David Cameron and George Osborne keep insisting that any currency arrangements for an independent Scotland would have to be negotiated by the two governments.
The British Government say they will not provide details of their position, and negotiate with the SNP, until after the referendum, but they keep pressing the SNP to say what arrangements they want to see.
Hypocritical, or what ?
You have to feel sorry for Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander – no, you really have to feel for them ! What are the poor guys to do ? They know that when Scotland becomes independent of the rest of the UK, the Westminster government will lose direct control of Scotland’s huge reserves of oil and gas and will lose all the taxes and other income from them that flow into the Westminster Treasury. This is why they and their unionist pals are so keen to keep Scotland within the discredited Union.
But wait – at the same time they and their unionist cronies want to pretend in public utterances that Scotland’s oil and gas reserves are almost worthless, because they don’t wish to encourage Scots to believe that their country would be very well-off if they became independent.
Come on, George, Danny, you can’t have it both ways ! Sooner or later you’re going to be rumbled. Then where are you going to hide ?
Heartening news for Scotland in a recently-published set of economic statistics for the last quarter. The figures showed that the Scottish economy grew between December 2012 and February 2013 by 0.5%. The number of Scots out of work fell by 11,000 to 197,000 to give a jobless rate of 7.3% – below the UK-wide average of 7.9%. 2.5 million Scots are now in work – up by 39,000.
With this country’s economy performing better than that of the UK as a whole, it is clear that with the control over all our taxation and spending that independence would bring, we could do even better by being able to concentrate on Scotland’s priorities.
If you ran a business, would you turn over all your profits to the firm next door in return for a percentage back ? No ? Thought not !
FACT – Scots pay more per head in taxes to the London Treasury than people in England.
FACT – Scots pay more tax in total to the London Treasury than the London Treasury spends in Scotland. (err . . . just who subsidises whom ?).
With independence, Scots would control ALL their own money and be able to spend it on SCOTLAND’S priorities.
If you’re an elector in Scotland, YOU can help to make it happen -
Vote YES to independence in 2014
Recently, Douglas Alexander MP has said that if Scots vote NO to Independence, Labour will propose extensions to the devolution settlement, to give the Scottish Government more powers.
Don’t be taken in, folks. In 1979 Scots were made a similar ‘promise’ if they voted against the setting up of a Scottish Assembly. A few months later the (Tory) Government in London was re-elected, and did they put forward more powers for Scotland. No, they did not ! They did, however, introduce the hated Poll Tax a whole year earlier in Scotland than in the rest of Britain.
We can’t trust a word that London Governments say. There’s one way and one way only to secure more powers for Scotland, and that’s to vote YES for Independence in the 2014 referendum.
David Mundell MP – the sole remaining Tory MP in Scotland – is quoted today in the press as saying that by the time the Scottish Government publishes its White Paper on Independence later this year, the unionist parties will have announced proposals for giving more powers to the Scottish Government.
Many Scots will still remember, however, that in 1979 they were promised a degree of devolution by an earlier Tory Government at Westminster in return for voting no to the setting up of a Scottish Assembly. Scots duly voted no (according to the rigged rules applied to that referendum), and did they subsequently get any more say over their own affairs ? They did not ! – instead they got the hated poll tax imposed on Scotland a year before it was introduced south of the border.
What is it they say ? – fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me (for not seeing it coming !). Very many Scots have long memories and will not fall for that old one a second time !
More powers ? – until we get independence, the powers we already have are only ‘on loan’ and could – in theory at least – be taken back by Westminster at any time.
The only way to secure the powers the Scottish Government already has and gain more is to vote YES to Independence in 2014. Empty promises from London-based unionists are as worthless as the ones they gave us back in 1979.
“Now our case is not that Scotland cannot survive as a separate state. Of course it could. Most countries could.”
