Here is the latest odds from William Hill
No 1/4
yes 3/1

So that is what the bookies think, the no vote will win easy

You've no need to apoligise to me Gary, you, like me are entitled to an opinion and I can honestly say I agree with a great deal of what you posted.

My main concern is Salmond being unwilling to take on his fair share of the national debt or being selective with the truth to his electorate about the additional income from taxation that will be needed to maintain free prescriptions etc.

Until recently I was all for maintaining the Union and still believe the No vote will prevail but Salmond is one guy I honestly believe is not fit to be First Minister of your fine country.

We'll have a definitive answer come September.

Hi Jim

It is really all turning into smoke and mirrors with the "he says this, she says that, somebody else says something else. All we can do is look at the evidence and believe what we believe.

A yes vote is not a vote for Alec Salmond, elections will be held and we will see what we shall see.

As for the National Debt, the Nationalists will say that we have been paying it from the 1970's. Personally I see no problem in paying off a fair share.

As for extra taxation, if people over the past few decades were more willing to accept a minimal tax increase then maybe would not have all the stealth taxes we have now. When I started work I paying 30% tax, there was no VAT or any of the rip off taxes we have now.

modern people seem to have forgotten that yoo can't get out fir n'owt. So I am happy to pay a higher tax. *This from a Scotsman) :o

Cheers

Gary

Wake me up when all the political wind bags stop strutting around pumped full of funny pills.

Here is potentially another 5000 jobs at risk.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...itics-26364418

The actual statement by standard life can be read here. It's not nearly so dramatic: http://www.standardlife.com/utility/...statement.html

At no point do they say they are pulling out.

Standard and Poor actually gives us a glowing report. http://worldofstuart.excellentconten...iderations.pdf

As to the Currency union, Westminster are playing a very dangerous game here. They either recognise Scotland as a successor state or as a continuing state. They can't have it both ways. I personally think this is deliberate manoevering by the SNP to force Westminster into a corner. They can't go back on a currency union now. Scotland would be quids in without paying their share of the debt, but we will only do that if we get the CU.

I want to make this absolutely clear - Scotland has no obligation to the debt. Westminster has already made it clear that rUK will be solely responsible for it. http://archive.is/k7x0s Offering to send money to the rUK to help them service their debt is only out of goodwill. The currency union is only out of goodwill. The Scottish Government's Fiscal Commission stated that the CU was in the best interests of Scotland and rUK. Not in the pure interests of Scotland. Scottish Sterling would be in Scotland's best interests, according to the Adam Smith Institute.

The CU and foreign aid from Scotland to help service the rUK's national debt is the only option for the rUK or the arse will fall out of Sterling very quickly as financial markets realise that 10% of the population has gone, along with a significant proportion of GDP. I don't want to see that happen so I support a CU with an agreement for Scotland to shoulder her per capita share of the debt. Unfortunately I think the SNP has other ideas as Scotland would be far better off without that huge financial burden in her starting years.

The most sinister thing to come out of the whole wrangling over this affair is that Westminster has stated that if Scotland doesn't negotiate on their terms that they might ignore the democratic will of the people, in contravention of the Edinburgh Agreement and Article 1 paragraph 2 of the Charter of the United Nations. Yet it's barely talked about. How's that for a slap in the face? I'll reference that when it's not so late at night.

Anyhoo, either way, we can do it. I just wish that the media might focus as much on the positives as it does on the negatives. I'm hoping for a Yes and that Scotland might upset the Westminster applecart badly enough for rUK to wake up and kick the three Tory parties and their City cohorts out once and for all.

Above all, and politics aside, visiting sassanachs can still expect a warm welcome, hot food, good craic, a nice bed to sleep in and to be sent home entirely devoid of sobriety but with a strange sense of longing. (Unless they are David Cameron & co). As to the ones that stay here - why do you think they stay here? It's a better quality of life. I can say that as someone who's lived both north and south of the border. I'm optimistic that the English immigrant vote will be quite highly in favour of independence. It's their country too now.

Tonight's big bout is...

Salmond Vs Cameron

More like Tom and Jerry.

More like Pinky and Perky: two pigs at the trough

One eating pies the other eating money.

:haha:

There's an Englishman, an Irishman and a Welshman...

It used to be a Scotsman, but he wants to go it alone so sod him.

One very crude and the other full of gas.

Oh we'll still be there. We're not going to set adrift and sail to the middle of the Atlantic:rotfl2: Just doing it our own way :up: Mind we are already a country in our own right, just with a (supposed) unified parliament. Always have been. ATM we are just voting on whether that agreement is what we want. I won't mention the stuff that's been done to us - you have an internet for that. Still, you won't find much on there about ethnic cleansing in Scotland, I suppose.

Anyway, the English and Welsh should be happy if Scotland goes independent: for the first time in a very long time you can go on holiday abroad by car and drink decent beer while you're there:03: