Scotland YES or NO

Did I hear correctly on television someone saying that should it be a "yes" the result does not mean that DC has to act on it or am I mishearing or possibly dreaming?

Change , not chance,

Yes, it should have been more than a first-past-the-post majority. To chance the constitution of any orgsnisation, it usually takes a quite high percentage of the votes from a high proportion of active voters that is needed. Anything else leads to uncertainty about the outcome.

jess 60% sounds much more sensible to me.

Should read "recounts"!

My understanding is that one vote will be enough (but I suspect there would be many rcounts!)

What happens if it is a dead heat, or just a tiny % either way?

Good post JessM. I think it should have been more than 60% in fact more like 75% needed to vote YES to achieve independence.
Allowing 16 year olds to vote, madness.
If it happens, nobody knows how well [or ill] Scotland will do in the future.
I have always thought they will vote NO in the end, and if they do will get the devo max they always wanted.
I think Scottish people have to vote with their hearts over this issue [not anti-English sentiment or worries about the economy.]
Either way, not long to go now thank goodness.

A very good summary,*JessM*.

I fear it could be a sad day for the UK and an even sadder one for Scotland if the YES vote prevails. I think a YES vote is going to be largely a vote with the "heart" and the arguments put by the NO camp have, inevitably been directed at the "head". As far as I can see the YES camp refuse to admit that there is even a scintilla of risk - it is all going to be rose-tinted-tartan affluence from now on.
Yes they will get oil revenues (which fluctuate wildly from year to year according to the price of oil, which is of course fixed by Saudi) but they will lose the billions that currently come from central UK funds.
Whoever is in power in Westminster will be looking to their own voters in the next few years, not looking to keep Scottish voters happy. They will not be bending over backwards to help Scotland have a soft landing when it has created such a hugely difficult complex, expensive mess - unpicking the two systems.
Scotland may not be welcome in the EU because of the message it sends to regions in other nations.
Scotland will have about as much say on the world stage and in Europe as the Irish do now, probably less, as they will have not track record of running their own affairs. Their financial security in the eyes of the world will, initially, be on a par with post-crash Iceland.
It will be a sad day in particular for the rest of the UK of the YES side win, because we may well be condemned to right wing governments for ever. We'll really thank the Scots for that.
Cameron will go down in history as the idiotic prat who agreed that Scotland could vote for such a huge, irrevocable, constitutional change on the basis of a simple majority. If he had a crumb of sense he would have stuck out for at least 60%. But the Tories do stand to gain as a party in theory so perhaps that is why he made such an agreement.

Like Soutra I've been amazed over the last 12 months at how little airtime this issue has received until suddenly the media (London-based of course) have woken up to it, along with the political class. If any proof were needed of how the Establishment and the media are hand in glove, this would be it.

Personally as an English woman I am outraged that I am denied a say in whether or not my country gets broken up, while 16-year-olds in Scotland have been given a vote. Just thinking about it makes me feel slightly ill. And the rhetoric of the Scots being sick of Westminster is a bit queasy-making too. Living in the West Midlands we have plenty of evidence that London is just sucking us all dry. I feel betrayed by the Labour Party, that I've supported all my life, because they abandoned regionalism in England to buy votes above the border. And hasn't it just blown up in their faces!

If I were a Scot I think I would probably be voting yes. I can understand the wish to stick the finger up at Westminster. But I'm not a Scot. At the moment we are all citizens of the United Kingdom. But the UK won't be smaller if Scotland has independence. The UK won't exist any more, because fundamentally it is a union of the two kingdoms of Scotland and England. I fear we will all lose immeasurably.

Good to be able to see the points of view of both sides, Elegran

Considering that my postal vote (sent off a few weeks ago) was a "No", and that I am not a born Scot, I seem to post a lot in defence/support of the Scots, and in understanding of where the "Yes" supporters are coming from.

Tommy Sheridan represents his own massive ego, nothing else. Rants are his speciality.

We should bother if they do go, because a thriving financial sector is a good magnet for other businesses and services. Money is one of the things which can be dealt with despite the distance between customer and agent. No need to transport it in containers to ports and airfields and convey it along roads, wearing out the road surface, using up energy and causing pollution. The same with insurances, legal services, and so on.

The old heavy industries are no more, the ones that replace them are the electronic ones and producing lighter consumer goods and food, and servicing all the transfers of money to pay for them.

