theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..
Yes thanks to the first past the post electoral system, 11 seats on 30% of the vote, second pace to Labour with 41 seats on 36%.
Anyway the point isn't how close to winning they were (which was pretty close anyway) the point is that the UK government were scared enough of the "SNP threat" to suppress the reality of North Sea oil revenue at the time and misinform the public.
theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..
EU is just a way for a few states (France, Germany) to get rich on the back of smaller satellite states.
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Ireland and Sweden are all wealthier than Germany. And Austria, Denmark and Belgium are wealthier than France.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..
You're saying that unionists from Labour voted for the Tories, in order to keep the SNP out.
Why does it sound ridiculous? I guess, possibly if you know nothing about Scottish politicts, it might sound ridiculous.
Labour, Lib Dem and Tory activists have organised tactical voting against the SNP ever since the 2014 referendum. Quite openly. Labour activists share graphics on twitter and Facebook to show which seats you are better off voting Tory or Lib Dem than Labour.
See the 2015 "wheel" that was going round.
http://billcameron.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/in-scotland-vote-tactically-in-may-2015.html
Kedia Dugdale the Scottish Labour leader indicated her top priority when she said the Tories had a better chance than Labour of beating SNP in some parts of Scotland in this election.
theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..
There was no appetite for Scottish independence in the 70s.
The SNP certainly polled well in 1974. Whether there was "appetite" or not is beside the point. (It's true that Scotland is much nearer indepdence now than it was then.)
The point is that the UK government feared Scottish independence and went to great lengths to conceal North Sea oil revenue and Scotland's potential as an indepdenent country. Now we can actually read it in government documents in black and white.
While in public the government played down North Sea oil, in private their report advised:
The country [an independent Scotland] would tend to be in chronic surplus to a quite embarrassing degree and its currency would become the hardest in Europe, with the exception perhaps of the Norwegian kroner. Just as deposed monarchs and African leaders have in the past used the Swiss franc as a haven of security, so now would the Scottish pound be seen as a good hedge against inflation and devaluation and the Scottish banks could expect to find themselves inundated with a speculative inflow of foreign funds.
http://www.oilofscotland.org/mccronereport.pdf
The report was kept secret for 30 years.
In 1974, McCrone wrote a now-famous report for ministers predicting Scotland would become "as rich as Switzerland" if it controlled North Sea oil - a prediction that was kept from voters.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13159881.Exclusive__McCrone_2__
secret_report_which_advised_Westminster_to_set_up_oil_fund/
Dennis Healey who was chancellor in the 1970s said:
I think we did underplay the value of the oil to the country because of the threat of nationalism but that was mainly down to Thatcher.
theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..
And it's parliament that elects the Prime Minister. If the Tories had lost just 6 more seats they wouldn't have had enough votes to keep Theresa May as prime minister, even with DUP support.
The Tories gained 12 seats in Scotland with help from unionists from other parties who voted tactically to keep the SNP out.
theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..
It's very relevant, because: when UK governments have concealed and extracted money from Scotland in the past, while giving the misleading impression of subsidising Scotland - why do you think they would turn around hand out free money instead indefinitely into be future? How is relying uncertain handouts any sort of viable economic plan? Apart from lacking self-respect it's also wishful thinking.
theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..
In the 1970s the government commissioned a report on the impact of North Sea Oil. It concluded that Scotland would be very weathly as an independent country. And the UK government feared it would be bankrupt without the oil revenue. The report was concealed for 30 years.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4661584.stm
Indeed Norway, with a similar population and oil reserves, has become one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
Repeated requests to set up an oil fund in Scotland were denied by the UK government. Instead receipts from oil revenue funded Thatcher's monetary policy, resulting unemployment benefit, and deindustrialization in the 1980s.
Scotland is the only country in the world that discovered oil and saw little economic improvement as a result - because of UK government mismanagement.
It is a matter of public record that UK governments have lied about and mismanaged North Sea oil resources.
The UK government's own report concluded that an independent Scotland would be a very wealthy small country and Norway proves their point.
Since the UK government mismanaged and lied about Scotland in the past, why do you trust them to be any more competent or trustworthy in future?
What makes you think that London will send extra money to Scotland now the oil revenue is in decline? Boris Johnson (next Pm? Who knows) is well known for his view that Scotland gets too much money. Many other London politicians have said the same in less colourful terms. With the oil revenue gone he may actually have a point. Until now London politicians have moaned about Scotland getting extra money while conveniently ignoring the tax receipts from oil. When that vanishes what's left? We just hope London will subsidise Scotland forever? You call that a realistic plan for the future?
theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..
Hi Laika,
Actually Scandinavia demonstrates that all sorts of currency options are viable.
Denmark - uses its own currency pegged to the Euro
Sweden - uses its own currency with a floating exchange rate as an EU member
Finland - uses the Euro
Norway - uses its own currency with a floating exchange rate as a non-EU member
Scotland as an indepdent country could peg its own currency to the pound, or peg to the Euro, or have its own floating exchange rate, or use the pound or join the Euro. All of these are viable options that are directly comparable to what many other countries do around the world. Scotland as an independent country would choose the best option at the time, and as an independent country it would have the ability to change, as other countries do all the time. There's nothing particuarly remarkable about it, unless you buy into the notion that Scots would be singularly inept at managing and choosing between the many currency options available in the modern world.
theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..
I was surprised Theresa May didn't resign immediately.
She could struggle on for years if the Tories see it as being in their own interest. Or she could be gone in hours. I give up trying to predict, politics is crazy now.
The DUP are looking forward to the Trump visit. Iain Paisley Jnr. Is best mates apparently.
theresa may the british p.m. has called for an election.. the house of commons has to vote tomorrow and have a two-thirds majority to agree and the main opposition parties want it to happen too so it looks pretty certain to go ahead..
Well they have since how long? 1980's when the Barnett formula kicked in? Irrelevant though...the fact is we go solo now...it will destroy us.
Actually that's the point. The Barnett formula only gave back to Scotland some of the extra money that was raised in Scotland from oil. Until 2014 Scotland had been sending more per capita in tax to London than it was receiving back in extra spending every single year since at least the early 1970s.
See this table that shows higher tax receipts per capita in Scotland compared to the UK for the last few decades.
http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0041/00418381.pdf
Only very recently has this trend changed. London has not been sending Scotland money, it's been the other way around.
The idea that London will send Scotland extra money indefinitely despite falling tax revenue from Scotland is a leap of faith.
In fact London politicians have stated the opposite: that Scotland in future needs to raise its own taxes to cover spending.
So I ask again what makes you think London is going to send extra money to Scotland for decades to come?
