That
00:04
this
00:05
is the foreign press association in new
00:07
york and i am ian williams the president
00:10
and we have with us today markiplier
00:14
who is um i think you're a us citizen
00:18
now as well like me an
00:19
expatriated scot um
00:22
who maintains connections uh and
00:25
watches closely what is happening across
00:28
the atlantic
00:30
and his main expertise is in
00:33
economics so his very very good book
00:37
which i interviewed him some years ago
00:39
was on austerity
00:41
which he pointed out was an extremely
00:43
bad idea
00:44
uh and eloquently and demonstratively
00:47
showed it was a very very bad idea
00:49
and it was amazing anyway his latest
00:52
book which i happened to miss
00:53
because i think i was dying in hospital
00:55
at the time it was angonomics i just
00:57
have to catch up on it
00:59
and get back to it about the effect of
01:02
what austerity does to people's sanity
01:05
yeah absolutely
01:07
so uh with the moving
01:10
to scotland he's followed closely the
01:13
british and the scottish economies
01:15
and looks at the independence battle
01:18
as a sort of pragmatic thing but it's
01:21
not just about scotland because i think
01:23
one of the reasons why
01:24
foreign press association wanted to uh
01:28
highlight this issue which is got
01:30
implications in lots of ways that people
01:32
don't quite consider
01:34
oh yeah it's got implications for small
01:36
countries
01:37
and remember this is the dissolution of
01:40
a union that's lasted in one form
01:42
another since
01:43
uh oh 400 years if you take it back to
01:46
1600 the union of the crowns
01:48
uh 300 years if you had the union of the
01:52
parliaments
01:53
this is more far more significant than
01:55
texas or missouri or
01:57
or kansas seceding from the union in in
02:00
that sense
02:01
it's an historic uh nation that's been
02:04
dismembered
02:05
an historic state that's being
02:07
dismembered
02:08
possibly and it's also got implications
02:11
therefore it's got implications for
02:13
catalonia
02:14
it has implications for al sass lorraine
02:16
it has implications for brittany
02:18
um lots of places so lots of people in
02:21
europe are going to look very anxiously
02:23
which of course is what complicates
02:25
matters for um
02:27
complicated matters for the scots who
02:30
want independence
02:31
because the spanish and many others have
02:33
shown
02:34
as in the case of kosovo that they don't
02:36
like secession
02:37
as a general principle yeah they don't
02:39
look at the particular cases they don't
02:41
look at particular examples
02:43
they look at the precedent it sets for
02:45
their fractious
02:47
regions so um we have
02:51
that we also have the fact that
02:54
britain's
02:54
um seat at the top table in the u.n for
02:57
example depends to some extent it's not
02:59
an explicit one-on-one
03:01
but it's possession of one of the five
03:03
states possessing nuclear weapons
03:06
and itself happens that um england does
03:09
not possess those weapons they're in
03:10
scotland
03:12
which um the scots alternatively whinge
03:14
about because
03:15
they're the number one target and two
03:17
they gloat about because it brings a lot
03:19
of money into the economy
03:20
from america and from london
03:24
so there are lots of implications here
03:26
um
03:27
but the international alliances is
03:30
britain worth as much to nato without
03:32
the
03:33
nuclear bases in scotland and the sort
03:35
of stranglehold on the north atlantic
03:37
passage for submarines
03:39
uh and of course there's the whole issue
03:41
is it good for the scots
03:43
um speaking as someone from liverpool
03:46
uh i do hope the scots don't because it
03:49
leaves us in the
03:50
north of england on our own facing the
03:53
um
03:54
the norman the norman yoke out of the
03:57
home counties
03:59
but that's the sort of minor and
04:02
separate issue
04:03
so so much explain the economics
04:06
can scotland go it alone so here's
04:10
so much stuff to cover you've named all
04:11
the important stuff and i do hope we get
04:13
a chance to talk about all of it because
04:14
it's all important the nukes everything
04:16
right
04:17
but let's start with a simple way of
04:19
thinking about this now
04:21
much of scotland's current resurgent
04:24
interest in being independent comes from
04:26
the fact that it was voted down in 2014
04:29
didn't get through the referendum but
04:31
then it was brexit
04:32
and brexit was this thing it's like we
04:35
voted to remain
04:36
england voted to go now we've been
04:37
dragged out this is going to cause harm
04:39
to the economy
04:40
blah blah blah so we need to be on our
04:42
own now there's pretty good arguments
04:44
for being on your own and i'll go on to
04:46
those in a minute make that the second
04:47
thing but let's just think about the
04:48
problem this way
04:50
it's two pretty average sized cities
04:53
one of them is and could be a bigger
04:56
financial hub
04:57
the other one is a commercial slash
04:59
industrial hub
05:00
it's got an oil tank which like oil all
05:02
other towns is going to decline
05:04
naming aberdeen and it's got a kind of
05:06
biotech video
05:07
game hub kind of with dundee then
05:10
there's a whole bunch of small towns
05:12
that kind of live off tourism and
05:13
agriculture and things like that
05:15
there's lots of space it could generate
05:17
lots of renewables
05:19
it's in a strategically important
05:20
location and there's only four and a
05:22
half million people
05:23
more people live in brooklyn new york
05:25
than live in scotland so how hard could
05:27
it be
05:28
right that's number one here's number
05:30
two if your argument
05:32
that we need to do this is because of
05:33
brexit then
05:35
scotland separated from england is the
05:37
biggest brexit in history
05:39
because the last time scotland was fully
05:40
economically independent the word
05:42
capitalism hadn't been uttered
05:45
it's been together for over 300 years
05:49
so if pooling apart 30 years of economic
05:52
integration with europe is going to hurt
05:54
300 is going to hurt a lot now that
05:57
means one of two things
05:58
either you have brass plate independence
06:00
by which i mean
06:01
you declare independence you get a vote
06:03
but nothing really changes you put some
06:05
brass plates in edinburgh
06:06
and nothing's really changing you have
06:08
the pound dollar size though
06:10
or you have actual regulatory divergence
06:12
a different currency a different
06:14
economic policy etc etc
06:16
which will entail significant short to
06:19
medium term costs
06:20
there is no way around that and we know
06:22
that because it's brexit
06:24
times 10. now those two things are
06:26
simultaneously true
06:28
if you're an optimist you start with the
06:29
how hard could it be i mean it's only
06:31
four million people and we've got loads
06:33
of resources
06:34
if you're a pessimist you go 300 years
06:36
of deep economic integration
06:38
good luck unwinding that both of these
06:40
things are simultaneously true
06:42
and both of them have to be taken into
06:44
account in any serious discussion
06:46
of the economics of independence
06:50
and um you mentioned about the uh it
06:53
always perplexed me when the
06:54
scots nationalists were pressing for
06:56
independence but wanted to keep the
06:58
pound and i couldn't see
07:00
what was the point of independence if
07:02
your
07:03
economy was going to be completely
07:05
dependent on the women's of the bank of
07:07
england and the british treasury
07:09
right but again that's a kind of
07:11
one-sided
07:12
understanding of this right particularly
07:14
because it's inflected with a lot of
07:16
modern monetary theory ideas about if
07:18
you've got a currency everything else
07:19
kind of works itself out which is not
07:21
really true
07:22
so let's think about this in a slightly
07:24
different way 60 percent
07:26
scotland's imports to gdp is about 70
07:29
