Thinker

That's what she said.

That's actually a good point - wouldn't in-stadium booze lead to an increase in folk squeezing down the row of seats to go to the bog during the game? I hate that!

That's about as ugly a piece of insinuation as I've ever read. Basically what you're asking is: Even though it turns out there's no evidence or foundation for the original allegation, is it possible he's still guilty? Nice.

Exactly how I feel with my ST. Does anyone know for sure - outside of match tickets, what's the best way to get money into the club? (I already have a RF Direct Debit).

Got the email just after midday. The rangers website is choked at the moment though - hopefully it'll calm down by tonight.

Well worth reading when you get time though - a really good article!

I’m not talking about a conspiracy. IMO the Yes campaigners genuinely believed that independence would ultimately be for Scotland’s good - but they were wrong. They're blinded by ideology, they were overly optimistic about the timescale and degree of risk that they asked the nation to face. They were – still are actually – labouring under a false belief that everyone on the Yes side is singing from the same hymn-sheet on how they think an independent Scotland should work. As for the prediction of a perfect storm - the prediction only was, and only has to be, that the UK is better able to ride out the waves that the economy throws at it due to it being a bigger ship. That's been borne out. Yup, we’re in the same boat as the North of England so why should we want to be separated from them? If the problem is that London gets more than its fair share of resources, then that is the problem we should be addressing. It’s not necessary to break up the union to fix that. We can do it and still preserve the benefits. It’s the same argument as you would make for staying in the EU. Fix it, don’t bin it. As I said above, the point is that the UK can deal with economic fluctuations more easily than indy Scotland could. If there was a simple, obvious way to get more dosh out of the North Sea, then the Conservative government would be all over it. The Scottish Parliament have to take some of the blame for that deficit. It’s worse than the rest of the UK. Given that a scary situation has come to be, you can hardly call what they did scaremongering. It was flagging the danger. Check the in/out EU referendum rhetoric. You’ll see that any attempt to flag up the negative consequences of leaving the EU is similarly branded as scaremongering by the Out campaign. I think you’ll find that there are more people who agree with you South of the border than there are North of it. I also think you’d find, post-independence, that a lot of Scots are far more financially Conservative than the % vote for the Tories suggests. A Scottish Conservative party disconnected from Westminster and the city of London would probably do reasonably well. There are many people in Aberdeen and Edinburgh who express resentment at funding the benefit junkies in Glasgow, for example. Basically what I’m saying is that I don’t think Scots’ fundamental beliefs differ dramatically from the rest of the UK’s. The Conservative party wins votes by reaching out to the self-interest of people in the South East of England. If there was a party that reached out to the self-interest of the more prosperous areas of Scotland, they’d do well in those constituencies. I guess we’ll find out if there are any significant differences over this when the votes are counted. I agree. The arguments for staying in the UK are very similar to the arguments for staying in the EU. That's why I’m in favour of both. Well the projections are that it’ll be a big deficit this coming year too. Once we get the deficit sorted out, then maybe it could be time to address the issue of independence again, but not before then and it's not going to happen soon. Again, once the renewable energy market is spinning big money, independence becomes a realistic proposition – but not until then. I take no comfort in the thought the rest of the UK could end up in deep shit – in fact, that makes independence less attractive to me. I agree you’re probably right on EU membership. Probably. Not definitely. Sometimes the UK would subsidise Scotland, sometimes Scotland would be a net contributor. Greater stability for all involved. That’s the win-win. When you think about it, the very argument that we should share a currency is an argument against independence. Our economies are utterly intertwined and as the Euro crisis has shown us, currency union without political union is a recipe for disaster. The thing about perfect storms is that they’re very, very rare. The risk assessment on that one would be a green flag. Regardless of your opinion No did win. By the very nature of the referendum question No was forced to be negative – and their line of argument had to be to warn us about what we’d miss out on. It’s more or less the same with the EU referendum (although In is a more positive word to pin a campaign on). ~ probably is though… It's been a lot boom and bust for them and that is what we want to avoid. Being part of a larger nation dampens the effects of economic ups and downs. There are a lot of folks in Ireland who were rich during the Tiger and are now flat broke. The fact that they used to be rich, if anything, makes their current situation harder to bear. Also, every time there’s a bust, a generation has to disperse around the world to Canada or Australia or wherever looking for employment. There are shitty consequences that persist long after the bubble bursts. I think the the Republic of Ireland is pretty close to what an independent Scotland would be like. Their MPs are no more competent or popular than those in West Minster - they’re probably worse in fact. They have rotten public services (I’d urge you to find out how much you’d have to pay for a root canal in Ireland) and they have to pay a host of trumped up taxes. It's got to the point where even the hard-line Britain-haters in Northern Ireland would not vote to be reunited with the Republic since the standard of welfare would be so much worse. I’ll let you off with the phrase then, but remember the Unionism is not a campaign waged purely from England. It’s the UK-wide, and it’s what the majority of Scots voted for. If you’re going to try to argue that the majority of the population where duped but you saw through it, I dispute that completely. Anyway - I'm sorry but I'm going to have to leave this discussion at that. What we're talking about is off-topic and I don't really have the time or willpower to get drawn into a calscot "debate by attrition" mega-thread of humungous posts. Suffice to say that whatever your reply to this is, I probably disagree.

