UKC

Thought people might be interested in listening to the BBC’s Scotland Outdoors programme about slavery derived wealth and land ownership in the Highlands and Islands, and how that has shaped the landscape:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0908hjr

It’s 30 minutes. This is the discussion paper:

https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Plantat...

Thanks that looks really interesting. I’ll try to give it a listen.

what were your takeaway points? Is it just historical or are there suggestions for going forward?

There’s a lot packed in there, so hard to pick just a few takeaway points. No, it’s not entirely historical and maybe not entirely without an agenda. There’s a response on behalf of landowners at the end which is pretty forceful. The picture it paints of some historical landowners and their attitudes towards people, wealth and land is very ugly. The links between slave derived wealth and the clearances. The idea that slave owners were compensated (tax payers finished paying in 2015) but slaves were not.

That seriously floored me when I heard it earlier this year. 
Although it’s obviously not the lenders issue what the borrower does with the money, but still. 

While I agree that slavery was an abhorrent injustice inflicted upon many IMO it was far more important to end it by any means necessary. The essence of strong diplomacy is to recognise when a deal can be done, if you can pay someone to stop and then they convert their business model to one which is more beneficial to society then surely it is preferable to give them a swift exit. Punitive measures could well have led to greater resistance, possible withdrawal of trade, and probably more war with greater financial backing from those with the cash (the business owners).

In some ways applying similar tactics is working to change the approach of our oil and gas companies. They benefit from tax breaks for research into renewables and they know their days are numbered if they stick with carbon energy sources. This is positive but no one right now is talking about compensating everyone else on the planet for the damage they have done to us because the priority is to end the practice without committing a huge act of economic vandalism that would lead to more deaths, in this case switching the energy supply off.

Land ownership of large estates is one of the things that need fixing after independence.   Far too much of Scotland's land has been in the hands of far too small a group of people for far too long.  It's not only immoral it is also economically damaging to have a key asset being horded for hundreds of years rather than in circulation.

Also on the list: abolishing the monarchy and aristocratic titles.

Also getting rid of all the 'Wade Roads', statues of slave owning Tories and other relics of colonial rule.  Clean it out and start fresh like the Eastern European countries did with the relics of communism.

Those that seek to erase their history are doomed to repeat it..........and if you did want to erase it you'd have to flatten large parts of Glasgow, Leith, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen ...I could go on!

It wasn't just (the equivalent of modern) Tories that enthusiastically embraced the wealth opportunities of slavery from Scottish Society, stop trying to ignore parts of Scottish history that don't fit with your revisionist narrative.......................

I agree, while it may stick in one's throat if it brought slavery to an end then it was worth it. I wonder if other countries adopted the same approach?

I think it was Frankie Boyle that said the Jamaica street in Peterhead isn't there because of the amazing reggae scene. 

Plenty of scots made their fortunes in the trade.

And plenty more Scots made their fortune in the Opium trade - don't forget that either.

Wouldn't have to flatten anything.   Just change the names of a few roads and take down a few statues.  There are plenty of people in Scotland's history who are far more worthy of having roads named after them than General Wade whose main claim to fame was murdering highlanders.  St Andrew would be far more appropriate for the centerpiece statue in St Andrew square than a slave-owning Tory.   

Start fresh and give the kids something positive to look up to when they see street names and statues.  Maybe some poets and scientists or historic figures like Wallace and Bruce.

And yet the SNP government - whose entire focus is independence - has done fuck all to address the matter, despite having the authority to do so, and despite various reporting exercises.

It's odd, isn't it?

Didn’t Bruce murder his rival for the throne in a church of all places.

What authority does the Scottish Government have to address land ownership?   It has the authority to change income tax by a couple of percent.  It can't create a land tax or a wealth tax or change the rules on inheritance taxes or close loopholes  in a way to f*ck up the landowners.  YET.

