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The article I shared a link to outlines the purpose, methodology and results. Yes, it is more complex than having one 'for' and one 'against' article. Have a read. Or watch the video. They're very informative.
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Scotland is served by 37 national or daily newspapers. Not
one supports independence. (The only publication to
back a Yes vote is a weekly, the Sunday Herald.) Newspapers
have no duty to be fair or balanced, but when Scotland
faces a decision as big as the one it’ll make on September
18th, the press being so overwhelmingly skewed to one
side is a problem for democracy.
Our website, Wings Over Scotland, is biased too. We
support independence, because we think it’ll make Scotland
a wealthier, fairer, happier place. We think Scotland will
be better off choosing its own governments to solve its
problems and make the most of its opportunities, rather
than hoping that the people of Kent, Surrey and Essex
might elect ones with Scotland’s interests at heart.
We think the facts comprehensively back that belief up. But
we’re not going to ask you to take our word for it.
A very great deal of what you’ve been told about
independence in the last few years by Unionist politicians
and the media is, to be blunt, a tissue of half-truths,
omissions, misrepresentations and flat-out lies. We want
to show you the truth hidden behind those lies, but using
fully-referenced and impartial sources that you can go and
check for yourself.
We’ll be mostly using the UK government’s own figures,
the views of academic experts and Unionist politicians and
officials, NOT those who support independence.
On September the 18th you’re going to have to make the
most important decision any Scot in history has ever made,
and it seems only fair that you should be able to do it based
on the real and full facts. Scotland’s media has only told
you one half of the story. Don’t you at least want to hear
both sides before you decide?Wings over Scotland openly acknowledge the purpose and provenance of the funding for the Wee Blue Book, and the purpose of it is clearly stated.
As the above shows, it's not just about the BBC, but about the overarching media dialogue which doesn't serve the wider public but the special interests that own and control them.
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Talking of ad hominem, Alex Salmond's job prior to becoming a full-time political operator was as a senior economist with a bank called Royal Bank of Scotland. You may remember it, in 2009 RBS which had been busy gambling on sub-prime mortgages and arranging tax avoidance schemes had a serious go at bankrupting the entire UK economy and ended up being given £46 billion of your money (£718 from every single person in the UK), money which you will never see again. And the Scots are planning to march off into the future led by this fellow?
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He left the RBS in 1987. He's also not the personification of Independence. He's the leader of a political party that promotes independence and can be voted out a matter of months after the referendum if people so choose to do so. This is a basic concept of democracy.
Try again.
Aside from that the RBS is no more 'Scottish' than Barclays is English. Both are multinational commercial banks that maybe used to be 'National' banks in some kind of sense, but floated themselves on the stock markets, have international trading arms, took over foreign banks... The USA had to bail out Barclays to the tune of something like 5 billion, for example this doesn't make it an 'American' bank. Even if it is headquartered in Edinburgh, RBS's trading happens on the FTSE, for the benefit of private shareholders, not the Scottish nation. If there is any direct benefit to Scotland over the wider UK it is in the jobs such institutions provide for the offices based here, nothing more.
The RBS has been 'nationalised' in the sense the treasury owns an 80% stake in the bank. Since then, it's been penalised hundreds of millions for breaking Libor rules and caught deliberately withholding credit to viable UK companies to allow them to sell off their assets at profit, which speaks of UK corporate culture and Westminster's reluctance to regulate more than anything else.
The chief economist at Deutsche Bank, David Folkerts-Landau, that so conveniently supported Cameron by saying voting for independence “would go down in history as a political and economic mistake” as large as those which sparked the Great Depression of the1930s, is in charge of the same Deutsche Bank which made a loss of 1.153billion euros in the last four months of 2013, where roughly half of that loss came from legal fees in America where the bank was forced to pay fines of 1.4billion euros for selling dodgy financial products. In December last year, Deutsche Bank was fined £578million by the European Commission for fiddling the Libor rate, and last month, the London branch of Deutsche Bank was fined £4.7million by UK regulators for financial irregularities in 29million separate transactions (reduced by 30% for admitting impropriety)...
So, it's not a 'Scottish' issue, it's a global issue of corporate governance and light touch regulation.
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He left the RBS in 1987.
Wait, you mean he hasn't had a proper job for 27 years? :)
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He left the RBS in 1987. He's also not the personification of Independence.
He is the personification of the Scottish government's repeated selective use of the most favourable of a range of scenarios in forecasts for Scottish investment, tax take and broad growth, and dismissal of the central consensus forecasts. Where could he have learned that?
the RBS is no more 'Scottish' than Barclays is English.
Incidentally, not true. RBS corporate remains heavily staffed with Scots and remains HQd in Scotland, neither the case with Barclays.
The USA had to bail out Barclays to the tune of something like 5 billion ...
Not true. The US had to bail out insurer AIG. AIG used some of that money to pay money owed on financial insurance products to Barclays. Barclays was 'bailed out' by middle eastern investors mainly the Qatari sovereign wealth fund which later sold at a profit. You can't cite non-evidence like Barclays (crooked as they are) to make RBS look normal.
The chief economist at Deutsche Bank, David Folkerts-Landau, that so conveniently supported Cameron by saying voting for independence “would go down in history as a political and economic mistake” as large as those which sparked the Great Depression of the1930s, is in charge of the same Deutsche Bank which made a loss of 1.153billion euros in the last four months of 2013 ...
Folkerts-Landau knows plenty about taking crazy risks, but one crazy risk he is not involved in is leading a bid to take Scotland into independence.
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Absolutely terrifying that it could be a yes vote, one which I'm dreading the consequences if it is.
