Scotland's Gender Divide Over Independence

How Yes Vote Would Change Scotland

Updated: 4:05am UK, Wednesday 29 January 2014

By Niall Paterson, Sky News Correspondent

Anyone who tells you they know with certainty what will happen in the advent of a 'Yes' vote is at best being disingenuous, at worst lying through their teeth.

Plenty of questions simply cannot be answered until the voters decide to make Scotland an independent nation.

Of course, a degree of informed speculation is taking place across the UK - so with the above in mind, here's what Scotland might gain or lose after the referendum on Thursday, September 18:

:: SCOTLAND GAINS: A NATIONAL ANTHEM

Officially, Scotland doesn't have one. Then again, neither does England. God Save The Queen is the British anthem, although it was long ago purloined by those south of Gretna Green, and sung with lusty glee at Twickenham and Wembley. Flower Of Scotland, by beardy Scottish folk heroes The Corries, was adopted by the Scottish rugby team back when they won things and is a strong contender, although references to sending the English home again might be considered a bit thirteenth century. A new anthem might well be commissioned, but having watched Eurovision over the past few years, few would bet on it being any good.

:: SCOTLAND LOSES: THE BBC

Nope, this isn't just a chance for me to lay into Auntie. Again. Obviously the BBC would retain a presence north of the border and Eastenders isn't going anywhere (unfortunately) but Alex Salmond has proposed a Scottish Broadcasting Service, a joint venture with the Beeb. It would initially be set up using BBC Scotland's facilities and staff, although one wonders what they would think of that. The SNP says it would have an annual budget of £345m, which would mean doubling the amount spend on public service broadcasting in Scotland. River City (Google it, Englanders) will continue ... to annoy me.

:: SCOTLAND GAINS: A PASSPORT AND BORDERS

Well, there will certainly be a Scottish passport after a 'Yes' vote, and borders seem increasingly likely. Theresa May has said there would need to be improved checks as the SNP intends to pursue a more liberal immigration policy. Any government would be able to do that, in fact, so some form of control would appear a necessity. Goodbye to the "Welcome to England" sign, hello annoying spot checks and cavity searches.

:: SCOTLAND LOSES: MEMBERSHIP OF THE EU

For now at least. No one really expects an independent Scotland wouldn't ultimately gain EU membership, but it might be a rather time-consuming process given the other member states would have to agree - and there are a few with their own issues around self-determination (see Spain and Catalonia) that might wish to make it rather difficult.

:: SCOTLAND GAINS: ITS OWN ARMED FORCES

As with the BBC, Alex Salmond seems intent on a bit of a land grab (don't worry, people of Durham, not literally), and there has been the suggestion that forces based in Scotland could switch allegiances. Defence secretary Philip Hammond says that is "laughable". In any event, the plan is to have a Scottish Defence Force, with a standing army of as many as 12,500 troops, close working relations with Scandinavian countries and between 20 and 25 ships. No word yet on whether any of those will be called Dignity.

:: SCOTLAND LOSES: TRIDENT

A biggie, this. Growing up not terribly far from the nuclear submarine base at Faslane, I was blissfully unaware of the Russian warheads targeting the UK's deterrent. And, whether true or not, the view lingers that it whilst it makes strategic sense to put the subs as far away from Westminster as possible, it's rather unfair, particularly given a strong historic opposition in Scotland to nuclear weapons. The problem is the SNP have only latterly recognised that Nato membership is important to Scotland's international standing - and it is, of course, a nuclear alliance.

:: SCOTLAND (POSSIBLY) GAINS: NORTH SEA OIL

Bit tricky, this one. At stake, there's as much as 24 billion barrels of oil and gas worth £1.5 trillion waiting to be extracted - and HM Treasury's coffers aren't exactly overflowing at the moment. Geographically, Scotland could claim up to 90% of this and one could argue the UK's position on the Falklands strengthens the SNP case. But the Government in Westminster could also argue it should be recompensed for decades of infrastructure investment. Frankly, I don't know. Sorry. Told you this was going to be difficult.

