Dear Scotland,

a reply to: bigyin

I've said this before and I'll say it again , an commodity like oil which fluctuates in price in a market place can be traded based on how much of the commodity exists

so gold and diamonds are expensive as # as we are lead to believe that they are scarce or rare which is simply not the case (see the giant diamond mine in siberia supposedly 100km diameter and full of rare diamonds, and if extracted would effectively render diamonds worthless) diamonds are a girls best friend

as for oil it follows the same trend its a dwindling resource according to mainstream views and hence its cost !

now would an oil company (all oil companies) tell you exactly how much oil they had left when they can effectively claim they have very little and continue to charge oil by the barrel at a really increased value
would a government tell you how much oil they had left ?

surely they are all in cahoots so they can continue to charge us an arm and leg for the next 100,000 years
I dont think the public truly know the real figures on how much oil is left so they can continue to charge extortionate prices .

I think that the reported figures in the north sea are nothing like the actual figures
and there is much more oil there for the taking and the governments know that and the reason they dont want us going away on our own

a reply to: bigyin

the thing is , do we actually need the oil , arent we energy independent almost due to our renewables???


if Scotland were to go it alone it could vastly increase its renewables output and then sell of excess to other countries
and at the same time use the money we get in kick back to fund further research on renewables.

a reply to: EvanB

Do the majority of the fellow countrymen / women you know support or oppose EU membership? I followed Brexit closely and still do. I'm always interested to learn from the "everyday" man how they view EU membership and how it has hurt / helped them in their daily life.

What a thread...


Coming from an Englishman with a Scottish Grandfather, i'll just say this:

The union will be poorer for not having the Scots in it, should they decide to leave.


To the Scots I say this:

Have fun getting veto'd out of joining the EU by every member nation that has micro states or elements of it's own nation that seek independence. Remember, it only takes one of the nations with veto power to keep you out. One word: Spain.

Also have fun paying the benefits for Glasgow, all by your "wee" selves, on top of the inflated education budget, and free university fee's...

Have fun paying back the cost of infrastructure, that vastly outweighs the contribution Scots have made to the economy too.

originally posted by: AmatuerSkyWatcher
What a thread...


Coming from an Englishman with a Scottish Grandfather, i'll just say this:

The union will be poorer for not having the Scots in it, should they decide to leave.


To the Scots I say this:

Have fun getting veto'd out of joining the EU by every member nation that has micro states or elements of it's own nation that seek independence. Remember, it only takes one of the nations with veto power to keep you out. One word: Spain.

Also have fun paying the benefits for Glasgow, all by your "wee" selves, on top of the inflated education budget, and free university fee's...

Have fun paying back the cost of infrastructure, that vastly outweighs the contribution Scots have made to the economy too.

The Spanish foreign minister has already confirmed Spain would have no issue with Scotland joining the EU.

Free university places is something that England used to have and decided to abolish. We just decided that education was actually a good thing.

Scotland contributes to English infrastructure spending, not the other way round.

You are however right about the Union being poorer if we decide to leave.

originally posted by: ScepticScot


The Spanish foreign minister has already confirmed Spain would have no issue with Scotland joining the EU.

www.theguardian.com...

Free university places is something that England used to have and decided to abolish. We just decided that education was actually a good thing.

www.independent.co.uk...< br />

Scotland contributes to English infrastructure spending, not the other way round.

www.ft.com...
www.theguardian.com...
www.constructionnews.co.uk...
www.bbc.co.uk...

You are however right about the Union being poorer if we decide to leave.

For all current members...


I see your arguments and reasons for leaving are based on ignorance as evidenced above. Therefore, I'll give your post a star for giving me a laugh.

a reply to: AmatuerSkyWatcher


www.scotsman.com...


Still laughing?

And none of your links seem to say anything about England funding Scottish infrastructure spending?

But if course your too wee , too stupid, too poor argument is entirely fact based...

a reply to: AmatuerSkyWatcher

we are being asked to pay for HS2 line that wont come into Scotland so , aye we are having to contribute to Englands infrastructure without getting any benefits

, whats your beef with glasgow benefits

Glasgow has roughly the same population as Birmingham , im talking about greater glasgow of about 2.3million people

and if we look at figure sof benefits claimed the difference is mental

first Birmingham has been named 4 times in the UK's top benefit areas 4times , Glasgow isnt even in the top ten

benefits UK hot
spots

so to say that we are a nation of scroungers you're wrong

as our most population dense city doesnt even register on the Uk's top ten benefits hotspots
but a city relatively close in terms of population in England is marked as 4 times

in fact there arent any Scottish cities in the top 20 places where most benefits are claimed in the UK

