to start yet another Indyref thread?

[FannyFifer]

Round 3 folks.

We should arrange an Indyref meet up at this stage.

I'm not commenting on press bias, last time I did that I was called "woolly headed"

Tuition fees is a big issue - leading on from that we have to consider what would happen to universities in Scotland if a 'no' vote is mandated.

I have no sources to back this up, just conversations I have had with academics - the general feeling is that should a 'no' vote go ahead the large traditional uni will be unscathed. Aberdeen, Glasgow, St Andrews for example are rich and self financing through research. The other old pollys will be foreced to amalgamate and centralise just like the colleges have done.

This is bad news in my opinion, but centralisation and cost cutting is the Tory way. Our education systems should encompass those kids who are from families who traditionally wouldn't send their kids to further education. We should be helping kids grow both educationally and personally by providing opportunities for study that are atainable - centralising uni's will prevent many kids who can't afford to travel, kids who have to work pretty much full time to support their study anyway.

It's a worry to me that the westmister government have so little regard for continuing and furthe education. Tuition fees of £9000 are wrong. I can't get past that and I can't vote for a party who thinks it's a good idea.

That's one of the reasons independence is appealing to me, too. The job situation in the UK is rubbish for graduates.

Yes it is, but do you really think it will improve in iScotland? So many jobs will be moving to the UK that it will only get worse for employment.

I'm in England, and I know recent graduates who are looking forward to improved prospects.

Going back to the childcare promises.
I was at a meeting with glasgow city council education officials including a consultant'

They want to close an early years centre which currently offers subsidised care for children aged 2-5 from 8-6 , 50 weeks a year.

They presented us with an alternative - decanting children into the state nurseries surrounding . When it was pointed out that those nurseries offer just 9-3 36 weeks a year, we were met with blank faces. Basically told that was our problem.

It was so, so frustrating. These middle aged men in their suits being do dismissive of this crucial issue.

But with things as they are I can't see it getting better

I agree it's difficult to get entry level jobs just now and some people, you are right, will be in call centre roles for years - but some will advance. Kind of like any industry really, no?

I was in one when I graduated. I didn't want to advance in a call centre, my area is linguistics and we were expressly told we could only speak English over the phone. If there's a No vote and then a Yes for the UK to leave the EU, it would be damaging for those in my position.

I do genuinely believe FS will be hit, which employs a lot of grads and even more indirectly - lawyers, accountancy firms, consultancies etc etc who all take on grads. I've also seen a fair amount of concern expressed about science and research funding. Big industrial companies like BAE take a fair number of grads especially in science/engineering - but how hard will they be hit?

Science and research funding comes from a grant from the Scottish Government to universities, and they have said that funding would be protected in the event of a Yes vote.
iScotland will need all of these professions too, so if some companies leave, there will be others to take their places.
Although 130 businesses declared for No, shortly after just over 200 declared for Yes, so not all of the big employers aren't poised to move out of iScotland.
I'm not too knowledgeable on BAE, I know two of their employees and they are Yes voters, but I don't know their reasoning behind it.

I'm not aiming any of that at you personally, StatisticallyChallenged, I think you make good points in your posts.

Yes it is, but do you really think it will improve in iScotland? So many jobs will be moving to the UK that it will only get worse for employment.

I think it might. Alistair Darling failed to back-up his claim that staying in the UK would create more jobs in Scotland. When Salmond asked for reasons why this would happen, he couldn't answer, which is worrying.
iScotland will still need all of these services, and recently more big businesses seem to have publicly declared for Yes than No.

WildThong

I tend to get my news online and the Times is behind a paywall, so they're outside of my experience - but that's interesting!

There's been research done on the BBC which has shown an anti-indy bias, both in the number of articles produced on either side and on the type of language used in references to independence:

www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2014/759-scotlandshire-bbc-scotland-coverage-of-the-independence-referendum.html

Also, there's been an interesting pattern of more positive articles / news reports going out south of the border but not on BBC Scotland! And the categorisation on the website is interesting - an article about a poll done of English and Welsh voters r.e. cutting Scottish funding in the event of a "No" vote was hidden in the "Wales" section -- even though it's more relevant to Scotland!

Oh I know plenty of people are stuck working in call centre who would rather boil their own heads than be there (I've done call centre work I'm allowed to say that!), but I also was able to get promoted out of it. That was a few years ago now, but I still know lots of people who I worked with - some left to go to other roles (having kept looking for that grad job whilst they worked, or having graduated cos they worked there as a student), several have been promoted and worked up. And some are still there doing what they were doing. Don't get me wrong they are not wonderful but how many grads end up in shops, costa coffee, cleaning jobs which are worse if anything in terms of progression...we're recruiting and the qualifications of the people applying for entry level childcare roles is shocking me. The grad situation is grim

All I meant with call centres is to highlight that sometimes the attitude people have to financial services as a whole is influenced a little too much by the image of millionaire investment bankers.

In relation to the different businesses/employers coming out for or against independence. I'm not sure it's helpful to rely on these for evidence of opinion swings. It's too easy to pick apart, for example the Clyde Blowers owner is Jim McColl (for Yes) who is resident in Monaco and doesn't even have a vote but still feels he can tell others which way to go. And yes I'm sure a quick google will throw up a No version of Mr McColl so they end up cancelling each other out either way.

