The Dirty Independence Question

[eFestivals]

16 minutes ago, russycarps said:

Blimey I know we like to laugh at Scotland's woes in this thread, but it looks like their economy is heading for recession for real. That's not good for anyone (least of all those on lowest incomes) and I hope things improve up there.

Perhaps it's time for the leaders up there to focus on the economy for a while.

To be fair, the SG doesn't have a large role towards the economy. I don't think their economic management can be blamed.

Just as the UK govts economic management can't be blamed, because the UK economy is still steaming ahead as one of the best in the developed world.

So it's something else entirely.

It's dead easy to see what. 

[eastynh]

9 hours ago, eFestivals said:

To be fair, the SG doesn't have a large role towards the economy. I don't think their economic management can be blamed.

Just as the UK govts economic management can't be blamed, because the UK economy is still steaming ahead as one of the best in the developed world.

So it's something else entirely.

It's dead easy to see what. 

So are the SNP banging the independence drum just to mask over the real issues facing the Scottish?

I see they are blaming the Brexit vote for their ills which seems quite strange considering the rest of the UK is performing quite well.

Reports of a flailing economy are not good for the SNP at the moment.

Edited April 6, 2017 by eastynh

[eFestivals]

Just now, eastynh said:

So are the SNP banging the independence stick just to mask over the real issues facing the Scottish?

it's not even that clever. It's simply a matter of faith, that in all circumstances it's better that Scotland is governed from Scotland.

Which of course is no more meaningful than saying Bognor Regis should be governed from Bognor Regis, but sense, reason and intelligence don't come into matters of faith.

As Sturgeon herself said, "The case for full self-government ultimately transcends the issues of Brexit, of oil, of national wealth and balance sheets and of passing political fads and trends.”

Faith. Which is why independence supporters won't do facts.

[eFestivals]

5 minutes ago, eastynh said:

I see they are blaming the Brexit vote for their ills which seems quite strange considering the rest of the UK is performing quite well.

yep, exactly. It ain't brexit that's put scotland in the brink of recession.

As I said, it's dead easy to see what the major difference is.

[eastynh]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

yep, exactly. It ain't brexit that's put scotland in the brink of recession.

As I said, it's dead easy to see what the major difference is.

Just read Scotlands finance minister say the cause for being on the brink of recession is the uncertainty due to Brexit. Then in the very next breath he said uncertainty over a Scottish referendum would be good for the economy in Scotland. How does that one work?

[eFestivals]

26 minutes ago, eastynh said:

How does that one work?

only with insanity.

[eastynh]

7 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

only with insanity.

 

[eFestivals]

Just catching up on some reading while eating lunch.

This is rather significant, i think....

http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2017/03/polls-swing-high-polls-swing-low/

What perhaps is most remarkable about the collective message of all the polls conducted so far this year, of which there have now been seven in all, is that at 47% the average level of support for Yes is exactly the same as it was in the dozen polls conducted between January 2016 and the EU referendum. Evidently Brexit is still failing to shift the balance of public opinion on the issue of Scotland’s constitutional status.

Just to make it clear, I know all of the polling was done at-least in-part before Sturgeon said she was calling another ref.

But would her calling a ref by-itself change anything of how people might vote? Not unless they're brain dead.

The fact of May refusing Sturgeon's want of a ref might have shifted things a little, just perhaps, but even then it would take some rather strange 'intelligence' to want a different outcome as a result of that refusal, where the change of mind is driven by an kind of reverse obstinance to at-least match anything May might be accused of.

[Comfy Bean]

8 hours ago, eFestivals said:

Just catching up on some reading while eating lunch.

This is rather significant, i think....

http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2017/03/polls-swing-high-polls-swing-low/

 

 

Just to make it clear, I know all of the polling was done at-least in-part before Sturgeon said she was calling another ref.

But would her calling a ref by-itself change anything of how people might vote? Not unless they're brain dead.

The fact of May refusing Sturgeon's want of a ref might have shifted things a little, just perhaps, but even then it would take some rather strange 'intelligence' to want a different outcome as a result of that refusal, where the change of mind is driven by an kind of reverse obstinance to at-least match anything May might be accused of.

So just to make it clear, what your highlighting is that over the last 5 years the direction of travel is only heading in one direction with approx 2 years to go.

May's current brexit antics may also have an affect one way or another.

 

[eFestivals]

9 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

So just to make it clear, what your highlighting is that over the last 5 years the direction of travel is only heading in one direction with approx 2 years to go.

Nope, i'm highlighting that for 3 years there's almost no change, and most particularly there's been no change because of brexit.

