What Mark Carney said about...

Well hold on, who is Mark Carney?

Typical Canadian reserve: "I once caught a fish - this big."

He's the current Governor of the Bank of England. A Canadian national widely accepted as being responsible for shielding Canada from the worst ravages of the credit crunch/global financial clusterfuck. He started out in Goldman Sachs (but mustn't have had a position of much sway because in 2009 its bossman Lloyd Blankfein apologised for its part in said clusterfuck) although to be fair, Carney left a good five years previously so we'll let him off.

Since then he's jobbed around the Canadian Department of Finance and the Bank of Canada culminating in him getting the job of Governor of the Bank of Canada, then of England.

Like the Bank of Canada, the BoE is the central bank for the UK (not as the name suggests, England.) Its main purpose is to oversee the UK's economy while governments at Westminster allow cocaine-snorting, braying investment bankers to completely fuck up our financial well being by way of casino banking and exotic practices not even they understand in order to secure bonuses and pay packets they absolutely have not earned and do not deserve.

Oh hold on, that's not right...

Sorry, the BoE's job is: 'maintaining price stability and supporting the economic policies of the Government, thus promoting economic growth.' 

The point is, its a national bank, not as in England-national but UK-national, over the years Scottish money (in the form of Sterling) has helped shore it up and add to its strength and standing. Since 1946, it was fully nationalised by the Labour government of the day. In 1977 - oh dear, the shallowness of my understanding of economics is about to show its embarrassingly ugly face - it formed a wholly owned subsidiary named Bank Of England Nominees (BOEN for short) and sold itself, to erm, itself.

At this point I tune out, it may as well be in a foreign language, here's the extract from the wiki page:

In 1977, the Bank set up a wholly owned subsidiary called Bank of England Nominees Limited (BOEN), a private limited company, with two of its hundred £1 shares issued. According to its Memorandum & Articles of Association, its objectives are:- “To act as Nominee or agent or attorney either solely or jointly with others, for any person or persons, partnership, company, corporation, government, state, organisation, sovereign, province, authority, or public body, or any group or association of them....” Bank of England Nominees Limited was granted an exemption by Edmund Dell, Secretary of State for Trade, from the disclosure requirements under Section 27(9) of the Companies Act 1976, because, “it was considered undesirable that the disclosure requirements should apply to certain categories of shareholders.” The Bank of England is also protected by its Royal Charter status, and the Official Secrets Act. BOEN is a vehicle for governments and heads of state to invest in UK companies (subject to approval from the Secretary of State), providing they undertake "not to influence the affairs of the company".  BOEN is no longer exempt from company law disclosure requirements. Although a dormant company, dormancy does not preclude a company actively operating as a nominee shareholder. BOEN has two shareholders: the Bank of England, and the Secretary of the Bank of England.

The important things the BoE does is set interest rates, develop monetary policy and issue Sterling. You may have heard of Quantitative Easing? Well it was the BoE who 'printed' more money to buy bonds from the treasury so it in turn could tell international markets it wasn't skint. In terms of what Mark Carney was up in Edinburgh talking about - a currency union - the main point to remember is, Scotland owns a share of the Bank of England, it is NOT the sole property of Westminster, England or the rest of the UK.

'I once caught a fish - and I had to punch it.'

Currency union is an area of the independence debate you'll have heard about frequently in the news - the SNP and Yes Scotland say its desirable for both an Independent Scotland and the rest of the UK while Westminster aided by the UK media say; its 'not likely to occur.'

If I can refer you back to the previous blog about suspension of belief and likelihood though.

1) Anyone can use Sterling, it is an internationally traded currency, you can go to any money shop or Bureau de change in the world and procure it and assuming local business' accept it - buy stuff. 

2) As mentioned, the Pound's strength is built partly on Scottish revenues, over the years, Scottish oil & gas, Whisky, financial services, heavy industry have all added to its worth. 

3) We're in a union and if Westminster/David Cameron are to be believed, one that serves Scotland well. Unless we're just tenants in the UK - renting all the things they tell us we're so much stronger for being a part of - surely it wouldn't make sense if all the money we've been sending down south hasn't actually 'bought' us anything?

"I once caught a fish - this tall."

What Mark Carney  said was that a currency union would need to be negotiated between Scotland and the rest of the UK. He went out of his way not to support either side even although the Scottish Government and Yes Scotland have been saying negotiations would be required. Meanwhile, Westminster in keeping with its outdated idea of empire has been doing what it normally does and telling us what we can and cannot have.

But it goes back to Likelihood - no one can say with absolute certainty what will happen; no one thought in 2007 the banking system would go into meltdown (at least not openly.) Who before the last Westminster election thought the Lib Dems would get into bed with the Tories? Who before the last Holyrood election thought the SNP would achieve a majority in a parliament with a voting system designed to stop that self-same thing from happening? And who thought the celebrity high dive show 'Splash' would return for a second series?

Meanwhile, 'Lord Wallace of Tankerness' who used to be plain old Jim Wallace but is now an unelected Lib Dem lord, he sits with all the other unelected political yes-men in the retirement-home-for-past-it-politicians known as the House of Lords.

Lord Wallace - on the first day of Scottish independence, the £300 + expenses he's paid for planting his unelected arse on those red benches would evaporate.

 ...said:

My Lords, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has previously said, the current arrangements of a full monetary, fiscal and political union bring benefits to all parts of the United Kingdom. I certainly have noted that the Governor of the Bank of England today has highlighted the principal difficulties of entering into a currency union—losing national sovereignty, the practical risks of financial instability and having to provide fiscal support to bail out a foreign country. That is why we have consistently said that, in the event of independence, a currency union is highly unlikely to be agreed so the Scottish Government need a plan B. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, that people who, from experience, have an important contribution to make should make it. Indeed, this month, Better Together has published a very good pamphlet which quotes many people showing how untenable the position of the Scottish Government is on the issue of the currency.

This by far has been the most common refrain from detractors, that Scotland 'would lose powers' or would have to 'cede sovereignty' if we wished to maintain a currency union. At the risk of sounding indelicate - it is unfettered bollocks. How can you lose powers you never had to begin with?

If the Bank of England wanted to change interest rates or provide another tranche of Quantitative Easing, hands up all of you who think they'd consult with anyone in Scotland?

Exactly.

Again, there is so much wrong with what Wallace and others are saying on this issue its hard to know where to start, during the financial crisis foreign countries bailed each other out all the time, how can the 'noble' lord (for example) suggest it couldn't happen when it clearly has and will continue to?

But this is how supporters of the union roll, they expect us to ignore likelihood in favour of their extrapolations of reality to suit their agenda. Although the Yes side don't want to scare the horse, if they turned round and told Westminster to ram Sterling - the drone coming from supporters of the union would assume a markedly higher pitch.

Instead they stand before us like failed Jedi warriors, their fingers wriggling in front of our faces murmuring - "this is not the currency union you've been looking for, move along now, move along."

Not a member of Better Together.

Since Lord Wallace of Tankerness at least has the outfit to be a Jedi night - albeit a fairly camp one - and this has been a heavy going post, we'll finish with a quick game:

Where's Wallace?

Suspension of belief/Trolling

I remember going to see an 'am-dram' production of The Best Little Whore House in Texas at the Portobello Town Hall, it was a while ago during an Edinburgh Festival. Not being a huge fan of musicals I wasn't overly taken by it, all the hooting and cawing, the drawling sheriff and shrill southern prostitutes - with the exception of the guy playing the sheriff (who was really good) I couldn't see past the fact that in real life they were a bunch of ordinary folk dressed up as cowboys and hookers.

Suffice to say Burt & Dolly did not appear in the version played at Portobello.

I also had a problem with the central theme, that they were fighting to maintain a whore house - really? Where women were regularly abused, slapped around by rough, disease-carrying chauvinist cow boys?

I'm prepared to accept I might have over-analysed somewhat, it was supposed to be a bit of mindless entertainment.

Its one thing to suspend belief for the duration of a bawdy musical but more and more the media have been relying on the Scottish public to do this with referendum coverage

We've all heard of the internet troll:

internet troll
Web definitions
In Internet slang, a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, either accidentally or with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response ...

The purest definition of an internet troll above is fairly exacting, a troll exists to 'sow discord', they tend not to have any motive beyond trouble making, the term cannot really be applied to any genuine contributor - from either side - on the independence debate. Using hyperbole to sabotage a debate - knowingly or not - does not a troll make.

So...

Enter the 'Cybernat'.

Definition of cybernat
An informal name for a Scottish National Party supporter who uses social media and online forums to put forward the cause of Scottish independence.

The truth - if we are to suspend belief for a moment - is that a cybernat is a bad thing, cunningly though, there is no equivalent label on the unionist side. In manufacturing this online independence-supporting bogeyman, we're being asked to conflate an internet troll with a nationalist.

From the Wings Over Scotland site.

The Daily Mail has been engaged in an unprecedented attack on its definition of a cybernat - an internet troll hell bent on causing fear an alarm among those who oppose them. The headline above is what I'm calling the usual Scottish press front-bummery where if you read a little bit further you come to realise the headline was written by an arsehole - no one was unmasked because they weren't masked in the first place. By hinting at a certain secrecy around what its version of a cybernat is - a nefarious streak is inferred. It goes with out saying, these so-called cybernats are ordinary decent folk with an honest message.

What does that have to do with The Best Little Whore House in Texas? It goes back to suspension of belief.

By this time, you can't count yourself as a true cybernat if you haven't had at least one run-in with a prominent, out-spoken mouth piece for Better Together online in some form, be it Duncan Hothersall, Euan McColm or that complete buffoon John MacIntyre OBE (Woking.) When you read what they type, its as if they live in a reality where reason & logic work differently, you are expected to treat their assertions as rock solid fact while yours are rubbished. Precedence goes out the window in favour of far-fetched hypothesis and in the end when you don't agree, they pull about their narrow shoulders a cloak of faux indignation because you lost patience and branded them an idiot. (Through which they claim victory -the very essence of George Carlin's 'Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.')

But they're not trolls either - they're close, but however convoluted it may be, they have a discernible motive - to make people vote no.

There is one thing that separates unionist and independence supporters online, whether engaged in debate with each other or trying to convince undecided's - its that unionists have suspended their own belief in reality and assume others have too - the foundation of their argument is based on a rejection of what actually is.

Obviously I would say this but things that are self-evident - the economy, food banks, the deficit, the debt, armed forces redundancies, MOD spending silliness, Trident on the Clyde, rejection of the bedroom tax in Scotland, rejection of the sale of Royal Mail in Scotland; Scottish tax payers money being spent on the Olympics, on HS2 or the London Sewage system. Tory governments that Scotland did not vote for (surely doesn't require a link,) Labour not voting against something it claims not to agree with, expenses scandals in Westminster (again, do you need a link?) Expenses scandals in the house of lords - heck - the house of lords itself.

All of those things (and more besides) actually exist, yet Better Together proponents expect us to pretend it doesn't.

In unionists its a form of tunnel vision, they're not trolls per se any more than cybernats are. I'd be the first to tell any 'cybernat' to hush if they tried to give a 100% definite answer to certain questions, the nature of the debate won't allow it - its about what is likely.

The press - in the form of the Daily Mail in this instance - can't control what goes on on Twitter or Facebook, there-for it attempts to deride the characters and motives of those who use that medium.

We need a new label, if we who support independence are to shoulder the stigma of the cybernat, it seems only fair that unionists should have a similar cross to bear. The unionist online doesn't so much 'troll', the closest term so far is 'whatabouttery' - where they attempt to conflate something which isn't likely to be an issue with something that might be, (or in their benighted imagination - will be.)

I bumped into a true Facebook troll who was defending Vladimir Putin after a Panorama investigation over corruption at the Winter Olympics - but at the same time excusing homophobic legislation banning all & any information on homosexuality being given to under 18's. This was a case of 'chronic fence sitting' or 'auto-intellectual-stalemate' (a person arguing themselves into a position of moral & intellectual pointlessness.)

The trademarks of the online unionist seem to be; tunnel vision, prolixity, tangent, suspension of belief and illogicality.