Just witnessed an anti-UK rant on Andrew Neil Politics Today by somebody called Tommy Sheridan. If he represents the 'yes' supporters heaven help Scotland!

Forgot to say, why should we be bothered about what the RBS says, and the other financial institutions?
Once they stop paying each other enormous salaries and bonuses, and make reparation for the mess they got both countries into, then perhaps we should listen.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/09/yes-vote-in-scotland-most-dangerous-thing-of-all-hope

Sorry, Granny23, it's from a mainstream paper, but he does support you.
I like his analysis.

Salmond seems to say a lot- talk is, after all, cheap- but I cant believe that he or anyone in Scotland will find wounds to be instantly healed. Short of a landslide there will be colossal negativity towards which ever side "wins". papaoscar is absolutely right

What I have learnt through life is I needed the help and support of my colleagues whatever their heritage or place of birth to get the job done and when we stopped feeling sorry for ourselves and worked as a team we achieved success. This is a small island and has to be governed as a whole not in small break away groups; the fault line of democracy is that we have elections and politicians offer us goodies to persuade us to give them our vote, the result is both we and them get it wrong so often because what we think we want is seldom that which will bring greatest common offordable benefit to all. It requires a more balanced and careful approach. If the Scots think that independence will bring them a land flowing with milk and honey they are in for a nasty shock. Reality will be more of the same only the management has changed and not for the better and this time there will be NO going back!

Saw Messrs. Salmond and Darling on the Marr show this morning and admired their stamina. Battle lines have now been well established and opinions formed. Salmond seems to think that the day after a 'yes' result wounds will be instantly healed and that the race for separation will begin with goodwill on all sides. Darling pointed that resolution of all the uncertainties will, at best, take time and lead to a period (maybe quite a long one) of very serious financial instability. And goodwill will certainly be in very short supply, certainly on the English and 'no' side. In the meantime the fog of statistics and dodgy 'facts' is confusing everybody. Glad when its all over.

No financial Institutions are threatening to leave Scotland - all they are doing is announcing contingency plans in the event of a YES vote. EU rules state that the registered office of a company should be in the country where it does most of its business. For a UK wide business it is inevitable that they will have more customers in 10x larger England than they do in Scotland. Ergo, the companies will have to have a registered office (which is a simple formal document + a brass plate on the wall of the designated building) in England. These financial institutions already have, of necessity London offices, s it will take half an hour and a screwdriver to conform to this regulation. All the banks have, in their statements and calming letters to their employees, stated that the skilled workforce and existing head offices will stay in Scotland, except for Standard Life who have 'form' having said they would leave Scotland in the event of devolution pre both Devolution Referenda and did no such thing when the Scottish Parliament was established.
Please people, Google these things from the horses mouth, i.e. go to the web site of the Company issuing the statement and read it for yourself, not through the filter of the unionist BBC or the main stream press, who are all attempting to fool us into a NO vote.

The position of RBS is interesting. They have made no profit for the last 3 years and have therefor paid no Tax (nor dividends). They continue to repay the bail out loans due to the UK Treasury. In the event of an iScotland they would be obliged to continue repaying the debt - 91% to the UK and 9% to the iScotland Treasuries.

HTH

Why have so many Scottish financial institutions got there knickers in such a twist they are threatening to pull out of the country?

If the RBS etc stayed in an independent Scotland , would the remains of the UK get back the money the bank of England payed to bail them out?

Great links Granny23,as you say the BBC focusing on only one march in Edinburgh rather than covering all marches taking place around the country.I am quite angry at the bias towards the NO being shown by the Daily Record in Central Scotland seems like they have taken it upon themselves to try to scare the population into a NO vote.

"For many companies, VAT and Corporation tax for the whole of UK operations are paid at company headquarters which is most often in London or the South East of England. It doesn’t count as Scottish revenue, despite the fact it’s a tax paid on sales / profit generated in Scotland. Put simply, if you buy a packet of Walkers shortbread in Tesco in Edinburgh, the VAT you pay is taken to be generated at Tesco’s head office in Hertfordshire.
There are other ways in which Scottish revenues are invisible in GERS. Much of the alcohol duty paid by the whisky industry is not counted as revenue from Scotland. Alcohol produced in the UK which is exported abroad becomes subject to UK alcohol duty at the point of export, and a large proportion of Scotland’s multibillion whisky exports gets shipped out from ports in England. The UK Treasury counts the duty levied on this whisky as income from the tax region in which the port is situated".
www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0041/00415871.pdf
www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0041/00418420.pdf