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

kabayiri

sss555s wrote: »

Anyone who doesn't admit that the way Scotlands deficit is worked out as part of the UK is very different to how it would be in an independent Scotland is talking BS.

Thing is, you really don't know, do you?

The voters will be expected to make a leap of faith based on what Sturgeon tells them.

Sure, they might buy it, but if it all goes pear I doubt Sturgeon and the other SNP inner circle will be destitute. It will be the poor who will pay.

I do know that if iScotland starts off life needing to borrow money, then the international lenders are going to charge a premium. The UK has a history of paying money back; you don't.

Don't worry. IMF is in the phone book...next to Independence

Shakethedisease

davomcdave wrote: »

Nicola Sturgeon seems to accept the GERS figures and you'd imagine that if anyone had a vested interest is saying they're wrong its her.

The fact is that to keep the deficit within EU-mandated levels Scotland would have to slash spending by over a thousand pounds per Scot. Good luck selling that on the doorstep!

Presumably it's why Scots still don't want independence:

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9821

Everyone accepts that GERS is the only thing we have and the best we've got.

And why does everyone keep going on about deficits within EU mandated levels. IF Scotland had a huge deficit then there would be a plan between the EU/Scotland to get it down. But it's no barrier to joining the EU.

The Euro of course is another matter, but Scotland would be unlikely to be looking at the Euro this side of 2030, if ever.

Shaka_Zulu

kabayiri wrote: »

The voters will be expected to make a leap of faith based on what Sturgeon tells them.

But Sturgeon's Rasputin like mesmeric effect on the Scots is now wearing a bit thin as this article suggests

Behind the grandstanding, the SNP is in relentless decline

Behind the bluster and grandstanding Nicola Sturgeon is a mediocre politician who holds few cards

Listeners switching on the Today programme on Friday 24 March must have imagined they had accidentally tuned in to a spoof interview of the Bremner, Bird and Fortune vintage, featuring an embattled government minister crumbling under interrogation.

Nick Robinson was interviewing Aileen Campbell, Scottish Health Minister, who had come on air to crow about the SNP government’s generosity in announcing it would fund three free cycles of IVF treatment for Scottish couples desirous of having a family. Robinson ungenerously chose to rain on her parade: instead of writhing in mute admiration of this taxpayer-funded largesse he pointed out that this commitment would cost “many millions” at a time when a Glasgow maternity hospital had to turn away expectant mothers, Scotland was missing A&E targets and the BMA had described the Scottish NHS as “near breaking point”.

The minister was clearly dumbfounded by this impertinent attempt to hold her to account – something that would not happen in a Scottish media context where hacks know their place in a burgeoning one-party state – as emerged in the climactic moments of this car-crash interview. Robinson persisted in demanding whether free IVF was the right priority.

Robinson: “Why spend money on that when your own A&E target you are missing and have done for a long time?”

Campbell: “I understood I was here to talk about the very positive announcement of allowing couples who are desiring to have a family to get access to three cycles.”

Yeah, right on, Ms Campbell, that needed saying. Sassenach journalists need to learn that SNP spokesfolk do not go on the air to be interrogated about unhelpful topics such as crises in maternity hospitals and A&E, or meltdown in Scottish education, now trailing Vietnam in some subjects. If crude metropolitan broadcasters want access to SNP ministers they had better learn the rules of the game. An interview should not be abused as an opportunity to hold a minister to account; it is essentially the broadcast version of a triumphalist press release advertising the latest expenditure by the Scottish state on progressive objectives.

If London-based hacks, notoriously the tools of the English Tory-fascist state, are allowed to get above themselves, before you know it they will be raising unhelpful topics such as the Barnett Formula and certain inequalities in per capita expenditure north and south of the Border. Can they not grasp the simple equation that Scotland, but for English rule, is the richest country in the world with massive oil revenues of £60m, more than adequate to support independence, but with massive needs that require £1,720 additional expenditure per skull over England and 16% over the UK average?

The Scottish Health Minister’s car-crash interview was just one straw in the wind, rapidly assuming the proportions of a hurricane-borne haystack, signalling the end of the SNP’s decade-long free ride from UK media and Scottish electors alike. It has long been a maxim of the Scottish (and sometimes UK) chattering classes that Nicola Sturgeon is a political genius, as was Alex Salmond before her. Few seem to have asked themselves why, in that case, the Scottish independence referendum of 2014 was lost by a margin of 10 per cent.

