Anyone catch this interview with SNP Leader Alex Salmond on the BBC this morning? Although I missed the beginning of it I knew it had to Salmond speaking such was the lack of interruptions and deep respect afforded to such a BBC preferred “Statesman”. Salmond was there to put the boot into Cameron, of course, |(BTW – How upset must the BBC over the latest polls showing a Conservative “bounce”? Let’s move on…) whilst insisting that an independent Scotland would graciously retain the Pound Sterling for “some time”, with the adoption of the Euro being much further into the future. I’ll say! This self serving economic waffle was not challenged in any way. Suppose the people of the UK decided that if Scotland decided to depart the Union it could also depart the currency of that Union? It’s obvious that Salmond wants to cling to our National currency because he knows, and we know, that the Euro is a busted flush. In truth, this should act as a massive dampener on those Rob Roy dreams but the BBC mostly accepts the line taken by Salmond, never asking why he would prefer Brussels rule over Westminster co-operation.
SALMOND SYCOPHANCY
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I saw him interviewed yesterday on Sky (I think) but had to turn it off.
I’m no fan of Cameron but Salmond’s cheap, irritating, chippy, victim-driven attitude to England, the Tories and Westminster made we want to slap the first Scot I saw. And that would have been a member of my family.
We raised this yesterday.
Look, if a ‘Maggie Thatcher’ emailed to say she had dirt on Cameron, the BBC would have her in the studio with less checking than a bond trader.
So would SKY. But for them it would be ratings gold from dirt; Auntie does it for political reasons. Not very impartial ones.
That’s why neither channel had a counter person there, or interviewer keen to spoil the mud flinging with awkward questions.
Never mind Salmond and his Scottish independence, I’d cheerfully vote for English independence.
Be great to see the look on Salmond’s face as we cheerfully waved goodbye on our, not his, terms and conditions
Every time I see any of that Scottish Nationalist lot on TV it makes my skin crawl – reminding me of the bad old days of NuLabour’s autocratic communitairism. Scotland is being held to ransom by the SNP’s vicious, vice-like grip on everything from a pernicious political correctness to utter madness on climate change. I really feel sympathy for my Scottish brethren and wish I could help. It’s no surprise that the BBC should found toadying up to the SNP. I guess Scotland today represents some kind of political nirvana for the Hampstead Socialists of the BBC – some imagined place where their core values of lavish public spending and deep-seated socialist aspirations all go unchecked.
I wish you could help too. Unfortunately up here the loathing of the Tories is too deep and therefore opposition to Labour gravitates to the only viable alternative, the SNP. And whatever you think of him, Alex Salmond is a very shrewd political operator, head and shoulders above anyone else on the Scottish political scene.
It all goes back to Margaret Thatcher’s time, when anything that attempted to row back state spending was presented by Labour as “anti-Scottish”, egged on by the BBC. Labour were too short-sighted to see the inevitable result: keep on portraying the government as having no democratic legitimacy in Scotland and you will force apart the Union. So inevitably, when people became sick of Labour they gravitated to the SNP. It’s now very difficult to be openly strongly Scottish and British at the same time, as I am. I fear it has gone too far to stop now.
Salmond asserted, completely unchallenged, that Cameron’s veto would damage negotiations over Scottish fisheries. No-one mentioned that the EEC was been given the key of that particular door by Heath in 1970 as a negotiating ploy.
Mind you I’m being generous to Heath here since a “ploy” implies that Heath was prepared for a bit of give and take. Actually Heath’s negotiating position vis-a-vis the EEC was “here’s a series of signed blank cheque – just present them annually – the mugs will pay” and the fishermen have been amongst the mugs paying ever since.
Also, God forfend that Salmond should have been asked exactly what these (regular) December negotiations comprise http://www.civitas.org.uk/eufacts/FSPOL/AG5.htm and why the EU should wish to penalise Scotland any more than British (including Scottish) politicians have done already just because Cameron is being awkward elsewhere.
I have a feeling that if push came to shove and Salmond decided to go ahead with a referendum and had a fair chance of winning it the Beeb might not be so keen. They may realise that without the Scottish Labour MPs there be little chance of a Labour majority in Westminster ever again and even worse a carve up of the UK would have to mean changes to the BBC.
Good point – maybe Scotland should choose – Westminster, Edinburgh or Brussels – three is (two) too many parliaments for any country!
I wish that any interviewer would ask Salmond (or any SNP rep) precisely how an independent Scothchland would survive. The vox-pop is ‘oil revenues’, but those are in decline. Scotland has a large primary public sector and almost as large a secondary one (private organisations that rely on contracts from public sector ones). The end of the Barnett Formula will impoverish Scotchland, and the SNP are always allowed to get away with bluster and grievance instead of economics. Salmond only gives interviews to BBBC & Channel4 News, and both ‘news’ organisations are equally guilty.
Yes would be interesting to see how the Scottish government suddenly cope with Health/ education/ defence/benefits and all other arms of public spending when the money they get now is gone !
Scotland could do very well out of shale gas, if the eco-loonies were put back in their box for a bit.
Less than 200,000 net tax-payers in Jocko-Land…. they’ll last as long as a wind farm without an English tax-payer’s subsidy!!
