tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8637840.post3380482944386564523..comments2023-10-06T03:58:04.867+01:00Comments on Shuggy's Blog: The long and boring road to referendum 2014Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8637840.post-88712457177559542222012-10-20T21:24:57.087+01:002012-10-20T21:24:57.087+01:00I'd add
6. We still won't know exactly wh...I'd add<br /><br /><b>6. We still won't know exactly what independence means and therefore what we're being asked to vote for.</b><br /><br />To some extent, this is unavoidable. The exact terms will have to be negotiated between the Scottish Govt and the UK one.<br /><br />Things like border controls between Scotland and the rump UK will - SNP fantasies aside - need to be agreed by both governments. For instance, have the SNP any strategy in place for dealing with situations like the UK saying "OK, you can have movement across the border without passport controls as long as we can rent Faslane as a base for our nuclear-armed subs"?<br /><br />But there are also things which just don't seem to be getting discussed at the moment and, unless the parties move beyond mere assertion and counter-assertion, or the Scottish media gets its act together, might well never be discussed before the referendum.<br /><br />For instance:<br />1. There's been some talk about the future of the BBC, but nobody's yet mentioned that the southern third of Scotland doesn't get STV or Grampian, but gets Border TV based in Carlisle. How do you ensure that they get decent local and Scottish coverage on what will then be a foreign-based ITV channel?<br />2. One of the issues thrown up by the Leveson Inquiry was the unhealthily close personal connections between the press and some politicians. How do you ensure that something similar doesn't happen in an independent Scotland, given that the country's a lot smaller and that plenty of MSPs (in all parties) are either ex-journalists or have partners who are journalists?<br /><br />I'm afraid that such issues simply aren't going to be addressed. We need definitive information, but for the next two years we're just going to be deived by unsubstantiated claim and counter-claim and the same handful of talking heads saying the same thing over and over again.Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00852635826749548780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8637840.post-45608133410879278862012-10-18T08:00:57.117+01:002012-10-18T08:00:57.117+01:00Your last point is key, sadly (for anyone who has ...Your last point is key, sadly (for anyone who has to live up there over the next two years). If Yes wins, it will rapidly turn out to have been "Yes, we do want to initiate a process of discussing how and when to hold consultations about negotiating an entirely new relationship between Edinburgh and London", which will take years to resolve - and in that time the word 'independence' will either fade away or become meaningless through over-use (knowing Salmond I'd bet on the latter).<br /><br />And if No wins, well, Holyrood is there, and it wants a bit more power. And it always will, irrespective of the fortunes of the current administration - if the Tories had a majority Holyrood would want a bit more power. Institutional self-interest is pushing towards something like "devo max", and that's a much more powerful dynamic than political rhetoric. There won't be an option for <b>less</b> devolution on the ballot paper, after all.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07009879034507926661noreply@blogger.com