Indyref Part 4

[SantanaLopez]

Evening all :)

feelingmellow I am also anti-Westminster. That, in no way, shape or form makes me anti-English. My beloved great grandma was English so I'm 1/16 th anyway.

Any xenophobes showing anti-English sentiments to me will get the short shrift. I've deleted "friends" from Facebook for it.

Weatherall - three out of those four sources are pro -yes, therefore biased.

Please at least watch or listen to some of the radio/tv debates.

for the record I am neither a member of nor work for any party or grouping. On any side of the divides :-)

feelingmellow

Actually it was WillPenn who made the initial post. They cited the following things as hopes for a smaller, independent nation:

• Tackling climate change.
• Demilitarisation.
• Social justice.

None of these things seem like utopian visions to me or, if they are, they are things that I would hope most people would want to see achieved!

I don't think any "land of milk and honey" will appear overnight in an independent Scotland. But for me I think it's more than worth any potential difficulties to achieve a democracy that actually works (FPTP, which is hugely unrepresentative and which upholds the two-party system, will always be protected by the powerful establishment which benefits from it).

weatherall I'll bite, even though I think you're naive in the extreme. Putting it mildly. I'm online because I'm 3 weeks post op so off work sick, hope that is ok with you?

And by the way, strike electronics off your list above, that particular industry, one I do know about, has been decimated in this country in recent years, anyone who says different is totally blind. Others have commented knowledgeably about other industries on your list and have been either ignored or dismissed.
You go ahead and keep spouting about your Scottish Utopia, while slagging off those of us who have the temerity to disagree, I hope you are going to very disappointed.

weatherall I thought I had challenged people on occasion, but probably not every time. I apologise, although in my defence these threads move fast and everyone I've seen when things have got heated has seemed able to defend themselves.

I also have to say that if this is the worst you've seen in the campaign, and you think it is bullying, then you've had a pretty sheltered time of it. I've seen vileness on facebook and twitter that disgusts me, I've been personally insulted (being told to shift my fat arse out of the country to make way for true Scots was a particular low point for me, although nothing compared to what some other people have had), and I've had people pile in to facebook discussions on something completely different pointing out that I'm a traitor so none of my opinions are valid.

I don't like all the things yes voters have said on the various threads, but this is an emotional time for all of us, and I just move on. I would say more, but I don't want to be accused of bullying anyone.

Teamscotland re: 'Any xenophobes showing anti-English sentiments to me will get the short shrift.'

I'm glad to hear it

Sorry NCforAye - I'm trying to keep up.

"Highly skilled workforce" - seriously, you are having a laugh. Have you seen the Curriculum for Excellence and the very, very low expectations it has for Scotland's youth? And you do know that many of the highly skilled industries (Oil?) are staffed from across the UK and, indeed the world.

How can you argue an highly skilled workforce and then, at the same time, want immigration, presumably of the highly skilled?

Many of the most skilled are in industries that simply will not survive independence - banking? financial services? They will remain in a severely curtailed form and many will have to leave with current jobs or, in future, in order to secure promotion. A good friend of mine was in charge of a bank in Scotland (being vague here but true) and wanted promotion. The next step up was a country in Eastern Europe that we think of as being poor. Scotland is tiny.

Many, many tourists (I know, I am in this business) come from the UK and will struggle to finance a holiday in an increasingly expensive Scotland which, ultimately, will be overseas and where there are ongoing and acrimonious negotations with the UK.

They will go to France which is closer. Or their "staycation" will be in Wales or Cornwall, not Scotland.

Textiles - Harris Tweed? Yes, a very successful small industry.

Mining? You are having a laugh?

Drink? Well the Whisky industry association is against independence and I would imagine they know their product and markets.

LadyCordeliaFlyte

I think the biggest difficulty in this whole debate is that I have serious doubts that there is much unbiased evidence to be found. The mainstream media certainly isn't unbiased, but pro-indy sites (such as newsnet Scotland) set up to redress that imbalance are often discarded as unreliable sources due to their bias in the oppose direction!

Key example of media bias: lots and lots of articles in mainstream media about Jim Murphy being egged. A Yes supporter being kicked in the stomach was only reported on the BBC several days after the fact, and in a way that all but implied that she asked for it.

feelingmellow

No worries!

I am having a day of sufficient badness that this thread feels like positive relaxation by comparison. Maybe I should just go back to bed!

WillPenn, while I am a no voter, I agree wholeheartedly with your comment regarding constant economic growth. It saddens me that we (and I mean the human race) appear to associate progress with being able to obtain more, bigger and better 'stuff'.

Weatherall, the quango that is VisitScotland has done nothing for tourism in my part of the country.

I have not used any of the terms you accuse no supporters on this thread of using either. I did use the word 'grabby'. I wanted to challenge the yes voter perception that yes voters are voting for purely moral reasons and no voters are voting for economic reasons. I am voting no because that is the morally right thing to do.

NCForAye

demilitirisation - I have a lot of sympathy with that. But trident will probably be moved along the coast of mainland Britain rather than scrapped. So for practical purposes it won't 'go away'. And we will still need to have a defence force.

LadyCordeliaFlyte

I wasn't saying these were things that would necessarily happen, I was just listing the things that another poster had suggested and which yet another poster had described as a "utopia". In my mind all of those things would be quite good things for people, nations, and the world to aim for. Sorry, I was being a bit grumpy and bloody-minded about the use of a single word and perhaps derailing a bit. See above post!

R.e. social justice - I would like to live in a country in which those with the least money, privilege, and opportunity, are supported by those with more, and in which they are not vilified as "scroungers", and treated as the scapegoats in the middle of a recession caused by the actions of bankers who are still receiving bonuses. I would like to like to live in a country in which people are treated as people, and deserving a basic level of dignity and support no matter what hand life has dealt them and, yes, no matter what mistakes they may have made in finding themselves in need of that support. For me that would be social justice, or at least the first step towards it.

(And, I don't see the UK as a whole heading in that direction anytime soon).

Can anyone point me in the direction of a document with all the 'numbers' on the same page. A balance sheet basically. Big numbers get thrown around in discussions but what do they actually mean?
So, Scotland gets x via the Barnett formula, x in business taxes, personal taxes, fishing revenue, oil revenue.
It costs x to fund the NHS, education, defence, social security payments, transportation infrastructure etc.
It will cost Scotland so much to help fund trident, HS2... Whatever.

I know this info is out there but having it all in the one place would be useful - does it exist? Would the books balance in iScotland?

FWIW - sorry to be so gloomy.

I predict that I will be worse off for the next few years regardless of the outcome of the referendum.

I remember the first time I read the wishlist white paper. I was at work when it came out and we were all sitting reading it. There was just a stunned silence as we all thought, and eventually said "is that it? Is this what we're supposed to make a decision on?" I was genuinely shocked, I'd expected a proper realistic paper - not something that was grown up version of a letter to Santa.

LadyCordelia

R.e. attack - according to the BBC the situation was that there was a group of "right-wing" supporters of the Union and a group of Yes supporters. The Yes woman tried to grab the megaphone of one of the speakers and she was then kicked in the stomach. So, she probably shouldn't have tried to grab their megaphone, but that certainly doesn't warrant being kicked in the stomach.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29020575

undercurrent there's no single source of everything but the GERS report is fairly useful and shows the current situation, as are the treasury reports which whilst they have a No slant have a lot of facts and figures in them if you ignore the fluff.