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De Valera, architect of Irish independence, remained in power almost continuously from independence in 1922 to his resignation in 1973 as the world's oldest head of state.
Strange that you count the first ten years of the state from 1922 to 1932 when Cosgrave was Taoiseach, and Dev was the leader of the opposition. Costello, Lemass and Lynch were also Taoisigh during that period you mention. De Valera was the president in his later years, a primarily ceremonial role.
Ireland of 1922 is also a very different country to Scotland in 2014.
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The RBS employs Scots. Well done. You clearly don't believe in Scottish independence being economically viable, that's your prerogative.
Your argument that Salmond had anything to do with their corporate strategy through the 90's and 2000's does not hold any real scrutiny though, does it?
Take Barclays and replace with Halifax, Lloyds or any other multinational. It still doesn't mean that the Scottish nation is in any way shape or form responsible for the actions of one bank and the individuals working for it, even if their director happened to be Scottish. It just sounds like you're trying to pin the whole economic collapse on the Scots who have suffered just as much through corporate irresponsibility as anyone else in the UK.
Folkerts-Landau is a corporate interest, doing the bidding of Cameron, and what you are describing as 'crazy risks' applies as much to the legality of their actions as it does investments. Nobody is asking him to lead Scotland anywhere, indeed what he says makes a nice headline for a few days but can be rebutted:
"Senior bankers have dismissed claims that independence could trigger a great depression as “preposterous” and “disingenuous”.
Ian Blackford, who formerly ran Deutsche Bank’s operations in Scotland and the Netherlands, and Edward McDowell, a former risk manager for Lloyds Banking Group, have played down the warnings of their former employers of the risks of independence."
Joseph Stiglitz is equally dismissive of the financial risks, and has the ability to see that it's not a purely economic argument:
Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has claimed there is “very little” vision in the No campaign, as the key adviser to former US president Bill Clinton came close to publicly backing a Yes vote in next month’s referendum.
The former chief economist at the World Bank launched a scathing attack on the No campaign, which he said was trying to get “anxiety levels up” and was spreading “fear” about issues such as Alex Salmond’s plan for an independent Scotland and the remainder of the UK to share the pound in a formal currency union.
Professor Stiglitz, who serves on Mr Salmond’s council of economic advisers, stated “there is a vision on the Yes side” about a fairer society on key issues such as free university education, as he gave his clearest signal yet of his sympathy for the pro-independence campaign.
• Get the latest referendum news, opinion and analysis from across Scotland and beyond on our new Scottish Independence website
He warned a No vote could lead to “more unemployment” for Scotland with the prospect of Conservative rule from Westminster and of “American-style” inequality.
And he also claimed the row over what currency an independent Scotland would use is “a lot of to do about nothing” as he dismissed the pledge from the main Unionist parties to block such a deal as “bluffs”, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival yesterday.
Prof Stiglitz said: “As an outsider, I’ve looked at the debate, particularly from the No side. I’ve been a little bit shocked how much of it is based on fear, trying to get anxiety levels up and how little of it has been based on vision.
“There is a vision on the Yes side that I see – what would an independent Scotland be like, what could it do that it can’t do now?”
Prof Stiglitz, when asked about the rejection of a currency union by the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats, said: “For the most part, these are bluffs.”
He argued currency union could work, saying: “If you look at the statistics for the similarities of Scotland and England, they are sufficiently similar that a currency area could work, that’s what the Fiscal Commission recommended.”
Prof Stiglitz attacked what he claimed was the cuts-driven policy of Westminster governments as he called for more fiscal stimulation to boost the economy after recession.
He said: “The austerity policies in Europe and in England have been an utter disaster. There are risks always in any economic course; there are risks of doing something and risks of not doing something.
“So the risk of staying together is you could have a Conservative government that cuts back on government spending and that would force, inevitably, cutbacks here in areas of health and education.”
However, the cross-party anti-independence Better Together campaign insisted a No vote would mean a package of more devolution for Holyrood irrespective of the result of next year’s general election.
A campaign spokesman said: “We can have the best of both worlds for Scotland. That means the progress we all want for Scotland without taking on all the risks
Meanwhile, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Sir James Mirrlees has backed the Scottish Government’s threat to renege on its proportion of the UK national debt saying that “Britain inherits the debt” if it refuses a currency union.
I'm sure you can trot out Paul Krugman, who again, makes a nice headline, but equally only considers the issue from a very specific viewpoint of non-currency union... I, like many others have no doubt Independence will cost us money in lots of ways, but I still think it's a price worth paying.
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Who knows for sure? But difficult to avoid a feeling of bitterness and resentment within Scotland and between Scotland and the rest, an incurable sense of unfinished business, and more devolution throughout the UK which becomes a recipe for corruption and waste.
The irony of you advocating Landau and coming out with that.
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Well as for lack of vision in the 'no' campaign, I can agree with that. The non-Scots and the 'no' Scots have been looking at the prospect of a crippling diminution of just about everything that makes up a country including culture, economy, ability to negotiate for their interests and to defend the country - and they just sat on their arses saying it probably won't happen so let's not worry. It's a bit late to start fighting now. I think independence would be bad for Scotland and I care about that but not greatly, I'm not Scottish. It would surely be a bigger disaster for the rest.
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About
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Posted by
@EB
I might still vote Yes
media - well it's no suprise - the BBC - is it?
Campbell - mmmm, Tweet you say?
Wee Blue Book - almost without fail there is a reasonable, fact based opposing argument to each point (paid for by the Weirs, as is Wings over Scotland website, Business for Scotland website and many other sites and blogs)