Not at all.  It is using the powers it has, doing a good job and picking its fights.   After independence politics will reconfigure and we will be able to elect a parliament with full authority to deal with issues like this and with hangovers like the aristocracy and monarchy.   

What new model of ownership do you envisage and how will you select who to distribute it to?

I believe so.  Who cares, the guy probably deserved it.

Well that's alright then.

I'd like to see more opportunity to buy smaller amounts of land, to try and attract rich-ish middle class people to move to the highlands and have a nice lifestyle with a largish house and a little land rather than a small number of huge estates.   That will bring more spending and with good internet and reasonable roads many people could work from home.

Things like mountains could be owned by trusts and managed for environmental and tourism rather than for hunting deer.

Least he didn't chop his wives' heads off.

No though he was happy to fight for  Edward 1st against the Scots when he thought it might get him a crown. I wonder how many of his own people he killed, mind he probably felt he was a Norman rather than a Scot. 

its pretty abhorant comparing the oil industry to slavery. What made you do that? and what the f*ck are all the six likes I see for your post? Tell me when the oil companies captured innocent civilians, deprived them of free will and even the right to choose between life and death, pack them side by side in the hold of a fetid leaking disease and roach ridden hull. throw those who died over the side, deprived of a decent burial, sell the slaves into an new continent to work for nothing and receive amputations for infractions. No the oil industry is not comparable to the slave trade. (with apologies to Ken Saro Wira and the six)

And yes, I'm sorry but its time to recognise that its not just a few estates and fine streets that the slave industry paid for. The Empire was nothing more than a giant fraud. Academic estimates that 10 Trillion pounds in today's currency is the amount of money extracted from the Empire before the yoke of oppression was thrown off. Where would India be today had it been allowed to keep any of the proceeds of its industry in the 1800's? We all benefit from the wrongs done by our forefathers. None of us are entitled to live as we do. Being born from thieves and swindlers and yes slavers does not free us from the responsibility to try and right the wrongs by sharing our wealth with those we subjugated.

Reducing the international aid contributions to 0.3% of GDP (was it?) is an absolute scandal. We should be giving half of our GDP to the third world.

Please educate yourself before righteously declaiming the rights of the dispossessed.

How would you set the market rate for any of these purchases?

It wasnt even about punitive measures but down to the fact that whilst the slaveowners power had been reduced in parliament (unsurprisingly for people of such relaxed morality they like rotten boroughs and the like) they were still a large enough group that without paying them off the act might not get through.

So whilst extremely distasteful it was probably the best option at the time.

Sure - but more importantly how are you going to be taking the land off people? 

Is anybody reading this with a blue face?

And is it any different today? These lands are owned by the same families. Clinging to land and power for so long in a democracy must have involved some chicanery. All power to the Scottish parliament in breaking away from. Generations of privilege. 

I take it you've heard of land value taxation, whereby you rate land in such a way that, if used for agriculture, environmental and other commonly beneficial porposes, the taxation is no more onerous than say, council tax.

Then you ratchet it in a way that basically eliminates land speculation and appreciation. If the government builds a new railway station, or good school, which would normally increase the land value (at no cost, effort or skill of the landowner, be that joe bloggs in his 2 bed terrace house, or a large scale volume house building banking on future land value appreciation), the tax depresses the value appreciation over that which is agreed as the "use value" of land.

Why is land an appreciating asset? Why is that an axiom of economic thinking? Would it not be better if all land was a nominal value? That way your house price would solely be the cost of bricks and mortar plus a builders profit. "Normal" homeowners never win out of house price appreciation, not until you could potentially downsize, or sell your second flat....  Only the wealthy benefit.

No need to "take it off them", just shift the landscape (economic, political) so that it's not worth their time holding on to it. 

Very simple example: tax shooting and give tax breaks for rewilding and sustainable ecotourism projects. The money will flow. We just need the teeth and conviction to do what's needed politically. 

I think the situation in Scotland with land/property ownership is like a game of Monopoly which has been running far too long.  A small number of people own far too much of the available land and they just sit on it.