:: SCOTLAND (POSSIBLY) LOSES: THE POUND

Undoubtedly there will be a currency used in Scotland called the pound. The question is, whether or not it continues to be backed by the Bank of England. It would essentially mean a currency union between an independent Scotland and the remainder of the UK - and whilst the First Minister thinks it's an absolutely smashing idea, funnily enough that's not a view shared by, for example, the Chancellor nor the Governor of the Bank of England. True, a separate currency would make trading between the nations that bit more difficult, and that's got to be a factor when the recovery is so fragile. But the Governor, Mark Carney, is fond of pointing to the Eurozone crisis. One thing's certain - those funny-coloured banknotes so loved by London taxi drivers aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Which is a good thing. No trip to London is complete without a wizened driver turning up his nose at your purple twenty quid note.

So, in short, we don't really know. And we will only get to know in the passage of time after a 'Yes' majority in the referendum.

Some will vote with their heart, some with their head.

Some won't vote at all - and with so many unanswerables, who can blame them?

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'Great Depression' Warning For Scottish Voters

A leading bank's warning that a Yes vote could be a mistake akin to those that sparked the Great Depression has threatened to overshadow the biggest weekend of political campaigning in Scotland's history.

At least 2.6 million leaflets will be delivered to households in 48 hours as polls suggest Thursday's vote is on a knife-edge.

More than 10,000 people are expected to attend a rally by the Orange Order in support of the Union in Edinburgh - and their cause has been backed by Deutsche Bank.

The financial institution claims the economic arguments against independence are "overwhelming".

Alex Salmond arrives in Dundee on the latest leg of his Yes campaign

Chief economist David Folkerts-Landau said a Yes vote could be a "mistake as large as Winston Churchill's decision in 1925 to return the pound to the Gold Standard or the failure of the Federal Reserve to provide sufficient liquidity to the US banking system, which we now know brought on the Great Depression in the US".

Mr Folkerts-Landau said he found it "incomprehensible" that Scots were even contemplating withdrawal from the UK, and pointed to the "recessions, higher taxes, lower public spending and higher interest rates" that had afflicted nations seen as potentially heading for the eurozone exit.

But Scotland's SNP Government accused him of failing to take into account the country's "strong fiscal position".

Gordon Brown is applauded after his Glasgow speech supporting a No vote

Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will be in Glasgow having promised on Friday to use the occasion to explain what independence will mean for jobs and wealth creation.

She said the Yes campaign's "momentum is still growing and will soon become unstoppable, as people reject the Downing Street-orchestrated campaign to talk Scotland down".

The Yes side was planning to have more than 35,000 volunteers on the streets of Scotland over the weekend, manning 473 registered street stalls.

Meanwhile, Labour big-hitters such as former prime minister Gordon Brown and shadow Scottish secretary Margaret Curran will be trying to persuade the public to vote No in the country's east.

Yes supporters have grafittied over a No campaign banner

The latest opinion poll by ICM in Saturday's Guardian put decided voters 51-49% in favour of No. 

Many of Britain's newspapers reported on comments by a former SNP deputy leader which appeared to threaten recriminations against businesses that backed a No vote.

Jim Sillars said there would be "a day of reckoning with BP and the banks" if Scotland votes Yes, adding that BP would "need to learn the meaning of nationalisation".

Nigel Farage attacked Alex Salmond but suffered protests from demonstrators

In a fiery interview with Sky News, Mr Sillars said he was simply using "robust" language to draw attention to the "orchestrated fear campaign coming from Downing Street".

Meanwhile, UKIP leader Nigel Farage arrived in Scotland on Friday and used a rally to hit out at what he described as Alex Salmond's "entirely false prospectus" being offered to voters north of the border.

New research revealed increasing polarisation among those on both sides of the border as the vote approaches.

A survey by debt management company PayPlan found a majority of Scots in debt are worried their debts will worsen after independence.

A separate poll among English voters for the Daily Mail found that while 70% want Scotland to stay in the Union, if they do go 53% believed Scotland should not be able to keep the pound, and 83% think Scotland should be forced to take its share of the multi-billion pound national debt.

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Live: Judge Delivers Oscar Pistorius Verdict

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6:38am UK, Friday 12 September 2014

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Oscar Pistorius Set To Hear Homicide Verdict

Oscar Pistorius is in court to hear whether he will be found guilty of culpable homicide for killing his girlfriend.

The double amputee broke down in the Pretoria courtroom yesterday as he was cleared of two murder charges over the shooting.

But he may be convicted of the lesser culpable homicide charge, which is South Africa's equivalent of manslaughter.

It comes after judge Thokozile Masipa described his actions as "negligent" on the night Reeva Steenkamp died.

