Scotland Watch

[Snail]

Craig Murray has a nice take:

The British Government is deeply, deeply immoral. They don’t care how many people they kill abroad if it advances them. Anybody who votes No [to Scottish independence] is voting to support a pathological state which is a danger in the world, a rogue state and a state prepared to go to war to make a few people wealthy,

http://en.ria.ru/world/20140828/1924283 ... State.html

That's exactly how I feel. Embarrassment, shame, anger. Negative feelings about the increasingly obvious evil corruption of UK government.

[peaceful_life]

And yes, Scotland could have its own currency, backed by its own resources and economy. Problems with this plan: the Scottish people overwhelmingly don't want it, nobody is making plans to do it or even talking seriously about it and probably most importantly, it would leave the Scottish currency a hostage to future oil revenue.

You do not know of what you speak.

Left?....philosopher?


This doesn't even scratch the surface, but it's something for you to digest.
http://scotlandyet.com/

[peaceful_life]

this specific yes campaign has been a total shambles, run by a bunch incompetent morons.

Yet here we are with none of us quite sure what the outcome of the vote will be. From a position where the notion of independence was unthinkable not so many years ago, the politics has shifted a long way. What would have happened if it had been competent people not creating a shambles?

If there was some serious talent in the SNP then we might well have been heading towards a likely yes vote.

It's nothing to do with the SNP, but.......you know that.
http://reidfoundation.org/common-weal/

[Standuble]

I can't quite see a heavily patrolled border with "illegals" trying to sneak into Scotland, but you never know!

Thanks. I would probably at least consider risking a border run to be perfectly honest if things got bad enough south side. I hope I would not have to fake a Scottish accent though in the process.

[RenewableCandy]

I get to watch this from a safe distance.
...
Here is a question for you. If they win will they copy your national health care system or make major changes in it. The answer to that might settle the question.

The Scottish NHS is already different from the English one, and in a good way. NHS Scotland was never subjected to the "internal market" "modernisation" (Orwell take note) that has been foisted upon its Sassenach counterpart as a prelude to privatisation. Our (English) NHS has over the past decade or so (under both Labour and Tory governments) been split into lots of little individual units who have to pay each other for services and balance their books, just like commercial firms do. These individual units are gradually being put out to tender (latest tenders can be seen on the TED/OJEU site) by HMG in the hope that no-one'll notice.

Scotland, bless them, have been spared all this because HMG know they wouldn't stand for it! They'd leave us pdq and take most of the North Sea with them. And I wouldn't blame them.

[Little John]

If I was ten years younger and Scotland got independence, I'd seriously consider moving north of the border.

[Tarrel]

I get to watch this from a safe distance.
...
Here is a question for you. If they win will they copy your national health care system or make major changes in it. The answer to that might settle the question.

The Scottish NHS is already different from the English one, and in a good way. NHS Scotland was never subjected to the "internal market" "modernisation" (Orwell take note) that has been foisted upon its Sassenach counterpart as a prelude to privatisation. Our (English) NHS has over the past decade or so (under both Labour and Tory governments) been split into lots of little individual units who have to pay each other for services and balance their books, just like commercial firms do. These individual units are gradually being put out to tender (latest tenders can be seen on the TED/OJEU site) by HMG in the hope that no-one'll notice.

Scotland, bless them, have been spared all this because HMG know they wouldn't stand for it! They'd leave us pdq and take most of the North Sea with them. And I wouldn't blame them.

To be fair, it's not perfect (the Scottish NHS, that is). My wife is involved in ante-natal education and she gets the impression that maternity provision, for example, is a little behind the times. Still very much stuck in the "we know best", clinical approach to childbirth, rather than seeing it as a natural process that should be allowed to happen with minimal intervention. Our nearest major hospital also has its fair share of ward closures due to rampant infection.

However, as with many other aspects of policy, the trajectory is different from south of the border, and you don't see so much of this blurring of the boundary between a public service and private ownership.

The current proposal by the SNP is that the idea of a publicly owned NHS should be enshrined in the new Scottish constitution.

[UndercoverElephant]

And yes, Scotland could have its own currency, backed by its own resources and economy. Problems with this plan: the Scottish people overwhelmingly don't want it, nobody is making plans to do it or even talking seriously about it and probably most importantly, it would leave the Scottish currency a hostage to future oil revenue.

You do not know of what you speak.

Left?....philosopher?

Not sure what that post is meant to mean.

If the majority of Scots wanted their own currency, rather than to keep sterling, Alex Salmond would have jumped at that option.

[peaceful_life]

And yes, Scotland could have its own currency, backed by its own resources and economy. Problems with this plan: the Scottish people overwhelmingly don't want it, nobody is making plans to do it or even talking seriously about it and probably most importantly, it would leave the Scottish currency a hostage to future oil revenue.

You do not know of what you speak.

Left?....philosopher?

Not sure what that post is meant to mean.

If the majority of Scots wanted their own currency, rather than to keep sterling, Alex Salmond would have jumped at that option.

It's not about Alex and it's not about currency.

You have no clue what is being realised in Scotland, yet......you feel confident enough to assert just what it is the Scottish people want.

[UndercoverElephant]

You do not know of what you speak.

Left?....philosopher?

Not sure what that post is meant to mean.

If the majority of Scots wanted their own currency, rather than to keep sterling, Alex Salmond would have jumped at that option.

It's not about Alex and it's not about currency.

What's not about the currency?