I'd look at changes to the tax system which make holding very large amounts of property or land punitively unprofitable.  Maybe a targeted land/property tax with a lower threshold which most people would never reach and rapidly increasing the more you have over that.   It should create a situation where people who have made a couple of million pursuing professions or business can have a pretty nice house and some land round it but there are no vast estates being passed down in families for hundreds of years and government/environmental charities end up owning the mountains.

I'd also make sure there was a capital gains tax band for high value land sales which would grab most of the money the largest estate owners got when they sold off their property. 

I'm not sure why you've replied to me? Which of my questions did you think you were answering?

I might take issue with you on 'wrongs done by our forefathers' seeing as most of mine in the 18th and 19th century were from peasant /working class ie 12 hours a day 6 days a week for a subsistence wage or as servants 7 days a week for wealthy folk. Many children died in the mills in the nineteenth century and are buried in mass graves around this area, the gravestones provided from charitable donations testify to that. So why should I or them be made to feel guilty for the wealthy upper and middle classes who made fortunes from the Empire. Have your own self flageratory guilt trip but leave me out. 

You don't think through what you post do you? On one hand you complain the rich own huge estates but in the same breath want to introduce a swingeing tax if they sell any of it.

As an aside, (being half Scots, familiar with Scotland and at least a paper millionaire) there's no chance I'd want to buy a nice house with some land in Scotland until you improve the food, beer, climate and get rid of all the Scots with  chips on thier shoulders.

Yes that's fair enough but the theory / history lesson is that the 10 trillion paid for the industrial revolution. The industrial marvel's of the age relied on foreign sourced raw materials which were extremely expensive. We may celebrate the likes of isumbard brunel but if it weren't for the labour's of the empires enslaved nothing would have come of it. 

If anyone is wondering the fraud went along the lines of britain disallowing payment for Indian merchandise in gbp or Indian currency. The money had to be paid in empire credits which could only be bought in London. Thereby all purchases from the Indian companies were credited to the exchequer i.n London. Indian companies claimed for payment from the officials in india but they were paid not from the british exchequer but for the Indian office. The old spice of money in the Indian office was the taxes levied on indians.  

I wasn't saying that our individual ancestors were all equally liable, but it is the industrial revolution that made the state rich and our comforts and industry and education system are all products of that. So our position in the world is attributable directly to the enslavement of africans and then the swindling on indians.. 

This is what I have read. It is not what we are taught in school.hiatory is written by the powerful. Those who own the land.

Of course not.  It's a climbing forum on the internet not a professional report somebody is paying me for.  It gets the time it takes the code I am working on to compile in the other window.

Why is that inconsistent?  My plan is to force them sell with a land tax which makes it expensive to hold on to land/property holdings over a particular threshold and then take most of the money they make when they sell off them in tax.   I can see why landowners wouldn't like that plan but it is perfectly consistent.

That's cool.  There's plenty of other well off people who would like a largish house in a scenic area with a field they could keep a couple of horses in and a marina not that far away.   We will do far better economically with a few thousand medium-wealth professionals bringing money into the region than a handful of dickheads with huge estates they use for shooting deer.

It was in response to the question you had about "setting the market rate". 

Right. So we have a significant chunk of the highlands owned by a small number of Estates. Tom wants to divvy that land up into affordable chunks that allow middle class people to buy it and have houses on it and you want to set the market rate for that land through taxation.

If you are wondering where I'm going with this its that the theory or desire for land reform and the practical reality of it are some distance apart.

That's true.  Finding a perfect system for implementing land reform is a really hard problem but the current situation is so bad that finding a way to make it better shouldn't be that hard.   

The new powers Scotland will receive  post Brexit around agricultural subsidies may allow some pressure to be brought to bear to improve the quality of the land, and maybe to break it up into smaller packages?

