Better Together campaign leader, Alistair Darling, today met with members of the public to discuss the most recent developments in the independence debate. The meeting, at the Piecebox Café in the city’s Polwarth Crescent, comes days after the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, dismissed any hope that an independent Scotland could share the pound with the rest of the UK.
The former Chancellor of the Exchequer accused the First Minister of asking the people of Scotland to walk ‘blindfold’ into the polling stations 200 days from now. He said: “In the past few days the wheels have been coming off the nationalist wagon.
“Alex Salmond is not prepared to tell us what currency we will be using and cannot guarantee that if an independent Scotland were to join the EU that they would have the same deal as now.”
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Darling strongly emphasised the point that with the currency union completely off the table now there is no way to know what the pound in your pocket will be worth in an independent Scotland. This was reinforced by a representative from the Federation of Small Businesses present at the meeting who voiced concerns over the fact that many businesses rely on trade in other areas within the UK, an action that would be made difficult and expensive without a common currency.
He also warned that a change in currency could have dramatic effects on business in Scotland, and suggested that companies such as RBS and Standard Life would face a choice of a move down south in order to trade in the currency held by the majority of its customers.
Finally Darling warned not to take the decision of voting yes or no lightly, as the vote on 18 September is final: “The result, whatever it is, will stand.
“People have to understand that there is no going back, and if the polls say yes? The result is binding.”
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AD : “Alex Salmond is not prepared to tell us what currency we will be using”
Q. Why is AD talking such nonsense?
A. Because he chooses to speak in environments where he is not challenged &/or has staged questions.
The FM has been quite categoric all along that the currency in an independent Scotland will be the pound. Are we really to believe the leader of the BT campaign is unaware of this?
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AD : “if an independent Scotland were to join the EU that they would have the same deal as now”
Q. Can Alistair Darling even guarantee that the UK will be in the EU given his colleagues in the Tory party promise an in/out referendum?
A. No, he cannot. There is no such thing as the status quo any more.
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AD : “People have to understand that there is no going back, and if the polls say yes? The result is binding.”
Hallelujah, the penny has dropped – that is exactly the goal and the point.
Q. How many countries who have gained their independence in modern times have wanted to return to their previous union?
A. None, Nil, Nada
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Q. Are we seriously expected to trust the economic advice of the former Chancellor who masterminded the collapse of the economy? The man integral in changing the regulation to allow greed and corruption in the financial sector?
Q. Are we to take the word of the man who despite watching billions come in to the Treasury coffers from NS oil but then claim on national radio, “”Alex Salmond claimed there was… billions of pounds out there, which simply isn’t true.”
Q. Are we to trust a man who changed where he considered his “main home” to be located four times in four years allowing him to claim thousands of pounds towards the costs of his family’s home in Edinburgh – and buy a flat in London that has been furnished and mortgaged at taxpayers’ expense.
Q. Do we put our faith in a man who flipped his properties in order to claim £70,000 in five years for his real family home in Edinburgh – £14,000 per year of tax payers money. NB AD claimed that his main home was a small London flat – worth around £150 a week in rent to Lewis Moonie, a fellow Labour MP who was later ennobled.
Q. Can we accept the integrity of a man who claimed parliamentary expenses for a flat that he let to tenants while also claiming living allowances for his grace and favour home in Downing Street?
The answer to the last five questions is ironically ‘no’
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