IndyRef 7

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

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TeamScotland I don't think i was clear.

It's the cuts on health, schools etc that will start immediately on 19th September 2014.

Same Rose

It's very worrying.

Any links annie?

The UK pound has been hit the last few days, but it's still way above what it was a year or two ago. The speculators are looking to make some money and always swoop on uncertainty.

What they would really love is for there to be an independent Scotland in a CU with the UK, because Scotland would be borrowing to spend and knowing that UK has to bail them out. That would definitely hit the pound, and that is why the UK will not get suckered into agreeing a CU.

Hi, checking in to mark my place on the thread. Can't contribute much - trying to catch up on everything at home today before back to work tomorrow and campaigning in the evenings. Legs are shattered after the weekend - up and down more stairs than I care to imagine.

Hopefully I won't miss anything too exciting, and if anyone was in any doubt - I'm still a No

Rose, reading up on all this today, there are plenty of articles about the fact austerity has barely started & labour have no plans to make any changes to the spending of the current coalition. There's hardship on the way, either way. That's a genuine concern. When you are faced with hardship either way, it's less black & white.

The issue of self-determination is less clear for me. As I've said, I'd have taken devo-max if that was a credible option but BT are just playing politics with that & still arrogantly thinking that they can skirt around the edges & bluff this, thinking that we are all going to lap it up.

None of them seem to have taken seriously the fact that a reaction to the SNP was needed when they got their majority. Seriously looking at this was needed much earlier IMO. How am I expected to trust people who either couldn't see this, or decided it was worth the gamble to think they didn't have to do much in order to maintain the status quo?

I already feel irrelevant to WM - I've written to my current (labour) MP on issues that affect me, and the 'can't be arsed to even understand the issue' attitude was appalling & almost as infuriating as the Tory minister who ignored my concerns & 'spun' her answer to convince herself that she's still right despite the facts clearly contradicting her claims. The status quo for me isn't a very palatable option & yet independence brings it's own doom & gloom too.

WM have played fast & loose with the stability of the UK as a whole, in failing to actually get to grips with what has been happening in Scotland. And yet to avoid Armageddon from independence Im supposed to put my faith in these muppets?

This whole referendum is just a horrible dilemma for me, and I'm sure plenty of others. I wish I could be sure either way but I just don't see either option as being great. Spoiling my vote isn't something I'd do. This is too big & important to me. I'd happily spoil my vote in a GE but that feels inappropriate for this.

No hyperlink available to the inside of my head TeamScotland ; )

I think Scotland will get more powers after a No vote, but that isn't what I'm basing my (no) vote on. I truly believe we can be a successful nation under the umbrella of the UK and I hope we get the chance do that.

Salmond/sturgeon have lied by omission. They have not explained the impact of no currency union and just said "aha, see, we can use the pound after all, it was a big no bluff". Well of course you can use the fucking pound, or the dollar, or the zloty or any other currency, it's just that with no currency union, you will have no control over fiscal policy, you will have no lender of last resort - you will be fucked.

But the yes side want to listen the the Braveheart-inspired utopia made from fairy dust and deception created by wannabe King Salmond. Salmond is like Blair - he is doing this all for himself and in 10 years time, salmonds scotland is going to be Blair's Iraq. An unmitigated disaster with MASSIVE implications.

But really really sadly, it will be the people who are flocking in their droves to the Yes campaign believing that it really is going to haul them out of poverty who will be the ones suffering most. I'm just so glad it's not my children's future I'm gambling with (disenfranchised scot living happily in England).

Aargh fuck, I'm going to be gutted if it's a yes. Salmond and Sturgeon, you are traitors to your country and I hope you metaphorically hang for it.

there are plenty of articles about the fact austerity has barely started & labour have no plans to make any changes to the spending of the current coalition. There's hardship on the way, either way.

Tension the fact that even Labour are not returning to their old spending plans should tell you something.
The fact is that the money is just not there to do everything that we would like. The alternative is more borrowing, and as we have seen that just builds up debts for the next generation - our children - to pay back.
It's not what anyone wants, but that's just the way it is.

SNP are promising all sorts of wonderful things after independence, but they won't have the money for them except by more borrowing or more tax.

Salmond has made great play out of Darling and Cameron admitting that Scotland could be a successful country. But what they didn't agree was that Scotland could be a successful socialist country.

The fact is that the money is just not there to do everything that we would like. The alternative is more borrowing, and as we have seen that just builds up debts for the next generation - our children - to pay back.

Or the money we do have could be spent in different areas....

@grandtheftmanual Falling shares? Markets bounce back. They adjust. It's not because they initially change that it means Scotland is doomed if independent.... business still needs to be done!

Sturgeon is entirely right to shrug it off.