If Scotland were independent? Like Ireland they would farm any EU subsidies that were available for a while, bolster their public sector and toddle along lurching from from boom to bust – with the ever-useful unemployment safety valve of mass-emigration to England.
The BBC should give Salmond an easy ride – independence for Scotland will bring my dream of an independent England much closer. 🙂
Alas, BBC Scotland is overwhelmingly Unionist so the dream is likely to remain a dream for some time to come. 🙁
Scottish independence is now an emotional matter much like our independence from the EU. It has gone too far to be stopped.
And as with the EU and us the sooner it is settled the better for all parties.
Then everyone can get on with their lives in the new realities.
Pretty weak effort by ol’ Justin there. I’ve noticed that the BBC has recently decided to have a little integrity on the issue and ask Labour figures if they would have signed the treaty, and Salmond got asked as well. But Webb let him dodge it every single time, the same way Dougie Alexander and Miliband Minor and all the rest of them are allowed to dodge the question – by saying something along the lines of they would have negotiated a better deal. Webb let him get away with it three times, not a single challenge to an obvious weasel. Whatever small credit the BBC gets for asking a politician if he’d sign is lost when they allow this.
Webb’s barest challenge to Salmond about if he thinks Cameron was wrong because of the fisheries was pretty lame as well. Plus he let Salmond throw in an irrelevant mention of some SNP poll. No shouting down his guest this week.
Salmond’s answer on keeping the pound then going to the Euro is moronic. How would an independent Scotland stay solvent and keep sterling without serious help from England, and then just waltz into the Euro? Particularly when it most likely won’t even exist in a few years. Even if it does, I’m not sure if whatever is left of it in the form of Germany and France and a few other countries would be welcoming yet another welfare state with open arms. I guess the LSE grad Webb didn’t see a problem. Again Salmond is allowed to get away with utter crap. How unlike the shouting at Hague last week. Nobody telling Salmond he’s wrong today.
Having said all that, one tiny bonus point at the end to ol’ Justin for asking if the Scots would like gaining independence only to hand over soverergnty to the EU. That was pretty funny, and it was nice to hear the BBC present a euroskeptic viewpoint for a change.
I too noted that l`i Justin Beeber tried to get the walking oil drum to tell us if he would have signed up for the Euro Ship of Fools Cruise some day hence.
That Salmond was able to squrt ball bearings and lube over Justins (frankly half-baked) attempts to get a straight answer to any question does not mean that wee Justin did try.
McLabour in the form of Salmon and Sturgeon( only fish surnames up there for some reason) are as opportunistic,see-through and irrelevant as the little yappers down here in their tartan doggie coats. Still they oppose Thatch and posh Cameron, so are always assured a shortbread at any BBC car or studio that they can squeeze into.
Not a mention of the Bank of Scotland, or Dunfermline either…
Line 6…I meant that Webb did try-albeit with no heart in it. Posh preppies are mere sprats for Salmond after all!
Salmond has made it clear ‘he’ thinks Scotland will be able to access services like the DVLA for free whilst being independent.
The man is a tosser but the BBC just never put him on the spot.
How can Scotland be independent but still use the ‘English pound’ as currency?
I suspect that is so he can hide behind Westminster when things go wrong for him.
The guy is a tool but again the obvious question is not asked by Salmond, if he doesn’t like what Cameron is doing why not simply piss off (and do us all a favour) right now?
I imagine that Plaid Cymru will be due a spot soon enough, and then(of course) we all could do with dear Martin McGuiness` views on how Camerons isolation in Europe might alienate the Basque separatists on who the whole squid-ink importing industry depends!
How will Camerons treachery in regard of supporting the Euro affect the import of Semtex,I ask myself?
All this kerfuffle after the Gadhaffi crisis when prices soared(so I`m led to understand!).
Salmond goes on about North sea oil . Cant he see if Scotland was “independent in the EU ” , the colleagues would make the black stuff a Common European Resource .
An “independent” Scotland adopting the euro one day? Why not – it would be quite ironic to see Frau Merkel and co. replacing the SNP administration with a mega-Thatcherite one, axeing hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats’ jobs, abolishing free care home and tuition fees, and sending in the panzers to stifle dissent.
Imagine all those Jeremy McClarksons taking revenge on Salmond in front of his family.
Oil brings in about 13 billion in taxes, Scotland spends 25 billion on benefits alone. 50% of it’s economy is based on the public sector, for the most part jobs moved out of England.
On what planet does Salmond think Scotland can survive on its own? He’s got to fund his own armed forces, his own Foreign Office and Embassies around the world, not to mention all his own departments like the DVLA tax offices and so on.
Stephen Glover:
[Excerpt]-
“Most cynical and unscrupulous of all has been Scotland’s First Minister and Scottish Nationalist leader, Alex Salmond. He had the effrontery to tell the BBC Mr Cameron should have consulted him before exercising the veto, and suggested ‘vital fishing talks’ this week in Brussels might be undermined — quite forgetting that our membership of the EU has led to the near destruction of Scotland’s once buoyant fishing industry.
The slippery Mr Salmond also skirted around the reality that an independent Scotland which joined the euro would have to accept fiscal union, and the economic suzerainty of Berlin. Would most Scots really regard such an outcome as preferable to union with England? I doubt it.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2074298/Has-time-politicians-stupid-dishonest.html#ixzz1gahZm52K