10 REASONS WHY SCOTLAND SHOULD BE INDEPENDENT

1 Scotland would officially be one of the world's richest countries - ranked 6th in the OECD compared to the UK's 16th place. We have 24billion barrels of oil remaining in the North Sea, according to industry body Oil and Gas UK. That's £1.5trillion in today's prices - half as much in value as has been taken out.

2 We also have around 25 per cent of Europe's potential offshore wind and tidal energy - and a tenth of Europe's wave power. An extra 45 per cent of renewable energy was generated in Scotland last year, according to the UK Department of Energy. It's more than we need and can be exported for cash.

3 Other countries want to invest here. The recent Ernst & Young UK Attractiveness Survey highlighted Scotland's leading position in the UK for job creation from international investment. With independence, we can make the country even more attractive to these employers.

4 Independence will allow us to keep services such as the NHS and the welfare state. In England they are being privatised and cut. Benefits are being taken from the needy and the Scottish Parliament can't stop that under present powers.

5 Scotland has five of the top 200 universities in the world. We also punch well above our weight in the number of research papers they produce. It means our historic reputation as a well educated nation is flourishing. We give our universities one of the best packages of support in Europe, with no fees for students from Scotland. With independence we can do even more.

6 We'll have more money in our pockets. If we got back what we sent south in tax, official figures show every Scot would have £510 more a year. The only tax the Scottish Government controls just now is council tax, and it's frozen under the SNP. Imagine if we controlled fuel duty, national insurance, VAT and income tax.

7 Our government would be more streamlined. Scotland, like Denmark, New Zealand, Norway and Finland, is a goldilocks country - not too big and not too small. The UK wastes money on bloated institutions bogged down by bureaucracy - look at HMRC, the tax authority. It's gone from one calamity to another. The rich get away with evasion while the rest are overcharged.

8 Mobiles would work and we'd all get high-speed broadband. Telecommunications are controlled in London. Westminster auctions licences to phone companies but only demands 90 per cent coverage of the UK. This means "notspots" in much of Scotland. Broadband is patchy too, and it doesn't help that Scotland's capital budget has been cut by a third by the Tories.

9 Our culture would get a boost. We'd have control over broadcasting and more high-quality programmes could be made here. Our news would no longer look hand-knitted compared with well funded UK offerings. We could export high-quality drama and our young bands would have a platform on the radio.

10 Imagine the goodwill. Scotland is held in high regard around the world - by those who know us. But being buried in brand Britain means sometimes we don't get to shine as we should. Independence would generate global interest. We would be the new kid on the block - young, modern, and happening.

NEW GREEN MODE OF TRANSPORT INVENTED IN SCOTLAND

I'M NOT SURE THE EUROZONE WILL BREAK UP!

I've been following this debate about the Euro for well over a year now, as I am waiting to complete on a small house in Spain.  

I am no longer convinced that  the Eurozone is going to break up.  Alth ough the € has gone from £1.10 to £1.25, which is great for me, I don't think it is an economic decision any more but rather a political one.

I watched tonight a programme I had  taped where Michael Portillo goes to Greece and all parts of Germany to ask if they want to stay in the Euro and to a man and woman, they did.

When you are on the continent for any length of time your attitude to Europe and the Euro tends to change.  We in Britain have a sort of snobbish, standoffish attitude towards Europe and the Eurozone.  Now, while I am in Scotland, I don't want to see us joining, but when I am in Spain, it somehow seems ,OK.  How can that be?

MY TWOPENCE WORTH ON MINIMUM ALCOHOL PRICING

BEER SHAMPOO HITS £10 A TUBE!

Minimum alcohol pricing, there's a quandry.

We have to face up to the  fact that we in the UK and more particularly in Scotland, have a big problem with alcohol.  When you go to Spain or France the only drunks you see are Brit tourists or occasionally a North European.  Some of the scenes in our city centres on a Saturday night are a disgrace.  Some people will say that is because drink is so dear that people get hammered in the house before they go out.  So should we make drink cheaper?  Would that bring in a more responsible attitude to drinking?  Personally I doubt it. But, then I suppose you could say that it is much cheaper in Spain where I drink a reasonable wine for £0.65 a litre and Spaniards don't get pissed, even at the football.

Now I speak as one who has drunk like a fish for most of his life, so I think I might have some input here.  I do in principle support minimum pricing but I do believe that £0.50 a unit is too dear.  How, if it gets through the courts, can we charge £0.50 when in England, they are looking to bring in a price of £0.40.  Ridiculous.  And why should we hand the supermarkets a £100 million bonus?  Those bastards have ravaged our town centres, turning them into 'tesco extras', charity shops and bookies.  I'd clobber any multinational in an out of town centre till they felt their orange pips squeeze.  