which means it's a small open economy 60
07:33
of those exports go to england the thing
07:35
that you're about to separate from
07:37
so one of the major growth drivers for
07:39
your economy
07:40
i currently has a 100 regulatory
07:43
alignment
07:44
free trade you're about to put barriers
07:47
in between that for
07:48
60 percent of your exports that's going
07:51
to hurt
07:52
second thing you can have your own
07:54
currency but if you're a small open
07:56
economy it doesn't really matter
07:58
because at the end of the day you end up
08:00
pegging to your biggest competitor your
08:02
biggest markets
08:03
so the danes pegged to the euro even
08:05
though that they have their own currency
08:06
the swedes pegged to the euro even
08:08
though the other one comes
08:09
the hungarians the romanians they all
08:11
pegged to the euro because that's what
08:12
they trade into
08:13
right so 60 of our exports still go to
08:15
britain until we change that until that
08:17
becomes a different configuration of
08:19
exports
08:20
we're going to peg to the pound so you
08:22
can actually have your own country
08:23
you're still going to run a peg to the
08:25
pump right
08:26
so this is the stuff that needs to be
08:28
thought through
08:29
it's not just a question of if you have
08:31
your own currency then you will be fine
08:33
right if you're a small open economy you
08:34
have what's called the current account
08:36
constraint right you need to export in
08:39
order to pay for your imports because
08:40
you'll never be self-sufficient in the
08:42
stuff that you need
08:43
to do that you need to have a credible
08:46
exchange rate policy so that people
08:48
don't go that's just funny money i'm not
08:50
touching it
08:50
and if a whole bunch of your exports go
08:52
to one place you end up basically trying
08:54
to shadow the exchange rate of your
08:56
major trading partner
08:58
so what's your autonomy not much right
09:00
these are the structural facts that
09:02
people need to deal with
09:04
um we had a sort of a bit of a dress
09:07
rehearsals for this with the
09:09
independence of uh southern ireland era
09:12
the republic of ireland
09:13
because they were using the british
09:15
pound until um
09:17
until after the the euro came i think
09:19
wasn't it no they introduced the punt
09:21
yeah yeah
09:22
it was the panda point and then but
09:24
basically all the way through the punt
09:25
period what they were doing is they were
09:27
basically shadowing the british pound so
09:29
it's more of a nominal than a kind of
09:31
real
09:32
independent monetary policy i mean i
09:34
think ian if you look at this globally
09:36
right independent money policy is a bit
09:37
of a joke that died sometime around 2010
09:40
everybody follows the fed if the fed
09:43
puts rates up
09:44
everybody pays rights up if the fed cuts
09:46
right everybody cuts rates right i mean
09:48
it's a bit of a canard
09:49
anyway
09:52
so is this an argument for or against
09:55
independence oh no no
09:58
here's my here's how i think about it
09:59
with all those constraints right i think
10:00
there's three things that have to be
10:02
accepted
10:03
the first one is and i put myself in the
10:05
nationalist camp not because i'm a
10:07
nationalist emotionally
10:09
but simply by default i'd call it a kind
10:11
of pragmatic nationalism
10:13
gordon brown did a piece in the daily
10:14
mail the other day where he framed it as
10:16
30
10:16
unionists 30 nationalists 40 percent
10:19
they can be persuaded right
10:20
i'm one of the 40 percent that's kind of
10:22
edited in the nationalist camp for three
10:24
main reasons
10:25
the first one is i don't think the
10:26
british economic model is sustainable
10:28
over the long term
10:30
it is essentially a giant financial hub
10:32
that generates about 12 percent of gdp
10:34
in london
10:35
22 percent of british gdp actually is
10:37
generated in london as a whole
10:39
the rest of the country is gva negative
10:41
gross value added negative which means
10:43
it's not growing
10:44
qed everybody lives off transfers second
10:47
thing is
10:48
when boris and his crew who are going to
10:50
be in power forever are given the state
10:51
of the labor party
10:52
talk about leveling up the country that
10:54
is an imaginary that runs in a line from
10:57
liverpool to sheffield
10:59
right there's nothing above that
11:00
scotland is already not part of that
11:02
imaginary
11:03
there's a de facto independence in this
11:05
world and
11:06
and the third one is the demographic one
11:09
which is that you know people
11:11
themselves uh particularly younger
11:12
people in scotland
11:14
overwhelmingly think this is a good idea
11:17
now we can get into why it's the young
11:18
versus the old which has to do with
11:20
assets and
11:21
pensions and all those sorts of things
11:23
but at the end of the day
11:24
the demographic sorry the the democratic
11:29
misfit if you will between permanently
11:32
being governed by english stories and
11:33
consistently voting for
11:35
anything but that and never having your
11:37
own government
11:38
right i think all of those pressures
11:40
basically push you towards a this has to
11:42
be better
11:43
but it pushes you in a nationalist
11:45
direction the problem is to get there
11:47
you need to basically square these
11:48
two things how do you unravel 300 years
11:51
of independence without killing yourself
11:53
and get to a better place but you do
11:55
have the advantage that it's really just
11:57
two cities that live pretty close
11:58
together and a handful of other things
12:00
so how difficult can it be
12:02
and the answer is not get your own
12:04
currency and everything will be fine
12:05
right
12:05
you need to think about what is the
12:07
underlying business model what is
12:08
scotland actually do in terms of exports
12:10
because it's going to have to live by
12:12
its exports
12:13
if carbon is on the way out you can
12:14
forget north sea oil so what's the next
12:16
trick right
12:17
that's the stuff that we need to think
12:19
about over the next five to ten years
12:20
and make a convincing case
12:22
that we can get from here to there
12:26
well we can do the life of brian gigg um
12:28
what have
12:29
what's westminster ever done for us
12:34
and fair and fair point i mean you know
12:36
any unionist will tell you that scotland
12:37
does get higher per capita gdp spending
12:40
because of the bar
12:40
formula and all the rest of it but at
12:42
the end of the day it's kind of like the
12:44
whole country's living on the dole and
12:45
the doors paid for by
12:47
england if that business model in london
12:49
runs into trouble which i think
12:51
eventually it's going to
12:52
then the ability to sustain those
12:54
transfers is already in question
12:56
why would you want to basically have the
12:57
next 30 years of living on handouts from
12:59
london
13:00
i just think it's a bad option
13:02
especially in london
13:03
under the political control of people
13:05
who don't believe in handouts
13:06
for anybody that is all well it depends
13:09
i mean you know they'll do plenty
13:10
hundreds along to keep them in power
13:12
yeah but um i haven't noticed an
13:15
enthusiasm for pouring money into
13:16
northern
13:17
and scottish unemployment or even
13:19
watching unemployment come
13:23
what about the diplomatic repercussions
13:25
and the sort of quasi-military
13:27
repercussions
13:28
the scotland in or out of nato in or out
13:31
of the european union
13:33
yeah so this is very interesting so
13:35
basically the snp have embraced a kind
13:38
of
13:38
knee-jerk unilateralism right get the
13:40
nukes out we don't want any of that
13:42
stuff
13:43
and i i don't know how that's going to
13:45
work out in the long term because
13:47
if you want basically enough fdi for
13:50
direct investment
13:51
to up your investment in your economy so
13:53
that you can change your business model
13:55
