To ask all Scottish MNers to join in and work together?

[SantanaLopez]

No gloating.
No blaming.

Just appreciation for a huge turnout and a peaceful process.

I think that's probably a step too far for me Sconequeen. I think to work well within the UK we need to still have a degree of shared budget - I don't think, for example, that Scotland should be able to say "we don't like the UK wide defence plans so we're not paying". I think a proportion of spending needs to remain centralised.

I'm also not convinced by varying the rate of corporation tax by region as I think this shouldn't be about competition between regions.

Maybe because the arguments were not convincing? Or not convincing enough. It doesn't matter what the White Paper says, or any other organisations,; the case was not made and the elcectorate has spoken. Why not look at the arguments themselves, rather than blaming the electorate for not getting them?

We didn't convince quite enough people (although, frankly, 45% is an amazing result considering that we were challenging the status quo and taking on the establishment) . Some of this failure was down to scaremongering on the other side and a biased media which didn't allow us to put our message across. (I think that the media bias explains in particular why the No vote was so high amongst over-65s, because they rely on the press and the BBC for their information.)

However, we also need to work further on our arguments - detail and presentation. I think we can do this and win people over. That is why I am feeling very positive today and looking forward to the next phase.

I think that's probably a step too far for me Sconequeen. I think to work well within the UK we need to still have a degree of shared budget - I don't think, for example, that Scotland should be able to say "we don't like the UK wide defence plans so we're not paying". I think a proportion of spending needs to remain centralised.

But maybe we share some ground on other areas where Scotland should be able to say "we don't want that"?

I'm also not convinced by varying the rate of corporation tax by region as I think this shouldn't be about competition between regions.

Using a range of incentives, including tax benefits, to encourage economic development and inward investment is an approach used by countries and regions around the world. Different regions within the UK are already competing against each other for investment and already offer different incentive packages.

Spirited check out this site

www.jrrt.org.uk/

They fund civil rights and democratic reform projects. It was the first to spring to mind. They also have a few publications but the list of their grants either on their site or in their accounts gives a good idea of organiasations working in this area. I guess it would have to be cross border?

I will have a further look. Am very interested in this now!

We felt the BBC was very pro-Yes, particularly Brian Taylor who, interestingly, Salmond clapped on the back on his way out of the press conference, from which some papers were excluded.

rose so did I. I found the media very pro independence until the last week or so.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11100400/My-funding-formula-for-Scotland-is-a-terrible-mistake-Lord-Barnett-admits.html

Lord Barnett on his formular 'a terrible' mistake.

Is there general consensus amongst Scots that businesses pay too much tax? UK corporation tax is already pretty low compared to France and Germany. Countries do compete over corporation tax - but it doesn't tend to make them popular.

I don't think, for example, that Scotland should be able to say "we don't like the UK wide defence plans so we're not paying"

And of course the other side of that is "You aren't paying enough so we're not giving" and "If you don't like how we do things tough - you don't have a vote".

Salmond is a visionary. He is a great politician. He took along the other visionaries and the disaffected and the romantics.

(People control money; money doesn't control people. I feared this thinking was behind much of the yes vote and I suspect I was right. If only it was true. But these romantics would be the first to complain when super-austerity Scotland meant fewer NHS resource or increased homelessness or even more food banks).

Salmond failed to understand there are others, for whom vision is not enough. Some of us need plans, realistic projections and contingency planning. Some of us assess risk before leaping. If it's a party you are planning, we might go along. But the wellbeing of 5 million people in an already safe and prosperous and secure country? He never stood a chance.

You know what? His blind optimism was his downfall. If he had responded to the financial warnings with anything other than "scaremongering", I might have listened. It would have been tough - very tough - for a couple of years. If he had been honest, he might have sold it to more people like me.

Within his camp, there was a "do or die" attitude. You couldn't question. You couldn't challenge.

But he made the fatal error of forgetting that people think and make decisions differently.

Maybe in the next generation you will get a similarly great politician, with vision AND the plan and foresight.

But until then, it is over. It didn't work - it couldn't. It's time to move on.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/11108848/Scottish-Referendum-My-Barnett-Formula-needs-to-be-tackled-now-but-no-politician-will.html

Lord Barnet post referendum.

A few more spirited. There will be others I have missed but these cover the main ones. Lots based in London also do work in Edinburgh as well on campaigning. The only one I am not sure of is whether the NSPCC are just England and Wales only as I couldn't see who their Scottish counterpart would be.

www.ageuk.org.uk/scotland/

www.nspcc.org.uk/what-we-do/NSPCC-in-your-area/scotland/scotland-hub_wdh84539.html

www.scotlandpatients.com/Default.aspx

www.mwcscot.org.uk/

www.scottishspca.org/campaigns

www.rnib.org.uk/scotland

www.rspb.org.uk/whatwedo/scotland/

www.cpag.org.uk/scotland

www.stonewallscotland.org.uk/scotland/

YY, please can we move on from the 18th, because we do not have time to squabble amongst ourselves over what might have been, what went wrong, etc etc.

The Wm politicians are moving fast into position and we need to stay focused on them.