Today the judge began by dealing with one of three alleged firearms offences against the defendant which are unrelated to last year's Valentine's Day shooting.

Pistorius is accused of firing a gun through a car sunroof while with his then girlfriend Samantha Taylor and friend Darren Fresco on November 30, 2012.

He is also accused of discharging a firearm at a restaurant on January 11, 2013, and illegally possessing .38 ammunition. Pistorius denies all three charges.

The Paralympian and Olympian, dubbed Blade Runner due to his prosthetic limbs, has always admitted he shot model Ms Steenkamp at his Pretoria home and said he mistook her for an intruder.

In court, judge Masipa accused him of being a poor witness, muddled over his defence and a liar.

Judge Masipa said Pistorius was muddled over his defence and had lied

But she said he did not intend to kill anyone and could not have seen that the intruder he thought was hiding in his toilet was actually Ms Steenkamp.

Judge Masipa also criticised Pistorius' decision to reach for his 9mm pistol and fire it through the toilet cubicle rather than raise the alarm or fire a warning shot.

She said: "If the accused, for example, had awoken in the middle of the night and in darkness seen a silhouette by his bed and in a panic shot at that figure, only to find it was the deceased, his conduct would have been understandable and perhaps excusable."

She added: "The accused had reasonable time to think, reflect and conduct himself.

"I'm not persuaded that a reasonable person with the same disability would have fired the four shots.

"The accused knew there was a person behind the toilet door, he chose to use a firearm.

"I am of the view the accused acted too hastily and used too much force. It is clear his conduct is negligent."

The homicide sentence carries a jail term of up to 15 years.

Any conviction is likely to result in an adjournment for sentencing.

More follows...

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Pistorius: The Charges And Possible Sentences

If the judge convicts Oscar Pistorius of the premeditated murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, he faces a lifetime in jail with no possibility of parole for 25 years.

But the judge can give a reduced sentence if she finds "substantial or compelling evidence".

State prosecutors have insisted that the shooting involved a level of planning in that the runner had time to arm himself, disable the gun's safety catch, walk down the bedroom corridor towards the bathroom and fire four times into the toilet cubicle - a period in which he had time to consider what he was doing and the effects of his actions.

If Judge Thokozile Masipa finds no evidence of premeditation, she could consider finding him guilty of a legally less serious form of murder: that he fired the shots intending to kill, but did not plan it.

The prosecution has argued that even if he didn't plan it, he believed there was an intruder in the toilet cubicle and fired his gun intending to kill whoever was behind the door - making him guilty of murder.

If the judge agrees, the athlete faces a minimum mandatory jail sentence of 15 years in prison - which is, again, unless the defence provides "substantial and compelling" reasons to deviate from the prescribed sentence.

This does give Judge Masipa the option of finding Oscar Pistorius guilty of murder but free to impose an alternative to jail, such as correctional supervision or a suspended sentence.

His trial has attracted considerable media attention from around the world

But the judge may find the state has not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the runner intended to kill. If so, she cannot convict on murder but may consider a verdict of culpable homicide - known as manslaughter in other countries.

This is where the court rejects the state's contention that the accused intended to kill, but finds him guilty of killing through negligence.

The prosecution has argued that Pistorius was grossly negligent, as no reasonable person would have fired four times through a door after hearing a noise, especially without ascertaining who was behind the door first.

The double amputee arrives for closing arguments in Pretoria last month

There is no minimum sentence for culpable homicide in South African law, which allows the judge to look at options including a jail sentence, a suspended jail sentence, correctional supervision and even a financial penalty - or a combination of several of those options.

But even if the athlete is acquitted on the murder charge, he still faces the possibility of a jail sentence on the other three charges.

The two charges of illegally discharging a firearm in a public place carry a maximum sentence of five years in jail each if he is found guilty, but no minimum sentence.

Meanwhile, the final charge of illegally possessing ammunition carries a maximum sentence of 15 years, but again there is no minimum sentence.

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Oscar Pistorius Trial: Judge Delivers Verdicts

M'Lady: The Trial Judge Who Rose From Nothing

Updated: 8:38am UK, Thursday 11 September 2014

By Alex Crawford, Special Correspondent, in Pretoria

The fate of Oscar Pistorius lies in the palm of one Thokozile Masipa, a woman who grew up in poverty but rose to become only the second black female to be appointed a judge in South Africa.