so you can be independent
13:56
a good place to look is the united
13:58
states right
13:59
and there's plenty of goodwill and
14:02
there's plenty of organizations plenty
14:03
of rich scots embedded in everything
14:05
from silicon valley to the chicago
14:07
markets and new york real estate the
14:08
whole law
14:09
would be perfectly willing to help and
14:11
if the first thing you do is to
14:13
basically say to
14:14
nato and to the leader of nato that
14:16
we're not going to host any nukes
14:17
anymore and you can forget it and your
14:19
submarine access is cut off
14:21
and you can't dock you can't dock in our
14:23
ports or any of that sort of stuff
14:24
they're going to make life very
14:25
difficult and if you do that also from
14:28
the
14:28
european side you're going to basically
14:30
bugger up nato's only nuclear deterrent
14:32
as you pointed out
14:33
don't expect them to be too forthcoming
14:35
on the eu membership
14:37
on the other hand if you basically think
14:39
about this as an asset which you also
14:41
alluded to
14:42
one way to do this is to basically lease
14:44
the bases
14:45
so you would do a joint lease to the
14:47
united kingdom in the united states for
14:49
cool poor holy loft whatever it is you
14:51
declare an ex-anti-sovereign territory
14:53
you sign a 50-year lease
14:55
and you get 2 billion a year like you
14:57
crimean naval bases that what could go
14:59
wrong with the model like that
15:01
well here's the thing thinking about it
15:02
this is when uh when the us was doing
15:04
its
15:05
uh war on everything in the early 2000s
15:08
um they were signing basing agreements
15:10
with azerbaijan and all these places and
15:12
they're all just
15:13
raking in billions now you've got you're
15:15
doing a transit project you're trying to
15:17
get from where you are economically to
15:18
where you want to be economically
15:20
and basically getting a ton of fdi and
15:23
getting a transfer of 2 billion a year
15:25
into an economy of only four and a half
15:27
million people
15:28
that would be a good thing to do but
15:30
then you would have to basically swallow
15:32
all you've said about
15:33
no nukes and all that sort of stuff so
15:36
it depends if the politics wins out if
15:38
the politics wins out in the way that
15:39
it's been written just now it's going to
15:40
make the economic transition that much
15:42
harder
15:43
and um well you don't see a role for
15:46
others uh
15:46
i wouldn't accept russian rubles but
15:48
what about the chinese if they said
15:50
well they were very much like a naval
15:52
base in the north atlantic
15:54
well you know even the naval base i mean
15:56
basically if you just went to them into
15:57
the belt and road initiative and
15:59
the asian development bank and said all
16:01
right really two small cities that have
16:02
already got pretty good communications
16:04
infrastructure
16:05
how about you build the 5g well that's
16:07
huawei so that's a security risk for
16:09
everybody in the west right but you
16:11
could do that
16:12
um how about you rebuild our port
16:13
infrastructure for us and you gave us a
16:15
big loan to do it
16:16
to do that was a rounding error on their
16:18
balance sheet it's a tiny amount of
16:20
money
16:20
and it gets them right into a strategic
16:22
position so you could use
16:23
the threat of doing that as a way of
16:25
getting what you want
16:27
alternatively you could just go with
16:28
them and say well how about we just do
16:29
this with china because you don't want
16:30
to play ball
16:31
the point is scotland has options that
16:33
people don't think about the question is
16:35
whether they have
16:36
if you will the where with all their
16:37
desire to follow through on those
16:39
options
16:41
well um what would happen the law of
16:44
unintended consequences
16:46
if the we saw what happened with brexit
16:48
is that boris johnson didn't expect to
16:50
win the referendum and has been trying
16:52
to dig himself out the whole
16:53
he put himself in ever since would the
16:56
scots snatch virgin have the same
16:58
problem
16:59
well it depends on what you promised
17:00
going into i mean the problem that i've
17:03
seen so far is the complete lack of
17:05
specificity
17:06
as to here is what the scottish business
17:08
model is now
17:10
here is where we want to be this is how
17:12
we're going to get from here to here by
17:14
doing this
17:15
instead of what we've got is denmark is
17:18
awesome we should be like denmark if we
17:20
were independent we would be denmark no
17:22
you wouldn't be denmark denmark took 600
17:24
years to become denmark
17:26
how do you become your own thing given
17:28
where you're starting
17:29
that's the only thing that really needs
17:31
to be answered
17:34
um well the danes of course have quite a
17:36
connection to
17:38
scotland or the norwayians who came in
17:41
and threw macbeth out and
17:43
yeah but they've got a far bigger
17:45
connection to to germany i mean
17:47
you know they're a peninsula that's
17:48
stuck up in the german above the
17:50
hinterland of germany
17:51
there's a great book on there's a great
17:52
book on the danish economy from the
17:54
early 2000s by a guy called kyo the
17:56
person
17:57
um called the cooperative economy that
17:59
scots would do well to
18:00
to to to read it basically says the
18:02
reason denmark is rich and cooperative
18:05
isn't really it's social democratic
18:07
traditions or any of that it's the fact
18:09
that you've got 80 million germans up
18:10
your backside
18:12
and if you start fighting amongst
18:13
yourself there's nothing left
18:16
yes it's schleswig-holstein question no
18:19
indian times gone by
18:22
that was only understood by two people
18:24
and one of them were mad wasn't it that
18:25
was good
18:26
exactly
18:29
so it goes it goes um what
18:33
so how much um we don't want you to do
18:37
sophology and to make estimates about uh
18:40
what who in scotland wants independence
18:45
is there is is that is is there a
18:47
bourgeoisie
18:48
that's aiming to get out there and
18:50
rebuild the darian project or anything
18:52
like that
18:53
well there are i mean there definitely
18:54
are okay so so let's think about this
18:57
way
18:57
scotland likes to portray itself as this
18:59
left-wing alternative to the united
19:01
kingdom you know if you actually go look
19:03
at survey data in people's opinions
19:05
they're really not any different if you
19:07
had independence and you had a party
19:09
system
19:10
one-third of them would vote for the
19:11
local conservatives just as they do in
19:13
britain
19:14
right so elections are decided by small
19:16
margins not by giant blocks
19:18
so the first one is it's not that
19:20
different from anywhere else really
19:22
where it differs is in demography right
19:24
scotland is an
19:25
old place it's not a particularly
19:27
healthy place as we know as well which
19:29
also doesn't help
19:30
but if you think about age and assets
19:32
old people have all the money this is
19:34
not to say that all rich people are old
19:36
they are not right there many people are
19:37
all people
19:38
but if you want to find money you don't
19:40
find it with young people you find
19:41
assets with old people
19:43
over the lifetimes they've accumulated
19:44
houses pensions the area right all that
19:47
sort of stuff
19:48
so if you've got that and you're facing
19:50
an independence choice
19:51
you're thinking to yourself all right do
19:53
i want my pension paid with bank of
19:55
england bonds
19:56
or these new kilt edge securities
19:59
and if you haven't got rocks in your
20:00
head you might think to yourself well
20:02
hang on a minute
20:03
if they introduced it on currency it's
20:04
probably going to trade a lesser
20:06
multiple of parity it's not going to be
20:08
the same it's going to be a devaluation
20:10
which means if i've got a million pounds
20:12
of pension assets i might have
20:14