Is it possible to take this money off them and use it to pay for alcohol education for our young?  I don't know.  But, I will tell you one thing.  This is what a responsible Government means to the people of Scotland.  The SNP and it could be rightly or wrongly in your estimation had this policy as part of their manifesto despite the fact that Labour, the Tories and the Libdums were against it in the last parliament and they know it will lose them votes, but they have the interests of Scotland's people at heart.  Suddenly of course, CamaClegg have decided they are in favour so the Libdums and the Tories have changed their tune.  So in other words, they are not interested in the health of the people of Scotland, just in their narrow Unionist policies.  Plus ca change as my French brothers say!

ARE WE BEING LET DOWN BY OUR LEADERS IN THE WESTERN WORLD?

Western 'leaders'.  Let's have a look at them:

America-President Obama was elected by an electorate who wanted change from the fuckwit who was Bush.  Under him however, the Bush policies have been followed rigidly.  They've still got Guantanimo, shit health care, expensive military expenditure and the electorate are controlled almost as much as in Britain by 'Homeland Security'.  The politicians are all in thrall to globalist businesses who fund their campaigns.

France-Sarkozy has gone to be replaced by M. Ordinaire, Hollande.  He at least sees the need to stimulate the economy a little to get some demand going but wants to do it by dragging the French economy back to the 1970s.

Germany-The mad frau Merkel, in thrall to the bankers and anti stimulation of the economy, which appears to be the only one in Europe which is working.  The Germans always said that after losing two World Wars, they would win the third, i.e. the economic one.

Russia-Putin's grip over Russia is entering it's third five year plan.  The country is totally corrupt from top to bottom.

Spain-Rajoy holds sway over a nation where more than one in two of young people are out of work.  well when I say out of work, I mean official work, because the black economy is endemic in Spain and until he tackles that and pulls out of the EURO so that the vast housing stocks which the banks hold, can be sold off at a realistic price, Spain will never recover.

Greece and Italy-they don't have politicians in charge, but central bankers imposed by the ECB, so they don't count.

Then of course, we come to Britain.  A country presided over by two toffs who have at the very least been corrupted by the Murdochs, if it doesn't turn out to be more serious.  A country where the much heralded, anti-lobbying bill has been put on the back burner.  How many palms have been and are getting greased?  Only time MIGHT tell.  Cameron, it could be said, would be hard pushed to run a pissup in a brewery and looks to be totally out of his depth.  And the solution to Cameron?  Are we really suggesting that Boris Johnston should be the Prime Minister.  He's a halfwit!  It's even enough to make you nostalgic for Gordon Brown!

It's maybe time that we realise that our type of democracy isn't working and we have to find a better way of running our countries, because at the moment we are on a very slippery slope to financial oblivion or another world war, just to stimulate the World's economies!

Boris-front right

THE OLYMPIC FLAME IS ON IT'S WAY!

TODAY, A GREAT SCOTTISH CITY, GLASGOW, FINALLY DIED.

Today a great Scottish city and many would say the "greatest Scottish city", Glasgow, finally died.

Glasgow was once known as the second city of the Empire.  It's engineering capacity and Universities were the envy of the world.  It had more parkland than any other city in Europe.  Yet, today, after being shit upon from a great height for 60 odd years by a narrow, entrenched, drug taking, corrupt, Scottish Labour dictatorship, they finally made it clear that they are the thick numpty bastards  that the rest of Scotland knew they were.

When at last they had the chance to get out from under the socialist jackboot and vote for a superior and optimistic future, fewer than one in three could be bothered to get off their lardy arses and do it.  Why not?  Was there something good on 'Eastenders', that their Sky boxes paid for, by the rest of us workers couldn't record?  Or were they just too thick to stand up for themselves like the rest of Scotland and see what damage has been done to their community over the years by Labour?  That is the Labour who have used the tried and tested, 'mushroom' theory of keeping them in the dark and feeding them shit, over the last 60 years.  It makes you wonder how many election irregularities will be picked up this time?  Aye, but they'll tell you, "my family has always voted Labour since we came from the Irish potato famine/the Ayrshire coalmines/the Great Depression/the General Strike/the siege of Calcutta"  and what is it you do now?  "Well, I run my own business/I'm a university professor/I'm a senior manager/I'm a company director, etc, etc.  Pricks!

Ach well, fuck 'em, if they're too thick to see what their lives have become, why should the rest of us worry?

WHERE DOES MONEY COME FROM? A MUST SEE.