Yeah but if any of them have a chance it's England, England's got the economic powerhouse that is London.

At least until the EU crushes it as punishment for Mr. Camerons impertinence

I think L_U might have been being sarcastic .

Scottish independence: Wales and Northern Ireland make unity plea

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012 ... rn-ireland

You have to admit, Salmond's currently playing a blinder...

Only a yes/no option should be allowed.

If the Scots just want devo-max then, as has been said, all of the UK should vote on that as it involves all of us as they will still be part of the UK.

They're currently looking at a 3 question referendum which is just blindingly bollox thinking.

Read the paper today. Bloody salmond think he should get most of the oil/gas revenue (even some from English oil fields) and almost none of the national debt. [LIFTED]!

Well that's how geography works, and combined with a much smaller population, yes.
Which is why they probably think it's a good idea.

Well I think it's a good idea that Alex Salmond should go [LIFTED] himself!

So the Scots should take on a higher per capita debt than England?

No, they should take on the same debt per citizen as the rest of the UK. Salmond seems to think we should sub them.

Oh last I heard it was to be an even spread.

I think after all my ranting at Salmond, I should point out that I have no issues with the Scots getting independence if they want it. I just don't think the rest of the UK should have to subsidise them if they do.

Just had a look at the figures to try and figure out what the actual situation is.

Per head, if Scotland were to gain independence and absorb it's 'share' of the debt' that means they'd have something around £100billion of debt - yes, the UK has a national debt of just over £1trillion. The interest on that slice would be roughly £16b per annum. So ScotGov would have to earn £16b in revenue before it could even use a single penny for expenditure. The HMRC's figures for total government income from oil production in the whole UK, as of 2009, was £12b. Scotland's public sector expenditure in 2009 was £60m. That doesn't include any expenditure by the UK government in Scotland, for which unfortunately there are no easily available separate figures. If you take a rough guess, (using the same roughly 10% proportion) it's probably another £60b (I'm being generous, in 2009 UKGOv spent roughly £650b all in and the UK spends a higher amount per person in Scotland than in the rest of the UK).The same calculation for income suggests an income of roughly £50b (again being generous - scotland does not account for 10% of the gross income of the UK). So if you just said Scotland gets 10% of everything, they'd be losing at least £14b a year, even if they get to keep all the oil revenue. And oil revenue has actually been declining at a fearsome rate.

They can have the oil. Really. Even with it as it stands, they'll default within ten years and then we can get it back when we bail them out. The only chance Scotland has of surviving as a separate state is if they get to keep all the oil revenue and don't have to keep any of the debt. If they can do that, they're roughly £4b a year in the black, so they in reality will probably just about break even.

No wonder Salmond is so keen on only Scots having a say in the independence referendum. Unless he gets a deal there's no way the rest of the UK will give him if they get any say in it, he'll go down in history as the man who ruined Scotland.

Jon

When we bail them out? What makes them think we'll take them back once they've left?

Because we're decent human beings?