The reality that Sturgeon is a shrill, unimaginative politician imprisoned by her obsessive constitutional preoccupation in a tunnel vision that precludes her addressing the everyday issues of government has too long been ignored. The SNP has lacked political opposition or even interrogation by the media. Why govern when you can grandstand? The SNP came to power on a programme of deception; its power is now imminently dissolving in a welter of self-delusion.

The referendum loss of 2014 signalled the beginning of the end. The SNP refused to acknowledge the peril in which it stood and convinced itself Brexit would provoke a terminal Scottish alienation from the UK. Within days of Article 50 being triggered, the latest opinion polls on independence stand as follows: YouGov Yes 43%, No 57%; Panelbase Yes 44%, No 51%. So much for the Brexit boost to independence.

In a fit of post-referendum realism, Nicola Sturgeon committed herself to a self-denying ordinance whereby she would refrain from calling for a second independence referendum until support for separatism had stood at 60% for a minimum of twelve months. Yet, instead, this month she announced her desire to hold a second referendum in 2018-19, just when the Brexit negotiations would be at their most problematic. The calculation that an electorate that rejected a leap in the dark in the more stable conditions of 2014 would be game for a much greater gamble at the height of Brexit uncertainty is, to say the least, ill-founded.

That piece of gesture politics has badly damaged Sturgeon’s dwindling credibility. She compromised that crucial credibility in order to indulge in the playground politics of wrong-footing Theresa May for 10 days. In Scotland, more and more people are beginning to ask what the hell has happened to their key public services, notably health and education, on the SNP’s watch. That re-focus on bread-and-butter issues is potentially lethal to the SNP. How can they blame England for Scottish woes wholly devolved into their responsibility?

The slide is, so far, undramatic but evident. The SNP is now a minority government sustained by fruitcake Greens, at a time when, globally, the green tide is receding on a wave of scepticism. In the interests of the UK Theresa May has a duty to postpone a destabilising Scottish independence referendum until Brexit has bedded in. That probably means until after the next Scottish elections when policy chickens coming home to roost are likely to put the SNP out of power, after which the tedious “indyref” obsession will be off the political radar.

Realising the danger of the political situation, veteran nationalist Jim Sillars has urged Sturgeon to “do a Hammond” and scrap the massively unpopular Named Person scheme, giving state monitors greater rights than parents over Scottish children, already struck down by the Supreme Court. The SNP needs to divest itself of unnecessary political controversies if it is to survive. The clever money is now on its failure to hold onto government.

Behind the bluster and grandstanding Nicola Sturgeon is a mediocre politician who holds few cards, shouting to keep up her supporters’ courage in the face of long delayed but inexorable nemesis. Eventually, her political tombstone may bear the epitaph: “She made the English media take notice”.

Shakethedisease

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

I'm not talking economics for a bit, as I said.

And I showed you how to fake that.

The SNP survey is/was also open to all, someone from Zimbabwe with the internet and some spare time could look like he/she lived in Scotland and had opinions you disagreed with on the survey. As I argued with you prior - how are you going to determine the correct response from A.N Other living at 11 Haggis Street if more than one person responds under those details? You can't.

Err because the SNP survey was checked against the Scottish electoral roll ? And when the time comes to use those details it'll will be all systems go to the doorsteps ? Unless of course you're saying that the electoral roll isn't reliable..

An online petition obviously isn't on the same level, nowhere near.

mollycat

Great post Shaka-Zulu!!

Shakethedisease

Shaka_Zulu wrote: »

But Sturgeon's Rasputin like mesmeric effect on the Scots is now wearing a bit thin as this article suggests

Behind the grandstanding, the SNP is in relentless decline

Iain Whatisface in Reaction ? Saw it earlier. A catalogue of mistruths, spin and misinformation. Which is why hardly anyone bothers reading his blog.

This relentless decline he speaks of is not in evidence at the present time. Just his hatred of all things SNP which has clouded his judgement somewhat.

2016 Scottish Social Attitudes
"Trust in the Scottish and UK Governments to work in Scotland‟s best interests" @scotgov: 65%
@govUK: 25%

As for your other recent posts citing that total rocket Daisley desperately trying to stir up sectarianism when hardly anyone goes to church anymore and it's all been settling down, and then a holocaust denier who thinks his posters will be taken seriously by anyone ( the newspaper removed it after finding out who he was )..