Is it even possible to make up a pithy designation for such a tortured entity as the unionist online?

Answers on a postcard please.

In the meantime, when ever I am assailed by a Duncan, Euan or John MacIntyre OBE (Woking) I'll remember the amateur dramatic presentation of The best Little Whore House in Portobello - there will be no suspension of belief.

Sorry, I meant Texas.

A quick point of order...

... about the bedroom tax.

You might be hearing in the news about Labour (in Scotland) criticising the Scottish government for not doing enough to assuage the effects of Westminster's bedroom tax - or spare room subsidy as they prefer to call it.

This...

... is Jackie Baillie, she's a Labour MSP and Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well Being and Cities Strategy. Currently she's trying to massage a bill through the Scottish parliament that would increase the budget set aside to help folk who are being hit by the bedroom tax.

In the current budget, John Swinney set aside £20 million - the maximum he could under rules set out by Westminster for the Scottish Parliament (a pretty galling idea by itself.) The rules are there for a good reason - well, it's a good reason from Westminster's point of view - Welfare, of which housing benefit is a part, is not devolved and Westminster cannot stand to have its toes stood on in areas where the football still belongs to them.

So here comes Jackie who wants the amount increased to £50 million, she has to know this exceeds the maximum Holyrood can throw at the problem, I would say she's not daft but sometimes... The truth is, Jackie Baillie has form, she's not averse to presenting figures that paint the SNP-led government in a piss poor light when those figures covered a time span when Labour were in office in Holyrood - but that's how Jackie, erm, rolls.

This is a cynical ploy, nothing more. You might not be watching the news, I appreciate not everyone is a political anorak, but it is this kind of poison - absorbed unconsciously by unsuspecting voters and once in there it seems to stick - 'ah heard Jackie Baillie say Labour wanted to increase the bedroom tax fund but thon SNP types blocked it...'

So for the avoidance of doubt here are the key points:

1: The Scottish Government has already allocated the maximum it can to help.

2: In reality - and Jackie knows this too - if the Scottish Government decided to press on regardless and ignore the rules, it would be subsidising Tory policy in Scotland: can you imagine the hysterics Labour (and the Scottish media) would go into over that?

No, I can't either.

The Scottish Government is between a rock and a hard place, they're damned if they do and damned if they don't on this, fortunately, the Scotland Act gives them an 'out' and caps funding. It goes without saying, that won't stop the usual suspects giving Baillie air time to spray forth her bilious arse gravy* on the telly.

In the meantime, the Scottish Block Grant - the pittance Westminster sends back up out of the fortune Scotland sends down - (in advance of what will happen to Barnett after a no vote,) has already effectively been reduced by £20 million a year. A man who represents a seat in another country, who's party's policies Scotland does not support so did not elect, a party that has only 1 out of 59 possible Westminster seats in Scotland yet governs Scotland...

... and Jackie Baillie wants to help him out with further subsidies for odious Tory policies.

I think its fair to say, that that - is taking the piss.

Keep in mind, Labour brought forward a motion in Westminster to scrap the bedroom tax two months ago, it was defeated by just 26 votes. Hiding behind an obscure pairing rule, 47 Labour MP's didn't turn up to vote.

Listed below are those with Scottish constituencies

Douglas Alexander (Paisley & Renfrewshire South)

Gordon Brown (Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath) (Yes that one...)

Brian Donohoe (Central Ayrshire)
Frank Doran (Aberdeen North)

David Hamilton (Midlothian)

Ann McKechin (Glasgow North)

Jim Murphy (East Renfrewshire) (Currently bumping his gums on the topic of the cybernat of which I am one)
Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts)

Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central)

The truth is, we could go on about Scottish Labour's hypocrisy and double standards until the vote in September and still not cover every instance of when they've said one thing then done the exact opposite.

So I'll just pause here until next time.

* Apologies for the mental imagery, its shock treatment. You will see the oily Jackie on the telly and my most fervent hope is, instead of her honking on about the bedroom tax/Scottish Government shortcomings, you will see a fountain of uncongealed shit erupting from her gaping maw.**

** Sorry.