An Independent Scotland?

I don't know, how many violent, abusive, ex teachers do you think might live in Scotland?
 
It's interesting how you never accept any blame, liability or wrong doing.
 
Excuse me? are you saying I'm somehow responsible for the outburst of a violent former teacher who's p***ed off at Gordon Brown?
 
gman said:
You can't keep complaining about not having a controlling vote when part of a union with a bigger country.
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As far as people keep asking, it appears to need stated - but there's no complaint about that - it's simply an explanation of the reason to leave. Of course Westminter should favour 55 million English, or 30 million in the SE. Of course the EU should favour Germany. The only surprise within that I suppose is why the smaller countries don't anticipate and preempt the resulting problems. But no complaint whatsoever - it is as is to be expected, therefore address it and move forward.
 
Steep said:
Excuse me? are you saying I'm somehow responsible for the outburst of a violent former teacher who's p***ed off at Gordon Brown?
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You, as in a representative of the Yes campaign? Yes. Because you should be against such uncivil behaviour and not want such people representing the Yes campaign.
 
gman said:
You, as in a representative of the Yes campaign? Yes. Because you should be against such uncivil behaviour and not want such people representing the Yes campaign.
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Unbelievable! Point out to me where I have ever endorsed such behaviour in anyone please. Or withdraw the accusation.
 
I didn't and still don't see you condemn it so no withdrawal I'll afraid.
 
gman said:
http://www.yesscotland.net/news/yes-scotland-publishes-details-campaign-donations-0


80% came from just one couple. So no, they aren't putting money where their mouth is.
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Steep said:
And the people donating less than £7500 each?
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That's 'over 11000' donors from a population of over 5,000,000. Not really a good example of 'the people putting their money where their moves are' really, is it. Less than 1/4 of a percent.
Not to mention the £2,500,000 from just one couple!
Fair do's for raising money to support a cause but don't overstate it as a good thing when the reality is slightly different.
I'm sure there are more than 11000 individual people putting money in buckets etc but just find using such info as a positive a little strange.
 
PaulF said:
That's 'over 11000' donors from a population of over 5,000,000. Not really a good example of 'the people putting their money where their moves are' really, is it. Less than 1/4 of a percent.
Not to mention the £2,500,000 from just one couple!
Fair do's for raising money to support a cause but don't overstate it as a good thing when the reality is slightly different.
I'm sure there are more than 11000 individual people putting money in buckets etc but just find using such info as a positive a little strange.
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You'll find I didn't bring the subject up, just responding to another post, but whether it's 10p or ten million donated it's a positive.
 
Compared to the number of people and the amount being spent doing the lottery on a weekly basis then I think it's quite obvious that people put themselves long before the greater good or the country. But I guess that's human nature but obviously something is better nothing.
 
Well i've now voted, by post, for what I think is right.

I'm a bit annoyed at a neighbour who has installed a flagpole on his land that looks very permanent. The flag on it is in line with my vote but i'm still annoyed that it looks like it represents the views of the entire estate due to the position of it.

I just want this vote to be over now so that we can actually look to the future.
 
Good on you, I'm going postal as well, still waiting for the ballot paper though.
 
gman said:
And if we vote Yes will we get more of the likes of Mike Barile? A Yes supporter shouting abuse - a former teacher who was struck off for assaulting children.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/together-again-as-brown-and-darling-cosy-up-for-no-rally.25168077?utm_source=www.heraldscotland.com&utm_medium=RSS Feed&utm_campaign=Scottish News
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If you vote yes, the likes of him won't have anything to shout about. You're more likely to hear of these things if you vote no.:p
 
For me, it's not about money, or politics, or oil, or currency... It's a simple gut feeling. I was born and bred in Scotland, though have lived in England and Wales as well.
Currently in England so don't get a vote (curses!) but sister working in far east ( the Orient, not Peterhead ;)) does, so I'm working on her to vote YES.

I've always felt Scottish first and British second, it's always felt to me that Scotland should be a separate country too.

