Scottish Independence... What are your thoughts?

[PetBazaar]

So. It's been a while since this thread petered out, but I thought I'd resurrect it as we're now into the official referendum campaigning period with 16 weeks (more or less) to go until the big day.

So what's been happening?

Well. One newspaper has come out as being openly pro-Yes and the others are claiming neutrality in a pro-No sort of way.

The official Yes campaign has sort of lost control of things and is bordering on being an irrelevance as the unofficial Yes campaign gathers pace. However the opinion polls appear to have showed that it's stalled a little.

The No campaign is... Well, it's hard to say. The No campaign doesn't really seem to exist on the ground and consists almost entirely of news articles about how we're all doomed if we vote yes.

Many arguments on both sides have been debunked and most of them are still being used.

At the moment, I'm still going for a "No" win but the recent UKIP situation may have an unforeseen effect.

So... That all said. What are your thoughts. Have they changed since this thread was last on the go. Do you care? If not, why not?

[squern]

I care.

I have changed a bit; as an Englishman I did think it would be a pity to lose Scotland from the Union.
Now, like a lot of Scots, I suspect, I feel that they should give it a go. If I was Scottish, I would vote for independence.

Based on the theory that whatever a politician says, the opposite is true, I feel the benefit to the Scots is in independence.
I also think the treatment of the patriotic Scots by the Westminster establishment has been very bad: like naughty schoolchildren who couldn't manage without nanny's guiding hand.

The arguments at the moment are all about money, but that wouldn't influence me. There are some things you can't put a price on, and I'm sure the Scots would rise to any challenge that came up.

Unless Westminster are using reverse psychology, they are making it very easy for the Scots to leave. But I don't think they are smart enough for that, merely looking after their own interests.

[astral276]

Unless Westminster are using reverse psychology, they are making it very easy for the Scots to leave. But I don't think they are smart enough for that, merely looking after their own interests.

Maybe Westminster would be glad to see Scotland go, hence giving them the referendum and not putting up a very determined case to get them to stay. If course, they have to pretend they want them to stay in the Union in case they vote to do so.

[HobbyHabitat]

I tend to agree with you astral, look at it from dodgy daves point of view, most Scottish mps are labour, so a win win situation. pets, would you like to comment on the research from Glasgow university which said salmond was wrong about Scotland being the most prosperous country in Europe. no doubt he will say the research was carried out by the English students at the university............I have not seen his answer yet, I could well have missed it. I read the article yesterday. good luck in your referendum.

[PetBazaar]

I tend to agree with you astral, look at it from dodgy daves point of view, most Scottish mps are labour, so a win win situation. pets, would you like to comment on the research from Glasgow university which said salmond was wrong about Scotland being the most prosperous country in Europe. no doubt he will say the research was carried out by the English students at the university............I have not seen his answer yet, I could well have missed it. I read the article yesterday. good luck in your referendum.

I hadn't seen the research you referred to but have had a chance to look at it now. I assume the article that your referring to is the one in the Guardian if that's not the case feel free to correct me.

So based on that my comments are:

The news paper article is typical of the negative spin put on all referendum stories in the mainstream media. The headline and strapline are completely misleading. It's not until well into the article that it's revealed that the Scottish Government has actually published these lower figures already. Anyone with a passing interest in journalism knows that 40% of readers don't make it past the headline and around 70% don't make it to the end of the story.

As for the research itself, it seems reasonable. It doesn't dispute Alex Salmond's claim at all (despite what the newspaper says), it simply provides another set of figures which measure something slightly different and, as I have pointed out, have already been published by ScotGov. It confirms the 14th richest nation by GDP claim rather than casting doubt on it. It goes on to place Scotland in 20th place (out of 34) using the different figures. The Guardian calls this "a middle-ranking economy" and the disparaging tone of the context is plain to see. It fails to mention that rUK would be 17th, presumably also fairly middling.

The report concludes (among other things):
That Scotland's standard of living is on a par with the richer OECD countries.
That this is unlikely to change much post independence.

The Guardian failed to mention this either.

On a personal note, given that Better Together keep telling us that our currency will be a shambles, our oil is running out, our main businesses will all flee to England and that we will be thrown out of the EU and NATO, I think that 20th place isn't too bad.

Can I also take the time to correct another misconception. Alex Salmond does not blame the English for anything, this is another media smear. He does regularly blame the Westminster government but I'm sure you can agree that the two are completely different.

[tonyreddevil]

June the first tomorrow.Soon be here the Vote

[suesjools]

Love reading this thread. Hope to hear more as the vote draws nearer. Any guesses as to how it will turn out?

Best wsihes for many sales to all,

[astral276]

Love reading this thread. Hope to hear more as the vote draws nearer. Any guesses as to how it will turn out?

Impossible to tell. Neither side is telling the whole truth. It will come down to a leap of faith by the majority I expect.

Die hard SNP members are so rabid about independence they don't care what happens after. Even if Scotland falls into the pit they will do so free of the Westminster tyranny - so still all good in the SNP's view.

There seems a rather surprising lack of effort being made to keep the union going. No idea why that is.

As I have no voice in the result I am finding it hard to really care what the outcome is.

[PetBazaar]

Impossible to tell. Neither side is telling the whole truth. It will come down to a leap of faith by the majority I expect.

Die hard SNP members are so rabid about independence they don't care what happens after. Even if Scotland falls into the pit they will do so free of the Westminster tyranny - so still all good in the SNP's view.

There seems a rather surprising lack of effort being made to keep the union going. No idea why that is.

As I have no voice in the result I am finding it hard to really care what the outcome is.

Yes the level of debate is poor. The information is out there but you have to go looking for it.

100% correct about the diehards, but they are on both sides, and what isn't obvious from the press coverage is that this real diehards are very much in the minority in the Yes campaign.

One problem with defending the Union is that the conservatives are so toxic in Scotland that they have real difficulty getting involved without getting the bullying accusation levelled at them. So it's left to a campaign made up of groups who hate each other almost as much as they hate the SNP.

I can see where you're coming from about having no choice but I'm always amazed when people in the rest of the UK say they don't really care... Consider this. At the absolute depth of the recession, the UK’s growth was as low as -2.5%, for a single quarter. For most of the crisis, the recession was much shallower than that – the average figure across the five quarters was just -1.46%.

Yet those 15 months of modestly negative growth wreaked havoc on the UK’s economy.

The country’s credit rating was downgraded. House prices collapsed by close to 20% in a single year. Unemployment shot up. The Bank of England had to create hundreds of billions of pounds in imaginary money to prevent the total implosion of the financial sector. Wages were cut or frozen, leaving millions of families worse off as pay failed to keep pace with the rocketing cost of living.

Even though the recession officially ended in the middle of 2009 the austerity the coalition government implemented will outlast it by at least a decade.

The unprecedented carnage unleashed on public services since 2008 – and remember, more than half of the government’s planned cuts are still to come, with Labour committed to the same cuts as the Tories if they get in next year – was, then, brought about by just one year of single-digit negative growth.

If Scotland votes Yes in September, the UK will lose almost 10% of its GDP overnight. Not just for a year, but forever.

[astral276]

I find it hard to care for the reason stated - I have no say in the outcome. So whether I am for the union, for separation, believe I will be advantaged or disadvantaged by the outcome, my opinion is irrelevant to what will be, so caring is a pointless exercise.