700 000 pounds but nominally a scottish
20:18
million
20:18
so the question becomes does that
20:20
scottish million in scotland
20:22
spend like a million or does it spend
20:24
like seven hundred thousand
20:25
and last time around when they did an
20:27
independent referendum you saw this in
20:28
the data it was the old
20:30
qua the people with assets who kind of
20:32
made that calculation and went i like
20:33
the status quo thanks very much
20:36
as those people slip the mortal coil
20:38
what you're finding is more and more
20:40
young people who are becoming
20:41
middle-aged are moving into the kind of
20:42
voting block
20:44
and the issue here is what statisticians
20:46
call a cohort effect
20:48
or a generational effect so the
20:50
generational effect is
20:52
churchill's maxim right so when you're
20:54
20 you should be a socialist
20:56
and when you're 40 you should be a
20:57
conservative do they all go through
21:00
their life cycle and do this right
21:01
is it in a sense a generation effect so
21:04
the people who are young who don't have
21:05
assets now
21:06
are going to want to stay with the union
21:08
once they get assets
21:10
or is it a cohort effect which is to say
21:12
that these people are just different
21:14
and they don't have assets they're not
21:15
going to accumulate them and even if
21:17
they do
21:17
they're going to still want independence
21:20
i think the evidence is beginning to
21:22
suggest that it's a cohort effect more
21:24
than a generation effect
21:25
which means that over time those people
21:27
are going to vote for it
21:28
but what's still driving this is the
21:30
fact that if you take a punt on zero
21:33
you can't really lose if you don't have
21:35
any assets you might as well vote for
21:37
the alternative because it's not as
21:38
you've got you're going to lose anything
21:40
right so that's the basis of your
21:42
independence coalition
21:44
now on top of that there are definitely
21:45
some of you know industrial people
21:47
financial people tech people in scotland
21:49
who are also in favor of this and think
21:51
it's a good move
21:53
um and there are other interested
21:55
parties as well
21:56
but there's that's basically how i think
21:59
about it base
21:59
it's it's demography plus assets kind of
22:02
explains the voting preferences
22:08
on returning exile scots making aliya to
22:12
get back to the homeland
22:14
uh well it depends the conditions under
22:16
what it's done under how it's done but i
22:18
certainly think that if it did happen
22:21
and you know there were certainly good
22:23
economic attacks incentives to
22:25
to to return yourself or your capital
22:28
then uh
22:28
it would happen and again it doesn't
22:30
have to be that much i mean go back to
22:31
the
22:32
it's two cities and four million people
22:34
right it doesn't
22:35
you're not you're not hanging out there
22:36
for a couple of trillion bucks right
22:39
a few billion banged here or they would
22:41
make a big difference
22:43
in back andrew carnegie all is forgiven
22:45
well not necessarily but you know
22:48
certainly fd greenfield fdi and the way
22:50
that ireland has done it i mean there's
22:52
a misconception in ireland is all just
22:54
about the 12 and a half percent
22:55
corporation tax i mean it was
22:57
but for the past 10 years since the
22:58
financial crisis is not it's real fdi
23:01
real jobs
23:02
real tech sector jobs etc in part
23:04
because they have the access to europe
23:06
but at the same time you know scotland
23:07
is not exactly devoid of resources
23:09
talent
23:10
skills etc etc it's a relatively low
23:12
cost
23:13
a place to exploit in the economic sense
23:16
and uh
23:17
it's got great proximity to europe and
23:19
also the united kingdom so
23:21
it's not hard in terms of human capital
23:24
the scots
23:26
used to have a reputation having a an
23:29
outstanding education system
23:30
has it survived 50 years of austerity
23:33
from the south
23:34
well i mean i haven't been in it for a
23:36
long time but certainly when i was back
23:38
there in the 1980s it was an excellent
23:40
undergraduate education
23:41
so much so that when i toured up at
23:43
north columbia university in the 1990s
23:45
and found myself sitting next to people
23:46
from
23:47
harvard and yale places i'd only ever
23:49
heard of in movies
23:50
uh far from being in awe i was
23:53
astonished that i'd read more than they
23:54
had
23:57
which is why i'm able to do what i do
23:59
today um so no i don't think it has
24:01
fallen i think the scottish education
24:02
system is actually still
24:04
one of the best in the world
24:05
particularly the undergraduate level
24:08
and this is a big selling point for
24:10
investment of course isn't this
24:12
well it's one selling point i mean
24:14
there's lots of other things in here
24:15
that are sort of misconceptions right so
24:17
what does scotland explore oil and
24:18
whiskey let's look at the whiskey sector
24:20
it's all owned by foreign companies it's
24:22
all owned by global multinationals
24:24
how does this affect scotland well you
24:26
get taxes and you can do tax revenue you
24:28
can
24:28
possibly push up a little bit on that
24:30
it's a take a few
24:32
bucks extra before people start drinking
24:34
rye whiskey over scotch whisky and mass
24:36
quantities
24:36
particularly in places like japan where
24:38
they can afford it right
24:40
so you can do this but this knocks on
24:41
another interesting list there's an old
24:43
friend of mine from dundee
24:45
who told me this one i i i was shocked
24:47
by this
24:48
you think about scotland's an
24:49
agricultural um place
24:52
and it is and you know i remember
24:53
growing up picking potatoes
24:55
the raspberry fields of blur gallery all
24:57
this sort of stuff but apparently
24:59
two-thirds of the biomass of scottish
25:00
crops is just barley
25:03
just because that's the whiskey industry
25:05
right this is what we grow
25:07
which goes into these into this industry
25:09
which is globally unique and competitive
25:11
but at the end of the day we don't
25:13
actually
25:13
own that stuff so whiskey most you know
25:17
you're going to nationalize the whiskey
25:18
lines i mean you know how do we think
25:20
about this
25:21
it's it's not just i mean education is
25:24
part of it
25:25
the fact that it buckets down the rain
25:27
all the time is actually kind of an
25:29
advantage because it seems that the
25:30
south of england is drying out
25:31
an interesting little factoid the the
25:33
big champagne houses of france so from
25:36
liam
25:37
uh have been buying up properties and
25:39
planting champagne vineyards and
25:41
kent i don't know if you've tried any of
25:43
the english champagnes in the past
25:45
couple of years
25:45
they're excellent because it's all
25:47
getting too hot where they are
25:49
and it's moving north right well the
25:51
thing is south of england where it all
25:53
generates all the
25:54
the gross value added etc is also drying
25:57
out
25:57
and scotland's getting wetter so why not
26:00
just build pipeline take those pipelines
26:02
for oil and just fill them with water
26:04
shove it down right again it's only four
26:06
million people how hard can it be
26:08
right you don't have you don't have to
26:09
support 40 million people right
26:11
wind right the place is windy as hell
26:14
right the technology is known
26:16
proven and cost effective batter up
26:18
hundreds of large-scale windmills and
26:20
just sell it into the english grid
26:22
why not right so there's lots of things
26:25
that can be done but it needs to be part
26:27
of a kind of
26:27
coherent plan of how to do it
26:30
so i mean what form would independence
26:33
take in sort of
26:35
political political economic terms i
26:37
mean how much extra
26:39
would this scots government in edinburgh
26:41
have to
26:42
what extra powers would it get that it
26:45
doesn't have now to do this
26:47
well it gets the right to do the most
26:48
important one in many ways despite me
26:51
poo pooing
26:51
a little earlier which is currency with
26:53
currency you have autonomy because
26:56
you can then devalue your currency which
26:58
is a good shock absorber of having a
27:00
crisis
27:01
you can kind of play with your own
27:03
interest rate so i'm skeptical
27:06
effective control of interest rates um
27:09
you
27:10
are able to build your own banks if they
27:12
have a financial crisis but the chances
27:14
are if you were independent they'd move
27:15
to london
27:16
because they'd want a better regulator a
27:18
bigger a better regulator
27:20
and also a bigger cushion which would
27:21
come with the bank of england rather
27:23
than bank of scotland so there's
27:24
there's issues there um you'd have
27:27
control over taxation
27:28
raising powers etc but most importantly
27:31
you get to choose what you want to spend
27:32
your stuff on
27:33
right just now yes scotland gets a lot
27:35
of money in transfers but also
27:36
contributes
27:37
through the general taxation to lots of
27:40
stuff in england that scotland wouldn't
27:42
need to do
27:43
like having an outsized military for
27:45
example
27:46
uh contributing to sort of international
27:49
public goods on the scale that
27:50
ain't that the united kingdom does so
27:52
there's lots of ways to like
27:55
the upkeep of government buildings all
27:56
over the united kingdom we
27:58
just wouldn't have to do that so you
27:59
could choose the most important thing is
28:01
that you would be able to choose
28:03
sort of brother the most important thing
28:05
is you'll be able to choose differently
28:06
what you want to spend that money on
28:08
and then also to create a different type
28:10
of environment in which to
28:12
get investors and companies to to invest
28:15
their capital and grow
28:18
um if anybody's out there that's got any
28:20
questions to
28:22
bring in which from whichever clan you
28:24
are wherever you glen
28:25
please send us out there's a couple on
28:26
here let's have a look
28:29
why don't scots have the right to be
28:30
governed by politicians elected by the
28:32
scots says jerry cassidy
28:34
oh jerry because it's a united kingdom
28:36
we are all one can
28:37
work one set of constituencies which
28:39
send mps to the
28:41
parliament in london and that has been
28:43
the case since the act of union back in
28:45
the early 1700s
28:47
so we also have a scottish government
28:49
and we can directly elect to the
28:51
scottish government
28:52
the scottish government has delegated
28:54
powers the way they think about this
28:56
it's a bit like sending is it like the
28:58
difference between sending senators to
29:00
dc and having state senators in albany
29:02
right so think about it that way
29:04
currently we have a kind of albany set
29:06
up we'd like to have the dc
29:07
set up michael o'hare's question is very
29:11
relevant uh
29:12
you know the the the the relationship of
29:15
the uk
29:15
with the eu and uh whether scotland
29:18
would be allowed to rejoin the eu with
29:20
the political constraints i mentioned
29:22
about
29:23
spanish and antipathy to secessionist
29:26
movements
29:26
etc uh and uh
29:30
whether this could be contingent i mean
29:32
would it be a two-stage
29:34
question do you want independence with
29:37
or without
29:37
european union so the eu one is
29:41
fascinating in multiple levels so yes
29:43
you know the spanish don't want scotland
29:45
to come in because it suggests catalonia
29:47
can do the same and
29:48
breaks it up etc right and there's also
29:50
the stuff about the security council as
29:52
you correctly
29:53
it right i mean can you really be one of
29:55
the big five
29:56
when you basically lose 10 percent
29:58
thereabouts of your gdp
30:00
you might even slip out of the g7 right
30:02
so you know it's not actually that
30:03
you're no longer a big player
30:05
um the eu once complicated by another
30:07
one though the eu is basically a giant
30:10
exporter block run by the germans i
30:12
don't mean this in any
30:14
snide or shorthanded way i mean if you
30:16
basically look at the economic model of
30:17
the eu
30:18
since the financial crisis you've got
30:20
countries in eastern europe which don't
30:22
join the euro but
30:23
shadow it closely and basically are the
30:25
parts suppliers
30:26
to the german auto and mittelstand
30:28
export complex
30:30
then you've got the danes and swedes
30:32
that are part of that as high quality
30:33
exporters
30:34
and then the whole thing goes out into
30:36
the global economy and sold to the
30:37
americans the chinese and everybody else
30:39
southern europe is the problem southern
30:41
europe italy hasn't grown for 20 years
30:43
france has massive
30:45
debt to gdp constraints and taxation
30:47
constraints
30:48
i don't know not massive but serious
30:50
ones they spend a lot through the state
30:52
already
30:53
uh the growth rates are low uh
30:55
historically the united kingdom grows
30:56
faster than the eu average
30:58
so what is it you're joining well if
31:01
you're
31:02
10 years down the line and we go down
31:04
the path of austerity too
31:06
if the germans have their way and it's
31:08
all about belt tightening and back to
31:10
the 60 percent debt to gdp
31:12
and all this sort of stuff what means
31:14
post pandemic southern europe is going
31:16
to have
31:16
another round of austerity another round
31:18
of high unemployment
31:19
and then another round of political
31:21
volatility and this time
31:22
it's probably not going to survive in
31:24
its current form
31:26
so you would hope that they know this
31:27
i'm not convinced that they do
31:29
but we'll see if on the other hand it's
31:31
all eu next gen funds
31:33
common debt instruments let's loosen the
31:36
fiscal constraints
31:37
then that's one that scotland can live
31:38
with but if the price of joining is that
31:40
scotland has to take what will
31:42
effectively be an eight percent deficit
31:44
and about 120
31:45
debt to gdp in their state of the
31:47
british national debt
31:48
and then basically join the eu and
31:51
massively contract and have a huge
31:53
recession for the price
31:55
that's going to be a hell of a hard sell
31:57
right that's going to be a very very
31:59
tough sell
32:00
do you then approach it from the point
32:01
of view of scotland actually doesn't
32:03
have any national debt here's an
32:04
interesting one
32:05
today i don't know if you know this one
32:08
not many people know this one
32:10
uh outside the weird circuits of people
32:12
who trade bonds
32:13
um you can't change the counterparty on
32:15
a bond so scotland becomes independent
32:17
it literally has no national debt
32:19
right you you can't inherit it really
32:21
you'd have to voluntarily
32:23
offer to give a payment in kind to the
32:26
bank of england every year
32:28
to service your share of the debt as
32:31
some kind of proportion of gdp or income
32:33
or per capita or something like this
32:35
right um
32:36
and it's done that's been done with many
32:38
other countries getting independence
32:40
doesn't it
32:41
yeah exactly right in a situation where
32:44
scotland plays hardball and just because
32:45
now we're not going to do that we're
32:47
just going to walk out we're going to
32:48
effectively default on english debt
32:50
and walk into the eu with no debt well i
32:52
mean if you start your life with a
32:53
voluntary default don't expect creditors
32:55
to be nice to you
32:58
right so you know it's superficially
33:01
attractive but
33:02
it is i mean you know the thing is do
33:04
you want to join the eu depends on which
33:06
version of the eu you have
33:08
which version of the eu you think will
33:09
be there in five or ten years
33:11
is it going to be a german uh middle
33:14
stand export oriented
33:16
sparring culture tighten your belts and
33:19
have no deficit to see you
33:20
if it is going to be a hell of a hard
33:22
place for for for
33:24
the scots to exist for them
33:27
kristin patterson from the national
33:29
laser
33:30
an interesting question that broadens
33:32
out who is the us and international
33:34
community listening to most boris
33:36
johnson
33:37
nicola sturgeon or someone else it's
33:39
interesting that yeah i think that
33:40
nicola sturge has actually
33:42
got a place on the world stage that you
33:44
would not necessarily have expected the
33:47
more so than say the catalonian leaders
33:49
or even to some extent than the cost of
33:51
our leaders
33:52
i think that's absolutely right i think
33:53
she's played a blinder in terms of the
33:55
kind of media strategy on this
33:57
the 2014 uh referendum of course really
34:01
put her on the map taking over from
34:03
salmon after the campaign
34:04
and you know the scottish government
34:06
itself for like as many ways it can be
34:08
criticized as all governments can be
34:10
criticized
34:10
but as you see from the most recent
34:12
returns it's very popular the scots like
34:15
it they like her they like what she's
34:16
doing
34:17
and you know she came across during the
34:19
covered pandemic somebody who is very
34:21
much
34:21
in control listening to the science
34:24
knows what's going on etc
34:26
uh and that you know that helps you know
34:28
particularly when basically
34:29
if you look across the atlantic you had
34:31
trump and then you get boris who's sort
34:33
of like you know
34:34
posh version of trump basically with
34:36
slightly less
34:37
racist edges and uh you know racist in
34:40
latin it doesn't count
34:41
that's right exactly and then she she
34:44
you know she
34:45
looks good in reflection to that but the
34:48
deeper question that christina is asking
34:50
i think is important
34:51
is who's listening to this right
34:53
nationalists think everyone's listening
34:55
to this that this is somehow
34:56
the most important question in the world
34:58
right and it's not
35:00
most people in the world don't care
35:02
scotland is a tiny place
35:04
and it's got hardly any people and it's
35:06
part of the uk
35:08
and for the rest of the world we'll
35:09
probably be happy if it all just went
35:11
away because it's one less thing to
35:12
worry about right
35:13
the really interesting thing is who's
35:15
going to care
35:16
if it happens right if it happens will
35:20
be decided
35:20
internally to britain but what matters
35:23
externally is
35:24
if it happens how does it affect
35:25
everybody else start with nukes
35:28
go through currency go down the list
35:31
but you've been in the states now for
35:33
several decades um
35:34
do you see any signs of of an american
35:37
scots lobby to match the irish american
35:40
lobby
35:40
in its blind and fervent nationalism
35:44
well no because a lot of that was the
35:46
fact that irishman
35:47
scots immigration went originally to the
35:49
carolinas in the 17th and 18th century
35:52
and then to canada more than the united
35:55
states in many ways although there are
35:56
many many scholars americans
35:58
there's a scottish american foundation
35:59
which does great work networking all the
36:01
different scottish american institutions
36:03
which are around
36:04
there are some andrews societies all
36:06
over the place that are actually like
36:07
very well healed and well connected etc
36:10
so you know there are people there that
36:12
are interested
36:13
and you know invested in all senses the
36:16
word
36:17
um so you know there are networks to
36:19
draw upon
36:20
put it that way um you know
36:24
but you don't see them having a sort of
36:26
crucial effect
36:28
raising political support and uh finance
36:32
you're not going to get a three billion
36:33
dollars a year in scotland
36:35
well if you think about the archetypal
36:37
thing of
36:38
north catholic irish descent
36:42
american politicians being able to
36:44
directly influence the brits over
36:46
policies over northern ireland at the
36:48
time the troubles right
36:49
scotland's not really in that situation
36:52
it's not that kind of literally life or
36:54
death struggle and i hope that it never
36:56
becomes dark
36:57
and it also isn't ethnicized in the same
36:59
way that was
37:01
so i think that sort of the cadences
37:03
that made that type of politicization
37:06
possible
37:10
now with scott you mentioned that that
37:12
was very interesting i think that
37:14
the scots nationalists have been very
37:17
clever
37:17
in the inclusion of
37:20
you know you've got scott's nationalists
37:23
wearing turbans
37:24
you've got discussions that's a great
37:26
that guy
37:27
the guy with the turban and the flag in
37:28
2014 what an image i mean it's just yeah
37:32
i mean we're in scotland where scots and
37:34
that's been welcomed but it's also been
37:36
suggested by
37:37
some scots friends of mine that
37:41
this is uh somewhat the icing on the
37:44
cake that in fact there is a hard core
37:46
of
37:46
nasty bigoted nationalism at the bottom
37:49
of it all which
37:50
might under these circumstances
37:52
unintended consequences
37:54
rise to the rise to the top well let me
37:57
two examples so a couple of weeks ago
38:00
there was this
38:00
um as they'd say in scotland where
38:04
the immigration police who operate with
38:06
a mandate to operate in scotland from
38:08
london but are not empowered by the
38:10
scottish government
38:11
basically drive up to the south side of
38:13
glasgow to pollock shields
38:14
and bundle a couple of guys into a van
38:16
and basically say your immigration
38:18
status is revoked you're out of the
38:19
country
38:20
and the whole street turned out and then
38:22
activists showed up and the next thing
38:24
it was two thousand people and suddenly
38:25
got under the van to stop at driving and
38:27
all this sort of stuff and basically the
38:28
police at the back down
38:29
and that is like one side of what the
38:31
scottish political community is like
38:33
now what it was about a week before
38:35
rangers won the league
38:37
uh the glasgow football you should
38:39
explain to people that rangers tend to
38:41
be associated
38:42
with northern ireland protestantism
38:45
david mcwilliams who who you might know
38:48
has a brilliant phrase for this
38:49
he calls the ideology of the rangers
38:52
fans and the scottish protestant
38:54
community
38:55
aerostats airship which i just think is
38:58
fabulous like this idea of sort of
39:00
greater protestantism being spread you
39:03
know
39:03
um to get back to the story right so
39:06
basically enters the protestant club
39:07
celtics the catholic club celtic we're
39:09
about to get 10 championships in a row
39:12
it's a very two horse
39:13
and ranger stopped him and despite
39:15
covert and everything all the rangers
39:17
fun came out
39:18
with their union jacks not their
39:20
soldiers and they went to george square
39:22
the big show in glasgow and they had a
39:23
riot as football fans were going to do
39:25
and they all got drunk and they sung
39:28
really offensive anti-catholic songs etc
39:31
now guess what these are two sides of
39:32
your political community
39:34
just like anything right you go down to
39:36
england to watch the england team
39:37
against the
39:38
ukraine uh at the end of the week right
39:40
you'll find the ugly
39:42
face of brexit and you'll find a really
39:44
nice side of england as well
39:45
the scots are no different in this
39:47
regard
39:49
but reassuring
39:53
it's like you know if you want to find
39:55
american communists
39:57
you can't if you want to find american
40:00
bigots
40:00
you can't it's a big country say you
40:02
think so
40:04
it's the same now we have one friend
40:07
from
40:08
aidan stephen brays do you think
40:10
scottish independence is an
40:12
inevitability
40:13
and what would be the worst or case
40:14
scenario you've covered some of this
40:16
before but feel free to summarize again
40:19
well i mean they're taking a different
