A particularly sickening trick from the BBC a few weeks back raised my blood pressure whilst in hospital and almost finished me off. A French Euro MP was asked for “the French view” on Scottish independence. She said that France would oppose it and the French government takes the view that an independent Scotland would be outside the European Union. I was absolutely astonished that the BBC had managed to find the only French person in the entire world who is against Scottish independence, and that she was telling an outright lie about the position of the French government.
Then I realised who she was – the former research assistant (and rather more) of New Labour minister and criminal invoice forger Denis Macshane. She worked for years in the UK parliament for New Labour, in a Monica Lewinsky kind of way. All of which the BBC hid, presenting her simply as a French Euro MP. There are seventy million French people. How remarkable that the one the BBC chose to give the French view of Scottish independence was a New Labour hack!
Today the news came out that Scotland contributes a net £3.6 billion a year to the UK government finances. Scotland’s fiscal deficit is an extremely respectable 2.6%, compared to 6% for the UK as a whole, or 6.3% for the rest of the UK excluding Scotland.
But even that is not the full story. These 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. Hurray, boys and girls, we are in the black! Remember I was Head of the FCO Maritime Section and I personally was involved in negotiating most of the UK’s maritime boundaries, including with Ireland, France, Denmark and Belgium.)
I know it is hard to believe, but that really is the England/Scotland maritime boundary which the revenue figures in the GERS report are based on. That is why England’s oil revenues are surprisingly high in the report – and Scotland’s surprising low.
But even on that boundary, the GERS report shows beyond any argument that Scotland’s public finances would be much better outside the Union.
Yet this morning the BBC choose to present the report as showing that because Scotland has a fiscal deficit, an independent Scotland would not be viable. Despite the fact that deficit percentage is less than half that of England. Despite the fact that every country in the Western world has a budget deficit.
The BBC have simply become addicted to the Big Lie when it comes to Scottish Independence. Talking of big lies – now they are even wheeling out Blair!
Craig; sorry to be o/t but many are wondering about Jon’s absence.
Also; anyone seem Komodo? I miss the rank odor.
“If I were you I would keep quiet about your oil wealth – you are likely to get invaded by NATO if you are not careful. Preceded, of course, by Obama declaring Scotland has become a hotbed of Al Qaeda activity. And then the drones arrive…”
Al Qaeda in Scotland? I doubt it. They may run rings round the US Marines but they’ll think twice before taking on a Glasgow car park attendant again.
Craig The readers of your blog would rather you didn’t have a heart attack and especially not over anything the Brutish Brainwashing Conspiration says.(thank you Villager).I don’t know Scotland well though I spent 2 happy years in my youth in Dundee. This next is o/t but no-one has posted anything on the Newsnight Iraq charade so here goes.
Letter to: Kirsty Wark @ Newsnight
Mss Wark The numbers of Iraqi dead 1991-2013 is not 100,000 or 650,000 but somwewhere in the region of 2,500,000.This figure combines the 1,000,000 starved to death by the sanctions with the 1,500,000 who died 2003-2013.I do think Hans von Sponeck’s figures are the most trustworthy don’t you?
Even by the B.B.C.’s war mongering standards the program and interview with bliar was a bloody insult to the people of Iraq and the Genocide and torture we inflicted on them.1 hour to encapsulate 10 years of agony. As to our war criminal we were presented with the same slippery evasions and “Rumsfeld speak” unknown unknowns and a barrage of what iffery.Torturing Tony gets madder by the day, it is not just the self justifying cant and the overweening ethnocentric arrogance but the really spooky claim to be a holy warrior purging Islam of Whahabi militants,Whahabism was not mentioned of course as that would have meant opening the whole Saudi connection.Or should I say can of worms? I realise the Establishment is desperate to detoxify the “bliar brand” but unfortunately the only way that can be done is to try him,preferably at Nuremberg,but at The Hague if necessary.I enclose some material and photos of the children of Fallujah. Would you like your grandchildren to be born with these deformities?
yours truly, Michael Culver. P.S. I see Prescott has jumped ship.