Not forgetting, of course, that the polls shortly-prior to the 2014 vote showed a percent or two more than the vote actually was, quite probably because the idea of indy is more appealing than people recognise the reality of it would be.

So essentially, what you used to say was inevitable appears to be stuck in the same place, not moving at all.

9 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

May's current brexit antics may also have an affect one way or another.

They might, tho as the deal May gets might well be a better deal than Sturgeon said she'd accept in her December doc, it might be Sturgeon with egg on face and be exposed as trying to do worse for Scotland than Westminster does for Scotland.

And because Sturgeon set things at a pretty low level in that December doc, there's quite a strong likelihood that May might get the better of Sturgeon around this.

I've bought popcorn already, cos they'll be a rush on if it does come out like that. 

[Comfy Bean]

2 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Nope, i'm highlighting that for 3 years there's almost no change, and most particularly there's been no change because of brexit.

Not forgetting, of course, that the polls shortly-prior to the 2014 vote showed a percent or two more than the vote actually was, quite probably because the idea of indy is more appealing than people recognise the reality of it would be.

So essentially, what you used to say was inevitable appears to be stuck in the same place, not moving at all.

They might, tho as the deal May gets might well be a better deal than Sturgeon said she'd accept in her December doc, it might be Sturgeon with egg on face and be exposed as trying to do worse for Scotland than Westminster does for Scotland.

And because Sturgeon set things at a pretty low level in that December doc, there's quite a strong likelihood that May might get the better of Sturgeon around this.

I've bought popcorn already, cos they'll be a rush on if it does come out like that. 

You have more faith in May than I do.

Fair enough, time will tell. We're at the very early stages of the deal as you know.

I think NS will be ok with the numbers being fairly static at this stage. Many predicted support would have fallen away by now.

[eFestivals]

Just now, comfortablynumb1910 said:

You have more faith in May than I do.

It's not so much 'faith in May', it's more about recognising the reality of the situation that both the UK and the EU face if a decent deal isn't struck, a situation that both would much rather avoid.

I don't doubt the deal as far as trade goes will be a worse one than we have as EU members, but there's quite a lot of distance between the current deal and what Sturgeon suggested for just-Scotland in December (which was *only* a trade deal, and not a trade deal that covered everything that might be traded).

I can quite easily see the new deal falling in the middle of the two. It might not do, but it might do too.

Sturgeon has left herself a little more wriggle room with what she might claim about what she said for whole-UK deal, tho only because she covered that in a sentence or two before moving onto the 'special' ideas she had for just-Scotland - so any claim she might try to make against that would be bollocks. It's whatever the new-deal trading terms are in Scotland compared against her just-Scotland plan that'll be the decider of who's done best for Scotland.

 

Just now, comfortablynumb1910 said:

Fair enough, time will tell. We're at the very early stages of the deal as you know.

True, tho I reckon the doom has been overplayed by everyone, which is likely to make the deal seem better to those who bought into the doom.

There's a smallish gap where the EU can hurt the UK without hurting itself.

If it wants to hurt the UK harder than what is available in that smallish gap, it means the EU takes as much extra pain as the UK would which is just stupid and pointless, and ultimately a politically stupid thing for those 27 leaders to do towards their own electorates. If they put pain onto their own populations, they'll get the blame as leader.

I think pragmatism is going to play a strong part in what the final deal is.

 

Just now, comfortablynumb1910 said:

I think NS will be ok with the numbers being fairly static at this stage. Many predicted support would have fallen away by now.

And others said victory next time was inevitable, and many said it was guaranteed if the UK voted for brexit. Some even staked their own political careers on that brexit thing.

NS is very clearly not OK with the numbers being static at this stage. You haven't been paying attention at all.

She's been trying to backtrack since July when she realised she'd shot her gob off too soon the morning after the brexit vote and has been looking for May to throw her a bone ever since. 

Even the timing of the "we will be holding a ref" announcement was a last-ditch attempt to try to get May to bottle triggering a50. And she's chuffed to bits that May is blocking it so far, but less chuffed that May hasn't given an outright 'no'.

[LOCHLAND5]

[LJS]

Kevin Hague v. Richard Murphy in the battle of Gers. Radio Scotland 12.30pm

 

[eFestivals]

29 minutes ago, LJS said:

Kevin Hague v. Richard Murphy in the battle of Gers. Radio Scotland 12.30pm

 

Hopefully it will be less full of lies than when Kev and the Bath Faker have shared the airwaves.