IMO your explanation is flawed. There are many nationalists who would accept reduced prosperity (or at least gamble with the strong possibility of reduced prosperity) in order to have independence. The fact that it doesn't make sense to you as a motivation doesn't mean they aren't prepared to do it. Some of them are naively optimistic, economically, and some of them value independence so highly that they consider it a price worth paying. The pro-Union argument is that long-term, everybody benefits. The projection the SNP gave, for an independent Scotland's deficit, was that at this point it would be roughly half of what the UK's is now. In fact if we were independent our deficit would be roughly double what the UK's is now. What has caused a hole in the figures? The plummeting price of oil. I'm not sure why you're confident that an independent Scottish government would be better able to manage the oil industry than the UK one... The No campaign exaggerated the positives of their argument and played down the negatives, just like the Yes campaign did. All bullshit being equal, the No arguments were more compelling and they won the referendum. Personally, I don't vote Tory - but would you really class them as a risk to Scottish life? That seems a bit of an over-reaction. With regards to exiting the EU - I wouldn't vote for that either, but I guess the referendum will tell us if Scotland wants that or not. I've heard plenty of Yes voters say they want out of Europe. I'm pretty sure Bearger on here expressed that view. The idea is that sometimes each part of the UK pays in, sometimes they need a pay out, but overall it's a net gain. It's also a smoother ride, as the surpluses of one area of the larger economy cover the shortfalls of another. Do you really see all those arguments as fallacious? We do have a deficit of over 9% - worse than Greece and Portugal. The low price of oil may continue as new extraction techniques allow other sources (shale oil primarily) to be tapped - plus, the world is hopefully committed to moving away from dependence on fossil fuels. You may be comfortable to assume that Scotland would be admitted into the EU - and you're probably correct - but there is no precedent for it, and clear motivation for other EU nations (Spain for example) to vote against. The Yes campaign certainly could not guarantee that it would happen. With regards to currency union why would the rUK accept potential liability for Scotland by entering a formal currency union? What benefit would that have for the rUK over an informal currency union? If the Yes campaign could show that there is a clear, painless path to autonomy they'd be on to a winner. But they can't. The risks are part of the package they are offering. The risks are really what we were voting about. If the vote was to retrospectively be independent from the 1970s onward the Yes campaign would win easily, but the oil market has changed and the world's relationship with fossil fuel is changing. The UK does face problems and IMO we need some measure of reform but independence doesn't guarantee us a better government or a better relationship with Europe. Take a look at the Irish economy. It had to be bailed out by the UK, and they are currently in the process of instigating austerity measures including public spending cuts and deeply unpopular additional taxes. Can oil revenue protect us from that? It all boils down to which scary scenario you take more seriously. And TBH, your argument loses a lot of traction with me when you start using phrases like "what the English are trying to hide". When you say that do you mean the conservatives?

