Independence: No camp ‘scaremongering’ over banks, The Scotsman

Sir George Mathewson, Ex Rbs Chief Executive.

CAMPAIGNERS for the Union have been accused of “scaremongering” about the impact of independence on Scotland’s financial sector, with a former Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) boss insisting this would be “an opportunity not a threat”.

Sir George Mathewson, a former RBS chief executive and chairman, argued that financial services in Scotland had been “neglected by the Westminster government and its London-centric policy”.

He also claimed that banks such as RBS and Lloyds could “scarcely be described as Scottish banks”, adding that if there was a Yes vote in next month’s referendum it should be the rest of the UK government that should be primarily responsible for dealing with the situation.

Sir George also gave his backing to Scottish Government plans for a currency union with the rest of the UK to be established if there is a Yes vote on September 18, allowing an independent Scotland to continue to use the pound.

These proposals have already been dismissed by the three main Westminster parties and last week First Minister Alex Salmond was accused of a ‘’huge deception’’ over his plan.

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Independence: RBS reiterate ‘Yes’ concerns

Scottish independence: Row over banking sector

Showered by a million poppies: Soldiers stand below a huge red cloud to symbolise Great War dead as they re-enact scenes from the conflict Daily Mail.

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Top Gun pilot probed after crashing £20million jet while flying over home town, Daily Express

AN Italian air force pilot is under investigation for alleged show boating after he crashed his £20 million jet while flying over his home town.

Top Gun Francesco Sferra, 35, was forced to eject from his single seater AMX fighter plane as he swooped low over rooftops but his flight plan should have taken him no where near the built up area.

The jet, which has a top speed of 600mph, smashed into woods close to the town and miraculously no-one was hurt after Sferra steered it away from houses and he parachuted to safety.

Initially he was hailed a hero but local prosecutors are looking at the possibility the AMX crashed due to a technical fault after Sferra had swooped low over his home town of Carovilli near Isernia in central Italy.

The incident is being compared to the "sail by salute" carried out by cruise ship captain Francesco Schettino when he steered the luxury liner the Costa Concordia past the island of Giglio two years ago - only to strike rocks and cost 32 lives.

A source close to the investigation said: "The pilot should have taken off and flown directly north, instead he headed south east we need to know why."

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Gays Are 1 in 50, Not 1 in 4, Michael Brown, In the Line of Fire. Charisma Magazine

According to a 2011 Gallup poll, Americans thought that 25 percent of the population was gay (meaning one out of every four people), while those aged 18-29 put the figure at closer to 30 percent (meaning almost one in every three people). The reality is that less than 2 percent of the population is gay (meaning fewer than one in 50 people), and many gay leaders know this is true.

People of America, you have been duped.

For many years, we were told that "one in every 10 Americans" was gay, a figure based on the massively flawed 1948 study of Alfred Kinsey. (Kinsey actually relied on data from male prisoners to come up with his statistics.)

Even though gay activists knew the figure was inflated, they used it as a convenient lie, since, as two leading gay strategists noted in the late 1980s, "there is strength in numbers." (For details, go here.) As expressed by a gay leader a few days ago, "The truth is, numbers matter, and political influence matters."

In other words, if Americans realized that less than 2 percent of the population was gay rather 10 percent (let alone 25 percent), they would have a very different view of "gay rights."

To be sure, it is wrong to bully or oppress or mistreat anyone based on gender or ethnicity or romantic attractions, so that is not the question. And whether gays are 1 percent of the population or 90 percent, they should not be mistreated.

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Further Reading:

Equal Marriage : Just Plain Wrong: A Christian Perspective on the Gay Marriage Debate in the UK Equal Marriage; Just Plain Wrong.

Horror beyond imagination: The most haunting account of the trenches you'll ever read - from a brilliant anthology by Birdsong author Sebastian Faulks . Daily Mail

  Some teenagers clamoured for excitement of war - before realising the truth

  Fast-moving warfare in 1914 quickly bogged down into war of attrition

  Haunting accounts tell of seeing comrades blown apart by artillery fire

  Others speak of fields coated with corpses, whose stench filled everything

  Eyewitness accounts collected in new a book of stories from the front 

One hundred years ago exactly, in the summer of 1914, teenager Len Thompson was thrilled by the prospect of war.

It was a month since the assassination of the Austrian archduke in Sarajevo, and now Russia and Germany were mobilising their armies. Britain was being drawn into the conflict.

‘We were all delighted when war broke out on August 4,’ he would recall, ‘bursting with happiness.’

