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The Referendum Thread


Lanarkshire_Bud

Scottish Independence Referendum  

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Does anyone seriously think that NATO won't have Scotland as a member?

Purely for reasons of geography NATO will welcome Scotland with open arms.

Of course they will.

I just love the earnestness with which No voters believe it won't happen.

What possible reason could NATO have for opening up the entire north of the UK to Russia or China or anyone else who wanted to start entering our waters for a closer peek at England.

Just like the tedious EU debate, this isn't about law, it's about commonsense and politics.

Unless of course the EU and NATO have suddenly and inexplicably decided to obey Alistair Darling.

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Try digging a wee bit deeper.

The vast majority of people do not have either big flashy cars or spend wads of cash in ANY shop.

You are watching a relatively small handful of people when you visit Braehead or wherever.

Those big flashy cars are like the big flashy houses. It's all largely fake.

Both are bought on credit deals. Most of those owning a flashy car are actually simply renting it.

The alternative is to wonder where the hell the sudden influx of earnings came from to explain the sudden invasion of a herd of massive 4x4 monstrosities polluting our roads.

There are £20k to £40k cars everywhere and it happened almost overnight.

Weren't you curious about that?

Don't even get me started on housing.

3 million can't get a home because about 1.5 million have decided to borrow money (which they don't have) to buy more than one house causing a massive artificial and completely avoidable housing shortage which has seen house prices quadruple in just 20 years.

To see why this is a problem imagine instead of houses (a social resource) we were talking about fresh water.

There would be uproar if an artificial water shortage was being caused by people using other people's money to buy water they didn't need just so they could sell it at an inflated price to those who had nothing.

It's a f**king scandalous situation.

I'm in Oxford this week. As an example, an ex-council style house mid terrace is on the market on the outskirts of the town. I've been there. It's a shit hole.

Guess how much?

£450,000.

Nobody has given a single thought to where the street cleaners, the nurses, the hotel staff or anyone else without a house already or sitting on half a million pounds will live.

Where you have that sort of concentration of "wealth" you see huge poverty.

Walk around the city centre in the early evening and you see it everywhere - beggars, people sleeping in shop doorways and misery everywhere.

This is not just London.

It's all over the South of England and it's creeping northwards.

No way do I want Scotland looking as bad as that but we're getting there in some areas already.

The UK is a mess from top to bottom and only independence gives us a CHANCE to sort it.

Not a guarantee.

Not certainty.

A chance.

It's more than we have right now.

I'll treat you seriously - for this post - and respond sensibly to it, because I suspect you have information unavailable to me about how a vote on Sep 18 will roll back capitalism.

Will there suddenly be a whole new shedloads of pristine unspoilt politicians in charge? Will Eck's promise of undercutting corporation tax be quietly dropped? Especially if all the pledges to maintain free student grants and the fine care of the elderly.... and all the other laudable and compassionate social policies in Scotland are to be maintained at the current level.

Will the centre of UK life shift from London, so that businesses will relocate to Bonnie Scotland?

If so, then I am in! Which makes it all the more galling that I have been denied a vote.

Now, please, reveal to me how a vote can achieve that without transforming society and its citizens , cos I suspect it's impossible.

Not undesirable, just harder than you seem to think.

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Guest TPAFKATS

Well, yes, former Nato deputy supreme commander General Sir Richard Shirreff. As above.

You did ask Tony.

Cheers, I did ask but I also included the word seriously.

If that were his honest serious and true opinion then thank f**k he's retired and not in any country's defence or security.

If Scotland isn't in NATO then neither is its territorial waters. This means Nato has nothing between Northern ireland and Denmark / Norway.

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Guest TPAFKATS

The current volatility of £ is likely to be more due to uncertainty over Putin and the Ukraine.

Maybe, however it started the same day the you gov poll came out and the 'experts' seem to think that's the reason.

Russia and Ukraine has been rumbling on for a while now.

Anyway, there shouldn't be any volatility as Bt keep telling us we currently have the security of a stable currency.

