Besides, I bet the SNP privately don't even want to keep the pound.

They have publicly stated that they intend to adopt the Euro in the future if public support was sufficient and the Eurozone crisis had been solved.

 

 

As for this band of three coming together to say that Scotland can't use GBP. They are all incredibly short sighted. Ok, so we're only 1/7th of rUK's trade and rUK is 2/3rds of ours but we have the Oil card. Oil helps the balance of payments and thus keep the Sterling strong.

 

The Pound will devalue if Scotland was to go independent.

I don't think it would matter a great deal to Scotland now whether we take the Pound with us or not, it's only going to have a negative impact on the UK government either way. I'm sure Alex Salmond responded to 'if you go independent, you're not taking the Pound' by saying if that were the case Scotland would abandon what would have been a percentage of the UK's debt taken with them and the Pound... So leaving the UK in mass debt while we head off for a prosperous future either with our own currency or as part of the euro-zone seems alright. :kink:

There has been rumblings that the YES vote would go into a negotiation with the attitude of no pound = no debt. Presumably on the basis of 'why should we take a share of the liabilities when we don't get a share of the assets'. Which does actually make sense. Gotta make that Balance Sheet balance, sorry 'Statement of Financial Position' to use this weeks in term with IFRS.

Now even a former Labour Scottish first minister says the "Better Together" campaign is doing terribly:

 

Henry McLeish, a former Labour first minister of Scotland, said there would be an immediate backlash in Scotland against Osborne's attack on the currency proposal. It would increase support for independence, by angering many wavering Scottish voters and building up their sense of alienation.

 

Insisting he would vote no to independence, McLeish told the Guardian: "The great danger for them is that the no campaign now is losing votes because it's so relentlessly negative, with no empathy for Scotland at all. [A lot]of people will say 'we're sick of this, these threats won't work'."

 

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/f...-george-osborne

Doubt it. The last poll I saw showed only 2% of Scottish people considered currency their biggest concern about independence; other issues are considered much bigger factors. Plus, let's face it, the fact it was George Osborne who announced it will almost inevitably mean it backfires, a promise of a free £10,000 cheque for everyone would be unpopular if it came from his mouth. And Ed Balls and Danny Alexander are hardly any more popular.

That doesn't really take into account that it hasn't been an issue at all until now - the unchallenged assumption has just been that it'd be the pound, so it hasn't really seemed like a concern at all in comparison to others. I can't really see the average Scot being all too keen to go over to the Euro.

There has been rumblings that the YES vote would go into a negotiation with the attitude of no pound = no debt. Presumably on the basis of 'why should we take a share of the liabilities when we don't get a share of the assets'. Which does actually make sense. Gotta make that Balance Sheet balance, sorry 'Statement of Financial Position' to use this weeks in term with IFRS.

What on earth? If somebody flounced off halfway through a meal and said they weren't going to pay for the part they'd had, that kind of wouldn't be on. Under the Barnett formula each Scot gets on average more government spending than most others in the UK - it's utterly nonsensical to state Scotland hasn't had a share of the assets that have come from the UK's public spending.

 

At that point we'd be moving into utterly unprecedented territory if the SNP would be so childish as to try and blackmail the UK into letting them keep the pound by threatening that they wouldn't take on their respective share of UK debt. Like, literally, the case of 'We don't like that after telling you to bugger off, you won't promise to pick up the tab if we go bankrupt. We're not paying for the share of the debt that was spent on us.' is so monumentally inept an argument I can't even find an appropriate analogy. It's tinpot levels - it'd get laughed out of any international court.

It's pure 'nationalist sources' so may not even be SNP.

 

 

It's something that seems to have some traction with the NEDs, or at least it does with those on BBC Scotland last night. In theory they could argue that they should not be responsible for debt racked up by a government not elected by the people of Scotland pursuing fiscal policy not concurrent with Scotland's wishes.

 

What makes the path highly unlikely, and anything more than a reactionary comment designed to encourage the swing from No to Yes on the back of Osbourne's speech, is that to do this would send a very bad image to potential holders of Scottish Government debt. That means a shite rating and a massive Greece level interest rate. Not in our interest in the slightest to welch on our debt.

I mean, seriously, I have to ask here. You're all grown adults in here more than capable of reason. On what basis from this campaign would you judge independence to be a sound prospect when you'd have a man running things who has so far proven utterly incapable of coming up with a consistent, viable plan for self-government and leaves a hole in his plans to create a new nation as big as this?