40:20
direction rather than summarize a lot of
40:22
time left i mean
40:23
i do think it's an inevitability because
40:25
of the demographic
40:27
so i think that essentially those those
40:29
young people who really want it now like
40:31
72 percent of the votes 75
40:34
of the vote people under 40 uh want
40:36
independence i don't think our number's
40:38
going to tail off
40:39
so simply by the virtue of electoral
40:42
arithmetic
40:43
eventually they're going to say we're
40:45
done that's
40:46
it uh it's you know as i said it's a
40:48
cohort effect rather than a sort of you
40:49
know generational effect
40:51
so that's your inevitability in there
40:53
now so what's the best case for this the
40:55
best case for this
40:56
is the scottish government's about to do
40:58
some planning
40:59
it's been on hold because of covert they
41:01
want to just make sure that that's all
41:03
sorted out there's no talk really of
41:05
independence or second referendums at
41:06
the moment and wherever they fell down
41:08
last time
41:09
was all the hand waving about the
41:11
economy oh we'll have the pound and
41:13
we'll do this and we'll do oil and we'll
41:15
have low taxes and all just everything
41:17
and nobody believed it because it was
41:18
just this bag of stuffs
41:20
randomly from together and when you've
41:23
had 300 years of economic integration
41:25
you kind of have to do the hard work of
41:27
stopping and going
41:28
all right what does a scottish economy
41:30
actually really look like
41:32
if it were independent tomorrow what
41:34
would be our globally competitive sector
41:36
right what should we invest in to get us
41:40
to a better place in terms of our
41:41
independent economic strength and how
41:43
would we create
41:44
with that wealth a more just and fair
41:47
and open and equitable society
41:49
and if you take that project seriously
41:52
and give it the kind of brain power and
41:54
effort that it needs
41:55
to to do it to the best you can and and
41:57
then basically get people on board in
41:59
the context of doing that
42:01
then that's a good scenario right that's
42:03
a good place because from there
42:05
again i'll quote david mc williams right
42:08
the great thing about independence is
42:09
it's yours to screw up
42:11
and if you've got a good plan there's
42:12
less chance of screwing up
42:14
even though nothing ever really goes to
42:16
plan to quote gary clark the scottish
42:18
songwriter
42:19
um so that would be a good one the bad
42:22
one would be
42:23
to get militant nationalists on it to
42:25
essentially say
42:27
all right we're going to have a
42:28
referendum because we feel the window's
42:29
shutting
42:30
we're going to just over 51 52
42:34
and we're going to declare independence
42:36
and we don't really have a plan
42:38
that way you've got half the country
42:39
really doesn't want to go there
42:41
you'll have massive capital flight out
42:43
of scotland as people try and protect
42:44
their assets
42:46
there will be no time to readjust
42:49
contracts expectations anything like
42:51
that
42:51
economically it would be very damaging
42:53
in and of itself but most importantly
42:55
politically
42:56
you just wouldn't bring the people with
42:57
you and trying to do independence under
42:59
those conditions is a really bad idea
43:03
now i mean this is one of the
43:04
difficulties with referenda and why the
43:07
dictator's choice you give people a
43:09
spurious binary
43:11
yes or no solution independence or no
43:14
independence
43:14
and then you retire to the one percent
43:17
so i mean
43:18
if you're going to do this should there
43:19
be some form of super majority
43:21
should there be graded questions like
43:23
you know uh
43:25
autonomy plus independence with uh and
43:29
and grade the questions and then looking
43:31
at this
43:32
month's this week's new york election
43:34
results what's happened to greater
43:36
choice questions
43:38
if
43:48
um so yeah i mean you you point to the
43:51
real issues with this i mean
43:52
in a sense it is a binary choice right
43:55
you can't be half pregnant
43:57
right if you want to go for independence
43:59
you're doing it by degree
44:00
is it a wee bit independent are we but
44:02
more independent or is it fully
44:03
independent well that depends on what
44:05
you think that means
44:06
you know at the end of the day it's a
44:08
question of well what is it you mean
44:10
full monetary political sovereignty okay
44:13
well how does that work when 60
44:15
of your exports still go to the rest of
44:16
the united kingdom right you're just not
44:18
sovereign in that sense
44:19
so again i just go back to the same sort
44:22
of point which is
44:23
scotland needs a compass it needs to
44:26
figure out exactly who it is
44:27
what it does in the world what it needs
44:29
to stop doing in the world what it needs
44:31
to do better in the world
44:32
and then sell that to the scottish
44:34
people and go look here's
44:36
here's the best here's here's what we
44:38
can say and and my
44:40
belief on this and it is a belief
44:41
because that i haven't done that work
44:43
and i it's a big job um is that you can
44:47
do it but it's basically it's a
44:49
generational challenge if you
44:50
let's take the example of ireland again
44:52
oh quote mcwilliams
44:54
mick williams referred to ireland's
44:56
period of independence from the end of
44:58
the civil war
44:59
through joining the eu as i think he
45:01
called it the taliban years
45:04
where they were basically run by this
45:05
catholic theocracy
45:07
and the biggest export that ireland made
45:09
was was labourers going to london
45:12
i mean it was it was not a good time
45:13
when it was nautical
45:15
and valera declared economic war on
45:17
britain and yeah
45:19
that was where you go there right
45:22
so you know so basically the hard time
45:24
right the way through to the to the
45:25
1970s
45:26
and you know that's partly ideologically
45:29
driven
45:30
partly because just the capital stock of
45:32
ireland was so crap given sort of his
45:34
colonial legacy of
45:36
dealing with england etc there's lots of
45:37
reasons for it the catholic theology was
45:40
really right the theocracy i should say
45:42
scotland doesn't have any of that stuff
45:43
it doesn't need a 50-year drag but it
45:45
does need a 20-year period of getting
45:47
from a to b
45:48
and that's going to come with costs if
45:50
it is to be meaningful
45:52
you can have all the independence you
45:53
want if at the end of the day nothing
45:54
really changes you just change the brass
45:56
plates in edinburgh
45:57
and i think they want more than that so
45:59
the question is well how do you get from
46:01
there to there you need a plan
46:03
at the moment uh jamie mckinson points
46:06
out the pandemic uh
46:08
is it going to dampen or foment
46:12
independence because certainly the scots
46:14
government radiates
46:16
uh a presumption of competence
46:19
which is sadly missing in london i mean
46:22
but at the same time it's a dreadful
46:24
thing to be left on your own
46:25
if you're a small country faced with a
46:27
global epidemic
46:29
that shows no signs of um withdrawing
46:32
completely
46:33
and jamie's exactly right on this so you
46:35
know would scotland have had access so
46:38
quickly to so many doses
46:39
of the vaccine if it was independence or
46:42
would england have prioritized its own
46:44
population like everybody else does
46:46
there are costs with independence as
46:48
well as benefits right
46:50
so how would you pay for all those
46:52
vaccines if you have no marketing power
46:54
you have no purchasing power you're not
46:56
a large enough economy to do a deal
46:59
that actually is reasonably good with
47:01
these pharma companies
47:02
again there are costs as well as
47:04
benefits
47:06
i think in terms of the pandemic yes you
47:08
know nicola looks confident in the
47:10
barcelona boris because boris looks like
