Okay thoughts on the Independence Referendum.

Where I come from to making my mind up.

During most of the 70's we had a Labour government in London who virtually bankrupted Britain.

In 1979/80 we had a referendum on devolution, bearing in mind that average turnout for a general election was around 48%. the Labour and Conservative parties insisted that a simple majority would not be enough, it looked like a majority would vote yes for devolution, the Lab/Con colluded to have an amendment to the devolution bill inserted which required that more than 50% of all those able to vote had to vote yes. As it ended up a majority did vote for devolution but barely half the electorate turned out and voted, so no devolution.
After this the Conservatives under Thatcher punished the Scots for daring to consider asking for devolution. They killed car manufacturing, Steel making, Mining, Ship building and dozens of other industries and then decimated the armed forces in Scotland. The Conservatives were in power for 18 years and left Scotland a benefit dependent nation with unemployment higher here than anywhere else in the UK.

In 1997 Tony Blair rebranded old Labour with the avowed intention of getting into power. True he gave us a vote for devolution but this was only so he could guaruntee to get the Scottish votes he needed to gain power as it happened he didn't need them. You couldn't have stuck a cigarette paper between New Labour and the Conservatives he replaced, indeed did he not carry on all the conservative  policies set in motion by Major. We got devolution but it was set up in such a way that guaranteed that the SNP could not gain a majority, well they got that wrong, they always hoped the Labour vote would give a Labour majority but were happy with a Lab/Lib coalition as the Liberals are so close to being Labourites, again same difference. The thing here is that Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are all London controlled parties and their first allegiance is to London and maybe just maybe ninth or tenth on their list of priorities would be Scotland. Gordon Brown, Tony Blairs first lieutenant, was made Chancellor of the exchequer, my own thoughts on this man are for the most part unprintable suffice to say that I seriously don't think he could add to 20 without removing his socks. This is the man who told the world he would sell the nations gold reserves 6 months before he did giving the market time to reduce the price of gold by a third, the man who made peoples pension pots almost worthless by taking first a windfall tax from their holdings then taxing the pot annually from then on, the man who never increased the tax free allowance by anywhere near inflation leaving the working man paying more, the man who introduced the bedroom tax for everyone with a private landlord, the man who introduced a 10p tax rate then took it away again, the man who said of the Scottish Labour leader that they were only the leader of labour MSP's in the chamber of the Scottish assembly and that he was the only leader of the Labour party in the UK, a man who refused to acknowledge that we had a Scottish parliament and that it was just an assembly. I could go on but I won't.
The Scottish parliament and government under Lib/Lab increased the council tax by around 250% over the first 10 years of devolution, this hurts the poor and those on low incomes because pay was not increasing by the same amount and meanwhile council services where falling or deteriorating, there were an increase in managerial posts while a similar decrease in front line staff was in place. Thoughts you can get 3 people sweeping the streets for the cost of 1 manager and similar numbers in all other services provided by councils. Lib/Lab continued the Conservative and Labour PFI, PPP and other acronyms to the same vain where we the public have mortgaged the schools and hospitals and housing to private contractors for a generation, the politicians who brought this in will be long dead or retired by the time this egg hatches. with the amount that this has cost it would have been cheaper for the governments of the day just to borrow the money and pay contractors to build the facilities needed.
Since 2007 we have had an SNP led government and Parliament in Scotland a party who's only allegiance is to the people of Scotland and not London. We have gained free prescription charges, I for one am probably alive because of this I take 6 different medicines a day when I last paid for these it was 42 pounds every time I renewed with no sign that they would reduce in cost it might have come to the choice of feeding my family or buying medicine, Tolls on bridges removed, bought and paid once with public funds and then paid for again with public funds over and over again. There is more employment in Scotland now than there has been in the past 30 years.
We have a vote which will have bearing on the future of everyone living or to live in Scotland for ever on the 18th September, the most important decision we will ever make.
We must make the right choice, I know what mine will be it will be based on my life of 63 years I have seen London centric politicians rape Scotland of all it's worth, destroy industries and peoples lives for the gain of politicians and the establishment in London and the home counties. Politicians of all hues reds and blues once their noses smell the trough they can't help themselves. This referendum is not about party politics though it's about what is right for Scotland now and into the future.
If we are better together then the past 63 years of my lifetime have shown me that that is evidently untrue. The UK no longer has an empire, it is a member of a commonwealth of nations which spans the globe and working together could have been a larger economy than any other in existence bar none, and yet it gave it up for short term political gain in London. We've had a century of warfare in this country, my grandparents fought in the great war to end all wars WW1, it didn't, it was a futile and shameless waste of human life. Throughout the twentieth century we've been in one war after another. The last time we had an attack happen on Scottish soil was  two terrorists at a Glasgow airport and that was thwarted by a baggage handler on a smoke break.
I will be voting YES on September 18 for the future of my family and grandchildren and every child who comes after them my family is important to me.
I realize that many people may consider what I've written above to be a rant and it probably is but this is my view not from a political standpoint but from where I see it because it is the experience I've lived through. We should be proud of our nation, of its many achievements and it's habit of producing great thinkers,artists, engineers, writers, poets, scientists, architects, mathematicians and the list goes on. I refuse to think that we've produced our quota of the latter and we as Scots have no more to give. We are a caring and giving people as an independent nation we could show the world how to live for the greater good and not for the greater greed.

Once we get Independence we will be able to vote for whoever and whichever people and parties we want, but here's a thought.

During the 70's I calculated that out of my take home pay - which had already been taxed with income tax, national insurance, graduated pensions - I then paid a further 35% of my gross pay to local and national government in taxes, VAT, rates, fuel duty, alchohol duties, tobacco taxes etc. a total of around 75% of my pay went back to government local and national.

During the 80's and 90's this actually came down to around 55% with no real change to my lifestyle except getting married and having a beautiful daughter, sorry massive change, but lower taxation, go figure that one.

During the naughties - is that what we're calling 2000 to 2010 - it started to rise again towards 65% by the time New Labour had been and gone.

Proof that New Labour government can't add up. With devolution came the need for a new assembly building as they liked to call it parliament as we like to call it. It was initially given a price tag of 45 to 50 million pounds, final cost in the region of 400 million pounds out by 900% or 360 millions.


In Edinburgh we had a Labour council who wanted to build a tram network from the airport to Leith and and back via a loop to the western general hospital to haymarket total length of track around 14 miles costed at 300 million pounds. Final bill 750 million pounds and further interest on loans of around 250 million pounds for about 8 miles of track airport to York place. Now Labour will say that it wasn't their fault as they lost power in Edinburgh to the Liberals before it started. Now there might be some truth in this as it only went over budget by twice as much for half a line which I reckon would have been over by eight times for the full track. Labour record on the Parliament building was nine times over budget so by that reckoning Liberals brought it in underbuget. Okay that last part was just being silly.