Scottish Independence and the SNP

[Admiral]

A friend of mine worked for the SNP, and told me that all of their fiscal justifications for independence are bogus. For instance, my friend was told to compare the GNP of Scotland to Norway, and a couple of other countries, measure the difference between the mean of those countries and Scotland, then call this the "independence dividend" that Scotland would gain were she to become independent. Also, their domestic policy seems to be massively increasing domestic spending while not raising taxes and not receiving any funding from England.

[Cort Haus]

Power and Lies - go together like Cheese and Pickle.

[Dinner]

Independence would definately cost more simply because there are a lot of expenses the UK government picks up right now that Scotland would have to start paying for. Add in that the output of north sea oil wells has been declining for some time and the economic rational for independence goes away.

[CerberusIV]

Presumably Alex Salmon hopes that the the English will throw Scotland a large pile of money to go away and keep quiet the way they did with Northern Ireland.

N Ireland won't be going with the Scots either - that would start a civil war there again and nobody is interested now (except for a handful of psychopathic nutters who miss the good old days when they could commit whatever crimes they wanted and claim it was politically motivated).

[C0ckney]

it's well known that england, especially the south east helps to fund scotland (and wales) through the barnet system.

i read somewhere that scotland has less than 200,000 net tax-payers out of a population of just over 5,000,000, so it's hard to see where all the money would come from once the oil starts to run out.

i don't think that there's a lot of support for breaking up the united kingdom in any case. i think most people, in both england and scotland, recognise that we're better off together than apart.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by C0ckney
it's well known that england, especially the south east helps to fund scotland (and wales) through the barnet system.

i read somewhere that scotland has less than 200,000 net tax-payers out of a population of just over 5,000,000, so it's hard to see where all the money would come from once the oil starts to run out.

i don't think that there's a lot of support for breaking up the united kingdom in any case. i think most people, in both england and scotland, recognise that we're better off together than apart.

The North East of England and Northern Ireland are subsidised even more.

Also, beware of factoids poisoning this debate. Especially any which begin 'in some parts of Glasgow...'

[Cort Haus]

In some parts of Glasgow after the War there were 400 people to the acre and to rehouse them at minimal cost took precedence over what they wanted. People who had lived for generations in cramped conditions with outside toilets and no bathrooms needed better housing, but they didn't want to leave the areas where they had grown up and the close communities they lived in. It became a common sight to see sad little groups watching bleakly as their former homes, and those of their parents and grandparents were demolished. But the politicians still knew best. (Meg Henderson, Finding Peggy 89)

http://www.mysongbook.de/msb/songs/a/anniebro.html

[Dinner]

Urban renewal.


That said the 1940's were a long time ago (so long even my dad, aunt, and grandparents were still living in Ayre) and I'm sure the economy is vastly different now. That said there is no doubt Scotland and N. Ireland have both been bribed by England via tax subsidies to shut up and stop whining. I doubt either of those two would willingly give up the free cash as they would have to do if they left the UK.

[Victor Galis]

Yes, poor Scotland, if only they were run by some sort of Scotsman instead of that evil Gord... er... wait

[Krill]

Yeah, now you know how te rest of us feel...

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by Krill
Yeah, now you know how te rest of us feel...

Hey, I live in Quebec (We're so underrepresented... please ignore the fact that most of our PMs seem to come from Quebec.)

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Blair's devolution schemes have turned things into a bloody mess of confusing have measures. I mean they now have local parliaments in Scotland and Northern Ireland but Wales didn't get one while the largest and most important part of the UK, England, also gets no local Parliament. If the UK wants to be a federal system like the US then each of the four parts should have a local Parliament as well as representation in the national parliament with a constitution defining what each body's powers are.

Give England it's own parliament and, the argument goes, the Union is over by default.

Regional assemblies in England were voted against by the populous and the Welsh assembly only just got passed on the vote, so it's not like they felt the desperate need to have their own parliament.