Galloway Smashes Scottish Separatists with Stellar Speech in the Spectator

Tromking

DaveTheMus wrote: »

Let's be honest, your wages are paid by the taxpayer....

You've been suckling at the t!t of the taxpayer your entire working life......

It's the private sector that generates the wealth needed to pay for people like yourself. As a part of the wealth creating sector of society I don't mind subsidising you......

It is the ultimate irony that a civil servant who will retire at 55 with a large redundancy payment in tow complains about public sector spending in another part of the UK.

The salary and pension I receive courtesy of the taxpayer is a reward for a job that is well done in my opinion, are you subsidising people like me or are you through your taxes getting a necessary front line public service for your money? Depends on your politics I guess.
Hopelessly off topic still, but my retirement age is 60 for my service till 2015 and 68 for my service thereafter, if it's any solace to you if am offered voluntary exit some time in the future and I decide to go I wont get a large redundancy payment it'll probably be used up to take a greatly reduced pension early.

Tromking

robmatic wrote: »

To be fair, it's not much of a regional analysis when it lumps Aberdeenshire together with Ayrshire.

Indeed, the only 'regional' analysis that can be used in this debate is a national one, England, Scotland and Wales etc. You can't argue for a Scottish nation state and then make comparisons with an English region.

BobQ

BobQ wrote: »

You seem to require very little evidence that your decision will be beneficial to Scotland. Galloway and Rowling are right, a Yes vote will not benefit Scotland, it is one the most risky things Scots will ever do.

Now if it were the Anglesey or the IOW voting for independence I would not care a fig since the decision would have no substantive impact on me or on the UK. But a Yes vote will not only de-stabilise Scotland it can potentially damage the UK as a whole.

Like UKIP, the Nationalists are a one issue party, whose other policies are largely driven by saying and doing what will be popular.

DaveTheMus wrote: »

It will 'damage' the UK as a whole on the world stage....

Please show me where I mentioned the world stage.

I said it can damage the UK as a whole. Influence on the world stage is unlikely to be affected by a small nation leaving the UK but it will not help.

There are many other ways it can damage UK:
Three years of bickering about currency, border, customs and excise, territorial boundaries, passports etc will turn both into inward looking countries.
Scotland may be forced to join the Schenegen, ending free movement between them and the rUK.
There will be job impacts for many people as companies relocate from a non-EU nation. Such jobs may not come to the rUK: they could go to the continent.
If Scotland join the EU they may be forced to adopt the Euro, with currency fluctuations making trade less straightforward.
Attributing the costs of pensions may be difficult.
How will healthcare work for visitors in both directions.
Apportionment of assets in return for share of national debt
Uncertain immigration issues

SNP are a one issue party, however, on the other issues they have done much more for the working man than the Tories and Labour.....This is why they won with a landslide at the last elections.

You make my point very well! Scotland is culturally left of centre so the SNP adopt left-wing policies. If it were generally Conservative, the SNP would follow suit. In fact in the past (and maybe now) the SNP candidates in working class areas of Glasgow are very left wing yet in the more affluent areas the SNP embraces more restrained policies. They go for popularity.

Financially, I think we'll be fine.....If I'm down a few hundred quid a year for the first few years it's not something that would bother me tbh. A marginal amount of money isn't what this is about, only the politicos in the Westminster village believe that it is, because they think all that people care about is their financial betterment.

Fine you have a principled stand on the matter and being poorer does not bother you. This is not the SNP message is it. IF you are right that it will make only a marginal difference fine but I think it will be more than marginal for both and worse for Scotland than you realise.

Tromking

BobQ wrote: »

You make my point very well! Scotland is culturally left of centre so the SNP adopt left-wing policies.

A culture that's easy to adopt when you've had shedloads of other people's money to spend for a generation.

robmatic

BobQ wrote: »

You make my point very well! Scotland is culturally left of centre so the SNP adopt left-wing policies. If it were generally Conservative, the SNP would follow suit.

Scotland isn't far enough left of centre for the SNP to even talk about using any of their income tax raising powers.

kabayiri

Mr Galloway does seem to reference what can only be described as a determined attitude on currency union.

No Scottish person should assume a formal union will be therefore offered, but of course they are free to shadow any currency they wish. Oil will back their ability to do so.

I don't understand why this latter option is not seriously floated as a plan B. It is within their control. You don't really want to start life as an independent country reliant on foreign fiscal policy do you?

CLAPTON

kabayiri wrote: »

Mr Galloway does seem to reference what can only be described as a determined attitude on currency union.

No Scottish person should assume a formal union will be therefore offered, but of course they are free to shadow any currency they wish. Oil will back their ability to do so.

I don't understand why this latter option is not seriously floated as a plan B. It is within their control. You don't really want to start life as an independent country reliant on foreign fiscal policy do you?

what do you mean 'shadow' a currency?
in what way will oil be a factor?

DaveTheMus

Tromking wrote: »

A culture that's easy to adopt when you've had shedloads of other people's money to spend for a generation.

Pot and kettle springs to mind.......

BillJones

CLAPTON wrote: »

what do you mean 'shadow' a currency?
in what way will oil be a factor?

They can leg their currency to the pound, or even just use pounds with no formal agreement.

Both methods require deep pockets in times of financial stress, such as was seen when the Uk were in the ERM, and were forced out when it became unaffordable.

Given that speculation was able to boot the UK out, they will likely be able to do the same for Scotland.

You also risk currency flight, have severe restrictions on interest rate policy, and so on.

Oil revenues will help, but it's a bit bizarre that the scots believe that they'll get to keep these. After the split the assets and debts will need to be negotiated over, and the like fields are not clearly anyone's. If we follow the border in a straight line from where it hits the coast at Berwick (a method that is likely to be seen as a decent starting point), then the fields are divided.

The energy income is also going to drop as the rest of the UK decides that it has no interest in paying for Scottish wind power at vastly inflated prices from a foreign country.

In short, the revenues needed to defend a currency peg, or informal union, are unlikely to be available post split. It will be very hard to fund it via borrowing, too, if the scots wish to issue debt in Sterling. Markets will demand quite a premium for foreign issuance, even if the scots take on and honour their share of UK national debt. If they don't, well, they will find it very hard to issue at all.

Tromking

DaveTheMus wrote: »

Pot and kettle springs to mind.......

I don't think so, there's a world of difference between a government worker getting decent remuneration for an honest days work, than an area of the UK getting an extra £1.3K per head spent on them just by dint of them being Scottish. You present as a steelyeyed privateer, let's see you justify the extra public spend the Scots receive, I reckon you can't!