Benefits

Glasgow has consistently had a higher rate of adults claiming out-of-work benefits than other Scottish cities although that rate has declined from 29.2% in 2000 to 16.1% in 2016.
Similarly, the city has had a relatively highly rate of adults claiming incapacity benefits and ESA (Employment and Support Allowance), albeit that rate has also reduced significantly (from 17.7% in 2000 to 12.1% in 2016).

so not sure why you chose to single out Glasgow as some sort of do nothing lazy scrounger town

Glasgow is the 4th largest city in the UK and its not even in the top 20 for benefits claims

so if anyone is scrounging of the tax man its the layabouts down your end guvnor !


also if our contributions are so meager , then why all the fuss to keep us ? if we are so detrimental to the crown coffers
then why are we being fought over ?


we will be poorer aye as we will lose our cousins south of the border , but we will be richer as we will be rid of that shower of #s from westminster the house of lords, and that scrounging family who claim to be royalty by devine right

a reply to: ScepticScot

Have you even read the link you provided? Yes I am still laughing. Even the partisan rag the Scotsman is, it even says there will be difficulties. We'll just have to wait and see, won't we.

I have not said in any of my posts about England funding Scottish infrastructure, but, with the debt Miss Sturgeon is piling up building it, it will have to come from somewhere eventually. Where is it going to come from, especially if you're going to be an independent nation? Hmmm?

a reply to: sapien82

Never said you're a nation of scroungers, I said "have fun paying off the benefits of Glasgow". Stop trying to put words in my mouth, and painting me as a bad guy, thanks.

As for Glasgow, Glasgow East (£135.5m) and Glasgow North East (£131.8m) in benefit handouts (not including tax credits, housing benefits and child support) alone in 2016. This does not include "greater Glasgow" lol.

Let's have a look where that fits in with the top ten area's in England that receive benefits:

1. Knowsley, Merseyside (£149.8m)

2. Liverpool, Walton (£141.4m)

3. Blackley and Broughton (£129.3m)

4. Bootle, Merseyside (£126.1m)

5. Manchester Central (£125.0m)

6. Liverpool, Riverside (£124.3m)

7. Birmingham, Hodge Hill (£123.2m)

8. Liverpool, West Derby (£121.6m)

9. Birkenhead (£121.5m)

10. Leeds Central (£117.6m)


Try using a map that incorporates the entire UK, not just England next time...

This is what you're looking for: i.dailymail.co.uk...

Nice population to benefit claimants you have up there. Enjoy.

a reply to: AmatuerSkyWatcher

That referenced map seem's extremely skewed to me and is missing many city's, town's and county's especially in wale's and the border's, Carlisle an English city I believe has a fairly high welfare rate also it does not even attempt to take into account transitory population's such as the huge number of EU and other resident's that work in the south of the country which of course further skew's the hole reference map.
I would like to see the statistical department that collated that information and know what there ethos really was, you do know that many such private company's that do this work in place of our old office of national statistic's (Which had a bias itself) are actually biased toward which ever party is in power or which ever there owner/managing director fancies.
So that is actually an exceptionally poor reference data set in my humble opinion.

Also you have to take into account other factor's, local industry we all know Cameron was not even going to try to address this problem, he had no intention of promoting industry in those affected region's were the disaster of the past thirty years of franky bad governance (Starting with Tatcher but continuing with all party's until today) have ripped industry out of our nation's starting with the removal of government subsidy's for major employers etc.

And you miss a vital point about welfare in the UK, the Tory party are ideologically opposed to ALL form's of welfare, they always have been.

Welfare actually boost's the local economy.

What poor welfare recipient's (hand to mouth) receive they then spend, welfare rent payment's were never intended to go into the private sector, you can thank Thatcher for that debacle once again as in the way they were intended to be managed they were paid in house to the council's and the housing stock most welfare recipient's then lived in was owned by local government and local government was centrally managed (so no council chief executive's using tax money to live like hooray harry's though they did anyway by commuting institutional fraud but can pay themselves pretty much what they want out of your council tax these day's).

This meant that while there cash in hand was used to pay for food - boosting the local retail sector, there rent money went in a neat circle, paid for council housing repairs and other repairs.

I put it to you that this current middleman has it's root's in the disaster caused by Thatcher-ism, you do know she never saved our economy right, it was actually a turn around in the Asian Stock market's that ended the global recession, she was just on watch at the time so to speak.

And let's be fair it is the injustice and mis allocation of national assets/wealth that was caused and compounded by Thatcher-ism that has led to this disgruntlement (and quite rightly so) on the part of our Scot brother's and sisters.

a reply to: LABTECH767

When Carlisle>London is to Glasgow>Edinburgh I'll agree you have a salient point. 2.3 million to 500k I believe it is.


Here, you can have a look at this from the horses mouth:

www.understandingglasgow.com...


Just remember, it was Scotland that wanted to join the union in the first place, as it was economically bankrupt. You weren't forced to join, you actively requested it.