Don’t then. Like we give a s*** 

How do you propose to "improve the quality"? Almost all subsidies come with an environmental conformity requirement and then additional incentives to take things further are optional.

How exactly do you propose to break it up? We are talking about land that predominantly consists of moorland, rock, peat bogs, forestry plantations etc.

Depends what you think the environment should be - no reason why rgeneration of native forest, Peat bog enhancement, beaver re-introduction could not have heavy weighting in new schemes.

In terms of the size of land parcels you could re-model the system to make large areas of single ownership less likely to get large payouts, and smaller croft sized holdings get enhanced subsidies.

You could make it profitable for large estates to give good leases to smaller holdings.

But mostly i'm trying to yank Tom's chain by suggesting Brexit could be good for Scotland

With the exception of Beaver re-intro then existing schemes already do this

Not far off what happens now

You mean like Crofts?

Ahhhh.

Putting idle Tom baiting aside - the existing schemes may do many of those things, but you can obviously fiddle about with the weighting to make them more or less effective.

Its how big the subsidy is that will have an impact - reductio absurdum, if the state paid £10 for every Scots pine sapling planted and cared for each year in the highlands then there would be a massive boom in efforts to regenerate the Caledonian pine forest, and the creation of many jobs.

Just to clarify, given my last reply got 2 dislikes.

Thousands of enquiries, 400 applications for 4 places.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-55162586

Get off your high horse.

I think you've drifted into an argument about environmental improvement but take it back to land reform and tell me how it would work?

LMAO

We will be lucky if there is a Holyrood parliament at all if we don't get Indy soon.  They want to take powers off it not give it more. 

I wouldn't get too excited about land  reform, if an independent Scotland joined the eu, it would be back to CAP and paying in the bulk for land ownership. 

Quite. Who is going to buy a peat bog, or chunk of forest miles away from nowhere?

But Holyrood is getting the powers around farming subsidies - what are they going to do with them?

Therein lies the wicked question.Most of these estates are intrinsically’worthless’.

I think the two go hand in hand - much of the land in its current state is unattractive for smaller holdings.

how about something like:

for holdings below n acres upon which the owner lives, sufficiently enhanced subsidies are available that significant land regeneration can occur and the enterprise be profitable -enough that the Land value is enhanced to the point that if sold the large estates make more economic sense to break up than maintain in their current state. 

With a different viewpoint they could be worth much more, re wilded, but allowed some development for tourism, biking, water sports, catered mountain huts,  forestry, etc.. they could easily provide a modest return far higher than shooting currently does. Look how busy national parks are, there is clearly a demand for the outdoors. 

Agree. But rewilding takes a long time.

even just loads of summer houses like in Sweden - think of thousands of those scattered through the currently desolate highlands - needs the Forests though.

Of course, but if you never start it won't ever happen. Big plans take time. With forestry the lead in time is around 30 years before you'll get any return from a thinning, so 2050, the same timeline as many carbon goals. The world has become obsessed with short term goals and immediate gratification, it's just not prepared to do anything beyond medium term. 

Forest below 400/500m in Sweden on a similar latitude as Inverness sells for between £10-15k/hectare. Wood as a product is not cheap, what they call kerbside price for a sawmill to collect from a forest track is around £50-60/m3(plus vat), sometimes more for certain cuts. 

£40/m3 for sawlogs at the moment, the price has dropped steadily for the past years, 10% last year.

Rich Americans that like golf.

That's quite poor, is that Germany or UK? I get that price for beetle damaged wood, around £30/35 for semi rotten or damaged wood for pulp or chipping. A 5m log, between 180-400mm diameter would be nearer £65/m3.  Prices just went up by a few percent last month. 