 

What advantage is there left from independence? If it's about throwing off the yoke of oppression, it's now in the position where Scotland would be doing that only to find itself bound by the EU doing the same thing worse to keep it as a member of the Euro (tight fiscal controls and all that), and Scotland wouldn't have the clout the UK has to tell the EU to fuck off when it starts lecturing on deficits - not least because it'd be in there with it.

 

The meth dreams that the independence lot have come up with are so utterly nonsensical and self-defeating I'm shocked as many as 30% are going along with it! We can do it ourselves! But we'll keep the pound, the Queen, the BBC, the NHS, and pretty much everything else that's a marker of British society. But we'll make it so all your English, Welsh and Ulster relatives are now foreigners. And we'll spend lots of money and create socialist paradise because oil! Oh, wait, we probably wouldn't be able to afford socialist paradise anyway without putting up taxes big time, which we have the power to do anyway at the moment but haven't done because LOOK OVER THERE BETTER TOGETHER ARE BEING NEGATIVE BULLIES

 

What's this? We can't use the pound? Bullies! How DARE you refuse to pick up the tab! Well, I tell you what, Scotland won't stand for this! We're going to declare independence because, well, we don't like you telling us we can't eat off your table and that you won't bail us out when we've just said we don't want anything to do with you anymore! We'll go make our own socialist paradise with the Euro and we won't pay for all those times you borrowed money for me! Wait, the EU won't let us run a deficit at the level it is now, even when things aren't the socialist paradise yet we're totally going to create next Wednesday, so we'd have to either cut spending or raise taxes? Well, this looks like a pickle, but BETTER TOGETHER HAVEN'T GOT A POSITIVE VISION. OIL.

 

Like...seriously? I'd try to avoid mockery, but we're looking at a case for an independence so utterly flimsy it INVITES it. Like, I can understand why Salmond's gone for such a pathetic and unworkable compromise which would be a sham of a claim to independence, to try and avoid scaring the horses that quite like most of the features of being British, but I'd genuinely have had a bit of respect and fear for a proper case for independence which actually went all-out in creating a new state - new currency, republic, the works. At least it would've been a bit ideologically consistent with the claims to being about to create a new socialist utopia as something they could've vaguely managed (although I'm more than aware it would probably be polling at about half the level, but it's one I think could've gone either way and stood a chance of winning, unlike this one).

I mean, seriously, I have to ask here. You're all grown adults in here more than capable of reason. On what basis from this campaign would you judge independence to be a sound prospect when you'd have a man running things who has so far proven utterly incapable of coming up with a consistent, viable plan for self-government and leaves a hole in his plans to create a new nation as big as this?

If Scotland vote Yes, that doesn't necessarily mean they will elect an SNP administration in the first post-independence election. Or are you expecting Salmond to proclaim himself First Minister for life?

If Scotland vote Yes, that doesn't necessarily mean they will elect an SNP administration in the first post-independence election. Or are you expecting Salmond to proclaim himself First Minister for life?

I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED (but in seriousness, I think it's a bit of an inevitability that the SNP would win the first election if Scotland did declare independence. Not least because Scottish Labour would be in BITS. For much the same reason I'm expecting Labour to have a fighting chance in 2016 if independence gets a thrashing.)

And probably the most significant event of the whole referendum happened today: all three main parties ruled out allowing Scotland to use the pound in a currency union if they declared independence, meaning their only options would be to join the Euro or leave the EU and create their own currency.

 

Bit of a bullet in the tits for Salmond, given until now he's rather presumptuously insisted an independent Scotland would keep the pound, thereby making the Bank of England a lender of last resort even after independence.

 

And this "bullet in the tits for Salmond" has resulted in.... a big surge in the "Yes" vote, with the latest poll putting them just 9% behind "No".

But it would be like Kelly left Destiny's Child back in 1999! :cry:

And this "bullet in the tits for Salmond" has resulted in.... a big surge in the "Yes" vote, with the latest poll putting them just 9% behind "No".

If you're on about the TNS poll just announced (I can't see any others, but let me know if there's another one), the groundwork was done January 29th to February 6th - before the currency announcement, so it doesn't tell us anything at all about the current state of play.

If you're on about the TNS poll just announced (I can't see any others, but let me know if there's another one), the groundwork was done January 29th to February 6th - before the currency announcement, so it doesn't tell us anything at all about the current state of play.

