No easy link that you would accept. But Scottish tax take including estimated tax from oil and gas is higher than rUK tax take including its oil and gas for more than thirty years.
Yeah, you’ve already claimed that once. I asked for a link to the analysis which demonstrates that. As this thread demonstrates, you simply cannot be trusted in a debate on this subject. I’m certainly not going to trust your word on a matter like that without at least the hint of a reasonable cite.
As for “no easy link”: I’m posting from the network of a major university and can access any paper in any journal or conference proceedings you care to link to.
In April 2013, the Scottish Government published this document, “Scotland’s Balance Sheet”. It addresses the question of whether Scotland has, since 1980, been a net contributor. It finds that, based on a historical share (i.e. attributing North Sea revenues to Scotland):
Yes, and that’s one of the reasons that, despite being conservative, I can’t stand Thatcher and dislike the near deification of her in some sections of the party.
Anyway, the postcode lottery effect for healthcare or education is bad enough without giving Scotland an unfairly large share of our (the UK as a whole including Scotland) money, so they can claim they are better than us.
Tax revenue from North Sea oil should be used to benefit the entire union, just as revenue from London’s financial centre should be.
What deficit did the UK as a whole run over the same period.
If the UK deficit was larger than the Scottish one (hint-it was) then there would have been a net transfer of funds from Scotland to England (there was.)
Let me try to give you a simple example.
A husband and wife each have sle current bank accounts and settle any lack of funds from their joint savings account. The husband gets annoyed at the wife’s spending and points out that every year of their marriage she has spent 5% more each year than she has earned. She feels bad about being accused of this as it does appear that she is spending unfairly as money has been transferred from their joint account. Then she checks his bank account and finds that he has spent 10% more than he has earned. Meaning there was a net transfer to him from her share of the joint account.
Her bank account is Scotland’s finances.
His bank account is England’s financers.
The joint account is money borrowed by their marriage from the bank- deficit spending.
Do you also support the greater number who don’t? Do you respect their views and their decision and are you willing to abide by it? That’s part of democracy too - often the hardest part, granted, but a necessary obligation of citizenship nonetheless. You do not show a willingness to accept the views of the porridge-sugarers, or even that they could have validity at all.
The time to get specific about what would happen was passed months, even years ago. The fact that the separatists actually refused to do anything of the sort may be part of the reason a majority of Scots decided they couldn’t be trusted to, hmm?
Perhaps once you can squarely and honestly face the issue of why your arguments were rejected by a majority of your fellows, you’ll be able to frame better arguments for a putative next vote. Or you could simply continue this saltire-waving ideologuism instead of exercising the responsibilities of democratic citizenship; your choice.
The reality is that a future referendum will be a permanent feature of Scottish politics for the foreseeable future. The last campaign moved the YES vote from 30% to 45%. I expect the next one to show a similar swing.