Thinker

Given that the report which (as you say) "many UK Nats use to support their claim that Scotland can't financially support itself" is produced by the Scottish Government, what's your take on the figures? Do they support the claim that Scotland can't financially support itself?

https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Economy/GERS Check the above link (the Scottish Government website) and read who produces GERS.

Well, with regards to Scotland's Fiscal Autonomy it's been down far more often than it's been up. FFA would only have resulted in more wealth for Scotland for a few very brief periods when oil prices were at their highest. No it isn't. An independent Scotland would rely on oil for a much larger proportion of its GDP. (As Craig just said).

How much of a future do you see in fossil fuels? Do you hope to see atmospheric carbon and plastic production increase in the future, or decrease? If it's decrease, why would you wish to base a large chunk of Scotland's economy on oil?

The point is that, when oil was booming, Full Fiscal Autonomy was pushed for by the pro-independence camp as it would allow the Scottish Government to demonstrate how great an independent Scotland's finances would be - It would have been used as economic support for independence even though, as it transpired, the benefit hinged on a volatile source of income which has since fallen away. Now that things in the North Sea aren't so rosy, you don't hear about it so much. A trial run of Fiscal Autonomy as a prelude to independence is no longer desirable as it would do nothing but cast doubt on post-independence prosperity.

Given the current situation where incidents are either emphasised or down-played (by politicians and the media) depending on the club involved - what are the chances of SL being fairly enforced?

I'd be quite happy if those 7 fucked off and left UEFA competitions to clubs that are supported by actual fan-power rather than oligarchs and grotesquely inflated TV deals.

I know! The way they treated that poor orangutan! Second only to "whale choking on a poly bag" as wildlife tear-jerker of 2018.

He has been, and he's such an important player for us when he's on form it's effecting the whole team. Hopefully it's just a blip in form.

Going by the number of shares, Club 1872 actually have 9.25% - all the other figures add up. Typo on a spreadsheet somewhere?

There are so many cases where religion gets a free ride where any other institution/organization is considered fair game. Imagine a tweet with the following structure: I hate (person). In fact all (members of a group) are total c*nts. I wish (the group's main building) would burn down. FIll it in with (The Queen / The Royals / Buckingham Palace), (Theresa May / Tories / Westminster), even (Sturgeon / Nats / Holyrood). I daresay you'd get a few complaints, but for the most part you'd probably be retweeted and commended for being strongly opinionated. Try completing the tweet with (The Pope / Catholics / The Vatican) though, and it's a hate crime. Why should it be any different? Religion is just a personal opinion, no more or less so than political affiliation. Come to think of it, maybe it's not all religious organisations though - if you tweet violent hatred towards the Orange Order that's considered just fine...

These days GERS figures are compiled by the Scottish Government's economic adviser: https://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Economy/GERS and they're created to a very exacting standard (In order to receive the label of being an official government statistic a set of standards have to be met). It's only really people who don't like the GERS results that try to cast aspertions on the methodology. They genuinely do as good a job as possible of showing the current state of play. It's true the original notion behind them (from the John Major government) was to illustrate how the UK benefits Scotland. At that point in time oil prices were low and it was pretty simple to show that the Barnett formula payment was a better deal for Scotland than 100% oil revenue. In the vast majority of years since GERS figures have been produced, that's continued to be the case.

I don't see why you can't (or shouldn't). The USA is a union - no shortage of patriotism there!

Is this issue entirely of the UK's making though? How do we fare compared to our neighbours? You may be able to get your hands on more up-to-date figures than these, but this site (eurofoodbank) has some comparitive stats on European poverty. https://www.eurofoodbank.org/en/poverty-in-europe You'll see from the bar-chart that the UK is slightly better than the EU average (which admittedly still isn't good enough). But it's worth noting that we're not significantly behind Germany and Belgium and, unsurprisingly, doing better than Italy and Spain. For those who think independence from the UK would be a magic bullet to solve the problem, it's worth noting that we're proportionally less at risk of poverty than the Republic of Ireland - breaking the shackles of Westminster certainly hasn't brought them prosperity or immunity to ecnomic recession. We also have a significantly better health service than the RoI. As an example, getting your root canal fixed on the NHS is £60, in RoI that can easily cost 600-700 Euro. It's reached a point there where health insurance is pretty much essential for RoI citizens.