The Dirty Independence Question

[eFestivals]

There's the most fantastic pro-indy piece over at The Herald.

Said without the slightest bit of irony....

The idea that one side could claim exclusive use violates the spirit of the very Union these critics claim to uphold.

:lol:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/we-are-not-dimwits-so-stop-scolding-us-about-currency.24999254

This guy is wasted writing guff for newspapers when he's a comedy genius. Someone should give him a show at the Fringe.

[eFestivals]

As you know I have always accepted there will be lies, distortions, exaggerations etc on both sides.

I've just read a piece where Alex admits to making guff up ... but he's probably only making that admission after being caught out yet again: making stuff up.

You remember "the union bonus" that 'no' said was worth about £1.5k a year? And at the same time Alex came out with big claims about how much richer Scotland would be via higher productivity and lower unemployment? Well, Alex made it up out of nothing.

Anyone shocked?

[kaosmark2]

Someone doesn't understand polling:

[LondonTom]

just in case anyone would like to form their own opinion on the wee blue book - here is a link to it which Neil omitted to provide

http://wingsoverscotland.com/weebluebook/#more-59693

" We think Scotland will be better off choosing its own governments to solve its problems and make the most of its opportunities, rather than hoping that the people of Kent, Surrey and Essex might elect ones with Scotland’s interests at heart"

I confess I stopped reading after that, as it just sounded like it was going to be more of the opressed Scotish people type of stuff. Because apparently no one in Scotland has the right to vote. "the people of Kent, Surrey and Essex " make up around 46 or around 7% of MPs voted into the UK parliment. Hardly opressing Scotland or the rUK is it ?

The UK's unwillingness to discuss anything post Indy is OK and threats of borders & alienation are fine though!

Borders are a fact of life, if you choose to become indepedent. There will have to be some sort of Border control especially if Scotland has a radically different imigration policy (which you plan to no?) from the rUK?

Unless you want to be part of the CTA and peg entry requirements/imigration policy to the UKs? (Even then checks are sometimes carried out.. which means some sort of border.)

[eFestivals]

Whilst I accept that the wee blue book is somewhat one sided in quoting expert opinion that is in favour of Indy, I didn't spot any lies - would you care to help me here?

As opposed to the lies that we won't get paid our pensions, won't get organ transplants, will be stranded without consular representation etc etc

I await your response with interest

There's lies, there's deliberate deception, and there's comedy gold. I'll put things in each category....

Lies

=====

page 2: "Scotland subsidises the UK by billions of pounds every year, according to Westminster’s own figures."

page 3: "Scotland is the only country in the world ever to discover oil and get poorer"

page 3: "impossible to ever put into practice. The same applies to border controls."

page 10: "Scotland subsidises the UK by billions of pounds every year, and has done for many decades."

page 12: "Q: “But isn’t UK government spending higher per person in Scotland?”

A: Yes, it is. But Scotland pays for every penny of that spending and more besides."

page 14: "Scotland’s deficit is in fact considerably smaller than the UK’s"

page 15: "bailout. That’s why, for example, the US Federal Reserve contributed an eye-watering £640 billion to save Barclays in 2008"

(in context it's suggesting that Barclays was "bailed out" (in RBS style) by the USA. It's bull, it wasn't a "bail out" it was a loan, similar to the loan facility provided to UK banks by UK govt after inter-bank lending froze up. It's possible that Barclays took the piss by using that loan to bail themselves out, but that would be fraudulent from the point of view of the Fed and that loan).

page 18: "In any event, most experts agree that the Unionist parties’ position is a bluff.".

(Defo not most, just check what the ratings agencies have said.)

Deliberate deceptions

=====================

page 23: "But if the English and Scottish health services are completely separate, why does the privatisation and destruction of the English NHS matter to Scotland?

It matters because the Scottish budget is calculated as a percentage of government spending in England. If/when the NHS in England were to be fully privatised, its current

annual budget of almost £100 billion will cease to trigger a corresponding “Barnett Formula” payment to Scotland, removing approximately £10.2 billion a year from the Scottish block grant."

While the conclusions would be a correct assumption from the words, there is no suggestion of any "if/when" towards heath care privatisation in England (contracting services out is something entirely different, that threatens zilch of Scotland's budgets ... unless it's cheaper to contract them out (it won't be of course), in which case Scotland should be following suit and saving its own taxpayers' money.) It's Project McFear, based only in deceptive bollocks.

page 29: "Professor Sir Donald Mackay ... said that Westminster’s figures were underestimating the true value of oil by £8 billion a year."

(and yet Westminster's estimates have been proven too hopeful!)

page 39: Q: “But won’t universities lose UK research funding?”

A: No."