I wonder if we’ve ever seen beyond short term goals? But yes that style of vision for the future of Scotland’s land would be very welcome. I thought as I cycled past Inchrory recently, how great would it be if there was decent accommodation, affordable by all, where we could all enjoy such a beautiful location. Instead of a limited few hiding behind an investment fund.

a. I will believe it when I see it. The whole UK market thing is designed to take power away from Holyrood.

b. If Holyrood get powers from this bunch of Tory c*nts they will be designed to be a poison chalice.  The Tories have no interest in seeing Scotland do things differently from England and be successful because it makes it more obvious what a corrupt and incompetent shower of sh*t they are.

Look at BiFab, a yard which specialises in offshore wind turbines and the UK government prattling on about unprecedented numbers of offshore wind turbines and yet somehow it gets no orders.

Ferguson shipbuilders struggling with developing totally novel green ferries with hydrogen powered engines.  Yes, they are way behind schedule and there are problems with the contract but the UK keeps bulshitting about wanting to be a world leader in green energy.  Hydrogen powered ferries are exactly the sort of high risk advanced technology that is needed but they get f*ck all support from UK and instead the UK press continually reports the project as being a disaster rather than focusing on the tech and the potential.  Imagine Tesla got treated the same way, or Airbus/Boeing when they come out with a next generation aircraft.

That is the consequence of energy being regulated from London, energy company senior management being in London and the UK government wanting to see enterprises backed by the Scottish Government fail so they can make political capital.    

Meanwhile, Boris's girlfriend's best friend gets a £350/day government consulting job.

Youth hostels, massively over looked because folk either think they are for hard up students or hippies. Snobbery really has closed so many of them. Admittedly they should have moved with the times more, offered individual rooms earlier, even a fixed menu evening meal etc.  

You've changed the activity there but not ownership. You think wealthy landowners are going to jack it in and sell their land? No doubt some will adapt what they're doing which may be a great thing but I'm not convinced it will lead to more land being owned by the many.

Many large estates run at a loss anyway. I've seen one owner saying he subsidises it annually by about £200k, which relative to many owners wealth isn't a sum they'll  grieve over and just see it as the price to pay for owning a chunk of Scotland. 

I remember staying in Ballater YH in the late 80’s and thinking - no showers? Seriously?  Plus the whole doing chores thing, a carry over from days of national service and communal living.

Don't want to derail the thread too much but youth hostels and independents have moved on a long way. I use them a lot, it's a hard line to walk between basic affordable accommodation and being a bit too Gucci for outdoor types. 

SYHA Pitlochary, Crianlarich and Braemar are fine if a little old school. Aviemore, perfectly fine but very pricey most of the time for a dorm room and SYHA Glen Nevis is very swish for a hostel but functions well for solo hostellers. 

Thing is they’re now competing in the Premier Inn market place. We’ve stayed a family of 4 in a city centre for £29 for a family room. That’s just nuts cheap. 

While I would like to see major changes in land ownership, I'm much more bothered about what is *done" with the land. Yes, I'd like to see land values reduced*, but it's land use and sustainable management of the land that I see the real need for change. I used to think that common or public ownership, or regulation would be the only way - but I have seen some of the changes set in motion by land owners like Anders Polvsen (WildLand Scotland) have made me consider the possibility that landowners themselves, given the right incentives or just buying into a vision can actually make large scale changes arguably more quickly and with fewer constraints than a public body ever could. Of course, that then comes with it's own issues (lack of oversight, monitoring, impact assessment etc.) but really time is almost too late for committees and endless rounds of planning....we need large scale action, now. 

Coming after the landowners with pitch forks may not be the best approach....

* I just don't see any merit in land value appreciation, and I am the beneficiary of some "lucky" investment by my parents - when we moved to rural Perthshire when I was 4, the house had a 1.5 acre field at the bottom that was in the local plan but had no planning. We sold just before the 2007 credit crunch with outline planning for some houses - very lucky timing for us, unlucky timing for the prospective builder who bought it. The land is has sat fallow since. My flat is partly paid for by the proceeds. Do I "deserve" that, no, is it fair, no. Would the village be a better place if some nice affordable houses were built and we only got the "nominal" value of the land....yes. Am I going to give the money away, no - I'm not a mug. But do I think in general that land value appreciation is a "good thing", hell no! 