Once you go, don't expect us to welcome you back with open arms when it goes tits up. It might just turn out we're better off without you.

a reply to: LABTECH767

I see you've added to your post. It doesn't matter about the history of the problems, although I agree with your opinion on Thatcherism causing many of the problems in the UK, particularly the North.

What matters is going forward, and the point I was making is that Glasgow (the biggest city and population in Scotland) is one of the most economically deprived areas in the UK.

As it stands, the UK is able to absorb that deprivation into the national benefit system. If Scotland gains independence, it will no longer be able to absorb that financial deficit so easily. It's pretty simple.

When the biggest city in the country has a 3rd of its population unemployed, and 21% of it's population considered financially deprived, you're going to have problems...

www.understandingglasgow.com...

a reply to: AmatuerSkyWatcher

Im no trying to put words in your mouth

but why else would you mention Scotlands benefit claims? and say "have fun paying it off"

just a passing comment about money we owe ? , when there are probably larger debts owed for much larger problems
isnt that just the mindset the government wants though , to make those who are on benefits seem like crooks to those who arent
a point of division.

I personally think Scotland would be much better off without wesminster

I believe the whole UK would

a reply to: AmatuerSkyWatcher

I see you've added to your post. It doesn't matter about the history of the problems

Just remember, it was Scotland that wanted to join the union in the first place, as it was economically bankrupt. You weren't forced to join, you actively requested it.

Aye yer right it doesnae matter that we wanted to join hundreds of years ago

what matters is that we dont want to be a part of something that is for the best part broken
and not beneficial to all parties. We want to go our own way , but have been convinced otherwise its within our best interest to stay for now!

if you truly love someone your supposed to let them go , but its obvious there is no love held for Scotland by westminster.
We are a resource and nothing else.

originally posted by: EvanB
We have indeed history spanning the ages..

We have fought each other many times, but then we came to fight by each others side.. More times!

Nicola Sturgeon, a one track pony and current First minister of Scotland is NOT a democrat.. All she wants is to break up our union even to the cost of her own constituency of which all public services are failing etc..

She does not care even for the fellow Scotts who voted her in power..

She wants independence yet but wants you to continue to be slaves of an unelected EU..

I as an Englishman love my Scottish brothers, and don't want them to be chewed up by a foreign Brussels who don't want them but will use them and your first minister will allow that just to get her name in the paper and place in history..

And she will

As a failure..


You are not separate from us, we are family..

I as a soldier myself have fought side by side with my Scottish brothers.. So has my dad.. And his dad.. And helped rescue the world from tyranny many times..


We will always be stronger together..

Do not let some self serving harlot who cannot even answer a simple question divide us


With love always


An English soldier and British xx

I appreciate your post but it is so far from the general attitudes in Scotland that its nearly 'full on blinkered, right wing brexit fantasy' esque.

Scotland and the rUK are in a POLITICAL UNION. Nothing else. Scotland is a soverign country and has been for centuries. We are more European than British. Scotland is progressive and an internationalist, the rUK is an isolationist and seems to have delusions of granduer on a massive scale.

I suggest you start doing some decent research and drop the mantra of we are better together because we are clearly NOT - if anything 2014 and Brexit have highlighted that further.

I am not going to get into the crux of it, for 2 reasons...

1. I cannot be bothered explaining anymore to people why a defacto independent state with full financial and resource control is NATURAL and...
2. If you cannot see how Scotland is NOT AN EQUAL in this UK, you never will.

it's the same from everyone who wishes scotland to stay , aww it will be #e to lose ye all
and it would be bad for the UK

but

"dont say we didnt tell ye so"

"or good luck fixing those problems"

"we will be better off without you"

there is always a positive message tainted with a sly dig at the end , people just cant help themselves

it's like ye want us to # off cus we are nothing but a hindrence , but when we want to leave its like no please dont go!
but hell mend you if ye do go!

what kind of better together mentality is that, if we are equal partners or so they say , then if we leave we dont owe anyone anything other than a pleasant thanks for the ride , we will take it on our own from here.

LOL the whole "Scotland is a victim, we're not equal, we're not loved" line is an absolute joke!

Damn right you're not equal, Scots get the BEST deal than any other member of the union.


Frankly, you lot are a joke. Just F'off already.

a reply to: AmatuerSkyWatcher

I could have put a tenner on that at the bookies man
I was just waiting patiently

your tune changed like the wind mate

it's classic , so why bother with the pretense that you want us to stay and 5 posts later after a bit of back and forth yer like # it " you are all a joke , # off"

So much for being friendly cousins and aww that jazz

and your sentiment is exactly what happens with these discussions , those that want us to stay remain so , then those that dont really like us pretend they want us to stay because they are afraid at what will happen to their own pockets
and then they just get bored of pretending and tell us exactly what they think.

Scotland are only good for the empire when they want something from us , but any other time we are just scrounging whingers and good for nothing lay about's.