(the issue is within the words "UK". A claim of "no" has no certainty; rUK taxpayers are unlikely to want to support research outside the rUK that could be within rUK)

comedy gold

============

page 41: "the BBC, so common sense suggests that we’d pay even less than Ireland, but certainly no more."

(yes, common sense really does suggest that the BBC will let iScotland have all of the same things as now but for only one third of the current price ).

.... and I gave up at that point, I was laughing so much at the BBC thing.

Edited August 12, 2014 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

Someone doesn't understand polling:

It's a common Nat theme, a claim that all of the polls that have been done around indy - even by the pro-indy pollsters - are completely wrong. And yet not a single poll has show yes to be leading.

That claim about the polls often comes alongside a false claim that the polls completely underestimated SNP support for the 2011 SG elections, and yet the polls of the last month were all in the right ballpark for voting proportions (they did get the seat allocations wrong, but that's because where a vote is cast affects things).

Meanwhile, the polls for the Euro elections over-estimated SNP support.

The polls might turn out to be hugely wrong (we only find out on polling day) but there's not a jot of real evidence to suggest that they are. There's only the anecdotal "everyone I know is voting yes" to back the claim, but people do exist within bubbles (there's similar claims from no-ers too).

Edited August 12, 2014 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

Seeing as I've gone to the trouble of fulfilling LJS's request, and he's queried me saying that Scotland's current deficit is bigger than the UK average, I thought I'd dig out the proof for him as his mate Alex wants to keep this quiet....

You'll find it all nice and concise here, in the Scottish Govts own words:-

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2014/03/7888

The important bits are these (bolded)

"In 2012-13, total Scottish non-North Sea public sector revenue was ... <snip> ... When an illustrative geographical share of North Sea revenue is included, total Scottish public sector revenue was estimated at £53.1 billion (9.1% of UK total public sector revenue)."

"In 2012-13, total public sector expenditure for the benefit of Scotland by the UK Government, Scottish Government and all other parts of the public sector, plus a per capita share of UK debt interest payments, was £65.2 billion. This is equivalent to 9.3% of total UK public sector expenditure."

As you can see, the revenue raised is lesser than the proportion spent - so Scotland is running a greater deficit than the UK as a whole.

PS: it's already known that the numbers for 2013-14 are worse than for 2012-13 .... and the getting-worse will continue as the take from the oil continues to decrease.

Edited August 12, 2014 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

So LJS, now you have the facts before you, any comments?

[LJS]

So LJS, now you have the facts before you, any comments?

Like you I need to be on my pc which will be this evening.

[eFestivals]

Like you I need to be on my pc which will be this evening.

no worries.

I know it can be hard work on something lesser (which is why I saved the reply for that part until today).

[MichaelsBeard]

I might be being stupid here but that doesn't show the difference in defecits does it? It just shows what defecit Scotland is running at no?

What defecit is the UK running at?

[eFestivals]

I might be being stupid here but that doesn't show the difference in defecits does it? It just shows what defecit Scotland is running at no?

What defecit is the UK running at?

If Scotland were running the same proportional deficit as the UK, the revenue and spending percentages for Scotland would be identical.

If Scotland were running a lesser proportional deficit as the UK, the revenue percentage would be greater than the spending percentage.

If Scotland were running a greater proportional deficit as the UK - as it actually is - the revenue percentage would be lesser than the spending percentage.

What I posted doesn't give the percentage deficit for either Scotland or for all of the UK - but those revenue and spending percentages are enough (as I've outlined just above) to see which of the UK or Scotland is in the better position.

But as you asked (using 2012-13 numbers)...

For Scotland (including geographic share of oil/gas money):-

revenue (£53.1Bn) minus spending (£65.2Bn) = £12.1Bn

percentage deficit = 12.1Bn (deficit) / 140Bn (GDP) * 100 = 8.64%

For UK (including Scotland):-

550 - 674.3 = £124.3Bn deficit

124.3 / 1572.7 * 100 = 7.9%

(FYI: the Scottish numbers used are 100% good except GDP, the UK numbers less so. I couldn't find as solid a source for the UK numbers, so i've gone with what I could find. Good numbers might tweak the UK result a little in either direction, but i'd be hugely surprised if it was more than 0.2% either way. .... if you can find 100% accurate data to work from I'm happy to revisit this).

Edited August 12, 2014 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

Has anyone else seen a common yes-er claim that no country has ever wanted to reverse its independence?

As with so many indie claims its a porkie. Read up on Newfoundland.

I have a few more to add to the countries that have rejected indie &/or returned to UK governorship....

Bermuda in 1995.

Also...

In 1969, Anguilla declared itself an independent republic, in order to stop being associated with St Kitts & Nevis and return to association with the UK, which they then did.

Edited August 12, 2014 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

hey there's a game changer for yes, happening right now.