If it is a YES, I want a Scottish passport too :D

That's all i have to say. I'm awa tae sit in ma kilt noo.
 
CheshireChap said:
If it is a YES, I want a Scottish passport too :D
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Well, don't hold your breath. Imagine how long it would take the Scottish passport service to work through the backlog.
 
StewartR said:
Well, don't hold your breath. Imagine how long it would take the Scottish passport service to work through the backlog.
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Ten times less the population, shouldn't be too bad?
 
gman said:
Ten times less the population, shouldn't be too bad?
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Not too bad if you don't mind waiting until your UK passport expires, which could be up to 10 years away. But if the government of an independent Scotland wanted to be able to issue Scottish passports (to those who want them) reasonably quickly, the staffing would need to be ramped up way beyond the "steady state" situation. That wouldn't be easy at a time when there would be all sorts of other transitional activities taking place, though I imagine that the government would probably prioritise it to a certain extent for legitimate PR reasons.
 
My UK passport has expired, I'm holding off renewing it because I don't want to have to do it again in two years, I'll order a Scottish one as soon as I can and wait as long as it takes :)
 
Steep said:
My UK passport has expired, I'm holding off renewing it because I don't want to have to do it again in two years, I'll order a Scottish one as soon as I can and wait as long as it takes :)
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Looking at most of the recent polls, I think you are fairly safe renewing your UK passport ;).
 
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StewartR said:
Well, don't hold your breath. Imagine how long it would take the Scottish passport service to work through the backlog.
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As these are current passport offices, I'd think Glasgow probably already coping with Scotland's passport applicants. No change post FREEEEEDOM (sorry I got a bit Wallace there)

Her Majesty’s Passport Office (previously called the Identity and Passport Service) has offices in:

London
Liverpool
Belfast
Durham
Glasgow
Newport
Peterborough
 
I've had some good experiences with the Glasgow IPS. Very easy and quick to get an appointment to walk in and get a renewal. Iirc I booked it on a Sunday and was there on a Tuesday. All those poor hardworking people will loose their job though unless relocating to the UK. Great time for consultants to teach the Scottish government on how to deal with these kind of documents, The biometric stores that come with it. And I haven't even begun about identifying other countries. It will be great loadsa money to be made in lots of areas of government administration.

And then you'll have a Scottish passport and I look forward to a lot of countries going huh? What is that. That is a fake. You are part of the UK, go home ;) oh and that reminds me, but he costs of all the embassies and consulates around the world to deal with issues like that and the drunken behaviour. Oh yes, much better to go at it alone and great timing for it.
 
CheshireChap said:
As these are current passport offices, I'd think Glasgow probably already coping with Scotland's passport applicants. No change post FREEEEEDOM (sorry I got a bit Wallace there)
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You haven't thought it through. Of course the Glasgow office could cope as is, so long as everybody would be content to wait until their UK passport expires before getting a Scottish one. Passports last for ten years so in broad terms the passport service is geared up to replace 10% of them every year. But if Scotland wins independence and a lot of newly independent Scots want Scottish passports, that causes a short term headache.

It wouldn't be politically acceptable to tell a citizen of a newly independent Scotland that he couldn't have a Scottish passport until, say, 2023 if his UK one was issued last year. So the passport office would have to be scaled up to cope with the initial demand. For example if it was felt to be politically expedient to promise everyone who wanted a Scottish passport that they could have one within a year, and assuming that the 50% of the population who had voted Yes decide to take up the offer, then the passport office would need to be scaled up to 5 times its current size and then scaled back down afterwards.

That's a lot of civil servants to be hired, trained, and then released a year or two later. The UK passport office has about 3500 staff, so the Scottish passport office would need about 350 staff in the steady state situation, which implies the need to grow it by perhaps 1400 additional staff for a short period. Obviously these are very rough numbers but it illustrates the scale of the task. It's clearly doable in principle, though it would be challenging if there are lots of other agencies who also need short term increases in staffing at the same time to cope with other transitional issues.

It's an interesting little insight into how all sorts of administrative issues would need to be dealt with post-independence. Not a show stopper by any means, and certainly not a reason to influence which way you vote, but a real administrative headache in the short term.
 