 

Nope, Survation, all the groundwork carried out after the Osborne/Balls/Alexander carcrash, with "Yes" up 5% from the last Survation poll at the end of January.

 

HOPEFULLY this will finally be a wake-up call for the "No" campaign to stop running such a dire, negative, scaremongering campaign.

EDIT: I thought you were on about the TNS poll. Is there a link for the Survation one yet? I'll hold off response until I've actually seen it, as I imagine there'll be a question in there on reactions to the currency affair.

 

I'm surprised if this actually has made people think going it alone would be a better idea for Scotland (and it isn't just a temporary boost from Salmond's tubthumping, which I'm inclined to think - he's popular, and one day of announcement versus five days of Salmond saturation would have a positive effect for Yes), because the Bank of England and the three chancellors really aren't bluffing on this one: currency union without fiscal union/convergence is an absolutely dreadful idea. If Salmond wants to take Scotland in a very different fiscal direction, it's a massive risk for either sterling as a whole, or for the Scots. Any currency union needs proper convergence between the economies - you only have to look at Italy, Spain and Greece to see the results otherwise. £500m in transaction costs is a total drop in the water economically compared to the pain of having to co-ordinate interest rates and fiscal policy between two economies on different tracks if one of them (either rUK or Scotland) hits the buffers - either way it'd be holding the Scots back or holding them down.

EDIT: I thought you were on about the TNS poll. Is there a link for the Survation one yet? I'll hold off response until I've actually seen it, as I imagine there'll be a question in there on reactions to the currency affair.

 

I'm surprised if this actually has made people think going it alone would be a better idea for Scotland (and it isn't just a temporary boost from Salmond's tubthumping, which I'm inclined to think - he's popular, and one day of announcement versus five days of Salmond saturation would have a positive effect for Yes), because the Bank of England and the three chancellors really aren't bluffing on this one: currency union without fiscal union/convergence is an absolutely dreadful idea. If Salmond wants to take Scotland in a very different fiscal direction, it's a massive risk for either sterling as a whole, or for the Scots. Any currency union needs proper convergence between the economies - you only have to look at Italy, Spain and Greece to see the results otherwise. £500m in transaction costs is a total drop in the water economically compared to the pain of having to co-ordinate interest rates and fiscal policy between two economies on different tracks if one of them (either rUK or Scotland) hits the buffers - either way it'd be holding the Scots back or holding them down.

 

But you're completely overestimating how much Scottish people CARE one way or the other about keeping the pound. As I pointed out last week, all the polls have consistently said virtually noone thinks currency is a big issue, whether they're a "Yes" or a "No" voter. And it's not because, like you suggested, that people had previously just been assuming that they'd be able to keep the pound (Osborne and various other Westminster politicians have been rambling on since early 2012 about how they probably wouldn't be able to keep the pound anyway, so it's not exactly like last week's announcement was some big bombshell) -- people simply aren't going to make their decision based on whether they get to carry on using coins with the Queen's head on them. So it was a double fail on the part of the Westminster politicians, because they looked like aggressive bullies, and over an issue which Scottish people didn't care about so felt they had nothing to fear from the "worst case scenario" they were being threatened with anyway.

 

It was yet another example of people in the Westminster village being obsessed with technocratic arguments, apparently oblivious to the fact that people make their minds up on emotional arguments...I saw Danny Alexander earlier today scaremongering about what "the markets" will think of an independent Scotland, which will similarly not make an iota of difference to most normal people's opinions.

Edited February 20, 201411 yr by Danny

That TNS poll (obviously not as relevant now) has an interesting question actually - and one I think is relevant as it's contrary to something people have been insisting for quite some time. It has 32% either agreeing strongly/slightly that Better Together have clearly outlined the benefits of the UK staying in, with 33% disagreeing strongly/slightly, 25% neither agreeing/disagreeing and 9% DK (net minus one). You'd think for a campaign so 'universally' maligned those results would be a lot more negative.

 

For comparison with Yes Scotland, it's 34% agree, 37% disagree, 21% neither and 8% DK - net minus 3, but within the margin of error with Better Together. Either way it seems it's probably a case of both campaigns having much the same reception, which isn't really the position a campaign wanting to make up a twelve point scramble to reach 50 would want to see.