Summer houses?

I thought the idea was to take the land out of the hands of rich people? 

I think Dr.S was referring to the little wooden cabins many families have in the countryside rather than large castles etc. 

20 years later they'd changed massively. But the perception never did, poor PR by their marketing department if they even had one. 

At £15k a hectare for something you’ll use 2-3 weeks a year? 

Sounds like a bargain 😀

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2017/04/16/beach-huts-smaller-th...

£350 a day isn't going to cover the costs of a green revolution in Scotland. 

Tesla has done well out of leveraging insane amounts of private capital so not sure how they support the argument that Ferguson Ship Builders have been left in the cold by government.

Your other examples in Airbus and Boeing don't hold up either. Aircraft technology has been a lot more evolutionary than revoluntionary and there's also the issue of maintaining industries related to national security.

Also right now we're still subject to EU state aid rules, so you must be pretty happy that we're heading towards a no deal so government can support whatever UK companies they want, or perhaps an independent Scotland outside of the EU. 

I’d say beach huts are slightly different. My grandad lived in Littlehampton in the 90s. He’d bought his hut in the 70s. There was a very long waiting list. But most people lived locally and he knew most of them. They were in use every weekend. 
 

I can’t see Scottish huts being the same in great numbers. For the simple reason you’d need to build lots of single track roads. Seems to me that the whole idea is at odds with keeping it natural. Rewild it and introduce wolves (and bears?!) and I’m not sure that is conducive to part time human occupation. 

Fair enough, that seems like a reasonable proposition. 

No, it is yet another symptom of the Tory approach to government funding.

Boris's girlfriend's pal,   Handcock's ex-neighbour and pal,  Dido Harding, Chris Grayling, Serco, many different PPE companies with no PPE experience.  They are all Tory MP's mates.   It's not 350 quid a day when you add it up it is billions.

The point is that access to capital is much easier the closer you are to London, access to UK government funding is pretty much dependent on being mates with Tories who live in London.   UK government funding goes to companies that play the unionist game and doesn't go to anything associated with the Scottish Government.

The point is that huge projects to define a next generation technology - like the 747 or A380 - often run late and are financially difficult but they are how progress is made and the new platform can be a cash cow for decades.

As for your Brexit point the EU actually put money into the hydrogen ferry R&D.  

All politicians, of all colours, play the same games. 

It’s not natural though. Scotland is an environmental wasteland. Despite how pretty it might look.

I don’t doubt that. But what’s natural? If you build houses and roads it gets less natural. You could let people live in the woods, but they’d have to live there all the time in log cabins and be financially independent living off the land.

I guess someone would have to define what they meant by natural. 

Tesla aren't based in London, neither are Boeing or Airbus whilst we're at it. I don't understand what these companies have to do with any unionist agenda.,

Didn't know much about this but it does sound like quite a mess:

"The shipbuilder with the contract to build two delayed CalMac new ferries has said it will lose £39.5m on the deal.

The latest accounts for Ferguson Marine show the Inverclyde yard made a loss of £60.1m in 2016.

Ferguson Marine claims "interference and disruption" from the Scottish government's ferry company is to blame for the losses.

The firm also wants to renegotiate the terms of its £45m government loan."

"After falling into administration in August, last year, former FMEL managers subsequently accused the Scottish Government of having no serious intention of leaving it in private ownership while being warned nationalisation would be subject to EU state aid laws.

They accused ministers of forcing it into insolvency by rejecting a plan that would avoid any state aid claim, save the taxpayer at least £120m and prevent the costs of building two key lifeline ferries soaring to over £230m."

Sounds as if Scottish Government made a real hash of this. Not sure how this is the UK Government's fault at all but I'm sure you'll come up with something. 

You could argue that is why Boris got elected as one of his pitches was to " level up" the UK via a more balanced investment approach and less South/North divide.

