to start yet another Indyref thread?

[FannyFifer]

Round 3 folks.

We should arrange an Indyref meet up at this stage.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Sadly with their current proposals we won't have this anyway

We'd have significantly more control than we have now. (Sorry, I shouldn't have said full control - no country has full control of their finances)

[Criseyde]

"how many of "the rich" do you think would stay to be taxed very heavily? Very few I would suspect."

This is exactly the same argument that the Tories used to cut the 50p tax rate and argue against more progressive taxation. Doesn't wash with me in a Westminster context and doesn't wash with me in a Holyrood context.

[IrnBruTheNoo]

"It really boils my piss when people bandy around the word poverty in a wealthy place with universal access to benefits, education, social housing."

Well staying with WM government certainly isn't going to fix anything. Just be grateful you've never found yourself in dire straits then. The 'I'm alright Jack' attitude doesn't really wash. We should be taking care of others around us, not just leaving them to languish.

[Criseyde]

"Yes, people are often poor, or struggling on benefits, but poverty it ain't."

This is just nonsense. There is plenty of genuine poverty in the UK. You think that having to rely on a food bank to survive isn't poverty? You think that rough sleepers aren't living in poverty? You think that destitute asylum seekers don't suffer poverty? You think that homeless children living in 'temporary' b&b accommodation without cooking facilities aren't growing up in poverty? You think that pensioners who have to decide whether to heat or eat aren't in poverty?

If you don't believe in relative poverty as a concept, then there's plenty of material poverty out there. How nice for you that you don't see it.

[StatisticallyChallenged]

I think given our specific situation then you would struggle if higher rates became significantly higher than rUK. That's not exactly a stupid argument- of course not everyone would go but shifting to another city on the same land mass with the same language is a lot less of a leap than moving to 'another country'

But I'm glad that logic and the fact folk with sometimes exhibit self interest doesn't wash with you. I am reassured that it's clearly a completely ridiculous concept

[SantanaLopez]

But independence might not be the best way to solve that.

The sums don't add up, for a start.

If you want to end poverty, putting the country through the upheaval of the creation of a new state really isn't the best idea. IMO, it'll put the people on the edge over the edge, and it won't have the money to fix the problems. Not for a good few years.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Poverty? I always think genuine poverty is Dickensian workhouse conditions or people in drought conditions in Africa. Yes, people are often poor, or struggling on benefits, but poverty it ain't. There are a huge range of benefits for the sick, the elderly, children. Healthcare is free. Education is free.

It really boils my piss when people bandy around the word poverty in a wealthy place with universal access to benefits, education, social housing.

Is a woman walking across 7 miles Glasgow with her pre-schoolers to access a food bank not poverty?

How about genuinely malnourished people in hospital?

Or elderly people dying because they have to choose between heat or food?

Or people rummaging I'm bins for douts?

You are also deeply naive about the availably of welfare. Many people are unaware of what they are entitled to (and if you can't read it is kind of hard to do the research) To access the benefits you have to fill in a battery of forms and fulfil various requirements (often unreasonable). Once you have access to the benefits they can often be rescinded pretty much on a whim.

There is "real" poverty in Scotland, but poverty is not as competition. Surely in a first world country there should be very little poverty by any measure?

[FergusSingsTheBlues]

There's a huge difference between hating the ridiculous Westminster old boys network and wanting to leave the union....we actually need a change.

And those cybernasties are actually wrecking it fir themselves, they're horrible bastards and I'm busy practising my scottish accent in case I get my head kicked in on September 19th.

[2rebecca]

If an independent Scotland under the SNP would charge large businesses less tax I don't see how that is charging the rich more, it's making life easier for them. It was Alec Salmond who waved through Trump's golf plans for Aberdeenshire that had been rejected by the local council and local population.

[WildThong]

The white paper said we'll keep the queen but I don't see an independent Scotland crowning another Windsor.

So a republic is the end-game?

[Roseformeplease]

I have seen genuine poverty: in India where people are starving, begging in the streets, in Africa, where children die every day from malnutrition and disease.

Some people in Britain are poor, their lives are pretty shit and there isn't much money (or hope) but poverty is much, much worse than that and we are very, very fortunate that we live in a country where we have so much.

Relative poverty? Relative to what? I agree, compared to a family with 2 good wages, a single parent on benefits is relatively poor. But, compared to an African with no access to universal benefits, a single parent, with child benefit, housing benefit etc, free education, subsidised childcare, free health care is relatively well off.

I spent part of my late teens living in a very poor household after my parents split and my father disappeared with the money. My attitude to the scenario (single mother, 4 children, council house too small) was pretty tough. My Mum did nothing but sit around and moan while chain smoking and waiting for the giro to buy booze with. She made no effort to work and left me, aged 18, to defer university for a year so I could "save" ie pay all her bills. I did not see poverty, such as I had encountered living abroad, I saw a poor me attitude and a state bending over backwards to help her.