 

(Also interestingly, 64% agree strongly/slightly that Better Together needs to do more to be seen and heard in the debate, and 55% say the same for Yes Scotland. I'm not sure what to take from that, other than that a majority might still not be paying much attention yet - but again, that was before the currency announcement so that might have changed by now.)

But you're completely overestimating how much Scottish people CARE one way or the other about keeping the pound. As I pointed out last week, all the polls have consistently said virtually noone thinks currency is a big issue, whether they're a "Yes" or a "No" voter. And it's not because, like you suggested, that people had previously just been assuming that they'd be able to keep the pound (Osborne and various other Westminster politicians have been rambling on since early 2012 about how they probably wouldn't be able to keep the pound anyway, so it's not exactly like last week's announcement was some big bombshell) -- people simply aren't going to make their decision based on whether they get to carry on using coins with the Queen's head on them. So it was a double fail on the part of the Westminster politicians, because they looked like aggressive bullies, and over an issue which Scottish people didn't care about so felt they had nothing to fear from the "worst case scenario" they were being threatened with anyway.

 

It was yet another example of people in the Westminster village being obsessed with technocratic arguments, apparently oblivious to the fact that people make their minds up on emotional arguments...I saw Danny Alexander earlier today scaremongering about what "the markets" will think of an independent Scotland, which will similarly not make an iota of difference to most normal people's opinions.

I'm more than willing to give in on this one if we get another poll in on this question in the next few days (I'm shocked we haven't had more given how active the last week's been. Sort it out YouGov/ICM.) and it still says it's a 2% thing, but as I said at the time, it's never been an issue of prominence - so we wouldn't know because it's not the sort of thing most people would've thought of as an issue (plus, given how little attention those Populus polls on recalled news stories indicate people pay, barbed asides on Scotland maybe not being able to keep the pound in interviews on the Sunday Politics wouldn't exactly punch through compared with Salmond insisting that Scotland would keep the pound all the way through the campaign and the White Paper).

 

Your argument doesn't really add up either way from what we've seen before either - all throughout the euro 'will we won't we' phase, there were always big majorities in favour of keeping the pound across all regions, even at the height of Tony insisting the euro was in our best interests. If anything, the whole argument showed the pound is more of an emotional attachment - even with the technocratic argument in favour of the euro being accepted at face value (you had a whacking majority say they were relieved at Brown ruling out the euro in 2003 as it said we would join in the future, agree that we should join when the conditions were right, but answer in the majority that they'd definitively made up their minds and would not ever vote to join the euro - all within the same poll! If that doesn't show emotional attachment to the pound even above technocratic arguments being accepted, I'm not sure what does).

 

People aren't going to decide just on the basis of this, but it's definitely something people will take into quite big consideration. Yeah, people make up their mind on emotional arguments - I can't think of many greater that would sum up that independence isn't just going to be a win-win 'everything Scotland likes from being British but with the chance to have more money in public services' than the fact that there are going to be big changes in independence - and changing the currency that a lot of Scottish people have savings in to something uncertain with possibly less value (it's not just about the face on it...) would definitely be one of them. You're having your cake by dismissing pretty much all arguments slamming Yes Scotland's plans as 'technocratic', whilst eating it by dismissing the big emotional argument Better Together have on their side (i.e. British unity - which the pound is a massive symbol of) as being technocratic when it comes to the actual implications of getting rid of things that signify that unity. When the emotional pitch of an independent Scotland is dreamworld, the nasty reality that Scottish independence wouldn't all be sunshine and fairies kind of does intrude at some point when it comes to something as final as splitting up a country and going your own way - and there is ultimately a reason why there's still a big lead for No, even on this one poll.

 

(I've bought in to this debate too much to straight-facedly argue we should probably also be waiting on other polls before we see if this is a big permanent shift, but yeah, that too :lol:)

I'm more than willing to give in on this one if we get another poll in on this question in the next few days (I'm shocked we haven't had more given how active the last week's been. Sort it out YouGov/ICM.) and it still says it's a 2% thing, but as I said at the time, it's never been an issue of prominence - so we wouldn't know because it's not the sort of thing most people would've thought of as an issue (plus, given how little attention those Populus polls on recalled news stories indicate people pay, barbed asides on Scotland maybe not being able to keep the pound in interviews on the Sunday Politics wouldn't exactly punch through compared with Salmond insisting that Scotland would keep the pound all the way through the campaign and the White Paper).