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Walk around any out of town shopping mall, such as Braehead, see the conspicuous consumption and that would be this culture's counterbalance to the demise of the High Street. People spend more and seem happier shopping in Malls with easy parking for their big flash cars than catching the erratic bus service into town to walk about a dribble of shops, in the rain.... that would be the easy answer to how "things are an improvement".

You and I may regret the demise of the town centres but it would appear that most people are happier, an improvement. They use them.

I am certainly not (never have been) happy with the vast gulf between rich and poor in this society, but I certainly feel that divide and rule is one way for those who do have the power to keep things as unfair and so the September vote is NOT going to shift any of that one iota. London and its power will be unaffected, Capitalism will not even notice. Atlas will not shrug.

Someone else on this thread, this page I believe, discusses food banks in allegedly better examples for Scottish society.

And, sorry, cannae see your sig when posting from a ipad.

Then why are they trying sooooo hard to keep us?

If we are really Better Together and we leave, then surely they will be missing something that made it better?

I can guess what that is...

I see the SNP have f**ked themselves again. This time it's Nicola Sturgeon and a new Scottish Government report that's blown the lid off their welfare plans.

<snip>

Blah Blah blah blah for hours....

A story debatedon here from over a year ago, and you attempt to present it as news... no wonder you have a reputation not worth shite

That's interesting in a completely boring way. I didn't watch the programme. I was busy coaching a football team but by all accounts Elaine C Smith was an absolute car crash. I have to say though from what you are saying it sounds far more like Elaine C Smith was talking about the Yes Campaign. After all they've been very good at telling us all the things that bad old Westminster is supposed to have done wrong but they aren't very good at coming up with evidence, costings or indeed anything of any credibility at all to tell us what an "independent" Scotland would do about it.

Indeed we now know that an Independent Scotland won't scrap bedroom tax unless Westminster does it and we now know that their pledge on pensions was an absolute fallacy. We've also discovered this week that an Independent Scotland WOULD have to take part in each and any conflict that NATO decides to get involved in despite the Yes Campaign having made great play of the idea that we wouldn't get involved in any conflicts the Scottish Government deems as illegal. We've also found out that the Natsi pledge to remove Trident from the Clyde is more than a bit disingenuous too since we've discovered that Alex Salmond wouldn't do anything about it until 2020 at least and probably more likely 2025 - that is if we ever get rid of Trident at all because according to his former policy advisor it's the first thing Salmond would offer up to trade for a Currency Union, or for some favourable terms from the EU.

We also know that whilst Salmond was claiming that only a Yes Vote could have the NHS from privatisation, he was spending £100m per annum contracting private healthcare providers to provide Scottish NHS treatment. And whilst all this is going on Ken McAskill has been all but buried by the SNP no doubt because of the humiliating way he handled the arming of police officers in Scotland - a move reminiscent of the arming of the Brown Shirts in 1930's Germany. We also know that whilst the SNP love to talk about the scandal of food banks in Scotland, Alex Salmond thinks nothing of spending £100,000 of taxpayers money on a weeks junket to New York or £25,000 PER DAY on a "Gentlemans Club" in Pal Mall during the Olympic Ganes.

Anyone voting Yes needs their head examined.

By all accounts you say? You are making that up... Anyone I have spoken to thought Mary Doll done a good job, certainly better than her "I smell shite" opponent.

Brownshirts eh?.... despicable!

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Oh look much more troublesome oil out there for Scotland to get into a worry about.

http://www.oilandgaspeople.com/news/1039/scottish-west-coast-untapped-oil-and-gas-reserves-worth-trillions/

I suppose trillions more in oil means trillions more volatility. Scary stuff!

Makes the oil and gas "expert" Sir Iain, seem to be more than a little "inexpert".

Poor research skills?

Or maybe he was making up his figures...........................whistling.gif

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Guest TPAFKATS

STV and prime minister at odds over an answer he gave in parliament today where he accused the channel of running away from doing an indy debate with him and undecided voters.

STV say they wouldn't have had full editorial control.

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I'll treat you seriously - for this post - and respond sensibly to it, because I suspect you have information unavailable to me about how a vote on Sep 18 will roll back capitalism.