I think the word is over-used and an exaggeration. And if housing, education, health etc are such a problem, then 2 consecutive SNP administrations ought to have fixed them, rather than blaming Westminster. I am very much in favour of any policy that helps people out of trouble and into work and against any policy that treats "the poor" as some kind of underclass to be paid and left to rot.

[OneNight]

I suspect that for many many people, the end game is simply winning, WildThong. I don't think they're thinking past the 18th.

[SantanaLopez]

Is a woman walking across 7 miles Glasgow with her pre-schoolers to access a food bank not poverty?

How about genuinely malnourished people in hospital?

Or elderly people dying because they have to choose between heat or food?

Or people rummaging I'm bins for douts?

And how will these people be helped by independence? The SNP say there will be more help.

But say they get their currency union and Westminster rejects their spending plans. What happens then? The costs of setting up a new state have to be paid, or the state won't run. So savings must be made elsewhere.

Scotland can't control their interest rate, so there is a period of deflation and recession because we're essentially piggybacking on Westminster's and the two countries' economies don't tally up.

How is that going to affect all of your test cases?

And then we have Plan B. No currency union, no debt, and no assets. No assets includes gold reserves. So, quite simply, there's no money for the Scottish government to spend and no debt to sell to the international markets. Again, massive massive cuts, massive economic upheaval. And, as always, its the struggling people who feel this most.

[deeedeee]

did any of you actually watch this?

[StatisticallyChallenged]

charge large businesses less tax I don't see how that is charging the rich more, it's making life easier for them

because in a large business most of the people won't be owners, they'll be employees? But they're magically going to cut corporation tax whilst increasing spending. I assumed given they've stated this that we were discussing income tax.

[TheBogQueen]

I really hope we never reach a point where our barometer of poverty is whether babies starving to death or people enslaved in workhouses. Yes or No, I hope we are better than that.

[Criseyde]

It's interesting, statistically, that you are both against an iScotland cutting corporation tax, lest there should be a 'race to the bottom' and also apparently against introducing higher income tax for the rich lest they should act on their self-interest. Should we pander to the self-interest of the rich or not?

The idea that we should resist more progressive taxation policies, in the context of the UK or Scotland, doesn't wash with me, because the idea that it stimulates capital flight has been shown, time and time again, to be pretty weak. If you think that iScotland/RUK would be a special case, then I'd look to North America where states and provinces have vastly different income tax rates, and you find that very few people actively respond to these at all, because there's a spread of costs and benefits to living anywhere.

[stoppedlurking56]

A republic... Surely too much to hope for...!

[SantanaLopez]

Can't have a republic and continue to use money with the queen's bloody face on it!

[Sallyingforth]

It's not nonsense. The whole point of progressive taxation policies is to ensure that the income tax system itself is actively redistributive, and that higher earners pay proportionally more. Flat rate tax raising powers are unhelpful in achieving this.

It is nonsense.

3% on income tax will take proportionately far more from the wealthy than from the lower paid who are only just into the basic tax rate after personal allowances are taken off. And those lower paid will gain far more than they lose, by receiving the improved social benefits that the higher tax will provide.

The SNP could already have made a good start on their declared policies by using that 3% tax lift. The only reason they have not done so is that it would not good going into the referendum.

[StatisticallyChallenged]

I didn't actually say I was opposed to cutting corporation tax - I said that was a possible outcome. I didn't say I was opposed to increasing income tax - I said that was a possible outcome. But then you have a habit of misinterpreting what I say to suit your own ends, so I shouldn't be surprised.

It's all well and good talking about "pandering to the self interest of the rich" but it is only the relatively well off - not the mega rich granted - who are net contributors. So it is all well and good taking a "tax the feckers" attitude, but actions have consequences and especially in this fairly unusual situation when hopping over the border wouldn't be a hardship for lots of people you have to take a sensible approach. Whacking tax rates up to sax 60% and losing half of your HRT payers would be somewhat counterproductive, no?

[Criseyde]

"Can't have a republic and continue to use money with the queen's bloody face on it!"

Why on earth not?

[Sallyingforth]

not look good

[stoppedlurking56]

I think lower corporation tax would benefit businesses large and small, and encourage inward investment and possible relocation of HQs etc and encourage small entrepreneurs. I'm not sure that saying this wouldn't be 'fair' to rUK is a reason not to do it. You have to create a climate which encourages entrepreneurial behaviour.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Can't have a republic and continue to use money with the queen's bloody face on it!

Santana You shock me Surely you realise that an iScotland will have Salmonds face on the currency! www.bettertogether.net/page/-/images/10%20Question%20Marks_3.jpg/@mx_572