When I am on the doorsteps every night I am able to address many questions. Currency comes up repeated and I had never failed to reassure people with some simple honesty.
Listening on the radio or watching on TV I get very frustrated when I hear this question coming up time and time again. This is not a measure of how much a concern this is, this is a measure of how effectively this scare and threat has been instilled in peoples minds.
Personally, I feel it is a disgrace to treat people with such contempt. Why not tell people the truth and let them make up their own minds. That last sentence, by the way is an example of extreme naivety.
So, here’s the thing. Time and time again I hear members of the public saying, ‘ I don’t trust that man Salmond, he can’t even answer a simple question like what currency we will use’
And there is the key to this whole debate. Alex Salmond simply cannot give some people the answer they want to hear because that is not possible. It would mean the collapse of the NO campaign.
Let me explain. When the referendum got under way everyone was immediately aware that Westminster wished to retain the Union. I won’t go into the real reason here until the end of the blog. Westminster kicked off by engaging their a) top Civil Servants, b) Intelligence Services, c) Spin Doctors and all their other Cloak & Dagger brigade. Their main target was clearly the Scottish Government’s White Paper – issued incidentally by the Scottish Government and all that entails and not an SNP publication.
Westminster/Better Together/The Dark Side were working on their strategy. One of the first items to target was their ‘double whammy’ and they must have punched the air together and headed off to the nearest watering hole in the belief they had cracked it quicker than your average media ‘phone hack’.
The White Paper Stated a vision of Scotland remaining in the EU. One of conditions related to a shared currency and the need to have a central bank. Out of that came the ‘killer’ tactic ‘currency union’. This was great. ‘It even has ‘union’ in the title and we simply ‘red line‘ this point, stick to our guns with every public utterance, we won’t agree to a currency union under any circumstance’ I can almost hear them say.
Better Together nailed this to their mast as their Flagship Policy.
Of course, there is no currency union and their never was. But if they could create the illusion there is, and deny it to the Scots, their whole independence case collapses – Brilliant.
Equally of course, if the NO campaign concede that their flagship policy is a hoax, then their campaign will collapse in a pile of doodoo. That is why Alex Salmond can’t get them to admit that this ‘shared currency’ approach is in everyone’s interest. They can’t because because if they did the whole Better Together case collapses – Equally Brilliant.
These last two sentences pretty much sum up the campaign.
Of course some may ask why I make such a bold statement that there is no such thing as currency union in the context of Scotland in the UK. This is remarkably easy to do and I have blogged this to death. Just to recap, I will sum this up in a few simple truths:
1. Scotland can simply USE the pound, it’s an international currency. Full stop. In the second debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling, Darling had to be dragged to the truth which he finally was, that Scotland can simply continue to USE the pound.
2. This takes us on to what they call ‘Currency Union’, but what actually comes down to the role of the Bank of England. Scotland is simply not represented in the Monetary Policy Committee of the BoE so cannot influence interest rates NOW. The base rate, which has remained at 0.5% since March 2009 is used to keep UK inflation at 2% +/- 1%. Because of the differences in magnitude between the UK and Scottish GDPs, Scotland’s inflation rate would have to rise or fall by about 20% to cause an inflation impact on the UK rate. So, Scotland does not impact inflation NOW. As far as the Lender of Last Resort, that would NOT be the BoE. In 2008, when it mattered, the Lender of Last Resort was the US Federal Bank to the tune of £1.3 Trillion.
3. Aside from all this nonsense talk, after 2008 and the impact of New Labour’s google-eyed light touch regulation through the FSA the rules have now changed to ENSURE banks cannot fail again.
4. However, the most compelling reason their will be a Currency Union in the FUTURE is because Scotland is England’s second biggest market and England is Scotland’s biggest market and anything that interferes with that relationship will be mutually assured COMMERCIAL SELF DESTRUCTION.
5. And as far as Europe is concerned, ask yourself one question. Why is Greece still a member and and with a big bail out? Scotland is in to stay and they have the architecture already in plan for Scotland’s own Central Bank.
But shhhhhhhh! don’t tell the dark forces that we know all that now – because the dark nights are drawing in? Wooooo!
So, for my patient readers, the reason Westminster are going to all this trouble is simple. If Scotland was a basket case we would have been gone long ago;
‘independently wee, independently poor and independently stupid’
Westminster is simply in cataclysmic (to quote Lord Robertson) debt, £1.6 – £1.7 Trillion in total and can NEVER repay it. North Sea oil and gas is very much of that financial order. The equity value of North Sea oil & gas allows Westminster to continue to borrow to keep UK plc up and running. If Westminster does not have control of North Sea oil and gas it will remain unable to EVER pay the debt and may struggle to borrow against it’s current operating budget, the Budget Deficit.
NOW, LORD ROBERTSON – THAT REALLY IS CATACLYSMIC
Do you still wonder why they are fighting so hard against the YES Campaign?? and it’s NOT over yet.
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