Firstly I apologize if I am coming across as dismissive or rude but my comments are based on what i have read and are accurate to the best of my knowledge.
Can you at least start by being a little less inaccurate? If the oil/gas revenue is included, geographically - as it would be in the case of independence (according to international law), the deficit is only slightly higher than the rest of the UK - which is propped up by the SE of England.
We are discussing Budgets, spending and deficits for the purposes of judging how an Independent Scotland would need to adjust it's spending in the event of independence. The point being to compare that to what Scotland's budgets would be at this point without Barnett/the rUK and we are including Geographic shares of NS oil contributions:
The latest Scottish government data also showed that that deficit as a share of Scotland’s GDP was nearly 50% higher than the UK’s, even including a geographical share of North Sea oil revenues, because of far higher per-capita public spending.
The projections are calculated on the basis of Scotland’s share of UK public spending remaining at 9.2%; Scotland’s share of the UK’s oil and gas revenues remaining at 83.8%; and Scotland’s onshore revenues-per-person remaining at 97% of the UK average
RE NS oil - With all due respect that time is over. Oil prices are terrible and will either stay the same or get worse - the biggest developments going on in the NS are going to be decommissioning of old rigs - paid for by the UK. there's a couple of new rigs but the price of oil is making new fields and difficult older fields hard to justify - and now we see Iran will be pumping again soon...
Add to what I have said the fact that Scotland is more expensive to run per capita service/infrastructure wise - you have 8.5% of the population on 1/3 Britain's land mass so here is a lot more subsidy required (through no fault of the Scottish public)
You simply need to look around the web and that article for the difference between Alex Salmond's worst case scenario regarding NS oil tax contributions and the actual figures:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...oil-figures-13-times-higher-than-reality.html
Would you like to compare the north of England, SW of England, Wales and NI just for fairness? I doubt you'll even find the figures anywhere.
Why would we? These areas do not wish independence and England is a Nation state - the regions are nothing more than useful segments in which to deal with a country and nowhere near as severe in that regard as a state based federal system - you would have an easier time justifying why America, Australia or Germany should be examined in this way. We could apply the same logic to Scotland if we wished - it does rather seem to be a double standard that needs to be addressed after all there were huge majorities for the NO campaign in the wealthiest areas of Scotland..so perhaps the pro union brigade subsidizes the separatists?
Starting a debate from a position of "we're all up to our necks in it - but your up to your neck and a bit" isn't exactly a solid beginning. The UK as a whole has far too much debt, the realities are that running Scotland costs more than anywhere else due to a smaller population and lower population density, whilst that's not entirely to blame the sensationalist media in the UK love to pick on specifics which typically don't make sense, like free prescriptions, despite 90%+ of all prescriptions in England being free and the fact that the cost of making them free in Scotland for everyone was only marginally higher than administering the prescription charging system.
Ok but that doesn't really get the issue of solid financials any further along. Furthermore I'm not making that point that Scotland is "up to it's neck in it" but I am making the point that Scotland, on a proportional level, has a much worse budgetary problem than the UK as a whole and that Barnett is cushioning the blow.
Further more there is another point to be made about the legitimacy of the old white paper's projections vs reality and that will harm the SNP's potion in future debates.
BTW I have ALWAYS said that Scotland can support itself now and BEFORE the referendum but the economic case is weaker now and that is all i have said.
