Scottish independence

Big Rob · **Posted:** Sat Jan 14, 2012 4:28 pm

Bones McCoy wrote:

I think we're in danger of going down the "You call it nationalism, we call it independence / self determination".

Well for me that is just putting a pleasant spin on nationalism. Other people may care to see that differently.

Bones McCoy wrote:

The Scotland / England situation has a few factors which distinguish it from the postwar independence movements.

I would agree. The UK's participation in the EU has a few factors which distinguish it from the post war united Europe movement also.

Bones McCoy · **Joined:** Mon Aug 16, 2010 9:08 am **Posts:** 7340

On a lighter note:

Daily Mash

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php ... &task=view

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Mon Feb 06, 2012 1:42 am

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/10078648

Quote:

A spokesman for Mr Salmond said: "The First Minister was rightly referring to over-officious BBC officials, and the real concerns about editorial decisions taken by BBC journalists being overruled by bureaucrats on political grounds. As the Sunday Herald copy says, 'the term has come to mean an overbearing bureaucrat'. That is unacceptable, and the First Minister will be raising the issue with Lord Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, when he meets him in Edinburgh on Thursday. The First Minister didn't complain when he was compared on the BBC to Robert Mugabe, and the opposition parties' obsession with trying - and failing - to do down the SNP is clearly causing them to ignore the real issue of editorial independence."

Salmond bowled another dolly.

Out of order though it is, he's extremely lucky to have stuff like this in the news. One day, he might get asked why his estimates for the oil and gas reserves are double what the industry itself says.

new puritan · **Posted:** Mon Feb 06, 2012 2:52 pm

My main concern if the Scots vote for independence - and I don't think they will, but the possibility obviously can't be ruled out - is the effect that would have on regional governance in England. Although an English parliament elected using PR would be an improvement on what we have currently, retaining the FPTP system would be a major disappointment imo (and is probably the most likely outcome). I prefer the idea of a northern assembly - I suppose I just don't trust Westminster to make a concerted effort to deliver jobs, industry and prosperity to the north when it's so far up the collective arse of the banks. There doesn't seem to be much appetite for regionalism at the moment, but a couple of terms of Tory rule determined largely by voters in the shires and south-east (with the honourable exception of inner-city London) might be enough to set the ball rolling again in the predominantly anti-Tory northern cities.

The prospect of living under a string of Tory governments is just too depressing, enduring the current shower of shit is more than enough for me. Having said that, I do think the Tories' supposed dominance of the English vote is overstated somewhat - they performed well in England in the last GE, but Labour won English majorities in '97, '01 and '05.

oboogie · **Posted:** Wed Feb 29, 2012 8:24 pm

The Mark Thomas Manifesto (Radio 4) tonight from Glasgow considered Scottish independence. This led to him musing on what the remaining countries would be called, "The Dis-United Kingdom or DUK? or maybe The Former United Kingdom?" :lol:

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Sat Aug 25, 2012 4:47 pm

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/tv-an ... -1-2488286

Quote:

He argued that Scottish licence fee payers currently brought in an income of £320 million a year, which compared favourably with BBC Scotland’s budget of about £100m.

This smells extremely fishy. Isn't he complaining elsewhere that there's not enough Scottish content on there? So I assume they get a lot of BBC1 and BBC2 programmes. The budgets for those stations are getting on for £1.9bn. How does that work?

Quote:

He argued the “huge success” and unique content provided by Gaelic-language channel BBC Alba had shown a Scottish public service broadcaster would be a success. He pointed to viewing figures that showed it had an audience of 900,000, nine times the number of Gaelic speakers.

“Viewers are clearly voting with their remote controls for more Scottish content,” he said. “Yet we do not have an English-language public service broadcasting channel of our own.”

I watch BBC Alba sometimes, so I doubt those 900,000 are all in Scotland. So isn't the logic that the channels been a success across Britain, using pooled British licence fees?

And what's the evidence BBC One Scotland and BBC Two Scotland aren't doing well?

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Sat Aug 25, 2012 4:51 pm

I see the total non BBC1 and BBC budget is about £1.3bn.

As far as I know, all of this output is available to Scots.

He's talking out of his arse, isn't he?

Kreuzberger · **Posted:** Sat Aug 25, 2012 4:53 pm

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/tv-and-radio/scottish-independence-alex-salmond-admits-bbc-output-would-be-cut-1-2488286

Quote:

He argued that Scottish licence fee payers currently brought in an income of £320 million a year, which compared favourably with BBC Scotland’s budget of about £100m.

This smells extremely fishy. Isn't he complaining elsewhere that there's not enough Scottish content on there? So I assume they get a lot of BBC1 and BBC2 programmes. The budgets for those stations are getting on for £1.9bn. How does that work?

Quote:

He argued the “huge success” and unique content provided by Gaelic-language channel BBC Alba had shown a Scottish public service broadcaster would be a success. He pointed to viewing figures that showed it had an audience of 900,000, nine times the number of Gaelic speakers.

“Viewers are clearly voting with their remote controls for more Scottish content,” he said. “Yet we do not have an English-language public service broadcasting channel of our own.”