 

Your argument doesn't really add up either way from what we've seen before either - all throughout the euro 'will we won't we' phase, there were always big majorities in favour of keeping the pound across all regions, even at the height of Tony insisting the euro was in our best interests. If anything, the whole argument showed the pound is more of an emotional attachment - even with the technocratic argument in favour of the euro being accepted at face value (you had a whacking majority say they were relieved at Brown ruling out the euro in 2003 as it said we would join in the future, agree that we should join when the conditions were right, but answer in the majority that they'd definitively made up their minds and would not ever vote to join the euro - all within the same poll! If that doesn't show emotional attachment to the pound even above technocratic arguments being accepted, I'm not sure what does).

 

People aren't going to decide just on the basis of this, but it's definitely something people will take into quite big consideration. Yeah, people make up their mind on emotional arguments - I can't think of many greater that would sum up that independence isn't just going to be a win-win 'everything Scotland likes from being British but with the chance to have more money in public services' than the fact that there are going to be big changes in independence - and changing the currency that a lot of Scottish people have savings in to something uncertain with possibly less value (it's not just about the face on it...) would definitely be one of them. You're having your cake by dismissing pretty much all arguments slamming Yes Scotland's plans as 'technocratic', whilst eating it by dismissing the big emotional argument Better Together have on their side (i.e. British unity - which the pound is a massive symbol of) as being technocratic when it comes to the actual implications of getting rid of things that signify that unity. When the emotional pitch of an independent Scotland is dreamworld, the nasty reality that Scottish independence wouldn't all be sunshine and fairies kind of does intrude at some point when it comes to something as final as splitting up a country and going your own way - and there is ultimately a reason why there's still a big lead for No, even on this one poll.

 

(I've bought in to this debate too much to straight-facedly argue we should probably also be waiting on other polls before we see if this is a big permanent shift, but yeah, that too :lol:)

 

But they've not even been making that argument. Never thought I'd be saying this, but David Cameron's speech the other week was the better than any arguments made by the truly awful "Better Together" campaigners -- talking about our shared history, pointing out examples of Scotland and the rest of the UK bonding over rooting for sportsmen or musicians, saying BOTH Scotland and the rest of the UK would be worse off if they left (whereas, too often, the "Better Together" people sound like they think Scotland is holding back the rest of the UK and that they should be grateful we're "subsidising" them, with all their tractor stats about Scotland supposedly getting more out than they put in in tax)...it might sound corny, but that's the type of stuff that's needed. Blackmailing and scaremongering, especially when it's over things that Scottish people generally don't care about, was always going to be a total disaster. Call it immature all you want, but when someone insults you it's a natural human instinct to want to tell them where to go.

Edited February 20, 201411 yr by Danny

Interesting news on the Survation poll - they've changed weightings between months, which is a really big methodology change in the scheme of things, and one which I'm surprised has been kept in the small print. (And of all bloody months to do it in!)

 

Last month's Survation poll was weighted by who people said they voted for in the 2010 general election. This month it was weighted by who people said they voted for in the 2011 Holyrood elections. That means that the sample of this month's poll was weighted a lot more towards SNP voters than last month's - it's changing things from the sample being weighted 20% SNP voters to the sample being weighted 44% SNP voters.

 

It could possibly be a good decision to change the weighting so it's Holyrood based - but regardless of the merits of that, it's a bit dishonest on the media's part to brief this poll with month-on-month changes and imply that this month's results are at all comparable with last month's, given the whole basis of month-on-month comparison being accurate is that the methodology and the sampling are the same across all polls (otherwise you may as well be just comparing different pollsters' results). It might be the case that Yes support has increased since the currency change, but we have absolutely no way of knowing that from this poll at least as there's no way of knowing exactly what the result would've been had they had the same sample weightings as last month. Far better to wait and see how the impact shows up with other pollsters - though John Curtice's analysis is that from the poll it looks like supporters of both sides are taking what they want from it, and undecideds are roughly split in their views on it all with a slight lean to Yes.

 

EDIT: I'd criticised Survation for this, but on reading their site they actually have an up-front disclaimer saying that this month's poll isn't comparable with last month's. Which makes sentences like The Guardian's "The Survation poll found that 38% support independence (up six points on a poll two weeks ago) compared with 47% who support the UK, down five points. Survation cautions that a direct comparison cannot be made between its two polls because of a change in its methodology." utterly facepalm-worthy. Papers really do need to leave reporting on poll results to people who actually know how polling works...