Scots independence 'inevitable'

Mr Salmond, who had been leader until 2000, was speaking on BBC One's Breakfast with Frost programme two days after he won the SNP's leadership race.

He said he was attracted to making a return to frontline politics because the SNP was under a "team leadership".

Alex Salmond The realistic way towards Scottish independence is to form an administration in the Scottish parliament and ask the people in a democratic referendum whether they would like to move on to Scottish independence Alex Salmond

Mr Salmond, the MP for Banff and Buchan, was elected on Friday when he won more than 75% of the party vote.

His newly elected deputy Nicola Sturgeon will lead the SNP in the Scottish parliament.

He added: "The SNP's had a few knocks. But we're still the second party in Scottish politics. Our task is to become the first party.

"Hopefully, we can make progress at next year's general election and we can win the Scottish elections in 2007.

"The realistic way towards Scottish independence is to form an administration in the Scottish parliament and ask the people in a democratic referendum whether they would like to move on to Scottish independence."

Speaking about the new Holyrood parliament building which cost £431m, he said: "It was the wrong site, the wrong architects, the wrong choice.

"The parliament was misled. If it had been told then what the real costs were and that they were totally out of control then this whole disaster would not have happened."

Mr Salmond also told the programme the "time had come" for a smoking ban in public places.

But the debate remained about whether it would be restricted to places which sold food or extended to cover pubs and bars

The only reason the Brits have not left Northern Ireland is because of the North Sea Oil revenue. They know if they pull out of N. Ireland(a losing proposition)

I'm not quite sure which planet you inhabit, given this post. It's not a case of us pulling out of N.Ireland, the local populace supports the Union (over 65%, and a fairly constant number). With respect, the deep issues at stake w.r.t. N. Irish question have been messed up enbough by ill-informed Americans (foremost President Clinton) in recent years.

the Scots will demand that they give Scotland it's independence too.

The Scots can have independence any time they want to. There is a party dedicated to this objective which contest elections in Scotland, and has got nowhere near to taking power. The Scottish Parliament has the right to call a referendum on independence, it has not done so because it knows full well that most Scots want to keep the Union.

A very expensive proposition for the Crown...

It would affect the Crown not one jot. First, it is very likely that an independent Scotland would keep the monarchy, after all in 1603 the Scottish monarchy was imported to England (King James VI/I on the death of Elizabeth I), so its really more their's than ours.

The "royalty" might have to actually go out and get a job!

I'm not quite sure what this means, other than a mindless, pointless cheap jibe at H.M. the Queen Commander in Chief of both the British and Australian forces fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Monarchy does not get a single penny from North Sea Oil, there is a large levy which flows to H.M. Exchequer (where all taxes go, and whence all government spending flows, nothing to do with the Monarchy). First, this has diminished in recent years and is pretty much meaningless given that annual government spending exceeds £400billion. Secondly, the S.N.P. claim that all of this revenue would 'belong' to Scotland, however all independent analysists dispute this claim. Thirdly, even with N.Sea Oil, we English subsidise the Scots to a vast extent; if they were to jolly off, then in strict fiscal terms we would be much better off, and they worse.

Goodbye Scotland. I will be honestly sorry to see you go. It's a shame. We've fought alongside each other for so long. (vs Napoleon, Hitler, etc).

But just remember: Scotland wasn't annexed or subjugated. We originally formed a Union because we had the same King - your King. Look it up.

And don't be misled by that vision of Endless Oil Bounty. Roughly 7% of Scottish revenue comes from North Sea Oil, Saudi Arabia it isn't.

Nor is it an Alberta to Britain's wheezing Canada. Scotland receives 10.1% of British expenditure while raising just 8.8% of British revenue - a shortfall of 1.3%. Scotland receives £8 billion in subsidies from the UK every year; this means that £8 billion more is received by the Scots than they raise in revenue.

This means that the moment Scotland leaves the Union income-tax in England should come down by four pence in the pound. If Scotland cuts loose there will be a lot of dry eyes down here.

The myth of a subsidised Scotland

'That London should draw the riches and government of the three kingdoms, is in some degree as unnatural, as for one city to possess the riches and government of the world.'

Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, 1707.

£27bn upsets subsidy myth

by Robbie Dunwoodie in the Herald

The Government has been forced to admit that almost £27bn more has been raised in revenues in Scotland than has been spent since the Conservatives came to power.
The figures are calculated under its own most severe interpretation of high public expenditure north of the Border.

A jubilant SNP claimed the admission from Treasury Chief Secretary William Waldegrave in a written parliamentary answer exploded once and for all the myth that Scotland was subsidised.