................................................red rag to a bull.

I’ll hold your coat.

Lucky someone else has offered since my hands are full with popcorn.

Certainly worked in Scotland - there was a Tory landslide up there.

Not.

Arite pal, you can go and join the rest of your millionaire titts in Westminster. 

Fud.

The point is about the lack of access to capital and continual negativity in the media which companies in Scotland face.  Both are symptoms of unionism and centralisation of government and finance in London.   There is a media agenda of negativity about anything to do with Scotland because the English and the unionists like the narrative of Scotland being in debt to England and unable to stand on its own feet.

For all the bullsh*t the UK government spout about green technologies you would think they would put some orders in to a company with a revolutionary technology to reduce emissions from ferries.  Or if they want to have unprecedented numbers of wind turbines in the sea then maybe there would be some work for a yard that makes maritime wind turbines and is located close to where these wind farms will be.  Is their f*ck.  And it is because the decisions are made in London.

It is typical of what happens in Scotland.  World class ideas and no f*cking money behind them so struggle along until they fail or get bought by someone with the technical ability to appreciate what they have.  Eventually the purchaser absorbs the technology and the jobs move elsewhere.

And this is the problem.  The UK press report like accountants focusing on relatively small amounts of money rather than the potential of the technology.  Tesla gets the opposite treatment - they lose billions and the US markets give them more because they believe in the technology and an industry transition.  Using hydrogen to power ferries and get rid of the pollution and CO2 is a very large and promising technical step.

The Scottish Government did its best with the limited resources at its disposal.  The UK government did f*ck all.  The unionist press had a field day with negativity and the UK financial sector did nothing to invest.    Somebody is going to make a f*ckton of money converting the world's ferries to clean energy.   It won't be Scotland while Scotland is part of the UK.

London finance is a reflection of its dominant global position and really is nothing to do with Scotland.Nor will that change. If you think that having an independent Scotland will change then you maybe want to open your eyes a bit.

The world class ideas etc  is just as much a Uk wide issue.To portray it otherwise is a joke beyond belief.

Knickers in a twist spring to mind.

You sound like parody of a Trump supporter. Washington gets all the favours etc etc.Or a gillets juane supporter bemoaning Paris's dominance.

It will change it very quickly.    If you look at proper countries like Germany or the US industry in Houston, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles or Munich is not dependent on Berlin or Washington to anything like the same extent as Scottish industry is dependent on decisions made by people in London.  They have local banks and investors with specialist knowledge in local industries like oil, tech, movies or cars who can provide very large scale funding. 

Tech companies in Ireland have massively better access to capital than tech companies in Scotland because the financial services industry in Dublin supports them.

It isn't a London/Oxford/Cambridge issue.  Those guys can get money for pure bullsh*t where people in other regions with excellent ideas get peanuts or nothing.   The result is tech entrepreneurs relocating to London because it is so much easier to get money.

I spent 10 years doing due diligence for tech VC firms and the regional variation in access to capital was always very real but after London decided to go for tech industry and got the banks and UK government behind it the disparity is just stupid.

Yes, I'm pissed off.  So are a lot of other people which is why there is consistent 55% in favour of independence.

Washington is nothing like as bad as London, the US system gives states some real leverage and abilility to horse-trade to the states and there are many cities larger and richer than Wshington.

Paris might possibly be over-centralised to almost the same degree as London.  

I think Scotland should have a few of its own banks, they can print Scottish pounds that run on parity to uk pounds sterling, perhaps hq them in Scotland too? 

Baloney.

tom-in-edinburgh: 'Never Knowingly Under-hyperboled.'

It used to.  Scotland in the name doesn't mean much when it comes to where they invest.  Royal Bank of Scotland is Nat West and Bank of Scotland is Lloyds.  The UK government saw to that.

I think the UK treasury had to bail one out for you? They've obviously had to rebrand RBS as the name was considered toxic. 

