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Will you vote for independence?

Scottish independence?

  • Yes please

    Votes: 99 56.6%

  • No thanks

    Votes: 57 32.6%

  • Dont know yet

    Votes: 17 9.7%
  • Total voters
    175
Good point by Tory - those who had paid 10% tax now not paying tax. Except that it was down to the Lib Dems.
 
Brief summary:

SNP : smug hectoring arsehole
Labour: who?
Tory: best of the bunch. Low bar, though.
Green: didn't make any useful contributions but fought his way to more airtime.

The moderator seemed biased to the SNP. I would like to see counts of actual airtime.

Perhaps I missed it at the start, but the VoiceOver said that Kelso had been attacked many times by the English pre-union, but did not mention that raids also went the other way.
 
I work for a co-operative that has shops on both sides of the border. We had a company progress report meeting tonight and there was some preliminary chat from the Board representatives about what happens after we vote for independence. And it was framed very much in those terms. 'After', not 'if'. I thought that was interesting.
 
I watched the BBC2 debate. You never usually learn anything from these staged pantomimes, but I did learn that the No side is obsessed with Alex Salmond. Every time a question from the audience was from a No supporter, it was about Alex Salmond. You'd think it was the Salmond Referendum. I'm going to get seriously bored if that carries on.

Of the panel, Patrick Harvie impressed me most. His answers were measured, intelligent and mostly right. Stewart Hosie did not impress me in the least. All faux pugnacity and briefing bites. The Labour MSP, whose name escapes me, was lightweight and out of her depth. Ruth Davidson was assured and mendacious. Was it her who said that currency union would mean the people of the rest of the UK being the lender of last resort for a foreign country? No it wouldn't! It'd mean the BofE - a shared asset - being the lender of last resort for both partners in the currency union.

But on the whole poor stuff, adding nothing to the public discourse. Who'd watch that and feel informed?
 
redsquirrel said:
Excellent summary Danny.

Tell me to mind my own business if you want but when the thread started IIRC you were still debating about whether to vote yes or just to abstain. Now you seem to be leaning to voting yes, just wondered what made you come down that side of the fence?
Click to expand...
I voted Yes in the poll, and my first post says this.

I did waver at one time when I took a sickener at the SNP (on NATO membership). I'm still not happy that they're de facto the public face of the Yes camp, tbh.
 
danny la rouge said:
Of the panel, Patrick Harvie impressed me most. His answers were measured, intelligent and mostly right.
Click to expand...

But he never actually made a positive contribution. Which policies did he propose?

Stewart Hosie did not impress me in the least. All faux pugnacity and briefing bites. The Labour MSP, whose name escapes me, was lightweight and out of her depth.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

Ruth Davidson was assured and mendacious. Was it her who said that currency union would mean the people of the rest of the UK being the lender of last resort for a foreign country? No it wouldn't! It'd mean the BofE - a shared asset - being the lender of last resort for both partners in the currency union.
Click to expand...

Actually she was 100% correct in that an independent Scotland would be a foreign country to the rUK. She was, of course, deceptive elsewhere. Anyway, the issue of currency was an open goal for the anti-SNP members of the panel and they comprehensively missed it.

But on the whole poor stuff, adding nothing to the public discourse. Who'd watch that and feel informed?
Click to expand...

Yes, I agree. It seemed very different to the debate I actually attended in that then the panel were flinging facts and figures and appeared well informed. This time, not so much.
 
Quartz said:
Forbes misses the point that both sides must agree. Anyway, for me, it is a non-issue: an independent Scotland needs it's own currency.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure which point they have missed: it says "London" has made a mistake. (I'm not sure its entirely useful to elide the No camp with a future rUK government. The sets may overlap, but not all "No" is "London" and not all "London" is necessarily "No". After a possible Yes vote, rUK is a better term for now). It thinks "London" ought to agree.

And Scotland actually doesn't need its own currency; I'd prefer it did, for reasons I've already given, but it doesn't need to. The Forbes article points out that currency unions are nothing new or unusual; the euro, despite being the only example the No side mentions, is not the only example of one.
 
John Curtice in the Herald today (can't link, as they're blocking me for using up my free passes) says that most Scots still support devo max (not on offer, although Salmond did call for someone to back a devo max plan and have it put on the referendum). Curtice thinks devo max support is from people who have concerns about independence (pensions is one question he says worries people).

He thinks, though, that they might shift to independence if there is no clarity from No camp about their plans to enhance devolution. Which there isn't, as yet.



Interestingly, Westminster has put a story out today about enhancing Holyrood's powers regarding bond raising. This is a measure from the Scotland Act 2012 (which has been discussed in this thread). Since the Tories are the government (the Lib-Dems don't count: their plans for federal Uk are not well advanced, and will be turned down by the Tories), the information needs to come from them: what will they do about devolution if there is a No vote. Is it the Scotland Act, or something else (as Ruth Davidson hinted)?
 
One of the audience members said that his English friends didn't care which way the vote went. I've not seen that. Rather, the English of my acquaintance who've mentioned independence respect that it's a matter for Scotland.
 
There are anti Scots in England lets be realistic, same as there is anti English in Scotland but its not the prevalent view, mostly we rub along quite happily. Unfortunately that will change, its already in the matrix (will explain in the post I promised, and still do, to post next month). Danny seems rightly irritated by the obsession with Mr Salmond, but it its Yes' inability to keep him harness that means it is he who has Yes in harness.


It is too early to put facts on the table and not yet too late to minimise the schism.
 
gosub said:
You want to have a dig at reuters now
Click to expand...
I want to have a dig at you for talking about it being too early for facts and here's a fact. For being rather unclear in what you say. For mixing hypothesis with fact in your rhetoric. And for then accusing others of either putting facts or hypothesis on the table - it could be either, it could be both, but as the accusation is just so wide it doesn't seem to matter.
 
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