Scotland Vote and SMaRT Funding

[ETwhat?]

I really should have stayed at sea for another month I feel

In the last general election turn out was 65.1% so instantly we have 34.9% of the UK population who have a government that they didn't vote for, we have a kinda mixed bag of a government at the moment so technically atm no one has a single government of the UK that they voted for, yes there are some people in it that belong to the party that you did vote for but not all.

The SNP majority is 69 seats to 60 so in truth there are 46.6% of the Scotland who didn't vote for the SNP the majority swing also came from lib dems who have never been pro independence and is probably more to do with how their southern counterparts sold their soles to get into a government (if so there's a degree of irony too)

Ultimately everything is promises and will go up and down as pressure and situation dictates but to say you would rather be &5000 worse off (until we decide if its ?,$,€ we can use &) to have a government that you always vote for in power then you miss the point massively it will be the party that the majority of the VOTERS asked for (turn out for 2011 was 50.1%) so yeah go SNP you got just over 50% of 50% of the country so your supporters are 25% of the population best off moving to an emptyish part of the highlands and building salmondville there.


http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm

[ETwhat?]

Money, monetary union etc,
I do know that now the bank hold on to the UK notes here and take them out so they are not in circulation as much as they once were, it costs us to use them apparently, now if you want Uk notes to go to the mainland, we have a couple of cash points were you get Uk notes only or call in the bank and ask. Ours are legal tender in the UK however shops get a bit funny even some banks tend to have to ask someone. We still have a paper ?1.00 too.

Im not 100% sure of were you are (at a guess IOM) but you are mistaken regardless the ONLY legal tender in England and wales are notes issued by the Bank of England
any Scottish bank notes are NOT legal tender anywhere as with Northern Ireland notes and Guernsey, jersey and manx notes are only legal tender in the respective places

[Steve]

In the last general election turn out was 65.1% so instantly we have 34.9% of the UK population who have a government that they didn't vote for,

But they didn't vote against. The apathetic choose not to have a say and have no grounds for complaint.

[ETwhat?]

They may have no grounds for it but often they can be some of the most vocal, but you missed my point, if that number of people are so apathetic to actually vote then the logical conclusion is that they must be happy with any outcome as if they wanted a specific outcome then the only way to achieve that is to vote.

therefore these people always are happy with the government but they would be happy with any government -again no right to complain

it will be interesting to see what the turnout is for the vote

[Midge]

Im not 100% sure of were you are (at a guess IOM) but you are mistaken regardless the ONLY legal tender in England and wales are notes issued by the Bank of England
any Scottish bank notes are NOT legal tender anywhere as with Northern Ireland notes and Guernsey, jersey and manx notes are only legal tender in the respective places

Well, we are both right in some ways and wrong in others.
All Uk notes are legal tender in Jersey,( most likely the same of the other CD's but we all have different laws) its money they love it they will take anything here. All the crown dependency notes are legal currency in the UK.

All Scottish notes are not legal tender in Scotland they are legal currency, Bank of England notes are not legal tender in Scotland either. Scotland has legal currency just like the CD's have. All coins are legal tender in the UK. Legal tender just means its acceptable to pay a debt with and must pay the debt without change needing to be given. If using coins there are limits to how much of each kind is acceptable as legal tender. So you can't pay a ?2000 debt with 1p coins for example.

I'm guessing this all stems from the old sterling area, and if anyone remembers the old exchange control regulations the real pain that caused when travelling or moving money outside of the area. Having your passport stamped etc. What did you lot at sea have to do? Did you have any exemptions, or did you keep your money offshore, I can't remember that far back.
I had the task of stamping cheques and checking the status for clients res or non res and deciding if they could send their money somewhere and if so how much etc. Also keeping the manuals up to date, pages and pages every month, I did a little dance the day they got rid of that!

Its been years since I did anything with cash in banking, 20 years since I was a trader in FX and money markets! Even if I was trading now if it wasn't on a sterling desk it would still take quite a while to get a feel for how the markets would behave depending on outcomes of the vote. It will depend on how the big players see it effecting the country, and also the confidence it has. If they have a feel for a particular outcome and it goes that way it won't change hugely on the result. However, if its really difficult to call I can see quite a few jitters, some might just jump out into other currencies and see how it goes. Be mighty interesting day though, there will be some depressed dealers in the pub, and others with the corks popping.
I do have days where I miss the buzz of it all.

