John Jappy: Politicians' Quotes

I am sure that most people will have read reports of what Mark Carney had to say about the prospects of an Independent Scotland joining in a currency union with the rest of the UK.

I thought that I would do a little experiment.  I purchased five "well-read" Sunday newspapers and asked my wife to cut out the reports from the "financial experts" of each newspaper and number them 1 to 5.  I then took the articles without knowing from which newspaper each had come.  I was not familiar with the style of writing from any of the correspondents, so I started from a neutral stance.  I read each article in turn and gave them a marking out of 10 as to what degree they had considered the onus was that Scotland would not be able to join in a currency union. 

Only one conceded that an Independent Scotland would have a fair chance of joining in a currency union, whilst still stressing that there would be many difficulties.  Two others showed varying degrees of negativity, with the final two stating that Mark Carney had killed stone dead any hope of Scotland being able to join a currency union.  I then put them in order of negativity and matched them to what I considered the newspaper to be that each had come from. 

I was 100% correct.  All the writers had honed their articles to fit the perceived political views of their readers!

It is worth remembering that most newspapers are owned or controlled by London millionaires or congromolates that have been exploiting us for 300 years and hope to continue to do so, except that the spectre of Scottish Independence hovers.  Whilst most people are made to feel that Mark Carney has been fair, the bottom line is that Scottish Independence is the last thing that Mark Carney wants, with the Rump UK having to attempt to balance its budget without Scotland's oil revenues.

As I spent most of my adult life working on financial matters including the preparation of the UK's National Budgets; approximately a year before the Credit Crunch broke, I decided to make a crude attempt to calculate the overall National Debt of the UK.  I spent two whole days working on this, after which I published an article estimating the debt to have reached a staggering £1 trillion, described as "a giant financial bubble ready to burst".

At exactly this time Gordon Brown held a lavish party at No 10 Downing Street to which were invited all the top bankers and his friends in the City (with not a Trade Unionist in sight).  By his side was his loyal friend Sir Fred Goodwin (now pilloried for leading the Royal Bank of Scotland into bankruptcy).  To this day, I fail to understand how the Government, of any political hue, could have failed to have seen what was going to happen.  Did they simply bury their heads in the sand and pretend it wouldn't happen?  When the roof fell in, who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer?  None other than Alistair Darling who now leads the campaign trying to tell us that "we are better together.”

When the Credit Crunch broke, the Treasury estimated the National Debt to be £1.4 trillion, later adjusted downwards. What is never mentioned is that the Credit Crunch revealed that out of all the G20 countries, the ratio of debt per capita was the highest in the UK.

This would put us in a similar position to Greece.  Why did this not happen?  The answer is that were it not for Scottish oil monies pouring into the Treasury at the rate of £60 a second, and the big reserves of oil still in the North Sea, and with no Euro rich Germany to save us, the UK would have been crawling on its hands and knees to the IMF to bail us out.

Mark Carney knows this.  The last thing he wants is for Scotland to gain its Independence with the immense loss of revenues for the Rump UK to attempt to balance its budgets.  So is his report entirely neutral?  In December 2013, the Treasury quoted the amount of the national debt at £1.3 trillion.  At the end of January 2014, the figure quoted is £1.43 trillion, so don't be conned by current claims by the Tories that the debts of the past are going fast and that in the future lies prosperity (with the hidden message of course "only if we are re-elected").

Personally, I find Independence more attractive every day.

See also:  More blogs by John Jappy