately measure accurate economic activity in Scotland, GERS also assigns a per head basis on a number of metrics (for example, tourism). Scotland also pays it's per head share on UK liabilities ranging from Crossrail to defence (Look at the forces kept in Scotland vs. what Scotland pays as part of the UK). Note that Scotland also only controls part of it's own tax base and has no control on fiscal policy. 

In other words, as far as I can see  there are a great deal of glaring inaccuracies in GERS to start with, but the other side of the equation is extrapolating how Scotland would perform under independence. Any 'deficit' in GERS is purely notional and would be dependent on any number of factors including our divorce settlement with the UK and future trade relationships with the UK and the EU. 

In that respect it's not really where the economy of independence would start from.

as far as I'm aware the Scottish government has a team of statisticians who rationalise these figures.  I may be wrong though.  I'm not an expert in it.  I'm aware of Dunleavy's opinion and it has some value.  However, I think the statisticians really are trying to make the stats are accurate as possible.  They don't just compute per capita figures.  There's more thought put in as far as I'm aware.

Anyway, i'm not saying they are completely accurate but they're a reasonable ballpark unless you think the input data is politically motivated.  Maybe it is.  It's happened before.

But my main point was I 'm highly sceptical that a material amount of revenue from this Energy transfer has not been factored in.  I'm not saying it has.  I'm just not convinced the SNP would let that slide.

Edited July 18, 2019 by tirso

[renton]

20 minutes ago, Tibbermoresaint said:

No. The question was whether it could be amended. It can be.

Presumably the question was based on whether the GERS methodology could be usefully amended to include additional revenue streams, including the Electrical Energy transfer as noted above. A further presumption on my part is that a useful amendment of GERS would require the accurate measurement of those revenue streams. I just assumed the question wasn't just "can you amend an Excel spreadsheet" and if was then fair fucks, we can just stick a column in for magical Unicorn poop valued at £100 Billion and be done with it.

Edited July 18, 2019 by renton