Scottish independence

colsten

Heng_Leng wrote: »

I am sorry, but it is you that needs a reality check...

When a 'marriage' has run it's course; moving on is better for all concerned.

A divorce is often the only reasonable way forward, I agree. That doesn't mean it won't cost anything.

You have completely ignored what I said and you seem to continue to pretend that there won't be huge costs to just getting the essentials for a new country in place, and then to run those essentials. To pretend anything else is just plain short sighted and naive.

highet

just saw some ''yes'' politician on tv claiming the fall of the pound today and also the fall of RBS, Standard Life and other scottish companies on financial markets was all to do with President Obamas policy on Syria!!!! and absolutely nothing to do with poll showing close independence race at weekend!!!!

Pincher

I knew this guy, whose wife got a job in Belgium, so he said he wanted to quit, but the boss said just work from home, and commute to London for meetings. His salary was less than £40k, and he wanted to keep it simple and pay tax in the UK. His wife works and pays tax in Belgium.

To cover themselves, the Human Resource department appointed PWC to work out his tax position. Somehow, the fees balooned to £30k A YEAR! In the end, PWC advised that the Belgians might decide that he was UNFAIRLY ABUSING the Belgian welfare system without contributing by paying tax, and that the UK employer could be liable for prosecution for aiding and abetting such a "crime". The PWC fee went up to £50k that year. maybe they felt the insight was particularly valuable. No approach from the Belgian tax authorities had ever occurred: they just dreamt up this theoretical possibility!

Having been thus advised, at such a high fee, The Human Resource department cannot just ignore the situation, and certainly not the annual consultancy fee that was greater than his salary. They now DEMANDED that he moves back to London, or be dismissed for breach of contract.

After some to-ing and fro-ing, he left the company.
The boss lost a great guy, all because the Human Resource cretins called PWC.

Now, multiply that a million times, and that will be PWC's additional consultancy fee income next year, if this Independence vote goes through.

Can't we just have a trial separation? We can still go to parties like the UN as a couple, but just don't sleep in the same house. It will save a bundle on consultancy fees?

zeupater

colsten wrote: »

.... Nothing of the existing infrastructure you mention is particular to Scotland and huge amounts of money and resources need to be spent to separate it from rUK and make it Scottish ....

... and in addition to the above there's already a huge disparity in the size of public sector employment as a proportion of total employment between England (17%) & Scotland (21%). Obviously, there will be little change in duties for a good proportion of those employed ... however, it's almost certain that some departments will be subject to either wholesale relocation to rUK (or closure) and plenty of other individuals being offered redundancy, changes of duty or relocation as the state reconfigures itself.

Having said that, the main issue isn't one of simple headcount, it's the process and timescales involved in creating, filling and housing the senior positions in all of the new departments with suitably experienced personnel ... the scale, and therefore cost of this restructuring alone would be horrendous within reasonable timescales, but considering the compressed timescales proposed for achieving full independence even someone with a basic understanding of risk analysis would raise a red flag.

There's not only the up-front restructuring cost to an independent Scotland, but also the related costs of restructuring the public sector in rUK ..... would it not be possible to argue that all costs should reasonably be borne by the new Scottish state ... after all, would not a reasonable standpoint be - 'why should the disenfranchised 'ex-pat' population, having had no say, be required to fund something which they've been told 'doesn't concern them' ? ...

From the outside it looks to be a case of .... lots of questions, very few answers (relevant ones that is), and so little time ... but then again why does that really matter when you can simply play class, personality and bigotry cards to divert attention from reality? ....

anoncol

Heng_Leng wrote: »

I am sorry, but it is you that needs a reality check...

When a 'marriage' has run it's course; moving on is better for all concerned.

You seem blinkered and ignored entirely the post you quoted.

kangoora

jimjames wrote: »

I hope the Scots making the decision are better informed.

If you really think an office is all it takes to run something then you'll get a bit of a surprise if there is a yes vote.

Even if systems get split there is still all the associated infrastructure and staff that need to run them. If all run from single centre in UK none of that will be available post independence. Having been through mergers there is a lot more to it from a systems perspective than you seem to think. And then you get into the legal side. The mountain of legal documents for the railways will seem like a walk in the park in comparison.

One thing you can guarantee is that the lawyers will love a yes vote and be busy for years.

