Indyref 12 - keeping the ball rolling

[flippinada]

Hope everyone doesn't mind, I'm to keep the discussion going. As you were folks :)

That's me for the night. Hope everyone manages some sleep tonight. wishful thinking

I may be coming round to some others' points of view actually. I was travelling over England recently and I suddenly felt such a sense of affection for what was beneath the plane. I'm a passionate Scot but still I felt it and the thought of overturning all of this time of friendship and ties made me feel very desolate.

(And the whisky hasn't even been opened yet!)

You're right Ingrid. It is an issue - and one which Yes campaigners often shout down i.e. no country ever thought having oil was a bad thing. But we are used to spending the oil money, and the income from oil is volatile. As part of the UK we're actually insulated from that - how the oil industry performs in a particular year doesn't have a huge impact on us. Here's the last few years geographical share of North sea revenues in £millions.

2008/09.....11,577
2009/10.....5,679
2010/11.....7,454
2011/12.....10,000
2012/13.....5,581

Here's the corresponding figures for total managed expenditure in Scotland

59,440
62,087
64,095
64,869
65,205

Christ, I never thought Bob Geldof could make me cry but I'm bawling like a baby here.

How could anyone not be moved by that?

And for those taking the piss (of which they are plenty on twitter) - he never had to get up there, he never had to say or do anything .. but he did get up there and he spoke better than any politician I've heard and all delivered in an Irish accent. He even made sure to mention Wales God bless him.

Don't go Scotland. Please don't go!

Did anyone see the panorama report tonight on bbc1? Obviously it is a tool of the devil as it's the bbc but it was very interesting, explaining the situation and why we are where we are today. I was too young to vote in the referendum in 1979 re devolution, but I was interested to hear the run up to that.
There was a very sensible man speaking , sorry have forgotten his name who explained that in the 70s all the industry was nationalised, so a member say of the NUM as it was was as concerned about his colleague in Scotland as he was about his colleague in Wales etc erc, we were a nation post war who was absolutely unified, hence the lacadaisical vote with a slim margin then. We had British steel, British leyland, British shipbuilding, etc etc and we really we're all in it together. Thatcher came along and stopped all that. We as a nation have never really got back to the way we thought back then, years of centre right politics with an I'm all right attitude has taken us to where we are today.
If I lived in scotkand I would still not not know which way to vote, I despise salmond but there's a part of me that believes that as a small nation we would look after out vulnerable, our poor, our elderly and our sick. We would do the best that we can for one another because we are a proud nation with all of our best interests at heart and I'm really not sure that Cameron, clegg et all can honestly say the same. This is all despite the gloom about the economy and how we cannot go it alone.

I've just been shouting at the television at Salmond ranting about how dare they come up here and tell us what to do. I assume this was directed at Cameron.

Well Eck, I didn't vote for Cameron but he is the Prime Minister of my country and how dare you say he has no right to be here or speak to us.

Small communities and individuals/families will always look after their own vulnerable but I'm afraid to say that I've seen much lip service but little real interest among many people here in helping others who they don't know.

Most central belt politicians seem to care as little about the outlying reaches of Scotland these days as anybody in Westminster unless they have a personal interest or attachment. (And arguably less in some cases.)

So for me, it's down at the moment to 'Do I think they're trustworthy, do I think they could run the country better as a seceded state and do I think they could create the climate for societal growth and all that that implies?'

I don't, I don't and I don't.

It's down really to the people of Scotland to sort their own future through some hard work and I would hope that the re-energising of political passion here would go some way towards helping that. I just believe that it would be better to harness that passion in an environment which was more stable and calm and where the Scottish financial system was not crashing about our heads.

As Donald Dewar said, the SNP foster.....the politics of illusion.

I don't want illusion.

My understanding of renewable energy is that at the moment it is heavily subsidised by the UK.

Brian Cox on Newsnight...It's a movement, it's definitely a movement

phaedra was that the same AS who was crowing about DC being "feart" to come up a few weeks ago?

Honestly, do the blind followers not see this stuff?

I'm a bit behind - these threads move so fast! - but I like this from the Ewan Morrison article:

"if you keep a promise of a better society utterly ambiguous it takes on power in the imagination of the listener."

"After a Yes vote the fight for control of Scotland will begin and that unity... will be shattered into the different groups who agreed to silence themselves to achieve an illusion of an impossible unity..."

(This is the man who has famously switched from Yes to No).

NB - what do you call a collection of threads: a tapestry? Tartan?

But whatever the politics of the moment, don't you think it is important how we got here ? It really struck a chord with me.

They can stick their movement up their arses. They'll probably meet Ricky Ross et al up there already.

AS has a cheek. He really ought to remember

a) that the SNP got 491,386 and the Conservatives 412,855 in 2010
b) that in 2011, only 26% of the Scottish electorate voted for him

That's votes, sorry!

NB - what do you call a collection of threads: a tapestry? Tartan

A bobbin?

Here it is, a signed promise for new devolved powers..

Lucky - Cameron, Clegg et al aren't going to be around forever. There could be a Labour government in Downing Street this time next year with UKIP in opposition (slight exaggeration I know - but hopefully you understand what I mean). Salmond is 60 years old now - he won't be around forever either - new politicians will come and go, things change, move on .. they always do. The key players in are here today, gone tomorrow - they won't be around forever, but if the UK splits on Thursday - it is irreparable. It is forever.

Sentiments about making a better job of looking after your poor, your elderly, your sick .. you aren't going to be able to do that if the country's skint. Not with your own government, your own prime minister, your own navy, army, border - all the rest of it - it won't make a blindest bit of difference if there's no money for social services and pensions and so on.

The economics are the keystone of all this and Salmond has done an appalling job of setting out his economic stall. It's all over the shop. The maths just don't add up. It's been ripped to shreds by everyone who has looked at it any depth and he just skates over every question, query .. he just ignores, or goes off at tangents or changes the subject or turns on the questioner accusing them of bias, scaremongering, hectoring, conspiracy.

Do you think we in the rest of the UK don't care about our poor, sick and elderly? Do you think the Scots are the only ones who are 'proud'. Scotland doesn't have the monopoly on all these things. There are 64 million of us in the UK - only 5.2 million live in Scotland and yet the rest of us are completely disregarded in all this.

Aside from that, Scotland itself is being ripped in two by this, let alone the Union. You've only got to read the posts from both sides to see that. Half of the people don't want this, half do .. how is that any way to begin a new independent nation?

The more I see, read, watch, research .. the more convinced I am that if the Scots vote yes next Thursday it will be a huge mistake, not least for the Scotland itself.

Would that be like him crowing about DC urging companies to speak out when this is about to come out

Is the Record a No then?

Don't think it has declares, but seems to have a scoop for the morning.

I don't think the record is officially out, is it?

It seems to vary. I know they did the guest editor thing last week, but every time I look at it it seems to change its mind.

Ach well, I'm off to bed. Another day down...

Is it going to be in the press tomorrow sc?

The morning front page of the record :

link

Just had to listen to someone saying "nobody in Scotland voted for David Cameron"...bit like the person the other day who told me "Scottish people think" like we're one homogeneous mass.