They obviously had to rebrand 'Royal Bank of Scotland' as 'National Westminster' and move the head office to London.  Yes, they absolutely had to do that.  No choice at all.  We should be grateful.

If we are talking financial bail-outs, the Union was brought about by the need for Scotland to be bailed out as a result of the collapse of the Darien Scheme, a colonial Scottish endeavour also involving slavery..............................which funnily enough brings us neatly back to where Tom joined this thread, but probably not a bit of Scottish history he'd like to draw attention to.

I'm however not a revisionist and am quiet happy for a 'warts and all' chronicle of our past.

Before Tom jumps on another hobby horse, the Darien scheme obviously has no bearing on Indeterminate2.

Yes, it can be less natural with houses and roads, but significant reforestation would hide a lot of that, and having the houses might pay for the forest.

It can make for uncomfortable reading. The slavery connections between the Highlands and Guyana are explored in this piece: https://www.addastories.org/the-forgotten-world/ which I’d never read about before  

Interesting read. Although the same can be written about areas across the UK, and countries across the Caribbean. (see The Sugar Barons by Mathew Parker.)

Guyana is a stunning country and you can still smell the molases in the journey from the airport to Georgetown. 

I would be. The bailing out of banks wasn't and still isn't popular, despite being essential. It did save a lot of jobs in Edinburgh. 

RBS was destroyed as a business by its Scottish management. Under the stewardship of Fred Goodwin, it achieved the largest corporate loss in UK history.

Well, 'these things happen', don't they ... but don't try blaming anybody else - you are becoming ridiculous.

Yes, Fred Goodwin should be in jail.

But the UK government made sure that the Scottish banking industry had its headquarters moved to England.  This is intentional, they used the argument that banks would move to England in the 2014 indy referendum and as the chance of a second indy referendum approached they actually move the HQ of Royal Bank of Scotland to London and change the name to National Westminster.   Not losing Scotland is a key UK government goal and one of the ways they are setting out to achieve it is by damaging Scotland's economy or booking more revenue from Scottish workers through an HQ in London so as to reinforce the 'you are skint' argument and put more assets in England if there is a separation

Exactly the same reason as the Blair government unilaterally redrew the maritime boundary between Scotland and England to shift some oil to the English side.  UK government is 90% voted for by England and it works in the interests of England.

If it wasn't for the UK treasury and the UK taxpayers, there would not be an RBS anymore, regardless of where it puts its hq, which is still actually in Edinburgh and employs 50,000 in the UK alone.  

What the company, led by the shareholders and board said in 2019 was if there was a yes vote to Scottish independence they would then move the hq to London. 

What proportion of your personal income will you be giving away this year?

The UK government owns that board and it is using its soft power to further its goals.

How does a government own a board, explain? 

https://www.natwestgroup.com/who-we-are/board-and-governance/board-and-comm...

I presume you admit that your claim of the hq being moved was bull, as it's still in Edinburgh. 

You really think the Tories that give Matt Hancock's ex neighbour a PPE contract and Boris's girlfriend's friend a government consulting role don't quietly arrange for their mates to get on the boards of companies the state owns a big chunk of.

There is a large building in Edinburgh.  The power and the registered office  is in London.

Registered offices at 175 Glasgow Rd Edinburgh EH17 1HQ.

Company hq and offices at 26 St Andrews Sq Edinburgh EH2 2YB.

I really wish the UK government was a tenth as cunning and capable as you seem to think they are.

I gave you a link to the board, back your claim up? Board and shared holder meetings are minuted. Provide evidence of how they've disadvantaged Scotland. 

That large building employing lots of people?

See above. There is NO London HQ. I've driven past the RBS countless times as I exit Northumberland towards to the bridge and Scotland. I'm sure you have too.

Granted I've decide to freeze history at a different date to you, when Edinburgh was part of Northumberland, so you could argue that both you and the hq are in what should be English territory.