TheBogQueen - I think everyone would like better pre-school and school care. But I can't see how it will be self-funding as suggested by someone earlier on this thread.

StatisticallyChallenged

Would call centres have to move south if the headquarters did? (Just thinking about the number of call centres that aren't in the same country as the headquarters of the company I'm looking at you British Telecom).

wearenotinkansas

I think the Scottish government will have invest in order to get the childcare provision they are promising, but it's not just a straightforward case of paying out with nothing in return. It would create employment, possibly meaning less paying out of unemployment benefits, and the people working the new jobs created would then pay tax. In addition to this, they would also then spend money, thus improving the economy. (Austerity measures just result in people spending less and thus the economy continues to be stagnant! Public spending has a long-term pay-off even if the state has to borrow to achieve it in the first place).

NC, yeah, we take The Times for the crossword

Strangely, I can see where you are coming from re the beeb online because I have another love interest very close to my heart and have noticed negative terminology, linking of bad news stories and poor or lazy reporting in relation to that. maybe not as balanced as I assumed, I will be more aware of it now.

I wasn't actually saying they would (realise it might have come across that way!) - more just pointing out that FS does not equal rich twats in suits . I think you could easily end up with admin or call centre stuff left here at least in the shorter term although I would expect it to drift south. I hate to say it but I think there are a fair number of people who would object to "their money" even being serviced in Scotland in the event of independence. Which is horrible, but probably a reality - we've discussed how divisive this referendum is for scots but it is creating significant bad feeling and ill will south of the border too.

Mind, would all the more senior functions moving and us being left with the call centres and admin be desirable? I think that would make them feel even more dead end myself!

NC - I agree, major investment might allow us to have universal free (or cheap) childcare, but it will ended up being financed through taxation. some of it might be recouped through higher income tax returns, but I cannot see that the increased in employment (and income tax) by parents as a result of the increased provision will be sufficient to cover the cost of those parents returning to work as well the childcare costs of those who are already working and paying for it out of their take home pay (like me!)

The cash needs to be found from somewhere, so something else would need to be sacrificed.

StatisticallyChallenged

Fair!

I guess I was thinking that in terms of buildings and facilities it would take a bit of effort (that they might not be willing to put in) to move all operations down south, but the cost of doing so may well be a drop in the ocean for big FS companies.

wearenotinkansas

Yes - I see what you mean. Personally I don't have a problem with higher taxation for more public services but I know that isn't an entirely uncontroversial view.

Bingo for someone bringing up the '1 in 4' stat re edinburgh private schools.

I went and researched where this stat came from.

It is actually the stat for secondary only. The comparable stat for sixth form in England is 20%.

The Edinburgh anomaly is caused by the high number of boarders who go to the English system schools in the city.

Saying 1 in 4 of pupils is privately educated is usually misinterpreted as 1 in 4 of school aged children living in Edinburgh go to private schools which is not the case.

It is much lower.

may well be a drop in the ocean for big FS companies

Pretty much! In all seriousness, yes it's a fair cost but in comparison to the scale...they'd manage just fine. You have to consider that in most cases 90% of their customers are not in Scotland, you've got the EU headquarters issues, but you've also got what could be pretty nasty calculations going on in terms of capital requirements - both banks and insurance companies (under different and hideously complicated rules) have to keep huge amounts of capital in reserve. I know more about insurance, but those calculations involve enormous sums of money and calculating how much you would need to still meed your liability under various "shock" scenarios - so how much would you need if equities go down by x%, interest rates up by x%, if there's a huge tidal wave that wipes out London (kidding!). That's a massive simplification but those calculations would almost certainly go up dramatically post independence just because of the uncertainty if nothing else.

I'm not saying it absolutely would definitely guaranteed happen - but some of the "we'll cut corporation tax" responses are kind of simplistic and naive and don't really factor in the complexities behind the scenes. The impact will be different for different companies too. Oh, and you've got a huge chunk of RBS and a pretty big bite of Lloyds/hbos being government owned at the moment...

That makes sense weatherall. I thought the 1 in 4 seemed slightly exaggerated further up the thread.

So what is the actual figure, if you have it?

NC - I'm not necessarily adverse to the idea of higher taxation to pay for childcare, or possibly even cutting other expenditure to fund it. I might even be better off! What I've found in conversations in RL is that parents have heard of the SNP pledges on childcare but haven't really thought about how that could be achieved.

There is of course, the other question as to whether we want our toddlers in childcare all day - but that is a whole other debate.

To be fair in context that comment was a poster saying that you can't/shouldn't generalize about "Scotland" as a whole. There are still a heck of a lot in Edinburgh who either go to day schools, go to boarding schools as day pupils or board even though they are local.

Lots of trades will have to make redundancies if FS companies move South. Caterers, cleaners, property maintenance etc etc.

It won't just be FS companies moving south. the company I work for is based in England. we are a small firm and evenen small office in Scotland. I suspect in the event of the Yes the increased hassle and possible expense of running a branch in another country will mean they will move our jobs back to England.