I am still concerned about the Scottish NHS. People have quite rightly pointed out that it is fully devolved. Putting aside the issue of the fact that the size of the funding is determined by the block grant from Westminster I am greatly concerned about the impact of TTIP on even a "devolved" NHS as in the event of a No vote, Scotland would have to comply with the obligations of TTIP - and American corporations could required the same irreversible opening up of the NHS that is occurring in England

So far, the only responses I have had have been from Yes people pointing me in the direction of who said that TTIP would have an impact on the Scottish NHS and someone on the previous thread (think it was Statistically ) who said it was likely that the NHS would be exempted. Is it or isn't it? Has the Westminster government negotiated an exemption?

*The fact is that the money is just not there to do everything that we would like. The alternative is more borrowing, and as we have seen that just builds up debts for the next generation - our children - to pay back.

Or the money we do have could be spent in different areas....*

Like Gaelic signs for roads and public buildings

Sorry just mischief, off out now...

I don't think Sturgeon 'shrugging it off' will fill people with a whole lot of confidence.

"or the money we do have could be spent in different areas" - fair enough. You can scrap one thing (roads?) and spend the money on another (education?) but you can't have both. What the Yes campaign seems to be promising is that you can have whatever you want and it just doesn't work like that. There is not much money, there will be significantly less and there will have to be lower spending. A Yes vote guarantees far greater hardship across the UK but, in particular, in Scotland.

I used to be a totally firm Yes supported but in recent weeks have found myself wavering a little bit. I'm passionate about the idea of Scottish self-determination, that WM do not act with Scotland in mind, that the best government for Scotland is one in Scotland which understands Scottish interests. I do believe that in the long term Scotland could and would build a more just society than what we have at present. Yet I also know through professional networks that many organisations DO have firm plans for leaving in the event of a Yes vote, that there are still huge uncertainties about the economy, and perhaps most depressingly that a lot of big figures in the Yes campaign are slightly less interested in self-determination and social justice than they are getting the opportunity to get involved in everything that comes after Yes, thus boosting their own academic and professional credentials.

DP is a rabid Yes voter, of the kind who believe and will openly say that anyone who votes No is stupid, ignorant, cowardly, pathetic; won't acknowledge why people might be fearful of Independence; insists that any talk of business leaving an iScotland is scaremongering etc etc. It makes any kind of discussion about the Referendum impossible, as I can't so much as query something Salmond/Sturgeon have said or mention a report from an unbiased source who suggest negative implications for iScotland without getting a thorough verbal kicking. (The irony is that I work in a far more politically sensitive field than he does, do a lot of parliamentary lobbying both with Holyrood and Westminster and know a lot more about the oily cogs of government than he does!)

Sally, the fact that we don't have any money to avoid further hardship with austerity cuts is a potent message, yet we read today that MPs will be getting their 9% pay rise when the rest of the public sector haven't a hope in coming close to that sort of increase. The 'we have no money so suck it up' mantra is somewhat comprised when 9% will be found for this pay rise despite the hardship heading our way.

I have huge issues with WM & the status quo, & I'm guessing plenty others do too seeing as that's why the SNP defied the odds & won their majority in the 1st place. I didn't vote for them but I certainly see why they are in this position & nothing has changed. The hardship/future I face if I vote no is no less worrying for me than the hardship/future I'll face if I vote yes.

Has the Westminster government negotiated an exemption?

My understanding is that the current WM government is quite keen on TTIP and doesn't want an exemption. Labour, however, do.

The other issue is (and again I may be wrong) is that TTIP only applies to already privatised services.

www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/07/trade-unions-trade-deal-threat-to-nhs
www.ibtimes.co.uk/ttip-government-will-not-exclude-nhs-free-trade-agreement-1463454

That must make for a tough relationship at the moment. I am struggling even with colleagues and their comments - not sure I could cope with someone who I couldn't question in the same household. I know two Yes/No couples and they have just made the decision not to talk about it at all. One man has been banned from discussing it in front of his wife's elderly parents as they get so upset about his Yes vote and are so worried about their pensions.

Tension
Re the 9% pay rise for MPs after the next election.

In the circumstances it's crazy, stupid, greedy - you can't disagree with it any stronger that I will.

But to be clear, at the moment it's only a recommendation by a review body. I think we need to wait and see whether MP's will actually accept the recommendation. It they do, they will deserve an ice-bucket challenge but with buckets of shit instead.

Andrew Neil has just tweeted that John Redmond has proposed that Scotland shouldn't be allowed to vote in next years GE if it's a Yes vote next week (holy shit, next week). I'm a bit confused about the implications of that proposal to be honest - does that mean that between the GE and April 2016 we'd have no representation in parliament? Surely that couldn't happen?

The whole thing is a mess. I think it would be better and much simpler if the GE was postponed until after independence day.

Sorry haven't RTWT so this may have been mentioned already, but Robert Peston article on the BBC today mentions that both RBS and Standard Life have already confirmed they have plans in place to re-locate to London if it is a Yes vote. How many other companies will follow.

On a lighter note the bookies are still going odds-on a no vote and they are rarely wrong