Tho it's worth noting that Murphy is far less of the expert than plenty would believe. He's simply a chartered accountant, with fuck-all academic or professional background in national economics, where his 'fame' has been created via claim he's made about uncollected tax (without ever giving a stand-up basis for it), and where he's been shooting from the hip enough of the time to end up in court for libel and to lose. His 'professor' title is honorary, not academically earned.

All the same I'm thinking he's sane enough to concede to some of the criticisms Kev has of what he's said - for example that if GERS only has worthless estimates (as Murphy says, tho wrongly) then the situation of Scotland is just as likely to be much worse than what GERS says as it is to be better.

The problem with dismissing GERS is that those who do it have no basis to claim things are better than GERS says.

[LJS]

21 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Hopefully it will be less full of lies than when Kev and the Bath Faker have shared the airwaves.

Tho it's worth noting that Murphy is far less of the expert than plenty would believe. He's simply a chartered accountant, with fuck-all academic or professional background in national economics, where his 'fame' has been created via claim he's made about uncollected tax (without ever giving a stand-up basis for it), and where he's been shooting from the hip enough of the time to end up in court for libel and to lose. His 'professor' title is honorary, not academically earned.

Richard Murphy (born 1958) is a British chartered accountant and political economist

 His undergraduate degree was in Economics and Accountancy

Murphy was named by International Tax Review magazine as the seventh most significant person having influence on tax policy, practice and administration in 2013.

In September 2015, Murphy was appointed Professor of Practice in International Political Economy in the Department of International Politics at City University London,[1] as a part-time appointment involving research and teaching.[13] Previously he had been a visiting fellow at University of Portsmouth Business School, the Centre for Global Political Economy at the University of Sussex, and at the Tax Research Institute at the University of Nottingham.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Murphy_(tax_campaigner)

 

Kevin Hague: 

University of Strathclyde

 Top First, Mechanical Engineering, First Class Honour 1984 – 1989

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/khague

 

Disclaimer: I am not claiming that all economists are necessarily right and all mechanical engineers are necessarily wrong. 

 

[eFestivals]

26 minutes ago, LJS said:

Richard Murphy (born 1958) is a British chartered accountant and political economist

 His undergraduate degree was in Economics and Accountancy

Murphy was named by International Tax Review magazine as the seventh most significant person having influence on tax policy, practice and administration in 2013.

In September 2015, Murphy was appointed Professor of Practice in International Political Economy in the Department of International Politics at City University London,[1] as a part-time appointment involving research and teaching.[13] Previously he had been a visiting fellow at University of Portsmouth Business School, the Centre for Global Political Economy at the University of Sussex, and at the Tax Research Institute at the University of Nottingham.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Murphy_(tax_campaigner)

 

Kevin Hague: 

University of Strathclyde

 Top First, Mechanical Engineering, First Class Honour 1984 – 1989

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/khague

 

Disclaimer: I am not claiming that all economists are necessarily right and all mechanical engineers are necessarily wrong. 

 

Richard Murphy, chartered accountant.  It means he can add up. So can Kevin (and me).

That "seventh most significant person having influence on tax policy, practice and administration in 2013" is a joke. He's had absolutely none.

He did create a few waves by speculating that uncollected tax totalled GDP120Bn pa ... tho he's yet to show anything for how he came up with that number. It's a guess based on prejudice/hunch/anecdotal.

And anyway, being "a political economist" means he has political ideas towards tax, not that he's actually good or knowledgeable about details (and his failure to provide a basis for his 120Bn claim proves it, and proves him as no meaningful academic).

Meanwhile, today's discussion is about his claim of 'estimates' and how meaningful or not the estimates are. Like you he can claim that 'estimates' make GERS unreliable, but that does nothing to prove that the situation is better than GERS says.

[eFestivals]

PS: i'm not trying to diss everything about Murphy, but I am saying he's able to talk shite (as the lost libel case shows), and has done about the 'estimates' in GERS.

Prof Ronald MacDonald (who I'm sure you know) says Murphy has talked shite about the 'estimates' within GERS. As does Professor Angus Armstrong, Director of Macroeconomics at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) and was previously Head of Macroeconomic Analysis at HM Treasury. As just two examples.

If the estimates in GERS are worthless, then all national accounts in the world are worthless, and we have no basis to say anything good or bad about what Scotland's economic future will be

(so you can't even bat away me saying 'bad' because you've no basis to do it with. You reject the evidence)

Given that you're quite happy yourself to present numbers based on the same 'estimating' methods that are used for GERS, you seemingly don't normally reject academic intelligence, but that's what you're doing here if you're siding with Murphy's view that GERS is worthless because it's all 'estimates'.

