Just Saying...

The issue of Scotland's oil fully came to light during the 2014 Independence referendum. We were told that the drop in the oil price would bankrupt Scotland and that the changing price "makes the case for the United Kingdom" with North Sea Oil better off under the "broad shoulders" of the UK" according to David Cameron (more on that later).

For this simple demonstration let's look at an oil revenue of £100m rather than the price per barrel. The UK has a population of around 63m while Scotland has a population of around 5.4m

The table below shows how much an oil revenue of £100m is worth per person in the UK.

United Kingdom "broad shoulders"
Population	Revenue	Per Person
63m	£100m	£1.58

The table below shows how much an oil revenue of £100m is worth per person in an independent Scotland..

Independent Scotland
Population	Revenue	Per Person
5.4m	£100m	£18.51

Oil revenue worth £18.51 per person in an independent Scotland as opposed £1.58 per person as part of the UK. That's a pretty impressive figure. The oil price would have to fall by over 93.75% before Scotland would start to be worse off than if we were in the Union.

Some context is needed here.
In 2008 oil hit a high of $145 per barrel and fell to $35 per barrel, a drop of 75%. Our £100m revenue example now drops by 75%
Oil revenue in the UK would now be worth only £0.39 per person.
Oil revenue in an independent Scotland would now be worth £4.62 per person, still way higher than the £1.58 it was worth before the drop in prices.

More context if you need it.
The price of oil fell by 44% in 2014. This is the big fall they said would have bankrupt Scotland but somehow didn't bankrupt the UK. Our £100m revenue example now drops by 44%.
Oil revenue in the UK would have been worth £0.88 per person.
Oil revenue in an independent Scotland would have been worth £10.36 per person.

Now back to David Cameron. Here's a video of David Cameron before the EU referendum in 2016 explaining how Norway is happy as "they have the same amount of oil as we do but only 4m people rather than 60m people so that makes a differrence".

So the next time you are told that a fall in the oil price would bankrupt Scotland, you know what to say.

Andy

A different spin on Scotlands' deficit

What is the UK deficit?
The UK deificit is the difference between how much the UK earns and how much it spends,

As the UK is supposed to be a union of equals, stronger together, where the resources are pooled together for the greater good, why then does Scotland get singled out when it comes to the deficit?

Let's work out where Scotlands deficit figure comes from.

The figures below are based on UK Government deficit figures. Devolved Parliaments are NOT allowed to run a deficit as part of the devolution settlement. The Scottish Parliament was given borrowing powers in 2016 but MUST balance the books at the end of every year. First let's look at population.

Population Figures (2018)

As a Union of equals, all debts and assets are supposed to be distributed evenly. Based on that principle, here's what the figures should look like.

UK Deficit : £25,500,000,000 (£384 per person)

The above figures shows everyone has been given a fair and equal share of the deficit. This is how a union of equals is supposed to work, with one big pot that gets shared depending on need, not location. However... in 2018 The UK Government said that Scotlands deficit was £13,400,000,000 or £1,088 per person. This means Scotlands share of the deficit is 53.1% but wait... Scotland is only 8.2% of the UK population.

What the UK Government expects us to believe (% share)

Example 1.
Let's remove Scotlands proper share of the deficit £2,088,230,400 (based on equal share per person) and let's remove our population as well, 5,438,100 (8.2%).

The rUK Deficit is now £23,411,769,600 with a population of 60,997,450. rUK Deficit Per Person : £384

Example 2.
So let's proceed with the £13.4bn (53.1%) lie. The UK excluding Scotlands £13.4bn Deficit and population would look like this.

rUK Deficit would be £12,100,000,000 with a population of 60,997,450. rUK Deficit Per Person: £198

Summary
If you exclude Scotland from the equation by removing Scotlands £13.4bn and 5.4m people or by removing our equal share of 8.2% then you can see that no matter how you dress it up, without Scotland, England is responsible for 92% of rUK deficit and with Scotland around 84% should be allocated to England. That's something you don't see on the news, do you? If you really think Scotlands share of the deficit is 53.1% of the UK as a whole then you really are a special kind of stupid.

The best way to deal with the deficit question is to politely accept their figures and then ask the following question.

Assuming your figures are correct and the UK spent £73bn on Scotland including the £30bn they gave us back from the £60bn we sent down to Westminster (leaving us with the 13bn deficit), what have the UK Government spent £43bn on in Scotland?

If they question this then just ask what Westminster has specifically spent £13bn on in Scotland as this is directly attributable to Scotland.

The deficit as described by Westminster is a myth. Smoke and mirrors to gaslight us into thinking we need them to survive.

Andy

Thanks to YES Scotland's Future for sharing my original post, I never expected such detailed replies. It appears that we all think the same but there seems to be no plan or strategy to get our points across.

I work in retail and talk to loads of folk about politics and independence. Mentioning SNP normally generates the usual "I hate the SNP" or "Sturgeon gets on my tits banging on about independence all the time" We've all had those conversations. Something had to change to engage people more. It took a while to work it out but I couldn't believe how easy the solution was. I simply changed my approach and removed SNP from my conversations.