I think Habbakuk will do well to remember these very wise words of Scott:
“Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!”
“Pryce guilty: The campaign by vengeful wife and ‘batty’ barrister”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/pryce-guilty-the-campaign-by-vengeful-wife-and-batty-barrister-8524839.html
The emails are quite damning:
“From Vicky Pryce
Sat 12 March, 9:21:20
Also of course would love to have someone link CT (Carina Trimingham) with leaking Eastleigh/Liverpool/licence points info for the press
….Other possibility would be to tell NC (Clegg) or his close associates (having coffee with Miriam this pm) that papers are on to him as CT seems to have leaked it”
She’d previously tried to implicate one of Huhne’s workers and had been caught out on that. In many ways her conspiracy to pervert the course of justice is on an altogether greater scale than that of Chris Huhne himself.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/pryce-guilty-the-emails-between-vicky-pryce-and-sunday-times-reporter-isabel-oakeshott-8524751.html
Habba,
For me any questions concerning the economic viability of an Independent Scotland are bold! 😉
The economic argument is over. If you take as Craig has, the correct size of Scottish oil reserves, Scotland is a massive net contributor to the UK.
—————————
Yes thanks for that MFTAJ(quite a snazzy acronym you’ve got yourself there), is there any subject where you won’t feel the urge to repetitively mention your usual targets, and of course ‘the Jews’? 🙄
Yes, Mary, and the first two mean “full of.”
@ CE (17h23)
1/. re Scotland : well, if the Scots think they’ll be better off out of the Union then they should go for it. They will then see, with the passage of time, whether they’re right or not: if they’re right, then well and good and England/Wales and N. Ireland will just have to live with it; if not, there would, I hope, be no question of them later asking to rejoin the Union. Sounds fair.
2/. re Mary : since Mary never responds to defend herself, I’ll pretend to be one of the other Eminences and say on her behalf : “oh, I’m not against the Jews, just the Zionists”.
“Scotland was allocated a share of that UK deficit, which was added to the nation’s debt balance, on a per-capita basis rather than being related to Scotland’s own finances.”
Well if Scotland goes its separate way under the international laws of succession national debt (and moveable assets) are divided up according to population size. ie on a per capita basis. If you want an example look at what happened when Czechoslovakia split.
Mary writes (16h19)
“I am feeling sorry for Vicky Pryce.
My God, I never thought I’d read words like that from Saint Mary about the wife of anyone she disapproves of.
But remember Mary : truth and justice!
“Well if Scotland goes its separate way under the international laws of succession national debt (and moveable assets) are divided up according to population size. ie on a per capita basis. If you want an example look at what happened when Czechoslovakia split.”
Oh, Kempe, please don’t be a party pooper, don’t spoil the dream!
Re; the posts above which mention possible reactions to an independent Scotland being allowed to (re) join the EU, don’t be too sure that all of the EU member states would be in favour (the decision would need unamity under the present Treaty).
By way of background – 5 EU member states have still not recognised the independence of Kosovo, and Serbia is not even a member of the EU: Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Slovakia and Spain. Work out the reasons for yourselves.
Herbie Peachey of the Independent seems to have the knife out for Pryce. He has written ceaselessly about her and the case.
Huhne told the first lie. She corroborated it, whether unwillingly or willingly. Then years passed until she was spurned for Trimingham. Not surprised she wanted his downfall. Now both are fallen people very much like players in a Greek tragedy.
Two old saws come to mind. ‘Tis a sin to tell a lie’ and ‘Adultery thou shalt not commit, no good comes of it’ or similar.
If Huhne did force her to have an abortion, that is a pain and grief that will live with her for all her life. I do feel sorry for her.
No support forthcoming from senior LDs for either party today apart from a little for Pryce from Hughes.
Could the Inquisitor General please keep his/her opinions about me to himself/herself. I am not accountable to him/her and am in no way obliged to respond to his/her inane questioning.