If iScotland's future will be the rosy that you claim, care to tell me what you base that on? Oh, it's based on nothing at all, isn't it?  Faith, not facts.

If iScotland's future is good, why don't you have facts to prove it with, rather than only having misfiring-ammo to aim at the facts that there are?

 

[LJS]

Well, unsurprisingly, we're not much wiser after that.

RM: GERS is absolute made up pants.

KH: no way, GERS is the 24 carat dog's bollocks.

RM: oh no it's not.

KH: oh yes it is & I should know because I understand GERS.

RM: so what, I'm much more important than you.

KH: no you're not.

RM: yes I am.

 

Equally unsurprisingly, both sides are claiming a sweeping & decisive victory.

 

[eFestivals]

1 hour ago, LJS said:

Well, unsurprisingly, we're not much wiser after that.

RM: GERS is absolute made up pants.

KH: no way, GERS is the 24 carat dog's bollocks.

RM: oh no it's not.

KH: oh yes it is & I should know because I understand GERS.

RM: so what, I'm much more important than you.

KH: no you're not.

RM: yes I am.

 

Equally unsurprisingly, both sides are claiming a sweeping & decisive victory.

 

lol, well, I didn't hear it, but that does at least look like an unbiased report of it. :lol:

 

[Comfy Bean]

I have always found the estimates contained in gers as useful for doing year against year comparisons on how Scotland's financial performance is fairing as part of a UK under Tory rule from Westminster.

The normal consensus from all sides of the Indy debate is .... shite.

[eFestivals]

7 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

I have always found the estimates contained in gers as useful for doing year against year comparisons on how Scotland's financial performance is fairing as part of a UK under Tory rule from Westminster.

The normal consensus from all sides of the Indy debate is .... shite.

Yeah, it's all Westminster's fault.

Which is why Westminster is growing the economy all over the UK. Scotland was doing great, until Sturgeon crashed investment and so productivity, and put Scotland into negative growth for the last 3 months (and recession if the next quarter is negative).

And today we have news from the SNP that "Brexit is the biggest risk to Scotland's economy, likely to cost 80,000 jobs over the next decade". Which might be right, who knows.

But alongside that we can see that Scotland has lost 10% of those jobs in the last 3 months, a 3 months where growth in Scotland has been crashed by Sturgeon's ref threats.

But it's Westminster's fault. :lol:

[eFestivals]

Back to Kev vs Murphy....

I see snippers are claiming victory over Kev. They're claiming victory for Kev (essentially) saying "if spending is changed after indy the numbers in GERS will change". No shit sherlock.

Meanwhile the snippers keep on telling us that spending will change, but they never say what spending they'll change - where 'change' means 'cuts'.

As for Murp, he's ended up without much snipper support, after he pointed out that Scots can get the fully-accurate export numbers they crave if Scotland imposes a hard border with England so that all ins & outs can be tracked, and even went on to say "I don't understand why Scotland doesn't want accurate numbers".

Meanwhile, GERS are numbers to full international standards for national counts. If the methodology for GERS is flawed there can be no accurate numbers for anything.

[LJS]

12 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Yeah, it's all Westminster's fault.

Which is why Westminster is growing the economy all over the UK. Scotland was doing great, until Sturgeon crashed investment and so productivity, and put Scotland into negative growth for the last 3 months (and recession if the next quarter is negative).

https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/10726/robin-mcalpine-economy-isnt-scotlands-problem-its-everyone-londons-problem

12 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

And today we have news from the SNP that "Brexit is the biggest risk to Scotland's economy, likely to cost 80,000 jobs over the next decade". Which might be right, who knows.

But alongside that we can see that Scotland has lost 10% of those jobs in the last 3 months, a 3 months where growth in Scotland has been crashed by Sturgeon's ref threats.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-39576751

 

[eFestivals]

3 minutes ago, LJS said:

https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/10726/robin-mcalpine-economy-isnt-scotlands-problem-its-everyone-londons-problem

revenues minus spending = deficit.

The deficit only changes if the spending is reduced.

I like a man who goes the full monty with the brainless for the brainless.

 

3 minutes ago, LJS said:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-39576751

 

go read the version at the herald, which also reveals the loss of 8,000 jobs in the last quarter.

That's 10% of the claim of brexit in 25% of the time claimed for brexit, which makes Indy is 4 times the threat to the Scottish economy than brexit.

That BBC version does reveal how come unemployment has fallen while jobs have been lost, tho - because Scotland is more economically inactive.

Go on, tell me how it's Westminster's fault that fewer Scots are able to work.