The Big Black Hole

[Antlion]

I think you'll find a lot of very successful periods within the 300 years if you take the blinkers off for a minute.

Of course there were - it was not all bad (is anything?). But you cannot deny that the last forty or so years have been incredibly short-termist, anti-Scottish and incompetent. The UK as a political project should have been dismantled along with the empire. If it was a business, it would have been liquidated decades ago. What's keeping it alive is ideological BritNats who simply can't relinquish the idea that the Union Jack is their flag and the UK their state; and the fact that the last few decades the UK government has been so incredibly venal and rapacious in its treatment of Scotland (and everywhere outside London) that it has reduced them to the financial positions you seem to expect us to be thankful for.

[Peppino Impastato]

I live in Dundee.  After 300 years of union one in three kids in Dundee are growing up in poverty.  If this is success give me failure any day, to think we couldn't do better than that on our own is incredibly pessimistic.

[Father Ted]

£15 billion for an economy the size of Scotland's is a "bigger deal" than £89 billion for an economy the size of the UK's.

In the same way that Crash Bandicoot 2 had a bigger impact on my finances as an 8-year old Playstation owner getting £4 pocket money a week than two tanks of petrol would be to a lawyer on £40kpa.

I won't even continue with this futile effort, if you are trying to claim UK are only £89billion deficit, it's a nonsense.

Incase you haven't noticed most countries run a deficit, and if we had been independent our top rating from world credit agencies would have helped see us through short term, until we got economy more productive which up until now has been stifled and stripped under your lot and the Tories.

Lol-Dems should disband.

[Ad Lib]

I won't even continue with this futile effort, if you are trying to claim UK are only £89billion deficit, it's a nonsense.

I'm not claiming that. The Scottish Government is. Through their independent report GERS.

Incase you haven't noticed most countries run a deficit

So f**k?

The point isn't that we are running a deficit. It's that literally days away from what was the SNP's planned independence day, we would be running the biggest deficit in the European Union and one that was three times as high as the 3% target above which the Stability and Growth Pact requires us to commit to specific austerity measures.

and if we had been independent our top rating from world credit agencies would have helped see us through short term

No it wouldn't. Even if we'd got a AAA rating, we'd have faced higher borrowing rates because we'd have less collateral and be seen as a risk until we'd established a track-record of debt and deficit management as a separate entity.

until we got economy more productive which up until now has been stifled and stripped under your lot and the Tories.

We wouldn't have the chance to fix the roof because the rain would be pissing down on us.

[Loondave1]

Of course there were - it was not all bad (is anything?). But you cannot deny that the last forty or so years have been incredibly short-termist, anti-Scottish and incompetent. The UK as a political project should have been dismantled along with the empire. If it was a business, it would have been liquidated decades ago. What's keeping it alive is ideological BritNats who simply can't relinquish the idea that the Union Jack is their flag and the UK their state; and the fact that the last few decades the UK government has been so incredibly venal and rapacious in its treatment of Scotland (and everywhere outside London) that it has reduced them to the financial positions you seem to expect us to be thankful for.

260 out of 300 years gone already.

[Antlion]

260 out of 300 years gone already.

Let's not forget that the average standard of living in Scotland under your beloved London capital's government didn't even achieve parity with the average in England until the 1930s.

So, since you think that regional status of the UK state is wonderful for Scotland, perhaps you can actually tell us why. When you look around the current state of Scotland, and when you read the GERS figures of Scotland the region's performance, what is it exactly that gives you a lower-body-quiver about Westminster rule? How far back in the past are you living?

[Father Ted]

I'm not claiming that. The Scottish Government is. Through their independent report GERS.

So f**k?

The point isn't that we are running a deficit. It's that literally days away from what was the SNP's planned independence day, we would be running the biggest deficit in the European Union and one that was three times as high as the 3% target above which the Stability and Growth Pact requires us to commit to specific austerity measures.

No it wouldn't. Even if we'd got a AAA rating, we'd have faced higher borrowing rates because we'd have less collateral and be seen as a risk until we'd established a track-record of debt and deficit management as a separate entity.

We wouldn't have the chance to fix the roof because the rain would be pissing down on us.

Word salad again, yawn....

[Fide]

It's whataboutery and grievance politics, like just about every yes voter blog post.

 

Ignoring Ad Lib as he slowly descends into an H_B tribute act, but the above is shite.

 

The grievance politics shite makes me laugh.

 

What were we promised with a No vote in 2014?

 

A £200bn oil bonanza if we vote No!

Saving the NHS if we vote No!

Guaranteed EU membership if we vote No!

Job safety if we vote No!

Welfare protection if we vote No!

 

Thank f**k I voted Yes.  I'd be feeling pretty fucking daft now if I'd been one of the servile forelock tuggers who voted No.

[Loondave1]

Im living right here and now and your Wiki history lesson isn't going to fill that yawning deficit any time soon.If hot air was oil though we'd be minted.

[MarkoRaj]

Im not overly serious when posting and not consumed with political matters in my day to day existence but i find the fingers in ears "la la la" reaction to the Scottish Govts own report astonishing. Even the SNP are not disputing it in any real sense.Your wasting your time really.None so blind as those who will not see.

What posts are you replying to with the above? None of them remotely resemble the reaction you describe. None so blind right enough

[Fide]

Im living right here and now and your Wiki history lesson isn't going to fill that yawning deficit any time soon.If hot air was oil though we'd be minted.

 

Yip cos the UK isn't running an ever increasing deficit, which is growing larger while public services and welfare suffer swinging cuts.

 

That's not happening is it?

 

Do you just put your fingers in your ears and go "la la la" surrounding Westminster?

[ScotSquid]

AD LIB there's not enough room to quote you and reply, so I won't bother quoting you.

You can paint picture anyway you want but the UK is on the verge of a serious financial crisis and they have the audacity to make such a big deal out of a minuscule £15billion, in comparison.

Whether I voted yes or no has nothing to do with it. It's the fact they treat us like morons.

Anyway good to see you back, as last time I caught you out, you disappeared off the topic.

While we are at it, Lib-Dems are an irrelevance now and I'm offended that my tax take goes towards their wages

Wow.. A serious financial crisis eh?

Worrying times..

Any idea when we can expect this to hit us so we can stock up on canned goods..?

[ICTChris]

The GERS figures are interesting but if the picture was rosier would people who voted No be queuing up to vote Yes? I'm not sure they would.

The thing that I find interesting is that the figures basically show that the White Paper, which is what was voted on, was based on hugely over confident predictions and assertions. For a lot of people there White Paper was a secondary issue compared to the actual achievement of independence but to win the vote there needed to be a practical case. What these figures show is that the case built and presented was too optimistic. It's not that Scotland is 'too wee, too poor' more that an independent Scotland might be poorer than currently, at least to start off with.

There are plenty of countries who have become independent in these circumstances, who have experienced an initial dip in the economy far greater than what would have been seen in Scotland and they went with it anyway. I think the reason the case was made the way it was is the Yes campaign knew that a majority of people in Scotland wouldn't be prepared to take a risk with the prosperity and prospects of them and their family for the sake of independence. And that's a fundamental problem for independence campaigners, at least at the moment. The SNP are smart in putting a second referendum into the long grass (2021 is what I've read touted?). By that point the political and economic situation could have moved to make independence a

more attractive prospect, although relying on predicting geopolitical and economic events is a risky endeavour.

[Antlion]

The regionalists' potential campaign scripts are already written for whatever circumstances we find ourselves in:

If we're doing well: "This is thanks to the strength of the UK; why would you want to RISK losing everything you have: your money, your business, your wives, your husbands, your mistresses, your children?"

If we're doing badly: "Look how poor, weak, fragile and incompetent we are. Only the UK is keeping us from having to eat the bark of trees."

[renton]

The GERS figures are interesting but if the picture was rosier would people who voted No be queuing up to vote Yes? I'm not sure they would.

The thing that I find interesting is that the figures basically show that the White Paper, which is what was voted on, was based on hugely over confident predictions and assertions. For a lot of people there White Paper was a secondary issue compared to the actual achievement of independence but to win the vote there needed to be a practical case. What these figures show is that the case built and presented was too optimistic. It's not that Scotland is 'too wee, too poor' more that an independent Scotland might be poorer than currently, at least to start off with.