Where I used to say something like "did you know the SNP froze council tax for 10 years" I now say something like "Did you know that council tax in Scotland was frozen for 10 years between 2007 and 2017 whereas in England it was only frozen for 5 years between 2010 and 2015 AND in Scotland Council tax has only risen between 3% and 6% over the last 11 years whereas in England over the last 5 years it rose by 12% in Newcastle and 38% in Lambeth" This changes the conversation to a proper conversation where they want to know more, no more hating It's really that simple.

So I got to thinking why "Better Together" won. The answer is simple as well, they weren't Tories, Labour, Lib Dem etc, they were "Better Together" whereas the "YES" campaign was either SNP or Alex Salmond but mostly Alex Salmond. He wasn't being grilled by the Tories, Labour, Lib Dems on a daily basis he was grilled by "Better Together" a different face every day vs Alex Salmond except on live debates where it was basically every party vs SNP, he never stood a chance. "YES" never had army of faces to take over so Alex Salmond became the villain. That was the image that was portrayed throughout the campaign and "YES" lost.

This time "YES" has to be "YES", not SNP, not Nicola Sturgeon. It has to be an army of "YES" spokespeople. Eliminate SNP and Nicola Sturgeon as much as we can and "YES" will win. Don't let "Better Together" dictate the agenda. So who are "YES"? I have no idea and neither does anyone else I know . I should know considering how much time I spend talking about it. I could research it but I do have a life as well so if anyone knows, you can comment on here. Either way this is a problem that needs fixed pretty damn quick. It can't be everyone else vs Sturgeon this time.

I read something somewhere about setting up a code of conduct for "YES" pages but I can't find it so if anyone has any info on how that is going then please let us know.

We don't have time to waste so if anyone has any suggestions to add either to the article or this post then please join in.

Another thing to remember we aren't only dealing with Pro Unionists in Scotland. Pro Unionists from the rest of the UK are also getting involved. There are approximately 53 million people in the UK over the age of 16 ( source ) that all have an opinion BUT not a vote. What's my point you may ask? Well "YES" only got 1.6m votes which is pretty impressive considering the amount of voices with opinions and resources to take us on.

Why is this important now you may ask? Well, I have tried to find out more about some of the "personal" pro union pages and their respective websites and found out they have paid to keep registrant details private. There's nothing wrong with that, it's perfectly legal BUT why would you pay to hide your identity for a personal site. (Background info : I am a web developer with over 20 years experience and never once has anyone requested registrant privacy, so for an individual to to do this for a personal site is very odd indeed) Are some of these pages being funded to flood Facebook? who knows but it's something to consider going forward.

Let's find a way to working together so we're ready when the tine finally comes.

WARNING : This post contains language that some readers may find offensive. 

I have recently been researching Facebook groups to find out what the pro unionists are doing to promote the Union and convince YES voters that they are wrong. I wanted to find out why we are better together but what I found wasn't a pretty picture. I followed  4 groups but there wasn't really anything different to separate them from each other. They rehash the same content over and over, flooding your feed if you happen to follow them. Every meme came with barage of abuse and hatred aimed at the SNP and nationalists. The hatred towards Nationalism in Scotland is very real and very ugly. Whatever your views on independence you have to look at facebook pages such as the The UK Union Voice, United Against Separation, Scotland In Union, We Are the 55% etc They all share the same "PRO UK Movement" memes slating the SNP and the nationalists using personal insults, Snazis is one of their favourites. 

The hatred and personal insults are beyond anything I would have expected.
Comparing Nicola Sturgeons Mother to Elton John, ( see post ) 
With no evidence that it was Scottish Nationalists that put up a banner saying "TORY SCUM OUT", this post was doing the rounds.  ( see post )  "the face of extremist nationalist politics in Scotland in 2018. Frankly insulting to the 18,291 people who voted Scottish Conservative in Stirling last June."

Comments included...

• "This is NOT ok in any way. Calling people ‘scum’ is pathetic" 
• "there's no place in Scotland for that kind of people who want to destroy and shame"
• "Appalling low standard of politics!"
• "Freedom of speech is not freedom to insult and intimidate. The lot of them should be arrested and charged."

All valid points but then the haters spoil it all...

• "You can tell by the clothing and that lunatic on the right there all probably on the dole and spend their time smoking cannabis"
• "There’s a village somewhere missing it’s idiots"
• "absolutely brainwashed moronic idiots"
• "lets see jimmy krankie get them arrested for hate crimes"
• " Just proving the point the INBRED SNATZI CULT are the real Scum and Scotlands Shame"
• "Retards!"
• "just a bunch a brain washed deluded sheep shagging trannys!"

Anyone else see the irony in their comments.

On Alex Salmond

• "He’s a cunt"
• "fukin fud"
• "Comrade Alexei Salmondski - a total fuckwit, "

What nice people and still no positive stories as to why we're better together.