All symptoms from desperate people trying to stop the inevitable and lashing out. Sectarianism, religion, hate and holocaust deniers..of that's really all you have left to counter the SNP and a possible 2nd referendum then you're in very serious trouble indeed mate. Ordinary voters aren't interested in all that crap.

Shakethedisease

kabayiri wrote: »

Thing is, you really don't know, do you?

The voters will be expected to make a leap of faith based on what Sturgeon tells them.

Sure, they might buy it, but if it all goes pear I doubt Sturgeon and the other SNP inner circle will be destitute. It will be the poor who will pay.

I do know that if iScotland starts off life needing to borrow money, then the international lenders are going to charge a premium. The UK has a history of paying money back; you don't.

Don't worry. IMF is in the phone book...next to Independence

You managed all of that without bothering to mention what's going to happen in rUK when Scotland goes at the same time as you leave the EU and Single Market ? Credit ratings ? The £ ? Trade deals, Trade deficit ?

All going to be rosy in the garden is it ? May will have the IMF on speed dial.

TrickyTree83

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Err because the SNP survey was checked against the Scottish electoral roll ? And when the time comes to use those details it'll will be all systems go to the doorsteps ? Unless of course you're saying that the electoral roll isn't reliable..

An online petition obviously isn't on the same level, nowhere near.

I apologise in advance, perhaps I'm more versed on these matters than I should expect yourself to be.

But in terms of looking at the data, if I have 2 people called John Doe saying they live at the same address, how do you determine which John Doe is the real John Doe? Looking at the electoral roll isn't going to help you do that when all of the other identifying data is the same. The only way I can see to validate the data would be to go around all of the addresses that filled it in, confirming email addresses to reconcile what is false and what is not. That's if they even want to give it to you...

You've put your foot in it this time and got it all over your clothes, a right mess.

This is absolutely 100% my bag when it comes to software development, data management, data quality, data warehousing, business intelligence, management information, big data, data integrity and validation, data mining, statistical analysis, trends, etc...

Therefore the results of the "conversation" cannot be relied upon even if checked against the electoral roll. There have to be further checks, in person or over the phone, which is a colossal undertaking.

John Doe of 11 Haggis Road filled in the survey 10 times.

"Which answers did you actually put down sir? And what is your email address?"

Like I said before, it's open to fraud and it's an exercise in futility. Money that would have been better spent elsewhere, even more so if they actually do try to verify the data! Another slow hand clap for the politicians in the north.

Hahaha. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :T

Also a slow hand clap for yourself in saying exactly the same thing about the UK government online petition asking for there not to be a 2nd referendum. It does indeed suffer from the same exploits, there's no way around that and I don't expect the UK government to employ an army of people, or even if they're volunteers, to go around asking if people are who they say they are to validate the data. Yet you deny that the SNP's "national conversation" suffers from the same issues?

Honestly, take it as a forgone conclusion, I'm right on both counts and you look silly trying to defend the SNP's survey. It further speaks to your perspective on the entire topic of Scottish independence in my view. Defending it to the last even when you're so blatantly wrong. I got as far as having details of someone living in Scotland ready to input my hard-line anti-independence answers into the SNP's survey, I didn't because it'd be wrong of me to abuse it. But I wanted to prove it possible to deceive it.

Thrugelmir

Shakethedisease wrote: »

And why does everyone keep going on about deficits within EU mandated levels. IF Scotland had a huge deficit then there would be a plan between the EU/Scotland to get it down. But it's no barrier to joining the EU.

Interesting comment. Precisely what you expect the EU to do or offer an IScotland to resolve the situation? Sovereign states are still responsible for their own financial management i.e. budgets. The Greeks aren't going to very happy if IScotland was to receive preferential treatment. Nor the electorate in other southern states. Who have suffered years of severe austerity.

kabayiri

Shakethedisease wrote: »

You managed all of that without bothering to mention what's going to happen in rUK when Scotland goes at the same time as you leave the EU and Single Market ? Credit ratings ? The £ ? Trade deals, Trade deficit ?

All going to be rosy in the garden is it ? May will have the IMF on speed dial.

Suppose Brexit does go bad in the short term. Don't you think trying to achieve Scottish independence alongside such a calamitous event is just a tad risky?

I don't see how it helps your cause really. In fact, it bolsters the argument that it's not a great time for Scottish independence.

Have patience. Come back to us in a decade's time; maybe oil will even be worth something then.