Kosovo? That is probably because Kosovo is historically part of Serbia. This is Scottish independence we are talking about, not Lancashire independence. Indeed the UK govt have already agreed to abide by te referendum result, so there will be no Kosovo style controversies here.
None of us can know for sure if Scotland will be required to leave the EU or not, but Scotland already fulfils all EU criteria, is already in the EU, and kicking it out would create more problems for the EU than keeping it in, subject to negotiation. On the other hand, Cameron is talking about an in-out referendum for the EU in 2015 that the UKIP think they can win, so it seems clear where the greatest threat to EU membership is coming from.
About that buzzing in the ear some here complain about. There are some posts I just don’t read. Skip down the comments with an eye or two on the left-hand side. When you see a buzz-emitting moniker, scroll it off the top of the screen. Simples!
Fred, loved the al-whatsit comeback, above! LOL.
I havn’t paid a licence fee in years and will continue to not do so.
Every time I get a demand, I send it back with owner overseas for a year scribbled on it..they never check…If I buy a new tv. I just put the sddress of my fathers house down…he is a pensioner and excempt from the licence…it gives me some small satisfaction to mentally shove the tv licence fee up the BBC’s arse !
“Could the Inquisitor General please keep his/her opinions about me to himself/herself.”
‘Itself’, more probably. You’re one of the main sources of information here (outside Craig himself, of course) and one of the reasons I visit. Which is why Habba has been tasked with attacking you. Cold comfort, I know – but it is a compliment, of sorts.
The claimed 1987 border, above, is nothing of the sort. There are two possible borders – one which takes a line perpendicular to the coast at the land border or one which is a continuation of the direction of the land border.
Until we have independence no one can say where the maritime border between Scotland and England lies. That would be settled either by negotiation or arbitration after independence.
@ Craig P (18h36) :
“Kosovo? That is probably because Kosovo is historically part of Serbia.”
I don’t think it is this which has governed the attitude of those 5 EU member states whi have not recognised the independence of Kosovo; their position would have been the same whether Kosovo had been Serbian for 600 years, 300 years or only since 1918. 4 of the 5 EU members I mention are themselves in fact relatively recent creations as presently constituted and this makes them especially sensitive, I’d suggest, to any idea of breakaway. The 5th, Spain, is an older state but has to deal with particularly aggressive separatist movements.
“and kicking it out would create more problems for the EU than keeping it in, subject to negotiation.”
That’s probably true, but you know that acceding to certain legal theories, it wouldn’t actually be a question of kicking out Scotland or of keeping it in; Scotland, being no longer part of an entity which is part of the EU (ie, the UK), would be deemed as having “left” the EU of its own volition, hence the need for application for entry and hence the risk of problems from certain other member states.
Mary, at 18h21, says of me :
“Could the Inquisitor General please keep his/her opinions about me to himself/herself.”
Why the devil should I? You continually bombard this blog with your opinions about people, whether to adulate them (George Galloway, Hugo Chavez…) or, more usually, to damn them, using whatever trick you can find (including guilt by marrriage – example of Claire Perry).
So stop bleating piteously as if you’re a nanny-goat who’s received a mild kick. The sheer viciousness and obsessional nature of most of your posts (example : it’s the Zionists!) would deserve a whack with a good stick rather than the mild kicks I administer.
********
I understand from Vronsky’s post that Mary is one of his “main sources of information”. I suspect he’s just teasing, but if he isn’t – then poor sap!
La vita è bella, life is good (despite Mary)
“How many people in Britain know of that daft maritime boundary? I’d guess there are not many.”
Which maritime boundary? There seems to be more than one.
There is the 1987 boundary which outlines where legal jurisdiction starts and ends and there is the 1999 boundary which outlines fisheries areas I think. There is a map in the legislation which looks somewhat different to the map Craig posted.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/1126/note/made
I printed it off and checked with a pair of compasses and it does appear to conform to the accepted method of every point on the line being equidistant from the nearest point in each country.
I’ve seen nothing in the 1999 act which says it replaces the 1987 act so I assume both stand.