[chris]

Salmond should just announce that plan B is a new currency loosely pegged to the Pound or Euro and be done with it. Run a surplus for a few years then borrow on the money markets when the rating js good enough.

It would be austerity for a few years like Britain in the 50s. But worth it in the longer run.

It would be political suicide for Salmond as voters arent supposed to think further ahead than 5 years though. What a pity.

[jamieboy77]

Salmond should just announce that plan B is a new currency loosely pegged to the Pound or Euro and be done with it. Run a surplus for a few years then borrow on the money markets when the rating js good enough.

It would be austerity for a few years like Britain in the 50s. But worth it in the longer run.

It would be political suicide for Salmond as voters arent supposed to think further ahead than 5 years though. What a pity.

Its austerity measures that catapulted the support for socialism into popularity in the past few years. Partly where all the tory bashing comes from despite the fact they could do little else with what they had been left...

I will laugh so much if Salmond elects for the Groat.

[chris]

Watch this space.

[flobbernoggin]

Don't you mean the United Scottish Socialist Republic or USSR for short?

Why not call it the Democratic People's Republic of Scotland, and then we can have a nice heavily defended border do protect us from Kim Il-Salmond?

[jamieboy77]

Why not call it the Democratic People's Republic of Scotland, and then we can have a nice heavily defended border do protect us from Kim Il-Salmond?

because it wont be a republic :P

[Rootsea]

Can't be ars*d debating this right now as it's being discussed every hour of every day up here but regarding your above point, that doesn't mean people in Scotland are not EU citizens. My passport seems to agree. The Scottish independence vote isn't about leaving the EU, it's about leaving the UK.

If the Eu will let in Ukraine and all the other former soviet states, they will let in an independent Scotland. Or they won't have access to our fishing waters etc.

The UK is a member of the EU. Scotland is voting to leave to UK (not to break up the UK - very important difference). By leaving the UK we also leave the EU.

Would we be able to re-join the EU fairly quickly? Yes I think so. Will we be able to join under the same conditions that the UK has (rebate, Euro opt-out etc)? No, we will not.

Just because someone is voting Yes doesn't necessarily mean they subscribe to the SNP's exact vision of what independence means.

On one hand you are right, but the SNP will be the people negotiating and doing the deals. An independent Scotland would be formed around their vision and some of the processes they set in motion will be practically impossible to undo.

Well thats what happens when there is such a socialist following in Scotland.

Such a socialist following? Pull the other one!

In 2011 the Tories got more votes than all the socialist parties (including Scottish Greens but excluding Labour who aren't really socialist) combined.

In 2010 UKIP got more votes than the Green Party, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, Scottish Socialists and Socialist Labour combined.

Hell, our First Minister is a man who believes in Thatcherite economics!

Its not really anything to do with nationality. Let me give you a hypothetical situation: The US and Canada are in a political union. The US has a population of 350 million, Canada about 35 million (10x larger which is basically the same difference between England (50mil) and Scotland (5 mil)). Now imagine at every election the majority of the US voted for a right wing party and the majority of Canada voted for a left wing party. The government would be the one the US wanted due to the size of their population. Canada would want independence not because they dislike Americans and think things would be better under their control, it would be because they want to have their own government that reflect their views.

I want independence so that Scotland gets the government it votes for EVERY time. Not 4/10 times or 6/10 times. EVERY time. I'm a democrat and I don't give a flying **** if we are ?500 worse off or if we are or aren't in NATO.

I would go down to the US, argue, debate and persuade them to vote the way I believed in.

I wouldn't go off in a huff and try to engineer myself a guarenteed electorate. Running away from a problem solves nothing and helps no-one.

It's not really an "unbelievably stupid argument". Scotland is a country. England is a country. The Highlands and Glasgow are not. Personally, I'm in favour of councils having more power so you wouldn't have this problem.

The cultural, lingusitic, social and political differences between Glasgow and the Highlands are much greater than between, say, Glasgow and Manchester.