The New Fat Scotland 'Thanks for all the Fish' Thread.

Shakethedisease

May's move today will go down fabulously well in England. That's a given. A pre-recorded announcement that had her sounding like a robot programmed to say 'now is not the time' over and over. But she didn't have the courage nor backbone to actually come out and block it altogether. The Daily Record front page has her as that character from Little Britain 'yes but no but yes but'..

The Scottish Govt will vote and ask for a section 30. Regardless, there will still be a vote at some point in the latter part of the next two years under a Scottish Govt franchise either via a referendum or an election. ( for antrobus as I meant to reply to this last time it came up and got distracted.. there is a provision in the Scotland Act that if the Scottish Govt resigns and no Govt can be formed then it goes to a General Election.). There have also been a few interesting snippets I've seen about SNP conference motions tomorrow and EU citizens being included on the Scottish electoral franchise ( watch the conference). This was devolved to Holyrood in 2016. The proposer saying he 'spotted this move a mile off'.. Any consultative referendum or general election will be under a Scottish electoral franchise.

If Brexit is going as badly as David Davis's performance at yesterday's Select Committee Scots will be absolutely gagging for it in 18 months time. Opinion polls and petitions are not mandates no matter how hard the Tories in Scotland close their eyes, cross their fingers and wish it to be so. Sorry.

There are also a lot of English voters asking why if it's ok Scotland gets a referendum once the terms of Brexit are known, why don't the English ?

Is also very true that most of the Scottish electorate don't want a referendum 'now'. But is also true according to the last poll that they do not want Westminster to block one either. I think that means they want a choice at the end of the Brexit talks in Oct 2018. May has misread her focus groups imo. It'll probably cost her later as Brexit gets going.

Shakethedisease

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

The comments came out in Holyrood magazine.

I find it interesting that they would make it up

I think someone is making something up and I'd doubt Holyrood magazine has Union leanings. Especially since Andrew Wilson tweeted himself that GERS would underpin the work they do. Chimes in very nicely with the absolutely obvious observation that there's a massive deficit that needs to be dealt with according to GERS.

So many coincidences, but sure, they never said anything of the sort

He wasn't making it up. He said that the Scottish economy would take 10 years to recover FROM the position it was now in. Not that it would take 10 years to recover BACK to where we now are.

Look him up yourself. I can't be bothered trying to convince you if the man who is writing the report says what's reported isn't true. Why don't you tell the man himself what he's supposed to have said ?

Andrew Wilson‏Verified account @AndrewWilson Mar 15
Andrew Wilson Retweeted David Mckendrick

Denial denial. Comprehensive and complete. Didnt say it. Dont think it. Not true.

<--- He was obviously getting a bit p****d off by this point.

Am off to watch the Crossfit Open 17.4 announcement which is why am still up. Ciao for now.

elantan

NCC-1701 wrote: »

So many questions asked of elantan and so few/no answers...a bit like the SNP I'm thinking!
Cue 'I swear I'm not' a SNP member/voter/or have ever been claim!

Your such a joy to read ...

Tromking

Not a good end to the week for Sturgeon, she starts the week grandstanding on the Art. 50 issue and repeating her mantra of "Scots being dragged out of the EU against its will" and within hours she's talking about Scotland not being a full member of the EU.
Interesting to hear Jim Sillars suggesting that Sturgeon may have made a bit of ricket in her strategy this week also.
You know it's been a bad week for the SNP when Salmond engages grevience mode and spouts rhetoric like "The Tories will rue the day etc........."
Sturgeon has forgotten her day job of representing all Scots and instead has pandered to her own party political needs.

Enterprise_1701C

From this side of the curtain it looks like the only thing Sturgeon is capable of is campaigning for independence.

They get a ridiculous amount of money per person compared to us, their NHS should be in fantastic condition, but instead of dealing with that sort of thing they concentrate on what they perceive to be vote winners such as free further education (when scots helped vote charges in in England) and free prescriptions.

Personally I can't wait for them to become independent, it would bring a lot of work back to our shipyards, quite a few British companies would move south, and we would no longer have to pander to Scottish demands for money. It would also wipe out a large part of our deficit in one fell swoop.

I haven't noticed anyone saying yet what currency they would have though. If you want to be truly independent then you would have to get a lot of infrastructure in place, not least of all a mint to mint your own money, but if you do intend to join the EU you would only have that currency for a couple of years until you would be forced to join the Euro. That is assuming that the EU and the Euro are still around, Greece is almost certainly going to default in the summer and that will do a lot of damage.

I can't understand why so many scots are willing to put their country on the line for the sake of allowing their supreme leader to become president of the EU.

TrickyTree83

Shakethedisease wrote: »

He wasn't making it up. He said that the Scottish economy would take 10 years to recover FROM the position it was now in. Not that it would take 10 years to recover BACK to where we now are.

Some pretty extensive lingual gymnastics there.

So lets see what was actually said.

He said rather than increase taxes, an independent Scotland should follow a "steady as she goes" approach to the economy.

That, Mr Wilson claimed, could see the economy return to the position it is now in a five-to-ten-year period.

Sure makes sense to try to deny and silence something that damages your own life long campaign.

TrickyTree83

http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/richard-murphy-gers-denier.html

Kevin Hague coming out with exactly what I said prior regarding statistical analysis, methodology, regulatory body review and sign off.