It was not that the hardy, blue-eyed teenager from East Anglia was particularly blood-thirsty. Or politically minded. Or jingoistic. But soldiering for King and Country held prospects for him that were otherwise far beyond his poverty-stricken reach.

‘There were ten of us in the family and my father was a farm labourer earning 13 shillings [65p] a week. I left school when I was 13 and helped my mother pulling up docks in the Big Field for a shilling an acre.

Thompson’s account of his recruitment - included in a profoundly moving new anthology of memoirs and contemporary letters and diaries collected by Birdsong author Sebastian Faulks and professor of English Hope Wolf reminds us that the eagerness with which a generation of young men offered themselves up for sacrifice was both appalling and fascinating.

In the beginning, the youthful wish for excitement was as important as the rush of bash-Kaiser-Bill patriotism. It would be over by Christmas - everyone said so - so don’t be left behind, get in quickly and grab your piece of the action.

Go with your mates, don the khaki, pick up a rifle, impress the girls.

Or there was, as in Thompson’s case, the prospect of three square-ish meals a day for the first time in his life and less back-breaking labour than he was used to.

Either way, the war that lured in eager recruits from city and shire was presented as a positive experience that a man would be proud to tell his children and grandchildren about.

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Twitter row as Ed Miliband is ridiculed for stark message on WWI centenary wreath in contrast to David Cameron's handwritten note. Daily Mail

  Labour Leader's wreath message said: 'From the Leader of the Opposition'

  His supporters claim he was handed the wreath and note seconds earlier

  David Cameron and Prince Charles left handwritten messages at Cenotaph 

Ed Miliband was ridiculed today after laying a wreath honouring the First World War dead with a scruffy message that read: 'From the Leader of the Opposition'

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The note, scrawled with a black marker, was left at the Cenotaph in Glasgow today and has been branded 'pathetic' and 'distasteful'.

But the Labour leader's team say he was denied the chance to write his own message and was only handed the wreath by organisers moments before he put it down.  

In contrast David Cameron's message read: 'Our most enduring legacy is our liberty. We must never forget' and was signed personally by the Prime Minister.

The Prince of Wales also wrote his own note, which said: 'In everlasting memory, Charles'.  

Nick Clegg also put down a wreath with a note in the same handwriting, which only said: 'From the Deputy Prime Minister'. 

The incident has led to a row online with some calling Mr Miliband 'pathetic' and others claiming he had been 'stitched up'. 

Sarah Cochrane wrote: 'I think Ed Miliband's message on the wreath is pathetic. He couldn't even be bothered to write his own name'.

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Alex Salmond's must-win fight for independence played out on live TV as Alistair Darling is urged to 'keep it boring' Daily Mail

 

  First Minister to go head-to-head with former Chancellor tomorrow night

  Salmond wanted debate with Cameron but Darling is leading No campaign

  Voters have their say in the independence referendum on September 18 

Alex Salmond will tomorrow face one of the biggest tests of his political career as he prepares for a TV showdown that he must win to have any hope of referendum victory.

The First Minister is under intense pressure going into the STV debate, with a new poll revealing that only a quarter of No voters expect Mr Darling to win the contest.

Failure to land a killer blow could end Mr Salmond's hopes of splitting the United Kingdom, and he is receiving help from taxpayer-funded civil servants and a lifestyle guru in a last throw of the dice before the referendum.

Campaign leaders in both camps are taking the two-hour TV programme very seriously, right down to the colour of tie the two politicians should wear, and the broadcaster is hoping for an audience in seven figures. However, experts have warned such programmes rarely reshape the political landscape.

As an uneasy truce for the Commonwealth Games comes to an end, there will now be open warfare between both sides for the final few weeks of the referendum battle, with families set to be bombarded by mailshots costing taxpayers more than £850,000.

Time is running out for the SNP, with a new poll for The Scottish Mail on Sunday showing Unionist campaign's lead has increased slightly in recent days.

The findings are a massive humiliation for Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who used a Sunday newspaper interview yesterday to claim that Scotland's stunning success in the Commonwealth Games could give the Yes campaign the 'momentum' to win the referendum. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg last night accused her of 'sullying' the Games.

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Further Reading:

Alex Salmond must leave Alistair Darling 'on the floor' in independence TV debate

Scottish Independence, a Vehicle for Alex Salmond's Grandiose Ego ?

Comment:

To put it quite simply,  Scottish Independence would be both an economic and financial disaster for Scotland and it’s people,  The SNP have no sound economic plan and can’t even decide what currency they want to use,  without the Westminster  Block Grant and the Pound,  any post independence  Scottish Government would either have to borrow heavily from the International Financial Markets and/or raise Taxation. 

Blair Humphreys