With Robin Williams having died, that old anti-semite Mel Gibson is being wheeled out to say what a lovely guy he was.

The Braveheart effect off the back of that is gonna win yes the vote.

[eFestivals]

But as you asked (using 2012-13 numbers)...

For Scotland (including geographic share of oil/gas money):-

revenue (£53.1Bn) minus spending (£65.2Bn) = £12.1Bn

percentage deficit = 12.1Bn (deficit) / 140Bn (GDP) * 100 = 8.64%

For UK (including Scotland):-

550 - 674.3 = £124.3Bn deficit

124.3 / 1572.7 * 100 = 7.9%

(FYI: the Scottish numbers used are 100% good except GDP, the UK numbers less so. I couldn't find as solid a source for the UK numbers, so i've gone with what I could find. Good numbers might tweak the UK result a little in either direction, but i'd be hugely surprised if it was more than 0.2% either way. .... if you can find 100% accurate data to work from I'm happy to revisit this).

I've just stumbled across the Scottish GDP figures, so I can now make the calc for Scotland 100% accurate...

For Scotland (including geographic share of oil/gas money):-

revenue (£53.1Bn) minus spending (£65.2Bn) = £12.1Bn

percentage deficit = 12.1Bn (deficit) / 129Bn (GDP) * 100 = 9.38%

Edited August 12, 2014 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

correction - this time using GDP including geographic share of oil....

For Scotland (including geographic share of oil/gas money):-

revenue (£53.1Bn) minus spending (£65.2Bn) = £12.1Bn

percentage deficit = 12.1Bn (deficit) / 148Bn (GDP) * 100 = 8.18%

[eFestivals]

For UK (including Scotland):-

550 - 674.3 = £124.3Bn deficit

124.3 / 1572.7 * 100 = 7.9%

and accurate numbers for the UK....

(http://www.nao.org.uk/highlights/whole-of-government-accounts/ &

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2009/nov/25/gdp-uk-1948-growth-economy)

For UK (including Scotland):-

620.7 - 717.3 = £96.6Bn deficit

96.6 / 1571 * 100 = 6.15%

[LJS]

I've just read a piece where Alex admits to making guff up ... but he's probably only making that admission after being caught out yet again: making stuff up.

You remember "the union bonus" that 'no' said was worth about £1.5k a year? And at the same time Alex came out with big claims about how much richer Scotland would be via higher productivity and lower unemployment? Well, Alex made it up out of nothing.

Anyone shocked?

nice bit of putting 2 & 2 together & getting 5

"People say and do things in a campaign because they want an outcome, on both sides, but once the votes are counted you get into an entirely different situation. People then have to sit down and do what's best for the people of Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom."

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/fm-admits-yes-and-no-stretched-truth.25015623

[LJS]

Like you I need to be on my pc which will be this evening.

late getting home from work & knackered after first day back after hols - & settling down in front of indy debate on BBC2, you will have to wait for my promised response.

Don't worry I shan't forget.

Oh & don't worry I have some stuff to say.

[Comfy Bean]

Turned over to BBC2 as HT at the fitba. Spotted Danny Alexander, turned back to ITV4.

Struggling to keep up with todays " debate " on here. Would I be right to summarise as......The Tories are standing over both our economies and they are both a train wreck. It`s ok though cause yourz is even worse than ourz

[Comfy Bean]

With all these numbers flying about I wanted to highlight LJS`s point from last night that we are currently wasting money on various things eg Trident. It`s silly to not include the potential savings that would come with YES as well as the obvious costs. Was looking about for the cost of the House of Lords and found the attached. Some big numbers quoted which may or may not be as accurate as Neil`s numbers posted earlier

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1t8EElYwlc_591pWUOQqYsWZbBgIgrqD2WCVodNPI0v8/edit#gid=0

[eFestivals]

Sure, there's plenty of places to save a few quid with different choices, but there's also plenty of places where you'll lose the economies of scale of a large state.

As your glorious leader has deemed it unnecessary to do the groundwork to have an idea of the costs it is probably best to assume they even out.

[eFestivals]

So ... since last week's debate, there's now been the worst run of only-downwards polls for Yes for over a year - and the rather strange thing is that some of those polls took their opinions before (or part-before) the debate.

The latest one is from TNS.

http://www.tnsglobal.com/uk/press-release/scottish-opinion-monitor-voters%E2%80%99-views-hold-firm-scottish-referendum-date-approaches

http://www.tnsglobal.com/sites/default/files/whitepaper/TNSUK_SOM2014Aug11_DataTables.pdf

I've not checked that these comments are confirmed within what TNS has published, but from what i've read elsewhere (that is supposedly taken form the TNS data)...

- Yes is losing in all regions of Scotland.

