Indyref 11. The home of good manners

[grovel]

!0,000 and counting.

onenight its called 'operation'.

We are not too small, too poor or too stupid to be allowed to run our own affairs. We have been told this for generations but a sizeable proportion of the electorate simply are not willing to be told this any more.

I'm afraid that all of your post sounds rather like a paste job from campaign literature sconequeen. Please tell us who has ever said the above about the Scots?

TheYes movement as a whole is extraordinarily positive and engaging more people by the day

I refer to my previous post, didn't take long did it!
it's a campaign, not a 'movement'

Sorry WildThong. That should of course read 'movement' literature.

Night fontella.

I'm off too - night all.

Make up your mind woman! I'm tired here.

Operation. Thank you Latte.

We are not too small, too poor or too stupid to be allowed to run our own affairs. We have been told this for generations but a sizeable proportion of the electorate simply are not willing to be told this any more

Lazy c&p, on- message meaningless crap, seen on Facebook, Twitter a million times. Also, don't you know it was John Swinney who coined the phrase when invoking victim-hood. Never mind, say it often enough and brainwash the voters..

Pathetic.

It's almost as if people have no concept of the enormity of what they are voting for and the seismic repercussions it will have - not just on 5.2 million Scots but almost 60 million Brits living outside Scotland. It's astounding. It really is. I think the weight of the vote is sinking in with some of my colleagues I have spoken to. When they think about all it entails. I know a couple have switched to No.

If there are problems in some parts why has the Scottish government sat on its hands? Education, health and housing are in its control. Indeed. I haven't seen a good answer to that yet. We have been touring around seeing some of the projects. The Commonwealth Games investment in Glasgow, Riverside Museum. The Dundee waterfront regeneration project. Widening the A9 to Inverness is about to begin it looked like (although I perversely felt sad that the stunning scenery would be so ruined!). There are urban regeneration projects, funded by money from Westminster, shock horror, and EDRF. Projects to get people out of poverty and create jobs. What more could an independent Scotland do with less resource?

I read some of this stuff and all I get is a sense of entitlement.

flippinda you are very right on childcare too. We have a little one who will be entering that system soon. How is that all paid for? It can't all be free free free.

I have to say I find a lot of the Yes movement very negative. Yes, there is an element of hope for the future, think what we could do. But the constant shouts of scaremongering, you're just scared, stop doing us down, bully, feart, comparisons with colonies...I think a lot of this is actually playing to negative emotions and that feeling anyone has ever had of not being good enough and trying to awaken it as nationalism. To me, it's a negative campaign under a positive banner.

I'd agree with that SC.

I think a lot of Yes voters don't appreciate how good they have it already. There is poverty everywhere and that isn't right. But...

How can you say that we have it good in one sentence and then say in the next that there is poverty everywhere. There is no "but" - we are living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world and yet another 30,000 children fell below the poverty line last year and the overall number of children in poverty is expected to rise much further. We are an oil-producing country with a large share also of Europe's potential renewable energy and yet many of our pensioners are too scared to put the heating on because of the cost, and some of them die of cold in their own homes each year.

This our chance to take decisions into our own hands and start prioritising our resources towards making life better in our country. No-one is saying that it will be easy or that it will happen overnight. But the current set-up is not working and lots of us are now hungry for change. As long as we are ruled from Westminster, regardless of the devolution crumbs from the table which we may be allowed, things are not going to change materially. We need to stand on our own two feet and take control of our own lives.

Approximately 60% of spending is already devolved. Those are some mighty big crumbs.

Could we have a sticky about this? John Swinney said to evoke a sense of victimhood.

It's made up.

We are not too small, too poor or too stupid to be allowed to run our own affairs. We have been told this for generations but a sizeable proportion of the electorate simply are not willing to be told this any more

It looks as if you missed my last post but then this thread does move quickly.

We are not too small, too poor or too stupid to be allowed to run our own affairs. We have been told this for generations but a sizeable proportion of the electorate simply are not willing to be told this any more.

I'm afraid that all of your posts sounds rather like a paste job from campaign literature sconequeen including your latest post. Please tell us who has ever said the above about the Scots?

We certainly could Phaedra. Perhaps sconequeen could start us off on that one?

I refuse to believe that we would ever be a social backwater, and I believe that we have the resources and the ability to be a successful independent country.

We don't have the size of population to support it, nor the economy. By isolating yourself from all the resources that are there to support you, you'll kill this country. And it is, for climate and location reasons, hard to attract the talent to build it up. As an independent country it will be competing with the whole of Europe to attract such talent and investment, countries who are all set up and ready to go to build upon this.

Scotland is currently where it is because of its partnership with the UK, not despite it. So it will, despite best intentions, become that which is trying so hard not to be.

You see, I think this is what it boils down to on the No side. Scotland has over the centuries produced people who have excelled in all walks of life, and contributed to major developments in science, industry, literature, the arts and philosophical thought.

Where did I say Scotland didn't have any of this? If it wasn't for Alexander Fleming my baby wouldn't be sleeping beside me. He is someone I talk to DD about with great pride, along with pointing out his Scottishness.

It's got nothing to do with how marvelous we might or might not be independent, we don't have enough people to deliver it or the money to fund it. The reason you've been told that for generations is because it's the truth and an awful idea to go independent.

What is happening on the Yes side during this campaign is truly exciting. It's an awakening of active engagement in the political process and a hunger to take our destiny into our own hands. It is not something to fear: it is something to welcome.

Not at all. To me it sounds like you're in a cult, and a highly impractical one at that.