I'm in the strange position of feeling the need to side with Rab here.... What makes you say only one group had a motivation to lie? Politicians rarely tell the whole truth, and they're generally quick to dismiss any argument that undermines their goal. Both sides were guilty of that. The Yes campaign were definitely guilty of deliberately understating the risks of independence. For example, the claim that oil revenue is a bonus and that the Scottish economy is diverse enough to support public spending even if oil prices dipped has been demonstrated to be untrue. You're inserting a caveat that makes the question pointless. The public typically get behind whatever promises a brighter future for them and their families. If you could show that the independence would guarantee greater prosperity, there would be a shift to the Yes camp. If you could show that remaining in the Union would guarantee prosperity there would be a shift towards No. Obviously. The real problem for the Yes camp is that pooling resources on a larger scale (i.e. staying in the Union) clearly provides more stability. Ring fencing a natural resource as an alternative source of "enhanced" revenue for a small breakaway portion of the electorate, however, only provides stability as far as you can guarantee an acceptably high and stable price for that resource. Which, in the case of oil, you can't.

So basically the C****c board don't want to bring up this petty, embarrassing bullshit argument in front of UEFA, but don't want to upset their fans so are patting them on the head and kidding on they support and agree with them.

So if the judges granting permission to appeal are the same guys that ruled in favour of HMRC - this mean they have decided that their own judgement ought to be appealed...? Have I lost the plot somewhere?

According to wikipedia:

Well, maybe the part about Hibs winning the match against us could be true. After all, it'll be a meaningless game for us (maybe give some kids a run out) whereas they'll be scrapping with Falkirk for second place will be desperate for points. Still think we'll win though.

The RST represent us as football supporters, nothing more. Despite the best attempts of the media to portray otherwise, our support does not all share one political view point, especially with regards to Scottish nationalism. I'm certain there'll be fans, probably even paid up members of the RST who voted Humza in. Now, I don't really know how they'd defend him on this matter, but that's for them to decide and voice if they feel the need.

IMHO, this is the only point that the RST should have commented on as it's directly football and Rangers related. The story as a whole seems troubling (although I don't know all the facts at this moment) - but shouldn't the political aspects be left for either political organisations, or individuals to raise? We should be writing to our MPs about this, not the RST,

Dash-eth Thy Litt-le Ones! Nah.. Doesn't really work as a chant. DTLO

Sorry, this is a fairly irrelevant observation - but I can't help but notice here that warnings given about the potential downsides of changing the status quo are being dismissed as scaremongering. Where have I heard this type of argument before?

Aye but, what do you propose we do about that? Start chanting "Sack the board"? Is there a richer millionaire waiting in the wings to invest money that King is keeping out?

So what's your proposed plan of action Rab?

You can't judge an entire support by the crap that gets posted on forums. God help us if we were judged by what appears on some of ours.

Well no, obviously we don't. What I was driving at is that, with a 30 game season, we could create a break large enough to easily avoid the worst of the winter - without changing to summer football.

If we moved to a 30 game season we wouldn't actually need to change to summer football, as it would free up enough weekends to create a sizable winter break. But playing 8 games less per season would also surely mean a hell of a drop in income from tickets and potentially an even more rapid downward spiral (less money for player wages > lower quality football > less interest in the game etc. etc.) than the one we're already in.

Other papers manged to report the incident without omitting any facts: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/horrific-injuries-dad-left-fighting-6808220 Don't worry, I'm sure Angela will clear up any inaccuracies....

I know what your saying, but it's glaringly obvious that the author of that piece has deliberately gone out of his/her way not to make mention of the victim and culprits' allegiances. Maybe these past few years have turned me paranoid but I somehow doubt the folks at the times would be so keen to attribute this to general "Old Firm violence" if there was a Rangers fan to be named and shamed.

IIIRC "soft loan" was the term used by the board when they were being discussed at the AGM.