- In Glasgow, Yes is losing by 29%. LOSING by 2:1

- Yes is losing in all age groups

- far more of the undecided are leaning towards No than Yes. Amongst the undecided, Yes is losing almost all age groups (except 35-44), and all regions except the North East of Scotland.

The one bit of remote hope for Yes from the data is that Yes-ers are more likely to vote, tho those voting intentions still don't give Yes anything like a win. A huge tranch of no-ers would have to stay home on Voting Day, and that's just not going to happen.

There was a poll earlier this week (I forget which one now), where the combination of the yes-ers and ALL of the undecided still wouldn't have Yes win.

There's still plenty of raving Yes-ers spouting guff that Yes will win tho, that simply doesn't match any known fact about voting intentions. Those people are going to find reality hard to handle on 19th Sept by the look of things.

The result is starting to look like it's going to be somewhere around a 40/60 split, and perhaps even as bad as 30/70. I suspect that some of the current Yes support is fairly soft and will evaporate at the moment of putting the cross on the paper - as they like the general idea of Indy, but they like what they have currently even more and fear losing it.

[eFestivals]

So, Alex's new plan is to try and round up support via statements about the NHS.

He's said that protection for the Scottish NHS should be part of an iScotland's constitution. All fine and dandy, I essentially approve.

However .... it's very clearly something he's only just thought up, because otherwise he'd have included it in the draft interim constitution that he wrote (after saying he wouldn't write one, the naughty porkie-pie teller). After all, he's included other Nat dreams in there which are not necessary for anything interim, such as Scotland being nuke-free.

So, this new NHS thing is clearly Alex's Plan B for trying to win the indyref.

As for the claimed basis for why the NHS is now a hot topic (if the Nats can make it that), it's based on the same fucked-up idiot understanding of economics as sooo so much of what Alex says.

Alex says that the "privatisation" of the NHS in England threatens the same for (a union-ised) Scotland, because it will cause Scotland's 'block grant' to be cut. Yet it's laughable to anyone who can join up the dots and do the most simple of sums.

(FYI: I do not agree with what NHS England are doing, but it is not the threat to NHS Scotland that Salmond claims).

Firstly, the NHS in England is not being "privatised". Instead, services are being contracted out to be provided by outside providers. Access to the actual medical services will remain free to all.

But if it were to be privatised so that individuals had to pay (directly, or via private health insurance), that would mean a massive cut in taxes because those taxes were no longer required to pay for the NHS.

So if Scotland's grant was cut of all it's NHS funding, it would have a big tax cut to compensate for it ... and then Salmond could implement a new Scottish NHS tax to cover the difference, and people in Scotland would be paying identical tax rates as before and be getting identical services as before. So there's no threat to NHS Scotland via the claimed "privatisation".

From the reality of the contracting out of services (rather than the false claim of "privatisation"), there are three possibilities. These are:-

1. that NHS England costs remain neutral (unchanged, because the contracted out services end up having identical costs to before contracting out), and so Scotland's 'block grant' remains unchanged.

2. that NHS England costs increase, because the contracting out costs more than NHS provision. This would increase Scotland's 'block grant' - the opposite of threatening the funding/existence of NHS Scotland.

3. that NHS England costs decrease, because the contracting out costs less than NHS provision. This would decrease Scotland's 'block grant', tho are Scots really mad enough to want to be paying more than they might for the same thing? (If so, i'll sell you this fiver for six quid ).

And so all we're left with just a constitutional commitment - but a commitment that exists for only as long as the people support it. Which is 100% identical to the commitment of England, where commitment to the NHS continuing to provide free healthcare remains exceedingly solid.

More hollow and meaningless words without substance from the Natmaster. That makes a change, eh?

Edited August 14, 2014 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

The real debate is what / if any extra powers should Scotland get. They already have a deal that is hard to swallow for the rest of the UK, especially the English.

yep - I agree. I fully accept that Scotland needs more money-per-individual to provide all of the same things as rUK has (and i'm happy for Scotland to have that extra), because of its geography.

But I don't accept it being able to give its residents things that cannot be afforded elsewhere in rUK when we all share the same tax regime & rates, because that very clearly says to me that Scotland is being granted too much money via the Barnet Formula. It's not like Scotland has had to make cuts in other areas to transfer money into free Uni places; instead, it's simply had so much extra money it's been done for no impact elsewhere.

If I was Scottish I might be tempted to vote for independence because once the oil is gone and whisky sale has declined and its now viewed as the new tobacco with health warnings all over the bottle etc. Won't the English be tempted to make itself independent from the lame duck Scottish economy ? Be better for them to go now than wait for us to cast them off in the future

Very well done Barry, you've managed to be an English version of an idiot cybernat.