Re: Scottish Referendum.

as a Scotsman living in England, I was asked by a fellow forum member, would I vote for independence?............which brings me to the part as a Scotsman living in England I do not get a vote, but if I were an Englishman living in Scotland I do.........lol.......but there you go that is the rules ......que sara...............but back to my answer would I if I were living in Scotland vote .....Yes.....or.....No.........well I would vote no.............a bit selfish as my family are all English, and I have come to love my adopted country, and more importantly Oldhamers (yonners), who are the salt of the earth..........I understand all the pros and cons..........we are a passionate, and very, very patriotic country..........I wish them all the best, no matter what they decide, because there is one thing that is for certain.........we will be coming out the other side playing the "Bagpipes"..........good luck my fellow countrymen which ever way it goes...........H

Re: Scottish Referendum.

I'm not politically minded at all, but thought I'd just pop in and say how proud I am of Scotland. It's absolutely beautiful and I never stop admiring it, even although I was born here. I can get a lump in my throat at the scenery.

Re: Scottish Referendum.

I'm an Englishman who has lived in Scotland for nearly forty years and, in my view, there are too many unanswered questions about independence to,allow me to vote other than a resounding 'NO'. Not that making my vote resound is an option.
The campaign has been riddled with argument about membership of the European Union, the nature of our currency, the administration of currently centralised agencies such as Border Control AND Driver and Vehicle Licensing, Defence and so on. With all these uncertainties, how can we vote 'Yes' with confidence?

Re: Scottish Referendum.

George, you may know more about this than I do, but I thought the lender of last resort was the Bank of England, so if Scotland becomes a totaly independant country how is it possible for the BoE to guarantee the currency. It would be exactly the same as if Argentina wanted to use the pound sterling and wanted the BoE to be the lender of last resort.

I'm sure you've seen the headlines ref. Argentina recently.

I have a fairly large lump sum in The Scottish Investment Trust (Established in 1874 and has increased it's payouts every year for the last 40 odd years) if they suddenly start sending me statements in Scottish pounds and the exchange rate goes against those Scottish pounds I will be getting less than I am now.

Sorry but I couldn't live with that and I will pull my money out and re-invest it in British Land or some other London based fund.

I don't have a problem with Scotland getting more devolution on things which are clearly local to Scotland, there could be many things which would fall into this category. But not the pound, taxes, defence, foreign policy.

Re: Scottish Referendum.

And how would you feel if you saw an item in an English shop with a price ticket of £10 and you offered your ten Scottish pound note and the manager said "Sorry the exchange rate today is £1=Scot£0.9 you would then have to hand over your Scottish tenner and a further 10 Scottish pennies or whatever your central bank decides to call them (Haggis has a nice ring to it)

100 Hagis = 1 Scot Pound = 0.9 pound sterling

Re: Scottish Referendum.

I would feel exactly the same as You would if You saw an item in a Scottish shop with a price ticket of £10 and You offered Your ten English pound note and the manager said "sorry the exchange rate Today is £1=English£0.9",You would then have to hand over Your English tenner and a further 10 English pennies..

Re: Scottish Referendum.

Won't happen, you know it won't happen, would take too long to explain but basically a countries currency 'strength' is tied to a number of things like interest rates, reserves, GDP, etc.

At the moment your Scottish pound is accepted at par with an English pound only because of the BoE is acting as lender of last resort. Sorry to say but being a much smaller economy the Scottish pound would quickly drop vis-a-vis the UK pound. Of course Salmond could increase interest rates to 5% or more, that might make the Scottish pound stronger and as you say I would have to fork out an extra ten pence when buying a ten pound item in Scotland.

But would you be happy with interest rates at 5% when we in England were still on 0.5%

Re: Scottish Referendum.

Makes no difference if Mr Salmond hasn't thought it through, his place in the history books is assured.

Re: Scottish Referendum.

We can talk about it on here until the cows come Home...but We won't know until We know....And as always MY vote will be for Me and Me alone to know

Re: Scottish Referendum.

Yes, absolutely, win or loose his name will be taught in schools for hundreds of years, just like Robert the Bruce.

And don't forget 'the book' bound to be one of those comming out around December I would guess (Catch the Xmas pressie trade )

And the lecture circuit in America $1000 for about 45 minutes of talk, nice work if you can get it

Oh yes, a 'canny' Scot if ever I saw one

ETA:-
I suspect he's written two books already
a) If he wins "How I took Scotland to true independance"
b) If he looses "How the English snatched our independance away"