Poll - Does Scotland really want to go it alone?

[sweet caroline]

Richard ,Have you heard that Alec Salmond has now relented to having the Nuclear Subs housed in Scotland for the forseeable future ,and asking the Westminster government for rent.Also extending the life of Hunterson .I will not make up my mind until i have a clearer view of what the SNP proposals are.For now i'm for more powers being devolved.

sweet caroline

[Richard]

Sweet Caroline:
Yes, I am aware of the "Trident" story. Read some article earlier this week and although it did not state
that the SNP had changed their stance on this issue, it was fairly obvious that they are seriously
contemplating letting Westminster keep them up here, for a fee, until the programme runs itself out.
But over the longer term there would be NO nuclear weapons kept on Scottish soil or in Scottish waters.
If I had to put on my business head, I would say that It could be a very good & crafty move on the part of
the SNP. What a bargaining chip that could be; "Ok Westminster, wipe out our share of the national debt
and you've got yourself a deal", wee Eck's not stupid, his background is in finance

No, not seen or heard anything about the Hunterson story. What's that all about ?
Think the last I knew anything about Hunterson was when the Yull & Dodds convoy's used to thunder
back & forth through Ardrossan, delivering the coal & breaking the "picket lines".
If I remember correctly, they were brought in, as a private contractor, specifically for that purpose ?
Although, I will stand corrected on that one if I'm wrong.

Devo with more powers is not necessarily a bad thing and could be seen and used as a step in the right
direction but the problem is, what, exactly, is the "more powers" part ?
I would never buy anything I can't see and I've always been pro Independence, since my teens.
The devil, as they say, is in the detail.

[morag]

Basically, we, as a nation, were not given a choice or vote if you will, 300+ years ago, to be part of this union. It surely did not benefit the general population of Scotland (Highland clearances?) and we are still seen as the 'poor relation', though Scotland more than pays it's way. Westminster would not have you believe that. I hate the condescending attitude..oh, you cute wee Scottish thing...grrr! lol! C'mere 'till ah hit ye! We've been dormant and subordinate too long, it's time to assert ourselves. In the punchline of the old joke..'walk with pride laddie'!

[Richard]

Take a look at this.
This is worse than scaremongering.
This is nothing short of lies & corruption from the BBC.
They have even been caught tampering with the "date/time".
The full story is here and most of the comments, afterwards, are worth reading.
Even if you don't believe in Independence, it is worth you taking a look because if you have a TV and
live ANYWHERE in Scotland, Wales, England or N.Ireland, you are being forced to pay for a TV licence.
This is bordering on state controlled TV and brainwashing.
Have a look & judge for yourselves ?

http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/sc ... c-scotland

[morag]

and why am I not surprised? The mass media in Britain is not unbiased. I've always found BBC news on telly to be much more realistic than US news, and have been quite disappointed by recent debacles.

[sweet caroline]

Last time i heard anything about Nicola Sturgeon was when i watched her in Question Time ,and was not amused with her performance .She missed a few chances to stand up for Scotland.Wondered if she had been told to keep her mouth shut .

sweet caroline

[John Donnelly]

Quote; ‘What is wrong with emotion John? Are not all our major actions and decisions driven by emotion and gut instinct? Is emotion not the driver of life? It's usually after the event that we build a logical argument to support what we have done.

Consider one of the most important, personal decisions we make in life - to get married. (I am assuming you are married - so forgive me if I got that wrong). Did you sit down and logically analyze the pros and cons of marrying your wife?’ Unquote.

Retsum, hi.

Nobody, but nobody, can tell me anything about making decisions based on emotion; especially not about getting married.

Monday 3 September 1974, I resign from my departmental manager job in Scotland; nice flat, good job, decent pay, good career prospects.

Monday 24 September 1974, I start work as factory labourer in Holland punching out lugs to hold handles on paint-cans, on minimum wage, long hours, miserable working-conditions, cannot speak the language. I did have a roof over my head though, courtesy of my Dutch fiancee.

Now married 36 years, 2 sons and 7 grand-children. Not a single regret, but looking back, I wonder whether I would have the guts / stupidity to do it again.

Other major decisions, like buying the house, were very carefully weighed up before any signatures were put on any dotted lines.

I’ll reply to the decision-making aspect of independence in more detail shortly.

Must confess, the post on the BBC report on the Nicola Sturgeon interview gave me cause for thought. Being at a distance has a big advantage, (able to be objective), but also a big disadvantage, (not being fully aware of all the facts and nuances).

JD.

Sorry this is late; busy as anything at the moment.

[Richard]

It was an eye opener, John.
The BBC have been guilty of a lot in the past but this takes a new twist and should be a concern for
everybody. Well, at least those who pay for a TV licence.
The people responsible should be sacked.
It's outright lies & deceit and someone is being paid to do it.
The BBC should also be made to broadcast a public apology.
They get away with far too much, for an organisation that is supposed to be "neutral" ?

[John Donnelly]

Some thoughts on some of the details we are going to have to deal with concerning the nuts and bolts of independence. I get the impression that most folk think that, on the 1st Jan. 20-umpteen, the Scottish Independence Act will come into force and some kind of line will be drawn on the map, and we’ll all live happily ever after. The thing that concerns me about full independence is that it will come at a price, and I want to have that price fully defined and quantified before we sign on the dotted line.

The type of thing I mean is :-

1. Infrastructure; roads, railways, ports, bridges, the national-grid, housing, etc; all the things that have been built using UK funds. How are these going to be shared, and paid for? How are we going to arrive at an equitable consideration? calculate all the respective tax-payments over the last how many? years? What kind of effort will that take? Or pro-rate the population / land area / number of miles of roads and railways / relative GDP? Or do we expect them to just hand it over for nothing?
2. The Civil Service; how will that work in the new situation? All the documentation, forms, letter-heads, signs on buldings, etc, will have to be redesigned and printed. Will the top civil servants in Scotland, be up to the ultimate responsibility? They will miss the huge establishment machine in London, and have to make their own decisions with a much smaller backup team.
3. Defence; eg: how will we enforce our territorial waters if the Danish and Icelandic trawlers start poaching our fishing grounds again?
4. Energy; do we have enough capability, and reserve capability, to be self-sufficient? Again, we would miss the huge back-up capacity the rest of the UK provides now should we have a major electricity failure.
5. Currency; would we keep sterling; join the Euro zone; create our own?
6. Legal system; fortunately, that’s an easy one. We kept our own legal system.
7. Constitution; will we retain the same, unwritten, constitution? Would we have a team of lawyers, politicians and civil servants draw up a new one? Again, what would that cost?
8. GDP; every-one seems to assume that we could go it on our own. Has any-one seen any researched financial facts and figures to support this?
9. European Union; assuming we would remain within it, what would our status be there? We would have to negotiate our own contributions and subsidies. Would these be favourable?
10. Tax-raising; are we just going to keep the existing tax-system or would we want to put our own more efficient / equitable one in place? Again, costs would be considerable.
11. Water; aha, I hear you say. The English have no water. We’ll sell ours to them, and it will not come cheap. Might be a considerable advantage to bear in mind.
12. Health; do we take over the existing NHS structure and organisation? Or do we create our own more efficient and equitable one? How will it be financed? What will we have to pay for the existing hospitals and other facilities. The same holds for police, fire departments, ambulance services, schools and universities; the list is a long one.

JD.

[John Donnelly]

Here are another couple of ideas to bear in mind :-

13. Exports; we will have to put our own systems in place to comply with the huge amount of regulations and restrictions demanded by all the other countries throughout the world, so that our exports will be allowed in.

14. Diplomacy; will we have our own embassies and consulates? (I have already been approached to be the Scottish Consul here in Holland. I am friends with the British Consul here, and the other week, he jokingly introduced me as the future Scottish Consul.)

15. What about nationalised businesses; eg British Airways? Will we split that up or just divide the shares between us? Again, how will we decide how much each side gets?

To round off:-

I want to see a full-blown financial picture for Scotland, the same as for any business:-
budget / profit and loss account / balance sheet.

But mostly, what I really would like to see is a cost-benefit analysis; what will it cost us and what will we get out of it – over the long term; ie 50 to 100 years. If the costs will be more than the benefits, my feeling is, don’t go for it.

Bear in mind, these costs and benefits cannot always be expressed in money terms. The social costs, while very difficult to assess, are more important than the monetary considerations.

This is going to be an enormous project to do, but we, the voters, need to be appraised of all the implications, before we make up our minds. This is what I mean when I keep harping on about setting the emotion aside when we make our decision.

A few extra ideas to finally round off :-

Ireland’s independence was long ago and a much different situation. They were never as integrated with the UK as Scotland is with England today, and the scale then was much smaller and far less complicated.

Changes would not be smooth. New systems would need designing, implimenting, trial runs, trouble-shooting, training, etc. Believe me, as an ex-IT project manager, this is a nightmare.

Wait for the egos to appear. ‘It’s ma ba’, and ‘the ba’s oan the slates,’ will be cries that will be often heard.

On the date of the hand-over, will both sides try to keep as many items as possible in their own territory so as to lay claim to them; eg, trains.

In the year 3000, the Scottish independence question will probably appear as three sentences in the history books. ‘In 1704, the Scottish and English parliaments were united. In 2020, the Scots chose independence again.’ For me the big question is, ‘what will the third sentence say.’

JD.

[sweet caroline]

JD
agree whole heartedly.

sweet caroline

[Penny Tray]

I haven't voted yet and I'll wait a wee while longer before I do. I just began to wonder though how I might feel if Oor Hughie decided tomorrow that 'Threetowners' would no longer exist in its present form and that from now on those of us from Ardrossan, Saltcoats and Stevenston would go our individual ways with our own community websites.

Hughie, in my opinion, has amicably united us and even gone a step further by embracing friends from Kilwinning, Irvine, West Kilbride, up the Garnock Valley and further afield, sometimes thousands of miles afield - and all for the better good of everyone involved.

I think I know how I'll vote come the time!