Am I the only one who thinks it is sad that the saviour of Scotland is a slime ball that I had to tell off on a golf course?
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I think you’re confused about what National Debt is. It is effectively an exceptionally secure savings account paying an extremely modest rate of interest that the government offers to exceptionally cash rich organisations so they can safely deposit their funds without going through a less secure middle man such as a commercial bank. The government can clear as much or as little of the national debt as they want at any moment at the wave of a pen. It is absolutely nothing like the debt you or I owe and the size of it is basically an irrelevance.
Who is a slime ball?
He’s talking about Donald Trump.
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Nope, just looking to point out context…debt, deficit, is all relative. Sure the poisoned little dwarf is not getting her sums right, but maybe look at the UK economy before using this as a stick…
PS. I am fully aware of what ‘national debt’ is so don’t be such a patronising cunt and if you want to join in, answer the point…
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As slimey as a Salmon
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Did you know that raised hormonal levels in certain ocean currents has resulted in male salmons trying to fuck sturgeons? Its not a pretty sight. 
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Different things. You can have debt but not have a deficit, meaning you can pay that debt back.
A fundamental and ongoing deficit situation is a sign that the current people in charge don’t have their shit together. Nicola said this was a blip. She’s talking shite. She is spending more than anyone else in the UK per head of population and the outcomes are worse.
What have they got to show for all that cash?
Well your comparison of the National Debt to the size of the NHS budget seems irrelevant to me but if you think it adds context then fine.
I think I agree with both you and with Pap.
I agree with you if what you are saying is that the size of the deficit is not really a big deal in the greater scheme of things. I see no reason why Scotland can’t be a successful independent country.
However Pap is right to point out that the deficit is politically potentially an embarrassment to her. As a neoliberal she may want to use the deficit as an excuse to impose austerity in the future so she can’t admit that running a deficit is a pretty normal state of affairs. Further her voters do not all share her economic ideology. If she were to control it she has two options, she can either impose austerity and piss one tranche of her support off or raise taxes to piss off the other. What Pap’s data shows is that she is trying to have her cake and eat it right now to an extent (the Scottish deficit is higher than the UK deficit at the moment) but should independence go ahead there may need to be a bit of a reckoning to bring that back in to line which her supporters may not realise (that’s assuming whatever the deficit ends up being isn’t sustainable).
Incidentally Craig Murray thinks he has part of the solution to this problem:
These figures [deficit figures] are based on a geographical allocation of oil revenue – but that geographical allocation is based on New Labour’s incredible gerrymandered 1999 England/Scotland maritime border which gives eight major Scottish oil fields to England, including two North of Dundee.
On a realistic maritime boundary, which an independent Scotland would undoubtedly win from the International Court of Justice, Scotland would actually have a budget surplus of £1.9 billion.
Keep in mind his figures are from 8 years ago.
Some more time trawling. SNP obfuscation really isn’t a new thing, and it is very obvious from this video that Salmond taught Sturgeon everything she knows on the subject.
It’s another case of withholding information from the Scottish Law Office.
Report out today which says that it’ll take a decade for an independent Scotland to get into the EU.
Not being a part of the EU super-state is one of Scotland’s biggest reasons for justifying a second independence referendum within a dog year generation.
I’d say that justification has just gone out of the window.
And if they do join the EU imagine the sh#t that will go down over the England/Scotland border
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This is Sotonians. There’s no fucking swear filter 
But you’re correct. Scotland would be Brussels’ back-door bully boys and the SNP would be wilfully complicit in attempts to fuck us over.
I rather think they’d do well to learn the lessons from Varadkar, who spend so long as Brussels’ yapping dog that I fear the poor fellow no longer knows how to do anything else.
He ended up losing the Taoiseach post, and the moment it was convenient for the EU Commission to fuck over the Republic of Ireland, it did.
There was an article in The Telegraph Business section a couple of days ago that modelled various scenarios. Joining the EU and having high border tariffs came out as cutting Scotland’s income by 7.5% per capita. Low border tariffs was 6.3% cut.
They’re not living within their means as it is. Worst budget deficit budget in Europe, arguably just spending their way to power on the never never (referendum).
And stated SNP policy is to reduce dependence on fossil fuels i.e North Sea Oil so they will be cutting their own throats with that.
The Pied Piper of the SNP, perhaps never looking less comfortable.
A whole forest of magic money trees
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I’m all for self-determination when there is a compelling reason to do so. It’s one of the reasons I voted Leave. I’m also not in principle against Scotland doing its own thing, for the reasons outlined above.
The thing is, they’ve historically had a much better case for independence than they do now. “Too many decisions made at Westminster” rings somewhat hollow after devolution.
I still think devolution was badly implemented. It was a set of half-measures and the Blair government never had the political will to create an English Parliament.
That said, it also might have been an unwitting masterstroke in saving the Union. The SNP can’t say that everything is the fault of the English because they have so much autonomy over important policy areas.
It’s unwitting because I don’t think the architects of devolution ever thought Labour were going to get wiped out in Scotland, and the Union has had a great deal of unintended help from the SNP.
They get more money per head of population than England, spend even more than that and yet, their health service is worse, their education is worse (despite no tuition fees) and that is the same for every area of policy they’ve had autonomy over.
The SNP might have a better chance of independence if had bothered governing. Instead, it’s just agitated for independence instead and pursued this policy deliberately to buy their own voters and piss off the English enough so we say “fair enough, fuck off then”.