If you're leading the campaign for independence for Scotland and you can't give a sensible answer to "What currency would an independent Scotland use?" then you've got very big problems. You seem to want to write this off as irrelevant. It is not. This argument about the currency isn't detached from the rest of the debate. It's absolutely central, and indicative of even more serious underlying problems. At the core, the problem is that the nationalists aren't realistic enough about things like economics and defence. They just think "it'll work out somehow". That's fine when you're in opposition, or campaigning for independence. It's not fine if you're actually trying to run a country.

The economic and political events in the UK since 2008 would have been very different if, for example, the UK used the euro. This is not some minor detail. It has implications for every other area of policy: get the currency wrong and everything else will go wrong.

And as for Alex Salmond - you're right, he's just a person. He is, however, the leader and main spokesman for the yes campaign, and I've not heard many other people on his side coming out with better answers to the questions he can't supply a decent answer to.

[biffvernon]

I'm not convinced that currency is central. There may be deeper emotions that are central to the decision on how to vote, currency being relegated to a technical issue that will be sorted out somehow but will not be a game-changer. After all, most folk don't really understand how currency works and amongst the 194 nations round the world there are almost 194 different ways of organising it. It should not be beyond the wit of the Scots to work something out.

[UndercoverElephant]

I'm not convinced that currency is central. There may be deeper emotions that are central to the decision on how to vote, currency being relegated to a technical issue that will be sorted out somehow but will not be a game-changer.

Oh, I don't doubt that a large proportion of the people who will vote yes will have done their thinking with their hearts rather than their heads. I was talking about what is of key important to the ones who are using their heads.

After all, most folk don't really understand how currency works and amongst the 194 nations round the world there are almost 194 different ways of organising it. It should not be beyond the wit of the Scots to work something out.

Well, that's what quite a few Nationalists have said. And it's true, but the very fact that they can't seem to come up with a credible solution at this point in the proceedings is indicative of deeper problems. A large part of the reason is that actually, most Scots, including the nationalists, don't want to give up the security of being part of a bigger economic block. They want political independence - specifically they want to be free of rule from London, which they see as Tory-dominated - but for all the talk of oil and how great the Scottish economy is, there is a lack of confidence that Scotland is big or strong enough to do well with its own currency. So they want either to remain in a currency union with the rest of the UK, or be accepted into Euroland, which would provide them with greater economic security. The paradox they won't accept is that this greater economic security comes at a price, and it is specifically the price they don't want to pay: currency unions only work long-term when there is full fiscal and political union.

What it boils down to is this: the nationalists want to have their cake and eat it. They want all the political benefits of independence, but they want to retain all the economic benefits of being part of the UK or Euroland. They are dreamers. The ones who actually understand economics and politics aren't going to vote yes.

[Little John]

You've just provided a very cogent argument for why the UK should vote to fully integrate with the EU. Unless, that is, you think there is something special that the UK has to offer the world that allows us, an island nation tagged onto the north West coast of the European continent, to beat those disadvantages you have ascribed to Scotland. I don't dispute those issues exist. But, I don't see why Scotland could not do trade deals with the world in much the same way as the UK could if it was free of the EU yoke. The reality of each of those individual deals would place real world limitations on what we could and couldn't do. But, that's life.

I do agree, though, that if Salmond thinks Scotland newly independent from the UK, being more closely integrated with the EU super-state, means his country will be more independent than it is now, he'll be in for a nasty surprise.

[UndercoverElephant]

You've just provided a very cogent argument for why the UK should vote to fully integrate with the EU. Unless, that is, you think there is something special that the UK has to offer the world that allows us, an island nation tagged onto the north West coast of the European continent, to beat those disadvantages you have ascribed to Scotland. I don't dispute those issues exist. But, I don't see why Scotland could not do trade deals with the world in much the same way as the UK could if it was free of the EU yoke. The reality of each of those individual deals would place real world limitations on what we could and couldn't do. But, that's life.

I do agree, though, that if Salmond thinks Scotland newly independent from the UK, being more closely integrated with the EU super-state, means his country will be more independent than it is now, he'll be in for a nasty surprise.

I don't think I'm arguing one way or another here about whether the UK is better off or not better off inside the EU. The UK is, after all, ten times bigger than Scotland (economically) already. All I am saying is that you can't have your cake and eat it - if you want long-term political and fiscal independence then you've also got to accept long-term monetary independence, and the risks that come with it. And the smaller you are, the greater those risks are.

My own views on the UK's status within the EU aren't primarily about the currency. My biggest issue with our EU membership is to do with immigration, and the free movement of people, not what currency we use. In other words, if the Schengen agreement was repealed, I'd definitely vote in in an in-out referendum, but if it remains in place I'd probably vote out.

[Little John]

The thing is, all of the above is not the underlying issue for many Scots. That issue is a fundamental difference of culture. The further north you move though the UK (particularly the north-east) and as soon as you go over the border into Scotland, you will find a progressively more egalitarian culture, for want of a better term. It's hard to put into words but it definitely exists. As someone who has travelled round the country a fair bit, I can absolutely vouch for such a difference existing. The truth is, the real driver of the rise of a desire for independence in Scotland in recent years does not originate in Scotland (though there have always been die-hard Scottish nationalists). It originates in an English lurch to the political and economic right over that same period. Particularly, the south-east of England. Specifically, London. It originates with the election to power of Margaret Thatcher and the current Scottish independence referendum is her final poisonous legacy to us; a broken nation.

To be frank, I feel the same way as many of the Scots do and, in my wilder fantasies, the north east would be jumping ship with the Scots. Hell, if we could find a way to wall off London and let the the buggers eat themselves and so leave the rest of us to get on with a life not obsessed with mammon and where to be be non-rich does not mean a person is viewed by themselves and others as wretched, the better off we all would be.

I don't want the Scots to go. The rest of us need them to stay. But, I don't blame them for wanting to.