Not only lawyers, providers of networks and computer systems infrastructure, programmers, network integrators will all be rubbing their hands with glee with $$ signs pinging in their eyes.
I deliver Data-centre (DC) infrastructure for a living, just setting up a new DC LAN infrastructure and circuits on a <10 year contract for a single company (not huge as someone like Standard Life or massive like NHS or government departments) costs in the order of £20-£25m.
This does not include all the computer server hardware, SAN storage systems, integration and testing which probably trebles this cost and takes at least 2 years to implement - for government systems add 2 years to this due to the plain fact that doing anything with government systems and data doubles the expected time to do it for a private firm.
Every single new Scottish government department will have to be unpicked from the rUK systems, new DCs designed and implemented in Scotland, data exported (and validated every step of the way), original data deleted as rUK won't be allowed to retain data on Scottish people and I would bet the rUK government won't be interested in paying much of this cost.
I wouldn't be surprised for the cost of doing this to top £1bn quite easily, very quickly, and then climb up from there.

jimjames

Heng_Leng wrote: »

I am sorry, but it is you that needs a reality check...

When a 'marriage' has run it's course; moving on is better for all concerned.

You probably don't realise how appropriate your analogy is.

Of all the friends I've known who got divorced they all came out of it far poorer than before after setting up from scratch again. The only ones that came out richer were their lawyers.

Not exactly the most auspicious start for an independent Scotland.

paparossco

Heng_Leng wrote: »

When a 'marriage' has run it's course; moving on is better for all concerned.

Marriage? Some regarded it more as a 'shotgun wedding' :rotfl:

silverwhistle

kangoora wrote: »

Every single new Scottish government department will have to be unpicked from the rUK systems, new DCs designed and implemented in Scotland, data exported (and validated every step of the way), original data deleted as rUK won't be allowed to retain data on Scottish people

etc., etc.

That sounds like so much fun! As someone who in the distant past was involved with large scale mergers I know that even merging data is fun, but extracting it...:D

Funnily enough this was for SSE. My shares are down, but as the divi is due soon and I'm still reinvesting I'll take the hit and benefit by aquiring more shares.. Longer term maybe I'll extract some capital when (if?) the price bounces back.

Bottom line though, whatever the yes campaigners may say, is that this uncertainty isn't good for business at any level (I'm not including lawyers as business...).

scott_lithgows

MIKESISHLA wrote: »

Scotland,immediately prior to the Union, defaulted on it debts. Salmond's statement is damaging and will spook Financial Institutions. Think about it,would you willingly give someone a loan who had stated that they were not going to honour a debt to someone else?

Financial Institutions research and assess risk for each Country. The UK gets money on the cheap because we have an excellent track record of honouring debt.

An Independent Scotland will not find it easy to borrow Money and the cost of borrowing will reflect our History and Salmond's statements. The cost of Money to and in an Independent Scotland will be considerably higher because of the perceived risk. Salmond has done Scotland no favours. He has in fact weakened an Independent Scotland's ability to negotiate how the National Debt will be shared. He will be forced to accept a share of the National Debt,quickly, and on any terms that the UK dictate because of the consequences of his irresponsible statements.



Politicians do,at times, have to be economical with the truth to get elected in a Democracy. Its very difficult to win an election based on a Manifesto of bad news . What we are experiencing in the the Scottish Referendum is quite different. There is no the space on this blog,nor do I have the time, to list the blatant LIES of the SNP.I will cite just a few:

• Unless we get to keep the Pound we will not take a share of the National Debt.

• Keeping the Pound is the sovereign right of the Scottish people.

• If we keep the Pound then there would be no Border Controls or charges.(They will NOT collect the VAT on Imports?)

• Faslane even after all the Nuclear Submarines have left will still be used supporting a Scottish Navy.(Employing the same number of workers?)

• We would still build complex advanced warships for the Royal Navy. (Perhaps the Ships that defeated the Spanish Armada were built on the River Clyde?)

• We are told that Rosyth Dockyard would stay open.(Building Aircraft Carriers for the Scottish Navy?)

• The very large Scottish Financial Sector will not move but continue to employ many thousands in Scotland.

The basic line being taken by the YES camp is that with Independence everything would be the same,nothing is going to change, it is just going to be an awful lot better. We are a very rich Country just like Norway or Switzerland.

I was going to conclude by stating that the only other Politician in recent history who told as many LIES was Adolph Hitler. But that is not quite accurate Hitler never told as many LIES as Salmond.

If the YES vote wins the day,within a 2-5 years, those who have voted for it will come to realise they have been conned. Scots have an aggressive streak and it will turn ugly, many in the YES camp will want to 'string Him up.'

Happier with Arial?

See if its NO,can we actually get a surface ship up here?


The Russians like to test our defences every so often,they fly 2 planes which are chased by the RAF or they send 2 destroyers which anchor just outside Scots territorial waters for 24 hours until a RN ship arrives from the south of England.


We didn't build anti-armada ships as it,s before the UK was born but at least if we had one of them the Russians might go home laughing.