I personally don't want to compete within the UK on corporation tax. Different incentives to attract businesses/economic development to areas are possible and that's been done successfully before. It's just not a race to the bottom I particularly fancy! The treasury have also said that it's something they saw as very detrimental to Northern Ireland when the Republic of Ireland took that approach.

Benefits I think would benefit from being devolved as different areas have different issues. But, I've said before that I'm not convinced "England" should be one lump for these decisions either as the issues in London vs North East for example are pretty different.

Here's where the income in Scotland actually comes from - might make a good starting point for considering what should be devolved?

Oops forgot these ones

www.actiononhearingloss.org.uk/about-us/scotland.aspx

www.samh.org.uk/our-work/policy-campaigns.aspx

We felt the BBC was very pro-Yes.

If you analyse the way which news programmes in particular presented the debate, the formula was generally as follows:

1. Scare headline about possible implication of Yes vote
2. Presenter/reporter discusses detail of scare headline.
3. Better Together representative asked to comment on scare headline.
4. Yes representative given opportunity to reply/comment on scare headline.
5. Better Together person given final space for comment.

This format was inherently biased because people will always tend to remember the final comment in any discussion.

In addition:

1. Scare headlines were generally generated from comments from/information provided by biased sources in the first place.

1. Positive messages from the Yes campaign were never headlines.

1. Media coverage exaggerated attendance at BT events and under-represented attendance at Yes events. Many very well-attended Yes events were completely ignored.

1. There was continuing coverage of alleged Yes campaign aggression, without any information/proof being presented to back this up. Police Scotland actually had to ask BT to stop wasting police time with unsubstantiated complaints of Yes aggression.

All of the above can be substantiated from examples which can be viewed online. There has also been an independent and robust academic study into anti-Yes bias which can be seen online. (Don't have link at moment but will find it if anyone would like a look.)

I think that Brian Taylor and some other Scottish political correspondents acted more even-handedly. However, there was definitely an issue of anti-Yes bias in TV news programme coverage (Scottish and UK) and, I am sad to say, on Radio 4 news my hitherto channel of choice). Radio 4 also repeatedly allowed No comments on programmes such as its Sunday morning discussion of newspapers etc without providing any balancing views from the Yes campaign. During the campaign, they also, for example, ran a "Profile" programme on the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury (who has strong anti-currency union views) discussing his anti-currency views in some detail without providing any Yes campaign views as balance. And the list could go on, and on, and on...

The BBC has seriously undermined its representation as a trustworthy public service broadcaster. I am very sad to say now that I cannot trust its coverage of any topic, having seen how badly it failed to provide balance in the indyref.

Sorry typo - "representation" in last para should be "reputation".

scone in all fairness I don't think any news reporter is capable of non-biased reporting these days. The media and the way it is reported is very skewed. Rupert Murdoch and papers deciding whether they were coming out as yes or no is a case in point. I know it has been going on forever but I think it is wrong.

Didn't watch BBC or any news as I started shouting at the TV and was banned so can't comment.

CHILDREN 1ST are the SSPCC

The NSPCC up until very recently did not provide services at all in Scotland but fundraised extensively.

Now the have a very small number of services in Scotland.

CHILDREN 1ST is the working name of the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, in existence for over 125 years.

SC
Rather than looking at sources of income which should be devolved, would it be more useful to identify types of services which should be devolved?

The total cost of these services would then show the devolved budget needed and you could look at where that could come from.

I just want to point out that all these extra powers will not be here for some time, and the mess it's going to cause the rest of the uk should not be underestimated.
We have Cameron trying to pretend he's amazing and wanting to do everything to please Scotland while saying well that means we can't have scottish mps voting on English matters in the House of Commons. Fair enough ! But then you have milliband on the other side saying well yes in theory but that can't happen till after the next general election when hopefully it's a landslide labour win with enough labour mps to be able to have a say in English matters. Then the cross country devolution should happen all at once, or more
Please do not be fooled that these guys have the interests of Scotland at heart.
Thy other thing I would mention about salmond - he mentioned in his accepting defeat speech that he was going to have a call with Cameron in the morning, but did he ever mention what that was about ?
Also he failed spectacularly to take his SNP voting constituencies with him in thin campaign. It's quite sad , really.

More slowly ( devolution). Oops

Please do not be fooled that these guys have the interests of Scotland at heart.

Agree entirely with this. Their interventions are for their own political reasons and are nothing to do with the good of Scotland.

I'm not saying the BBC are angels, but some of the "bias" they have been accused of is a bit off and possibly down to twitter etc going crazy. Someone posted on my FB last night claiming they weren't reporting the "riots" correctly - at that point apparently Sky were reporting 2 stabbings and 10 arrests. It turns out that Sky were wrong.

Similarly, there was a picture doing the round of "this is how the BBC reported the Yes gathering in Buchanan Street" with a picture of about 10 folk, and "this is what it was really like" with a picture of thousands which supposedly hadn't been reported. Except, that picture with thousands (or another from the same spot!) had been on the BBC website for 2 days by that point

Sconequeen

Here's the breakdown of expenses - obviously it's broad!