The debate

[pollR78]

WM, i agree with you, i don't want it to be a yes vote....not sure if my post came across wrong?

confused lol!

this is why i rarely get involved in discussions about this, my facebook newsfeed is always full of it..

Poll

[cruiser2]

If it is a YES vote, what will happen with passports, driving licences, car registrations which are at present are administered in England for all of the UK

[pollR78]

who knows cruiser....there are passport offices in Scotland and the DVLA i use is based in Wales....

All I know is I have read so much and think it would be a massive mistake if a yes vote happens....sadly going by social media a lot of people are mistaking being 'patriotic' as meaning they must vote Yes! I am proud to be Scottish but also part of the UK and think it should remain that way.

Just have to hope and pray that on the 18th September

p x

[molly]

If it is a YES vote, what will happen with passports, driving licences, car registrations which are at present are administered in England for all of the UK

There is a passport office in Glasgow so presumably they will just change the covers to tartan.

[Workingman]

You see, this is what has bugged me about the whole debate.

Both sides have been banging on about one or two things from the "big picture" and ignoring the rest. One side picks the largest estimate, so the other picks the lowest: one side says it will do this, so the other side says it won't. Yet all the time the little things, those things that make life bearable, have been pushed sideways and forgotten about.

Will a Scot be pissed off if the nuclear subs stay north of the border? Yes, some will. Will a Scot be pissed off if the bins don't get emptied, or pot holes don't get repaired? Yes, the vast majority of them will.

[Suff]

let's put a lot of these questions to bed.

There is about 10 years worth of solid NSO revenues left without oil price rises or restrictions or impact form "Russia on tour".

Even at 50% of those revenues, that's £125 billion. FOR ONE YEAR. Or in other words, more than the total Scottish GDP. The annual DWP bill for the entire UK is around 75bn. NHS about the same I believe. Scotland has just under 10% of the UK population, NHS services and pensions and benefits. In fact Scotland has less than NE England which produces a fraction of Scottish GDP.

So, £125 billion is enough for Scotland to create an air force, navy, army, embassies around the world, dvla, mint (Scotland already prints it' own currency), Plus every other incidental charge Scotland would need. Oh and enough for the biggest party any world has ever seen. 3 more years to create a sovereign wealth fund the size of Norway.

So what are they going to do with the other 6 years? Oh and it's more likely to be 75% than 50%.

All of these things are pocket change and remember we haven't even touched the annual normal day to day GDP of Scotland.

More importantly, what is England going to do when it loses all that money.

That is a question I would be obsessively worried about if I were English. Not whether a fabulously wealthy Scotland could afford a few toys or not!!!!!

The whole debate is backwards and upside down. I'm not surprised that the Scots who know the true figures are throwing eggs at liars who would use them (the Scots), for their own benefit.

Will it be easy? Hell no. Would it be worth it? Well nothing worthwhile comes totally free.

[Workingman]

Suff, you have just done what I am banging about.

Salmond came up with his £1.5Tn value of the oil left based on 24Bn barrels left at $100 a barrel, but that is gross. His estimate for tax revenues, the bit Scotland's government gets, is £7Bn per year. Other estimates abound, notably that of Sir Ian Wood. He estimates about 16.5Bn barrels left with tax revenues of £4.2Bn per year. One, or both, could be wrong.

But that is all "big picture" stuff. Look at the little things mentioned by Cruiser: Passports, car registrations and driving licences. They will impact on Scots north and south of the border.

If Scotland goes independent its citizens will not be able to use UK passports. I am hoping that there would be a grace period whereby Scots could hand their UK passport in for exchange to a Scottish one with the remainder of its life transferred. It would be up to the Scottish government to decide, but how would they deal with Scots in England who do not reside in Scotland or have a Scottish address?

What about driving licences? Mine is a Euro licence, but it quite clearly states that it was issued in the UK - not England or Wales or Scotland or Northern Island - the UK. An independent Scotland would have to issue new licences. That would be even more the case should Scotland have to apply to join the EU, and that is still in the air.

The same would apply to the issue of car registrations. Sure, Scotland could keep the 2A2N 3A format, but it would have to be made clear that it was a Scottish plate issued in Scotland. There is no reason for Swansea DVLA to do the work, though it might, for a small fee.

Then there will need to be a long look at public services and the NHS. Scots currently get a per capita spend that is £1,300 more than the average for the rest of the UK.

These are all things which will impact on every Scot, every day. There will be hundreds, maybe thousands, more of these small pesky little irritants, but add them all up and they become a big problem.

[Kaz]

You are right Frank - 400 years of our two countries being woven together, with all the minutae of every day life would not be unravelled quickly or easily

I think we are stronger together

[pollR78]

i agree Kaz....sadly there appear to be many Scottish people who are not looking at the big picture.............which means I am truly unsure of how this vote could go....

x

[Suff]

The big picture is this. For the first time in 300 years, the Scottish people have a decision on their destiny.

Not the king, not the peers, not the land owners. The people.

Everything else is secondary.

There is no doubt they can stand alone.

The question is: Do they want to? Or do they want someone else to make their decisions for them?

Everything else is just noise.