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dejongj said:
Great time for consultants to teach the Scottish government on how to deal with these kind of documents, The biometric stores that come with it. And I haven't even begun about identifying other countries. It will be great loadsa money to be made in lots of areas of government administration.
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That's needlessly and thoughtlessly negative. It seems more reasonable to suppose that the Scottish passport service would retain the expertise and systems developed by the UK service, rather than having to reinvent the wheel from scratch.
 
dejongj said:
And then you'll have a Scottish passport and I look forward to a lot of countries going huh? What is that. That is a fake. You are part of the UK, go home ;)
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No you won't. That's ridiculous.
 
StewartR said:
That's needlessly and thoughtlessly negative. It seems more reasonable to suppose that the Scottish passport service would retain the expertise and systems developed by the UK service, rather than having to reinvent the wheel from scratch.
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You are making an assumption that the systems can be split, or are capable of multi tenancy or that the expertise of creating a new service from the UK came from within the ranks of the civil servants in the UK. Or that the iP hasn't been given away to the large system integrators.

I wouldn't be so certain with those assumptions....

Edit: for example the Irish have been trying for years to join up and link the supporting systems so they don't have to build their own enhancements. They just can't afford the costs involved with that leaving them with quite a manual challenge.
 
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StewartR said:
No you won't. That's ridiculous.
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Ok go home may depend on where you are, I can guarantee it will be the cause for some delays. A lot of systems and clearances are automated these days, many passports unfortunately deviate from the standards. Adding a whole new one into those systems can take time, dealing with the peculiarities of the implementation takes even longer. Any deviation likely means getting out of the queue and manual processing subject to further delays. Of course over time when it matures these things will go away, in the initial period there will be pain.
 
Passports is a minor issue, once Independent, Scotland will be such a utopia, we won't want to go abroad ☺.
The only people wanting to travel will be footy fans, and we rarely have to travel to major tournaments

Taking it seriously though, yes of course there will be expense and upheaval and yes of course it would be sorted out eventually too.
For me, again, passports can go on the list of things that this isn't about

Naturally, because I'm hoping for a yes vote, as a Scot, I'm pessimistic and expect the result to be "No"
 
When we think 'country' and people have mentored we would be similar to Iceland or Finland ( queue the Monty Python song) - they are not exactly known as a global voice. I think that if Scotland gained independence then as a country you would also loose global influence.
 
CheshireChap said:
Naturally, because I'm hoping for a yes vote, as a Scot, I'm pessimistic and expect the result to be "No"
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I think it might actually be yes. I know of at least two other companies who, because of the market they're in, are saying they've no option but to relocate to England or close if the vote goes that way. I'm not sure about us, it might still be viable but we'd seriously have to consider relocating as well. Not much in the grand scheme of things maybe (about 50 degree level jobs overall) but a Yes vote isn't a vote for a guaranteed utopia.
 
Blank_Canvas said:
When we think 'country' and people have mentored we would be similar to Iceland or Finland ( queue the Monty Python song) - they are not exactly known as a global voice. I think that if Scotland gained independence then as a country you would also loose global influence.
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Possibly, although the UK's current "global influence" is already pretty limited. What influence it has is as part of NATO, the EU and UN.
  • NATO (I've not heard membership discussed) For me membership or not doesn't seem a major issue.
  • The EU Much has been made of whether or not Scotland would be able to stay in / rejoin / have accelerated membership. Though more interestingly, at the same time as suggesting we would be kicked out, the Westminster government is promising an In/Out referendum...
  • The UN Pfft. Toothless, spineless, and with the permanent members' veto powers, frankly embarrassing.
Global influence ?... the USA, Russia and China are the only countries with any left.
 
Blank_Canvas said:
When we think 'country' and people have mentored we would be similar to Iceland or Finland ( queue the Monty Python song) - they are not exactly known as a global voice. I think that if Scotland gained independence then as a country you would also loose global influence.
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Global influence in respect of what?
 
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