In the blog post he refers to a comment by quite an eminent individual on economics with regards to the veracity of GERS.

Professor MacDonald is Research Professor in Macroeconomics and International Finance at the Adam Smith Business School; he has acted as an advisor on currency and exchange rate issues to the European Commission, IMF, World Bank, European Central Bank and a number of other central banks. He was previously Bonar Macfie Chair of Economics and Adam Smith Chair of Political Economy at the University of Glasgow and Professor of International Finance at the University of Strathclyde. I think we can fairly say that Professor MacDonald knows his stuff .

He offered the following comment:

"It is important to note that that GERS is a national Statistics publication and assessed by the independent UK Statistics Authority. The statistics are produced by civil servants, and not by a partisan group, and are best practice in the sense that they meet the Code of Practice for Official Statistics, a code that is consistent with the European Statistics Code of Practice.
As in practically any statistical exercise the GERS statistics depend on estimates and there is nothing unusual about that. In that regard it is noteworthy that the statistics produced and reported in GERS come with standard confidence intervals indicating the uncertainty with which the central estimates are held. An examination of these confidence bounds demonstrates that the generally accepted position on Scotland’s fiscal and trade positions are unchanged. This is why mainstream economists, statisticians and commentators will continue to use these statistics in their work."
Professor Ronald MacDonald

Professor Ronald MacDonald (I know I laughed too, but he is real) says what I was trying to explain on here too.

And then there's this guy...

I also asked Professor Angus Armstrong for his response. Angus is Director of Macroeconomics at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) and was previously Head of Macroeconomic Analysis at HM Treasury. It would be fair to say he too knows this subject better than most.

He offered me the following reply
“All economic statistics involve sampling and estimates. But when the UK Statistics Authority designate figures as ‘National Statistics’ that’s hugely significant. This is a kite-mark showing they meet international statistical standards. Anybody who says these figures are “easily rigged” or “nonsense data” frankly doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously. The people who work to create these statistics are honest, hard-working and dedicated public servants who aren’t allowed to answer back to defend themselves. Anyone who questions our national statisticians’ honesty and integrity should take a hard look at themselves.”
Professor Angus Armstrong

So that's two professors who agreed with what I was saying RE: GERS and Richard Murphy. This Richard is increasingly looking like an utter buffoon.

I called pretty much all of the points made by Kevin Hague and the two professors the day Richard Murphy's diatribe came out, it's hard to argue that statistics reviewed by a regulatory body should be so ridiculously wrong that they can be ignored. The methodologies have been reviewed, altered and checked again, and the results can be trusted to be indicative if not close to the mark.

I'm sure myself, Kevin and the professors are equally as excited for the next instalment of how GERS is wrong. I'm sure that it too will go down just as well as this one.

Arklight

Going out to the Scots. What do people in Scotland think about Ms. Sturgeon? Down here (the Sunny South) she seems like a very able politician who tweaks the nose of Westminster as she pleases.

Her referendum gambit seems well planned. Theresa May is boxed into a corner by Brexit, her own rabid right wingers, and the toxicity of the Tories in Scotland. Offering a 2018 referendum may rile Scots least, but the flow of pre-Brexit scare stories will be a tsunami by then, and may well scare them out of the Union.

Refusing a ref. until after 2018 will seem arrogant and overbearing (the will of the people works both ways, and Sturgeon has more of a mandate for another Referendum than May does for Brexit) - leaving the Tories rather reliant on actually getting a good Brexit deal, rather than just saying they will.

Because if they don't, then Scotland will be out the door, May will go down as the leader who caused the break up of the UK and the Tory Party will face a generation in the wilderness.

ash28

Tromking wrote: »

Not a good end to the week for Sturgeon, she starts the week grandstanding on the Art. 50 issue and repeating her mantra of "Scots being dragged out of the EU against its will" and within hours she's talking about Scotland not being a full member of the EU.
Interesting to hear Jim Sillars suggesting that Sturgeon may have made a bit of ricket in her strategy this week also.
You know it's been a bad week for the SNP when Salmond engages grevience mode and spouts rhetoric like "The Tories will rue the day etc........."
Sturgeon has forgotten her day job of representing all Scots and instead has pandered to her own party political needs.

I was reading an artice morning and what struck me was this

Later in a BBC Scotland interview, she added Mrs May’s attempt to block the democratic will of the Scottish Parliament “seems to me to be going back to the bad old days of Margaret Thatcher”.

http://!!!!!!!.com/m865pkp

My bold. The web address has been shortened and MSE doesn't seem to like the word (it is one word) 'tiny url'

Before a vote has even been cast or has the Scottish Parliament had a vote and I've somehow missed it? Did they have a majority?

And what happened to the will of the Scottish people? Or has the Scottish government given up on the idea of representing the Scottish people in favour of representing their own will.

Just asking.

Asghar

Arklight wrote: »

Because if they don't, then Scotland will be out the door, May will go down as the leader who caused the break up of the UK and the Tory Party will face a generation in the wilderness.

What a load of crap, Sturgeon will go down as the leader who caused the breakup, she is the only one demanding it.
They tried and failed in 2014 (who's fault would that have been) and are trying it again and probably again until she achieves her aim. That is there only ultimate goal.

This time the SNP are just using leaving the EU as an excuse, in 2014 if the SNP had won then Scotland would have been taken out of the EU anyway.