Then we get...

• Scots use the British Army to help get NHS workers to hospital during the beast from the east. forgetting the fact that we pay for them and that they were used in England as well. 
• They slate the SNP for using the Green Party to support them, ignoring the fact that the Westminster Conservative Government paid over £1bn to the DUP to prop them up.
• They complain about the repair bill to Bute house, ignoring the massive repair bills to Downing Street, Westminster, Buckingham Palace etc
• They complain that Nicola Sturgeon doesn't pay council tax for Bute House, ignoring the fach that Theresa May doesn't pay council tax on Downing Street.
• They complain that there's too much focus on renewable energy then complain when pollution experts resign as the low emission zones weren't making enough progress.
• They complain Alex Salmond has a show on RT but ignore that Stan Collymore has a show and Sam Delanay regulary has Westminster MPs past and present on his show on RT as well. 
• They complain council Tax is rising in Scotland for the 2nd year in a row, between 3% and 6%  if councils decided to raise them and ignoring the 10 year freeze in Scotland. They also ignore that over a 5 year period in England some councils have increased council tax between 12% and 38% (38% in Lambeth)
• They complain that we don't pay the nurses enough, ignoring the fact they get a better hourly rate in Scotland than they do elsewhere in the UK

The hypocricy is unbelievable.

The list goes on and on. Whenever I asked for figures or sources I was met mostly with silence. They hate nationalism on a Scottish level but love it on a British level. They focus on details so small that it makes your head spin, such as the 0.3 % difference between Scotland and the rest of the UK regarding vacant shops. They don't seem to understand that that some people love independence the same way they love the union.

For the most part the YES pages try to present a more positive outlook. However, they do seem a bit blinkered when it comes to SNP failings but at least they don't resort to constant personal attacks and abuse. That's not to say it's not there, it's just not the norm. Recently though, I've noticed more and more meme type posts that do nothing to further the cause of independence instead they sort of cheapen the argument. The YES campaign must resist the cheap tactics of the Unionists.

A structured approach is what's needed. Join the pro union pages and question their figures but don't join in with the hating. Say your point and move on.  Show figures to prove your point. I've even started asking YES pages to provide sources and figures etc in the hope that when something does get published, it is easy for people to research. It would be an impossible task to expect everyone to to check if what's being said is fake or not. So if you post something please provide sources.  Where you see inacuraces then correct them - here's a great example 

Scotland is a forward thinking, inclusive country with a wealth of natural resources,  we are more than able to stand alone and prosper but we won't get that if we take the same approach as the pro unionist. We need to win with facts. We need to promote our cause, not constantly defend it. The YES movement isn't only the SNP so, when we talk about independence we need to remove the political party aspect. When putting your messages across, replace SNP with "YES Movement" or "YES Scotland". It's a very subtle but powerful change.

We all know how easy it is to get manipulated by word play, marathon to snickers, jif to cif, Thomson to Tui ect, say it enough and the change becomes normal. The weather now refers to South Britain instead of the South of England. In the same breath they then mention Wales as Wales but correct me if I'm wrong but is Wales not in South Britain!!!,  a small but subtle change but very important in the Brexit branding era. Listen out for it. once you hear them mentioning North Britain, South Britain and East Britain you can't unhear it. I haven't heard them say West Britain yet as that one sounds more uncomortable than the others. They still metion Scotland and Wales. Are they now rebranding England as Britain?. Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid here but listen out for it and you'll soon agree.

So, let's do the same. when talking about Independence, stop talking about SNP and start talking YES. Stop talking Britain down and Start talking Scotland up.

Just Saying...

The Tories are promising to build more council houses BUT they can be sold in 10 - 15 years.
 
Right to buy was disgrace that sold everyone short. We now have family homes that are occupied by right to buy pensioners. They needed those houses when they were young and had families and now they deprive other families of the same happiness a good family home can provide.
 
Schools have suffered in those areas as people can't afford to live there and if they can, they can't afford kids as they both have to work just to afford a home.
 
The local economy suffers as smaller households require less resources. Shops close, Less local employment, less income generated for local community causes. Amenities that make areas attractive to families such as libraries, schools, Swimming Pools, playparks community centres etc are forced to close. The very things that made people buy their council houses in the first place have gone and they are stuck with houses that don't have their real selling potential anymore as the area has nothing to offer
 
To sell social housing Is a false economy. Society is fragmented now, communities no longer exist in the way they used to. Families don't live in the same areas anymore yet the government expect families to care for each other as if we all lived around the corner from each other. Grandparents can look after the grandchildren so their children can work and children can care for their elderly parents. Hardly feasable if they live at opposite ends of the city
Meanwhile the government slashes social care budgets and school budgets, all for the short term gain for selling a house. The long term benefits of social housing and real communities have to outweigh the greed of the few.
 
This is not the country people I talk to want to live in
 
Just Saying...

News Source http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39911569