Not in a million years am I responding to a post like this. lol.gif

Come back when you decide to behave like a grown up.

This referendum certainly has brought out the smug in UK fans.

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But I thought we should ignore YouGov as they weren't a credible pollster?

Personally speaking you'll find me repeatedly saying ALL pollsters should be ignored because it's pretty glaringly obvious what the problem is with their methods.

Not one of them has this correct.

It's just nice to see one of them incorrectly predicting we're on the verge of a Yes vote rather than incorrectly predicting we're getting a No landslide.

Now leave us to enjoy our minute or two of happiness.

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Not in a million years am I responding to a post like this. :lol

Come back when you decide to behave like a grown up.

This referendum certainly has brought out the smug in UK fans.

So - no answer? I am disappointed as your post seemed so confident I felt sure you could back it up. :(

And it looks like "smug" is tonight's easy Nationalist label to pin on opposition.

At least I'm not a bully or a liar.... I should be grateful....

Though give it time.... :rolleyes:

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Is it agreed that all reasonable debate on the subject has been thrashed out on here and we can all happily resort to petty name calling?....

....because I want to throw "Nawbag" into the ring. :)

:)

VERY good.

I could almost get used to donning that as a mantle of praise. :)

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Lords Lang & Forsyth together with Sir Rifkind MP issue a joint statement telling Scotland why we should vote No.

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29051504

I reckon at least 1% more yes voters as a result.

It's almost as if they're trying to lose...............................

Imagine the votes gained if that old hag Thatcher was around to express her views on the matter.whistling.gif

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It's almost as if they're trying to lose...............................

Imagine the votes gained if that old hag Thatcher was around to express her views on the matter.whistling.gif

You mean more than has ever voted for the SNP. You'd think the natsis would have realised that by constantly slaying Thatcher they cost themselves the 1m votes she used to get in Scotland

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I think think that was before everyone realised she sold the country out to the financial sector and ripped up the manufacturing industry so she could demonstrate she was a tough leader. Every PM since has prostrated themselves in front of the City since and the pigeons came home to roost in 2008. The UK paid multi-billions to bail out the banking sector and guess what they are raking it in again while everybody else's salaries stagnate and the cost of living rises. Not only are they raking it in they are masters of tax avoidance and spending many millions on PR companies to hide the truth. And I thought the Conservatives were about the free market too ...

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Is it agreed that all reasonable debate on the subject has been thrashed out on here and we can all happily resort to petty name calling?....

....because I want to throw "Nawbag" into the ring. smile.png

Talking of name-calling and abuse...

just type this twitter account name into your browser and marvel...

BritNatAbuseBot

I thimk it's a Bot that is supposed to pick up abusive posts to either side of the argument (though I stand to be corrected), but it's easy to see which side throws the abuse

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I think think that was before everyone realised she sold the country out to the financial sector and ripped up the manufacturing industry so she could demonstrate she was a tough leader. Every PM since has prostrated themselves in front of the City since and the pigeons came home to roost in 2008. The UK paid multi-billions to bail out the banking sector and guess what they are raking it in again while everybody else's salaries stagnate and the cost of living rises. Not only are they raking it in they are masters of tax avoidance and spending many millions on PR companies to hide the truth. And I thought the Conservatives were about the free market too ...

Nope. Even in 1993 Thatcher was polling better in Scotland than the SNP have ever done in General Elections.

Thatcher got hundreds of thousands of working class Scots on to the property ladder. Thatcher ensured that many working class kids would be left an inheritance by their parents - something that prior to Thatcher was the preserve of only the very elite. Thatcher modernised Scotland and replaced subsidy junkie Nationalised industries with the kind of private investment and enterprise that continues to this day.

Thatcher took over a derelict slum clad Glasgow and transformed it into the kind of shiny citadel that was showcased all through the summer. Thatcher did more for working class Scots that any Socialist, including the natsi kind. No wonder the nationalists hate her so much, she made Britain great and f**ked the Seperatist natsis for 35 years and counting.

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