If either of these lines would end up being the EEZ boundary in the event of Scotland becoming independent I wouldn’t like to say.
The reason the line ends up north of Dundee is because Britain does not run north south. Go due south from John O’Groats and you end up in Wales. The part of the coast where the border is is practically NW to SE.
Jon is fine, for those asking, and continuing to do some stuff in the background, taking himself off frontline comments management for a breather.
Frazer however is supposed to be here in Ramsgate drinking whisky with me these last few days but seems to have vanished.
How the Scots fare in and after the 2014 referendum will be a highly informative experience for all those posting here, whether Scots or not. If a No vote appears it will certainly have been forced by the media, most especially the BBC. Most nationalists expect this to lead to a quick removal of powers from Holyrood, perhaps its complete abolition (note the advance of UKIP, for whom this is public policy). It’s impossible to guess what the Scottish reaction to this would be, but there would be one.
If there is a Yes vote then I fear Cryptonym is right – there will be military intervention. First step by Westminster would be to declare that they do not recognise the result (stuff the Section 30), pushing the ball into Salmond’s court. Alex won’t, can’t shrink from UDI. Then you will see at close hand exactly what sort of government you have. Sectarian false-flags à la Omagh will be first up, followed by
tanks on the streeta peace-keeping force.So is there a “Head Office” which oversees this propaganda, how and by whom is it staffed, etc? It is said such an outfit exists within the Pentagon, that concocts the timely “saving the Muslims of Benghazi” type of spin (when it was a CIA organised Al-Qaeda Group that attacked gaddafy right from the onset!) , which then ends up being publicly mouthed by Obomber and Co. The one hour DST difference on 911 they forgot at the Pentagon, was presumably the reason why Helen Boadens then girlfriend read out the note re the premature collapse of WTC7, on the BBC. But the unspoken concerted propaganda sync between the gavin esler types, entirely unscripted or communicated amongst themselves, may only be explained by the Theory of Barracuda?!
Apologies, O/T
A fierce letter sent last Friday from WikiLeaks ‘ambassador’ Joseph Farrell to Jemima Khan in response to her strange attack on Assange in the New Statesman has been leaked to Pastebin:
http://pastebin.com/rrhqvJ5Q
Well, that’s telling her then.
Vronsky,
I normally think you talk a great deal of sense, especially concerning the indy debate, but I fear you misguided here. With doubt the establishment has focused all it’s propaganda efforts to neutralise the Independence movement, but in the result of a YES vote, I feel they would be left with no choice but to accept the democratic will of the Scottish people.
Arbed; I wonder why it always surprises me when I find there is little airspace between the political animals and the greedheads who never tire of exploitation. Jemima was either used, or is a user. Her failure to return JA’s calls could be evidence of a conscience, I suppose.
Why was this letter not in the public domain, like her open letter? (well she has a convenient soapbox). I should think it would be found in Wikileaks or Justice for Assange, at least.
My dear chap…thought you were still swanning around in Switzerland…coming down tomorrow…be there late afternoon….replenish bottles, gird loins, inform Cameron that Uncle Frazer is on the way….
That’s a very good letter, Arbed.
Not only does it demolish the account given by Jemima, but it also demolishes all the propaganda of that type which you see regularly in media. This is why I wasn’t convinced by what Jemima had to say. It accorded too much with the repetitive media narrative and was I suspect written by someone else on the staff of the NS.
It’s great too that it demolishes DAGs effort.
Meanwhile, Wikileaks has more to tell us about what the American terrorists have been up to.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/wikileaks-has-more-us-secrets-assange-says-20130305-2fihd.html
Thanks Craig for once again highlighting this high seas banditry. For those who have not seen it, BBC Alba made a brilliant documentary “Diomhair’ which is now on Youtube (gaelic, with English subtitles). It tells of how for over half a century, UK parties resorted to spying and sabatoge to discredit the SNP, and to sharing a common agenda- stop Scotland from becoming independent. Its time for a re-make methinks.