47:12
he sleeps in a box overnight
47:13
so it's not exactly hard to look calm
47:15
because he's probably opened the lid
47:16
every morning i think
47:18
well it springs out right got in a box
47:20
but
47:21
you know cynicism and jokes apart i mean
47:23
you know that's the point of comparison
47:25
but what we're seeing now is
47:26
britain was doing great three months ago
47:28
right it was the vaccine rollout was
47:30
going fabulous the nhs was just the
47:32
the cats whiskers again and then the
47:35
delta variant shows up in part because
47:37
of that stupid trade deal with india so
47:39
they wouldn't shut the door
47:40
but nonetheless it's there now and we're
47:42
not sure how that's going to play out
47:44
and that's also going to hurt scotland
47:45
scotland actually now has the highest
47:46
rate of infection in the united kingdom
47:48
i believe
47:49
so you can you know you can look
47:51
confident but you're not actually able
47:52
to control these things so
47:54
i'm not sure which way the pandemic or
47:56
the long run plays out because we're not
47:58
out of the pandemic yet by any means
48:01
i mean the other parts looking at the
48:03
sturgeon and the scots nationalist
48:05
government is that
48:06
they are efficiently administering
48:10
british central government funds and
48:12
programs
48:13
which the british central government is
48:15
too incompetent to do something
48:18
well i mean it's not quite too
48:19
incompetent to do so i mean
48:21
you know are they that competent
48:22
themselves i'm sure you can find lots of
48:24
critiques by the scottish labour party
48:26
for example of where the snp does and
48:28
does not spend money on what it chooses
48:30
to focus on
48:31
so um yeah i mean you know they're
48:33
competent in the sense that they have an
48:34
electoral majority behind them that
48:36
seems to be relatively pleased with
48:37
where they are
48:38
but let's not forget that for all their
48:40
incompetence you know the tories
48:42
increased their vote share and increase
48:43
their majority
48:44
particularly in the areas that were most
48:46
hurt by tory policies
48:48
well that comes on to i think what could
48:50
be almost our
48:52
segway out of here is uh the missing
48:54
factor this you
48:56
you've we've mentioned in passing
48:57
because this is very much
48:59
on poisson was the mighty scottish
49:02
labour party that gave the world
49:04
john smith robin cook gordon brown
49:07
many of the leading labour politicians
49:09
and now they barely make a town council
49:12
in scotland
49:14
i'm armed in the united kingdom in
49:15
general i mean you know there's a
49:17
political scientist uh um i kind of
49:20
can't believe i'm blanking on his name
49:22
now he's at essex um
49:24
i can't remember anyway he wrote a piece
49:26
recently which i think summed up it says
49:28
you know
49:28
what's the labour party for if you've
49:31
got to a world whereby the tories
49:33
because of the pandemic and
49:34
simply because in a sense they're a bit
49:36
bored with the old
49:37
doing austerity getting pelters for it
49:40
and not really being rewarded for it
49:42
they've discovered in a world of
49:43
hyperloop super low inflation and super
49:45
low structurally low interest rates
49:47
that you can spend money and bond prices
49:49
don't go
49:50
kitty up and you don't end up with a
49:52
huge yield spike you can spend a lot of
49:54
money
49:54
so they've moved to the left
49:55
economically they haven't done anything
49:57
in terms of leveling up but at least it
49:59
sounds good
50:00
so rhetorically at least then
50:02
economically in some areas they move to
50:03
the left
50:04
in line with your average british voter
50:06
they've actually moved to the right
50:08
culturally
50:09
in terms of having very cosmopolitan
50:11
preferences and
50:12
freedom of immigration and so on and so
50:15
forth which the labour party has come to
50:17
uh embody um trans rights etc etc
50:21
the euromedian voter in britain really
50:23
isn't too fond of this stuff
50:24
so they've become natural conservative
50:26
voters as the parties just moved to a
50:28
position to capture all those voters
50:30
when you do that what is the labour
50:32
party for it's for basically
50:34
people who are left libertarian
50:37
individualists
50:38
socialists and social democrats who live
50:40
in cities
50:41
tend to be on public employment and have
50:44
higher education
50:45
you cannot win an election with that
50:47
that's not a coalition
50:48
especially when you're being led by
50:50
neo-liberals well yeah exactly but you
50:53
know irony compounds
50:54
but nonetheless i mean that's where the
50:56
labour party finds itself so
50:57
you know the mark goodwin is the guy's
51:00
name that's a
51:00
good one um worth reading his stuff on
51:03
bruh
51:04
um basically he's just i think he's got
51:06
it right basically the tories
51:08
a bit trump in a way trump didn't form a
51:11
coalition so much as find one that was
51:13
just waiting to be
51:13
recognized and i think boris has done
51:15
the same thing
51:17
the the traditional social concerns of
51:19
northern labour wars
51:20
are not the same thing as metropolitan
51:23
educated
51:24
people under 30. and he's happy to take
51:26
them on board and that's what he's quite
51:28
successfully done
51:29
so labour party everywhere is in trouble
51:32
okay um we're almost coming towards the
51:35
end has anybody got a final question
51:38
to someone sum this all up
51:41
they want to give a rendition of flowers
51:44
of scotland
51:46
as i said i'm not an emotional
51:48
nationalist i'm a private
51:52
okay well yeah but one question which is
51:55
very difficult sometimes you know i work
51:57
at the u.n
51:58
and i've tried to explain to um various
52:01
colleagues whether they're techs or
52:03
russians or chinese
52:05
but if scotland were to dec
52:09
where to declare independence there's no
52:11
conceivable way a british government in
52:13
westminster
52:14
would intervene militarily to stop it
52:16
happening
52:18
yeah that's right the chinese don't get
52:20
this for fairly obvious reasons
52:22
some people care about territorial
52:24
integrity more than others
52:25
um it's you know it's an interesting one
52:28
in the sense that if you think about the
52:29
spanish reaction to
52:31
session right so they basically declare
52:33
we're going to have a vote because you
52:34
told us we couldn't
52:35
we think the vote is binding all right
52:37
eventually we'll track you down for
52:38
under paul warren's will throw you in
52:40
jail
52:41
right that's a very very different
52:43
reaction to
52:45
well i guess if you do it you do it and
52:47
that's it and i think that what that
52:48
speaks to is two things
52:50
so long as they don't really have to
52:51
worry about parking the nuclear weapons
52:54
and the solent
52:55
right they can probably live with it but
52:58
secondly because of the fact of scotland
53:00
is dee
53:00
jury if not they fought well not was
53:03
they factor not the jury independent
53:05
to a large degree through the scottish
53:07
government
53:08
then in a sense it's not part of the
53:10
westminster
53:11
imaginary again i really you talk to
53:14
english stories and they talk about the
53:15
north they're not talking about glasgow
53:18
right it's just not and the scottish
53:20
conservative party is you know
53:21
functionally dead in many ways you know
53:24
you still pick up 30 of the votes but
53:26
you never get any representation
53:28
right that's the nature of the system so
53:31
what do you end up with you know you end
53:33
up with a world in which kind of i think
53:35
the separation's already happened
53:36
it just needs to be formalized okay well
53:40
with that uh i wouldn't say a
53:42
possibility
53:43
how would a pragmatic yes
53:48
conclusion well thank you
53:52
thank you very much indeed mark thank
53:54
you everybody for being here
53:56
jamie get ready
54:36
you