There are urban regeneration projects, funded by money from Westminster, shock horror, and EDRF.

Yes, there are urban regeneration projects. The point is that an independent Scotland could have the potential to do much more. The Scottish Government is not "sitting on its hands" but it is limited in the amount it can do because its purse-strings are held in Westminster and because overall policies of tax raising and macro economics/strategic planning (or lack thereof) are made in Westminster.

In terms of EU funding, Scotland also currently has to negotiate via Westminster and the wider UK situation may not be applicable to Scotland. An independent Scotland in the EU could negotiate direct.

I disagree livingzuid. It sounds as if that's a quote from someone's speech.

Would any of the Yes supporters be able to explain how an independent Scotland is going to be able to join the EU in the foreseeable future on economic grounds?

Just suppose it can get over the massive start up costs, job losses and tax rises on this badly worked out attempt at independence. The fact that it will have to try and negotiate some sort of customs union with its biggest customer, the Rest of the UK, on less favourable terms than it has now, and deal with more expensive imports and exports than at present from the EU.

Now, I'm no economist, but I do know that the EU and originally the Common Market was set up to stimulate a flat economy after WW2 on the basis that economies of scale boost trade, production and jobs. Everything that followed after that was to further boost the these so that a single market was achieved (which is now moving slightly towards some of the social and environmental concerns originally envisaged too).

How is Scotland going to get its economy in a fit state for joining the Euro, as new entrants to the EU must? The existing wealthy countries in the Euro have a hard enough time meeting its requirements. Sweden hasn't even managed it yet. Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, The Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary haven't either. Look at the names of those states, which are already way ahead of Scotland in terms of EU trade. They haven't met the so-called convergence criteria, which are:

•Price stability, to show inflation is controlled;
•Soundness and sustainability of public finances, through limits on government borrowing and national debt to avoid excessive deficit;
•Exchange-rate stability, through participation in the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II) for at least two years without strong deviations from the ERM II central rate;
•Long-term interest rates, to assess the durability of the convergence achieved by fulfilling the other criteria.

The exchange-rate stability criterion is chosen to demonstrate that a Member State can manage its economy without recourse to excessive currency fluctuations, which mimics the conditions when the Member State joins the euro area and its control of monetary policy passes to the European Central Bank.

Why do we never hear Salmond talking about any of this? Why is it not in the White Paper?

Please let us know whose speeches you are quoting in future? (Quoting as your own thoughts that would be.)

Out of interest, what will Mr Salmond and his team be bringing to the table to negotiate with?

What is happening on the Yes side during this campaign is truly exciting. It's an awakening of active engagement in the political process and a hunger to take our destiny into our own hands

That sounds terribly over blown. And there is only now an "awakening of active engagement in the political process" ? We've had universal suffrage for almost 100 years.

I really can't relate to such hyperbole.

It's got nothing to do with how marvelous we might or might not be independent, we don't have enough people to deliver it or the money to fund it. The reason you've been told that for generations is because it's the truth and an awful idea to go independent.

You see, that's where we differ, because I look around the world and see other small countries with around the same population as us, and, in some cases, fewer resources, who are governing themselves successfully. And anyway, you don't have to pass a test of size or ability to be independent - there is an internationally agreed principle of the right to self-determination. That is what the Yes campaign wants to exercise.

Actually, anyone looking at the UK's economic, social and political state at the moment could well conclude that it is not succeeding but no-one is suggesting that it should cease to be independent.

I can assure you that I am not in any kind of a cult, by the way. I just happen to believe that we can and should take this fantastic opportunity to take control of our own lives.

How can you say that we have it good in one sentence and then say in the next that there is poverty everywhere.

Because it is a sad fact of the current state of the whole world? You bet I think Scotland has it good in comparison. And it certainly has it good compared to the last time I lived here. I can't believe how much things have improved. But it's not enough for some is it?

We are an oil-producing country with a large share also of Europe's potential renewable energy and yet many of our pensioners are too scared to put the heating on because of the cost, and some of them die of cold in their own homes each year.

Yawn to the oil part. Mainly drilled by foreign companies so your dream of a Norweigan-style sovereign fund will never materialise. Did you inform the good citizens of Aberdeen and Shetland that they are now carrying the whole country as a result of a Yes vote?

Renewable energy was, from last I heard, subsidised heavily by the EU and oh no Westminster. So how does an independent Scotland plan to take advantage of this as an income stream given it cannot rely on grants from current sources and attracting overseas investment could take some years?

The plight of pensioners is appalling but I don't really see from your post how you intend to improve it? Particularly when services will be cut as a result of funding reductions for charities supporting older people? I asked another poster about this but did not receive a proper reply.

EU funding?

What planet are you on?

There will be no regeneration funding for Scotland - you will be a net contributor - paying into the pot to fund the other poorer members of the EU, not taking from it. EU membership is going to cost you dear. You want to sign up, you are going to have to pay. Net contributors to the EU are rather thin on the ground right now and if the UK votes to leave, there will be one of their biggest gone right there. Why the hell do you think the Germans are so desperate to keep the UK in? There's barely anyone left paying in to the pot. Bailouts for collapsed eurozone economies, and an influx of poor member states have seen to that.

YOu need to do some reading up on the EU - in fact a lot of reading up, as you appear to have no concept of how it works?

On the one hand you brag about independent Scotland being one of the wealthiest nations in the world and then you think you are going to get EU funding? Dream on, honestly, this would be funny if it wasn't so bloody serious!