There are plenty of countries who have become independent in these circumstances, who have experienced an initial dip in the economy far greater than what would have been seen in Scotland and they went with it anyway. I think the reason the case was made the way it was is the Yes campaign knew that a majority of people in Scotland wouldn't be prepared to take a risk with the prosperity and prospects of them and their family for the sake of independence. And that's a fundamental problem for independence campaigners, at least at the moment. The SNP are smart in putting a second referendum into the long grass (2021 is what I've read touted?). By that point the political and economic situation could have moved to make independence a

more attractive prospect, although relying on predicting geopolitical and economic events is a risky endeavour.

 

I maintain that what the latest GERS* shows is that the underlying devolution settlement does not benefit Scotland. The UK government controls 80% of taxes, 100% of the pensions and welfare system and 50% of Spending in and for Scotland. Our population is basically static and our socio-economic demographics are different to the South east of England - which is what the UK tax system is based on. Without much more control over what we spend, how we spend it and how we raise revenue, it's difficult to forsee a situation where we'd ever close that relative fiscal gap within the Union. A stronger offshore revenue will cover that imbalance, but only independence - or a much more radical devolution settlement, which we'll never get - will allow us to actually adress the underlying structural weaknesses of the Scottish economy.

 

* Which is still an imperfect tool in the way it apportions public revenue between Scotland and the rUK, loses a lot of what would be Scottish revenue down the back of the sofa and still has nothing to say about the relative performance of Scottish exports and flows of private capital. All of which would effect the interest rates we'd pay on our deficit, as well as us having no real idea on how much debt an independent Scotland would take from the rUK in the first place.

[Londonwell]

Ad Lib- I'm sure you said previously you voted yes in the referendum? What were your 'specific' reasons for doing so? 

 

And how would you vote in any future referendum? Has your opinion changed at all?

 

Genuine questions as I'm completely confused what would drive someone like yourself to vote yes as you seem so convinced of Scotland's inability to prosper as an independent nation.

[bob the tank]

Ad Lib- I'm sure you said previously you voted yes in the referendum? What were your 'specific' reasons for doing so?

And how would you vote in any future referendum? Has your opinion changed at all?

Genuine questions as I'm completely confused what would drive someone like you to vote yes as you seem so convinced of Scotland's in ability to prosper as an independent nation.

As you say Ad Lib claims to have voted Yes, and that is what confuses me now. He is obviously an educated, intelligent guy and he is politically tuned in. Surely in an independent Scotland he could be some kind of mover and shaker at the centre of things, but he wants to move to London to work for the British government. Full of bluster and bullshit but underneath a wee bit scared and a big bit cringy perhaps. Why not be ambitious personally and for the country

[Ad Lib]

Yip cos the UK isn't running an ever increasing deficit, which is growing larger while public services and welfare suffer swinging cuts.

 

That's not happening is it?

Well no, no it isn't. The U.K. Deficit peaked at about 10.2% of GDP and it's now less than half that. It isn't "growing larger". It has fallen. Drastically. By contrast, the Scottish deficit is where it started when the UK one peaked, also about 10% of GDP.

[Ad Lib]

Ad Lib- I'm sure you said previously you voted yes in the referendum? What were your 'specific' reasons for doing so? 

 

And how would you vote in any future referendum? Has your opinion changed at all?

 

Genuine questions as I'm completely confused what would drive someone like yourself to vote yes as you seem so convinced of Scotland's inability to prosper as an independent nation.

www.predictableparadox.co.uk/2014/09/the-confessions-of-exasperated-british.html

I don't think Scotland couldn't prosper as an independent nation. I just think it would involve a couple of decades of pretty painful adjustment. The ease with which that could be done is nothing like as it would otherwise be, in the absence of a sustained oil price above $100 a barrel.

I did vote Yes in 2014, and I gave my reasons for doing so extensively at the time. I don't regret doing so but in a second referendum in the foreseeable future I would not do so again.

[Ad Lib]

As you say Ad Lib claims to have voted Yes, and that is what confuses me now. He is obviously an educated, intelligent guy and he is politically tuned in. Surely in an independent Scotland he could be some kind of mover and shaker at the centre of things, but he wants to move to London to work for the British government. Full of bluster and bullshit but underneath a wee bit scared and a big bit cringy perhaps. Why not be ambitious personally and for the country

I don't think that wanting to go into the diplomatic service of the U.K. is unambitious.