On these figures, claims the SNP, Scotland would have been in the black with only 70% of North Sea revenues rather then the 90% it says is the entitlement under international law.

The party's Treasury spokesman, Mr John Swinney, said it proved Scottish Ministers had been using fiddled figures, while leader Alex Salmond said: "This whole Tory exercise has been a shameful and deceitful distortion and an abuse of Civil Service resources."

Scottish Tory vice-chairman Annabel Goldie dismissed the figures as a "number crunching fantasy".

Mr Waldegrave attempted to rebuff previous questions from Mr Salmond about Scotland's financial position within the UK last October and November.

He did so not by questioning the SNP's claimed allocation of 90% of North Sea oil and gas revenues and a per capita share of privatisation proceeds but by arguing that Scottish spending was far higher than the UK average.

Mr Salmond persevered, allowed Mr Waldegrave to select his preferred spending figure, and repeated the question. The Government estimate, drawn from Scottish Office figures hotly disputed by the SNP, is 17.9% of the UK deficit: more than double Scotland's population share of 8.8%.

Now Mr Waldegrave's written answer shows that, even using this figure, Scotland's finances between 1978-79 and 1994-95 showed a cumulative surplus of £27.6bn at today's prices, while the UK Government borrowing requirement soared through the 1980s and reached a deficit of more than £330bn (around £477bn at current prices).

Mr Salmond said: "The reality is that Scottish resources have bankrolled the Tory Government since 1979. Scots have been forced to pay for a right-wing and divisive ideology that we have rejected at the ballot box at every opportunity."

Mr Swinney said the overall payment by Scotland into Treasury coffers represented £5400 for every person in Scotland. The SNP also makes the point that Mr Waldegrave's figures of £26.7bn is an absolute balance sheet figure, not a reflection of the cross-border surplus or deficit.

If Scotland's share of the overall cumulative UK deficit is taken out of the equation to show only the relative figure, the SNP says Mr Waldegrave's answer shows that the relative flow from Scotland to the UK is worth £69bn, or £13,800 per capita.

Miss Goldie was scathing: "No amount of number-crunching using fantasy figures disguises the fundamental fact, consistently supported by completely independent and respected economic commentators, that a separate Scotland would have a budget deficit of £8.2 bn.

"Even allowing total credit for all oil revenues a separate Scotland would still be over £6bn in the red. These figures being referred to by the SNP are based on criteria set by Alex Salmond and nobody else. Above all else they are based on Mr Salmond's assumption alone that Scotland would keep virtually all North Sea oil revenues, something which is neither realistic nor credible."

Mr Salmond said that when Mr Forsyth attempted to use the same figures Miss Goldie was now employing, even the Economist magazine rejected them as a distortion. He said Mr Waldegrave's admission made all the more potent the visit today to Scotland by one of his predecessors, Mr Michael Portillo.

"I wonder if he will join his colleague in admitting now, openly and honestly to Scotland that we have more than paid our way and are subsidised by no-one. Quite the reverse: Scotland has subsidised the London Treasury for the entire period of Tory Government, and to a massive extent."

http://www.alba.org.uk/scotching/myth27bn.html

The myth of a subsidised Scotland

Rather than rely on out-dated biased reports, why don't we look at the government data. You may wish to look at the Scottish Office's web-site http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/government/gers04-10.asp. This page gives details of the Scottish taxation receipts (£39.43bn) and expenditures (£31.36bn) or a spending deficit of 10% of G.D.P. (as compared with the U.K. as a whole of 0.6%).

This does exclude the revenues from North Sea Oil. You are very keen on these revenues, but earlier were under the impression that they passed to H.M. the Queen rather than to her exchequer. They totalled £5.2bn., most independent comentators accept that around 70% of these could be considered 'Scottish'.

Thus it is reasonable to assume that including oil revenues the Scottish deficit is £4.4bn or 4.7% of G.D.P.; if all were to be included then the deficit would be £2.86bn. (2.8%). What is most striking about these data is that in all cases, even with all of the oil revenues passing to Scotland, the Scottish deficit is higher than that of the U.K. It follows necessarily and axiomatically, that there is a net flow of funds north of the border.

You may also wish to see Table 3.1 on an earlier page of the report http://www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/government/gers04-05.asp; this gives the simple fact. Spending per head of population in Scotland 119.9% of the U.K. average, whereas in England it is 96.2%.

Having clearled that point, let me re-iterate my position.

If the Scots want their independence, then they can have it. I would prefer that they stay in the Union, it is a delightful country, but this is their choice. However, if they did leave, they would be facing a significant fiscal disadvantage.

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