What IF they vote YES.... Will it effect us??

Mistral001

A Scottish separate currency which falls as it is almost certain to do, might not be a bad thing for the Scottish economy. They will be more competitive in export markets and attract investment and would be a big boost to tourism. The pound has been over-valued for years and it is preventing manufacturing and tourism and other sections of the economy which depends on exports to grow as fast as they could.

qwert_yuiop

Mistral001 wrote: »

A Scottish separate currency which falls as it is almost certain to do, might not be a bad thing for the Scottish economy. They will be more competitive in export markets and attract investment and would be a big boost to tourism. The pound has been over-valued for years and it is preventing manufacturing and tourism and other sections of the economy which depends on exports to grow as fast as they could.

Surely the Scottish pound (or groat or whatever) would be a petrocurrency, akin to the Saudi rial or Norwegian kronor, and therefore very strong?

Probably strong but weak if you ask Nicola sturgeon.

Mistral001

qwert_yuiop wrote: »

Surely the Scottish pound (or groat or whatever) would be a petrocurrency, akin to the Saudi rial or Norwegian kronor, and therefore very strong?

Probably strong but weak if you ask Nicola sturgeon.

If it was going to be strong, do you not think that Alex Salmond would be the first to tell us and insist on going down the separate currency path. He seems to want to stick with the Bank of England pound for some reason. Is he being generous and wants to prop up the pound with Scotland's oil money?

qwert_yuiop

As a former economist in the oil industry, I'm sure he knows. I hope you're not suggesting he'd be untruthful? Either that or he's a naturally generous Scotsman. Which is more plausible?

We were watching him on TV the other night and both decided at the same time that he's the illegitimate son of Ian Paisley. Does anyone know if the gross national Prod ever spent any time over there?

NAR

But we are avoiding the most important question if Scotland leave the UK. This will mean that the Scottish flag will be removed from the Union Jack. Who is going to pay for all the replacement Union Jacks needed for our wee country?

qwert_yuiop

NAR wrote: »

But we are avoiding the most important question if Scotland leave the UK. This will mean that the Scottish flag will be removed from the Union Jack. Who is going to pay for all the replacement Union Jacks needed for our wee country?

A red X and a red + on a white background - the division jack. Unattractive.

If there's a Yes, I'm going to push for independence for our town land. Forget about Partition - let's have Fragmentation.

Our own private Idaho.

A.L.D.A

qwert_yuiop wrote: »

If there's a Yes, I'm going to push for independence for our town land. Forget about Partition - let's have Fragmentation.

Our own private Idaho.

I'm game for that.

This whole mess has it roots in several main problems.
1 A very centralised state,
2 A totally bungled devolution process. They should have devolved power equally, and radically, across the entire UK including the English regions.. Instead we have different powers in Scotland than in Wales, a London Assembly, Mayors in some places, Police commissioners voted in elsewhere.............................. Unbelievable mess. What were they thinking? Were they thinking at all?
3 Decades of economic policy that has been based on the needs of the South East with handouts to redress the imbalance.
4 The legacy of Thatcher. The worst time to hold such a referendum in Scotland is with the Conservative Party in power. How many MPs do they have north of the border?

For myself I would have liked a devolved system similar to Switzerland. Scotland ( and Wales) may even have been several regions and overlapped into England. If something uniform and properly thought through had been implemented this referendum would not be happening. (Nice one Blair )

If there is a Yes vote what does the future hold for the SNP?

And what about our own dysfunctional Assembly, Problem there is no direct downside for the misbehaving and no opposition. Someone suggested another election, well what difference would that make?

maggiecon

A.L.D.A wrote: »

And what about our own dysfunctional Assembly, Problem there is no direct downside for the misbehaving and no opposition. Someone suggested another election, well what difference would that make?

I couldn't agree more. I don't normally watch the NI news as I cant listen to our politicians, they havent a brain cell between them. But happened to see the BBC news on Monday night and they were talking about the whole Nelson McCausland/ housing executive saga. Apparently the Assembly had a vote after he was found to have misled MLA's.

The vote was carried at 50 something votes to 30 something votes against him, but due to power sharing agreement DUP were able to veto the vote by tabling a "petition of concern". What was the point of the vote?! If this was in England or anywhere else he would already be gone.

This is just one example of how things really don't work in this country.

Mistral001

A.L.D.A wrote: »

I'm game for that.

This whole mess has it roots in several main problems.
1 A very centralised state,

The lessons of our assembly suggest, that more government is perhaps not a great thing. Do we really want more devolved powers and fewer centralised powers which would almost certainly result in a bigger Assembly machine and all that that means?

A.L.D.A wrote: »

3 Decades of economic policy that has been based on the needs of the South East with handouts to redress the imbalance.
4 The legacy of Thatcher. The worst time to hold such a referendum in Scotland is with the Conservative Party in power. How many MPs do they have north of the border?

For myself I would have liked a devolved system similar to Switzerland. Scotland ( and Wales) may even have been several regions and overlapped into England. If something uniform and properly thought through had been implemented this referendum would not be happening. (Nice one Blair )
?

Thatcher and the Pole Tax wounds in Scotland have never really healed.


There are lots of successful devolved system in lots of countries, whether the country is split up into cantons, federal states, or whatever, it seems to be a system that has worked fairly well throughout the world. Australia, USA, Germany are just a few that come to mind. However until England can be split up into separate states/ regions with assemblies I cannot see us coming close to such a system in the UK.

qwert_yuiop

maggiecon wrote: »

I couldn't agree more. I don't normally watch the NI news as I cant listen to our politicians, they havent a brain cell between them. But happened to see the BBC news on Monday night and they were talking about the whole Nelson McCausland/ housing executive saga. Apparently the Assembly had a vote after he was found to have misled MLA's.

The vote was carried at 50 something votes to 30 something votes against him, but due to power sharing agreement DUP were able to veto the vote by tabling a "petition of concern". What was the point of the vote?! If this was in England or anywhere else he would already be gone.

This is just one example of how things really don't work in this country.

Of course he'd be gone. A junior minister in the treasury in Westminster had to resign when he accepted a bottle of scotch from a distillery. However, plenty of MLAs with "previous" would never have been there at all in a normal country. And people voted for them.

By the way, there's the Sun headline after Scotland votes No next week - "Scots bottle it". Could I bet on that?