Salmond and Darling

Dear Don,

While you are [and anyone is] free to be interrogated and ignore it by not responding, I do feel that it is a bit rich for you to interrogate Tom, whilst ignoring my answers to your posts on the At War Again Thread.

One must take a reasonably consistent position, at least during the course of one week, to have any credibility.

I don't mind you not answering me, but, if you cannot or will not, then please refrain from being an interrogator of others at the same time.

ATB from George

Dear George,

I am not your servant, nor that of anybody else. I shall please myself entirely as to what I do and as to how I allocate my time. For avoidance of doubt, this not an appology and I am confident that upon reflection you will appreciate the unacceptable nature of your demands.

Cheers

Don

Dear Don,

I was absolutely certain that you would never have been making an apology to me, even though you would never be my servant as I would never employ you! 

But my point is made, and I stick to it. You can have it both ways, but don't expect anyone to take you all that seriously if you do.

ATB from George

Dear George,

Stop being petty just because I chose to respond to another thread rather than yours. Take an asprin or something. You are well out of order today. Hopefully you'll be in you more usual frame of mind tomorrow.

FWIW, Kevin has more or less captured my views.

Cheers

Don

I appreciate that Kevin has made a fair and reasonable argument contra to my position, which though I disagree with it, I find it civil and worth reading.

Please don't advise a complete stranger how to conduct medication. I would consult a medic on that at times when I had to, such as when my leg was broken two and half years ago ...

But what a shame that it took eloquence from someone else rather than you to at least reply to my point.

I suspect that you are a person much better at giving it than taking it.

I suspect many reading these exchanges will agree.

And that your standing here is very much diminished as a result.

I however have no standing here, and therefore absolutely nothing to loose from an honest and consistent statement of my position on this and that ...

ATB from George

Its a pitty that the rest of the "Yes" cammpaign can't follow Eck's lead and "very graciously accept the result". More than 55% of your fellow countrymen who voted, voted to stay in the Union.

??????????? who is "you all". And if you include me in that generic group, please explain why.

I don't think the contributions on this thread justify such an inference, Tom.  Certainly I wasn't implying anything of the kind.  My views on this issue can be summarised as (i) I think the economic arguments advanced to support independence seemed to be outweighed by those that suggested a Scottish economy might suffer, though I accept there are no certainties here (ii) I think Salmond didn't adhere to the standards of reasoned debate that should be expected in our democracy, which I felt potentially mislead his supporters and (iii) I believe the UK is stronger with Scotland being part of it so I was pleased with outcome. 

All that said, I fully understand and accept that those in Scotland who passionately believe in an independent Scotland will continue to make their case and will likely seek another referendum one day.  That's all part of the benefit we enjoy from living in a mature democracy -  we can have argument and disagreements on such matters but we respect the democratic and lawful processes and seek to make a our case through them.  Our democratic processes and our maturity in using them has it faults, of course, but I suspect there are many in this world who are rightly envious of us.

Finding reliable and consistent information about the Scottish economy and how it compares to other regions within the UK and the UK as a whole is very, very difficult. Trying to predict how these economies would evolve in an independent Scotland scenario is virtually impossible. However, ISTM that excluding oil and gas revenue, Scotland is roughly typical of an average UK region and very similar to the overall UK average.

As examples, the GDP for the UK is £20,873 and for Scotland £20,571. Likewise, average weekly wages are roughly similar and unemployment is similar. Yes, there are differences and depending on where figures are published there are variations, but overall, the Scottish economic productivity situation looks very much like the UK average – oil and gas excluded.

If UK oil and gas revenues are taken into account on a population basis, the relative situation is, to all intent and purpose, unchanged with the UK GDP rising to £22,336 and the Scottish figure being a few hundred £££ less. If the UK oil and gas revenues are taken into account on a geographic (or regional) basis, then the Scottish economy looks significantly better than the UK average and is better than most other regions other than London and also the South East. The UK GDP remains at £22,336 and the Scottish figure increases to £26,424.

At present public expenditure in Scotland is c. £12,300 pppa vice UK average of c.£11,000.

IMHO Eck has achieved one very helpful concept during his “Yes” campaign. He has coined the phrase “a fair and just society” and has shaken people throughout the UK to explore precisely what constitutes “a fair and just society”. The politicians at Westminster need to look at this very, very carefully. Eck might be their “Man”

I believe that Eck had in mind for an independent Scotland, a situation whereby the wealth of Scottish enterprise and work, together with revenue from natural resources such as oil and gas, were used to promote the wellbeing of the entire Scottish population ie on a “population” basis, rather than a regional basis (for example) concentrate the industrial wealth of Glasgow in Glasgow, the business and commercial wealth of Edinburgh in Edinburgh and the natural resource wealth of the North Sea oil and gas on the people living within (say) 10m of the east coast of Scotland from North Berwick to Shetland. You get the idea.

Now I don’t imagine for one moment that Eck and the SNP would have tolerated a referendum by the “East Coast” people of Scotland (nobody else, just the East Coast People) to become independent of the rest of Scotland. And I don’t think he would have countenanced a similar referendum in Glasgow and its surrounding industrial areas for independence, even though it was clear from the poll returns that Glasgow was the only region where a majority “Yes” vote seems to have emerged. In other words Eck’s view of a fair and just society was for Scotland as a whole. There would be no possibility of breakaway regions taking their local "wealth" with them.

Now that Scotland has voted to remain as part of the Union, this principle of a fair and just society needs to be considered for the UK as a whole. What would Eck recommend ?

Cheers

Don

PS I might consider the various estimates of the extent of UK oil and gas reserves later, and am still pondering the Falklands issue, although Kevin has more or less captured my basic thoughts on that.

Newspaper summary of the Scotthish Independence vote:-

Despite an ehtusiastic campaign by Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond, only four of the 32 Scottish regions voted in favour of independence: Dundee, Glasgow, North Lanakrshire and West Dunbartonshire.

I wonder why ?