I watch BBC Alba sometimes, so I doubt those 900,000 are all in Scotland. So isn't the logic that the channels been a success across Britain, using pooled British licence fees?

And what's the evidence BBC One Scotland and BBC Two Scotland aren't doing well?

The fishy smell might be in the detail of that 900,000 audience. I know that Alba have exclusively carried at least one of Rangers' games in recent weeks and that was rolled out across Scotland and online.

Tubby Isaacs · **Posted:** Sat Aug 25, 2012 5:13 pm

That's a good point.

Not the fishy bit I was meaning though. BBC Scotland's budget surely isn't covering all the programs on their channels, is it?

Bones McCoy · **Joined:** Mon Aug 16, 2010 9:08 am **Posts:** 7340

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/tv-and-radio/scottish-independence-alex-salmond-admits-bbc-output-would-be-cut-1-2488286

Quote:

He argued that Scottish licence fee payers currently brought in an income of £320 million a year, which compared favourably with BBC Scotland’s budget of about £100m.

This smells extremely fishy. Isn't he complaining elsewhere that there's not enough Scottish content on there? So I assume they get a lot of BBC1 and BBC2 programmes. The budgets for those stations are getting on for £1.9bn. How does that work?

Quote:

He argued the “huge success” and unique content provided by Gaelic-language channel BBC Alba had shown a Scottish public service broadcaster would be a success. He pointed to viewing figures that showed it had an audience of 900,000, nine times the number of Gaelic speakers.

“Viewers are clearly voting with their remote controls for more Scottish content,” he said. “Yet we do not have an English-language public service broadcasting channel of our own.”

I watch BBC Alba sometimes, so I doubt those 900,000 are all in Scotland. So isn't the logic that the channels been a success across Britain, using pooled British licence fees?

And what's the evidence BBC One Scotland and BBC Two Scotland aren't doing well?

I wonder how many of the 900,000 are watching the Premier league football (Unavailable on other terrestrial) or the folk music (There's rather a lot of it, which must be great if you're a fan).

Kreuzberger · **Posted:** Sat Aug 25, 2012 6:17 pm

That gross revenue of 320m stacks up assuming every household has a full-cost licence, there are no costs in administering that and that Pacific Quay is bought and paid for (I dunno either way). But only just. We also need to take in to account the higher per capita costs of broadcast transmission in Scotland owing to the topography of the place.

Anyway. BBC Scotland's budget certainly isn't covering all the programs on BBC TV channels and I seriously doubt that even a third of all impacts are being generated by Scottish funded programming, Sure, they contribute odds and sods to the network such as half a dozen Panoramas - Panaramae? - and the odd QT but these are small beer in the wider scheme of things.

I wish I had the raw numbers to hand but I don't think we're too wide of the mark if we assume that two-thirds of their money is generating three-quarters of their impacts.

As far as the wireless is concerned, Radio Scotland and the Gaels barely scrape 10 percentage points of the BBC's +/- 45% of the total audience. So that's utter pish as well.

Technically then, this suggests a subsidy and Wee Fat Eck is right to contend that an independent Scotland is in danger of having a poorer public sector provision.

What he fails to understand is that you can't simply take that 200m that goes to network and then fund a Scots alternative version of everything else that the BBC currently does on a budget of 1.9bn. Unless he knows something different about Scottish audiences and is keeping it a secret.

Abernathy · **Posted:** Thu Aug 30, 2012 4:35 pm

Very good piece from Steve Richards in the Indie that certainly gives you food for thought:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/steve-richards/steve-richards-the-stakes-are-unbearably-high-for-salmond-and-cameron-8092590.html

Bones McCoy · **Joined:** Mon Aug 16, 2010 9:08 am **Posts:** 7340

oboogie wrote:

The Mark Thomas Manifesto (Radio 4) tonight from Glasgow considered Scottish independence. This led to him musing on what the remaining countries would be called, "The Dis-United Kingdom or DUK? or maybe The Former United Kingdom?" :lol:

I understand that only England and Scotland are Kingdoms, Wales I know is a principality.
I'm not sure what Northern Ireland is - not for lack of caring, just that asking the question of the wrong person is liable to end messily.

If I'm right and there are only 2 kingdoms, then someting like England and Pals, or the English Empire seems most appropriate.

Killer Whale · **Posted:** Thu Aug 30, 2012 9:46 pm

Bones McCoy wrote:

Wales I know is a principality.

Highly contentious. Many would disagree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tywysog
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality
http://www.english.leannewood.plaidcymr ... -official/
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales ... -30160843/

etc.

new puritan · **Posted:** Wed Sep 26, 2012 12:36 pm

Looks like Johann Lamont's dropped a bollock. Be interesting to see how this plays out during the rest of the independence campaign, and in the Westminster polls.

Quote:

At the last Scottish Parliament election in 2011, Labour pledged not to reverse popular SNP policies such as free university education, free NHS prescriptions and the council tax freeze. But in a speech in Edinburgh yesterday, Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont signalled a change of direction, declaring that Scotland could not be "the only something for nothing country in the world" and calling into question the future of those benefits.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/stagg ... snps-hands

Scottish independence

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