Should Scotland be an independent country?

They are, its your council tax. They cant even provide on what they are already taking from you but want more and more. I have no problem paying for services if they are provided but and Im sure you live in glasgow will realise they aren't providing anything in fact its cost cutting across the board here.

That’s why moving now seems logical.

Might need to be paid in Euro, also.

a) there'll be an imminent referendum on independence, b) Scotland will vote for independence, c) Scotland will choose to join the EU, d) Scotland will meet the criteria for admission to the EU and e) the EU will admit Scotland despite the existing clusterfuck over the Irish border

This is a LOT of dependencies and some of these are real issues.

Even if you take a-c as givens (they're not, especially as Scotland is ultimately a conservative country) EU fiscal rules say that governments should run budget deficits no higher than 3% of GDP and maintain a public debt no higher than 60% of GDP.

Scotland's current budget deficit is ~22 to 28%.

It's harder to estimate public debt but Scotland has a proportional debt liability (unless otherwise negotiated with the UK, but why would Westmonster do that?) and UK public debt is currently ~85%.

The IFS says that "Scotland’s implicit budget deficit will fall as the public finance effects of the COVID-19 crisis recede, but is set to remain substantially higher than for the UK as a whole unless oil revenues rebound or there is a significant change in relative economic performance."

And if you think the EU is going to budge on this you just need to look at Italy and what's happened there (Italixit is looking more and more likely).

My father-not-in-law is a retired left - wing economist and though pro-Independence, is not pro-SNP for exactly these reasons. He reckons Scotland could join the EU but it would involve years of hard austerity and the the SNP should be honest about this, instead of lying to the Scottish people.

Worth adding that Scotland is a very unequal country (as wonderfully documented by Jonathan Meades in Off Kilter). IMO it needs high levels of public spending, as does Italy, but when you get into this stuff you realise that EU membership is not quite the rose garden that us remainers see it as.

Facts and opinions like that are fake news when it comes to SNP and Independence. I look forward to reading the next white paper and hopefully it’s bit more than the fiction of the previous one.

So many people seem to have blinkers on when it comes to this again.

I think that some realism is crucial- we only have to look at Brexit to see what happens when everything is built on lies.

The impact of Brexit (and Covid) does need to be factored in through- decades of hard austerity are likely anyway, if Sunak follows Osbourne.

some good piss boiling stuff in the new SNP-green cooperation agreement. lovely stuff

Further proof of the lack of competence of Ms Forbes.. More worrying is that a Times journalist was cut off during a press conference.

https://archive.is/n2Zwx

She's a clown but not one of the funny kind.

The dropped bagpipe..

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/08/snp-should-stop-pretending-scotland-any-fit-state-independence

Anyway enough lazy links to SNP bad articles..

@cozey mentioned the SNP/Green alliance above. This will be interesting with Slater and Harvey in govt. The piss is currently boiling hard in Yoon circles but we've yet to see any detailed policies with Green input. The cynics view is that this is a move to prevent the threat of no confidence votes at Holyrood..

In a nation with a supine media, someone has finally nailed the nice guys that work for the Daily Record...

https://mobile.twitter.com/steviesouness/status/1434220460363894791

Sturgeon's alter ego (direct quote) seems to be leaving the building

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Hold.....hoooollldd....HOOOOLLLLLDDD!!! NOOOWWW!!! RELEASE THE TWEETS!!!

Played a blinder tbh. Some bad stuff in there, will struggle to come back from that.

these tweets have been around for an age - what precipitated their re-emergence now ?

That is the interesting bit. Doesn't look like squirrel news. However it is a distraction from the vaccine passport bill on which Sarah Montague effortlessly demolished Kaukab Stewart on the World at One yesterday. Asked whether people who had tested positive for the virus in the past would get a vaccine passport, Ms Stewart waffled and then admitted she didn't know. Almost as though a SNP MSP is accustomed to searching, concise questions. The real question to me, is why Humza wasn't there to defend his policy?

https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1481405891979010054

Absolutely adore this from Jacob. Leave these lads in charge as long as possible.

Quote for the ages, Kirsty Wark "Ooafftt"

I'm not really sure what kind of person doesn't think he's an absolute pillock

Rugless Dross

Mogg doing his utmost for an independent Scotland, a United Ireland, free state of Kernow and a Welsh Republic.

To be fair to Mogg, he's not wrong there about Ross.

The man in black

https://twitter.com/CymraesBalch/status/1481604416851656710

Some more delicious JRM contempt. Drink it in.

JRM isn't wrong on the Sec of State question!

Maybe we should a 2nd ref to get rid of pointless devolved admins in Wales and Scotland.

But he wasn't asked who the Secretary of State was. He was asked who the Welsh Conservative leader was. Or have I missed your sarcasm/humour?

No, I think it’s a (bizarre to me) view of Scottish Tories that they are a nation of children who should be told what to do by Westminster with zero say in it.