From day one of the trial, the irony of this elderly black woman standing in judgement over a rich, privileged young white man cannot have been lost in a country with a racial history like South Africa.

The 66-year-old grew up under the apartheid system in Soweto - the most well-known disadvantaged township of them all at the time. 

She would have had to obtain permission from her white employers to travel to certain areas. She would have had to show her passbook when asked to by the police, which would have been often.

She would have been confined to all-black schools with deliberately limited opportunities and she would not have been allowed to vote.

Judge Masipa would have been 29 years old when a peaceful march by thousands of students in Soweto was broken up after police fired tear gas and live bullets. The Soweto uprisings as they became known led to similar protests across South Africa.

These events would have shaped Thokozile Matilda Masipa, who was the eldest of 10 siblings.

She already had two main careers and had two young children by the time she started studying law in her forties - achievements which would be considered exceptional and remarkable for a white woman in South Africa (or anywhere), but were utterly unheard of for a black woman then.

Although she worked at a string of odd jobs beforehand, including as a nursing assistant and a tea lady, she sought largely vocational careers where her friends say she hoped to change the unequal South African landscape she was born into.

She became first a social worker and then a newspaper reporter, at one stage working as a crime reporter. It was a tough time to be a journalist.

Once she spent a night in the cells having been arrested for protesting at the unfair detention of some of her male journalist colleagues.

During her time as women's editor of The Post, she broke with tradition and wrote about female empowerment and the victims of police brutality rather than cooking recipes and fashion.

It seems she has been breaking with tradition ever since.

She graduated from law school in 1990, the same year that Nelson Mandela was freed from prison and eight years later became only the second black woman judge appointed to the High Court.

The woman known as "Tilly" to her longtime friends is known to be a quiet, diligent, conscientious, reserved person.

Her boss for 14 years is the former Judge President, Bernard Ngoepe, who remembers her being quick to help, uncomplaining and absolutely passionate about justice.

He was part of the process which saw her appointed judge.

He said: "I felt her past experiences in social work and journalism meant she had a certain empathy, a real feeling for the people she was dealing with. I liked that in her."

And what about being at the centre of South African legal history?

The Oscar Pistorius trial is the first to be broadcast live in South Africa - and around the world.

Mr Ngoepe said: "I rang and asked her whether I should do this interview with you.

"And you know what she said? She said it's neither here nor there. She said she hasn't read any of the newspapers or followed events on the television during this trial so it's neither here nor there.

"I don't think it's made any difference to her that it's been broadcast live."

In one rare interview a few years ago, Judge Masipa admitted her background affected the way she viewed the mainly poor, mainly young men who came before her in court.

She said: "I understand them because they are from the same place I come from. I wouldn't say I am too lenient but I am more understanding."

Certainly judging from at least one of her decisions, she is anything but lenient. She once sentenced a serial rapist to 252 years in jail for leaving his victims traumatised for life.

But her views on the six-month-long Pistorius murder trial have been difficult to decipher.

She has said little, intervened only when absolutely necessary and astonished many of the watching media by her ability to maintain a poker face through some of the most dramatic moments of the 41 court days.

She has shown she is no pushover - admonishing the media, the public, the two advocates and publicly humiliating the defence's legal assistant when his mobile phone inadvertently went off.

"He apologises, m'lady," defence lawyer Barry Roux said.

"Well he can stand up and apologise himself," retorted the indomitable Judge Masipa. And he did.

Over the next two days, the inscrutable m'lady will take us through her thinking, her assessments, who she believes and who she doubts - and at the end of that, she will finally conclude whether Oscar Pistorius committed murder or not when he shot his girlfriend four times through the toilet door.

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What Happens If Scotland Leaves The Union?

Supporters of both sides of the Scotland referendum debate are mounting a final push for votes before the ballot on September 18. Sky News looks at what will happen if Scotland votes Yes to exit the UK:

:: 1.  When would Scotland become independent?

The Scottish Government has set a date 18 months from now, March 24, 2016, for Scotland's independence day.

:: 2. What would happen immediately after a Yes vote?

The first step on the morning after the result comes in would involve the forming of teams from both the Yes and No camps to take part in behind-the-scenes negotiations. SNP leader Alex Salmond has already indicated his deputy Nicola Sturgeon would lead the talks for the Scottish nationalists. It is not yet known who would spearhead the Westminster team.

The Queen is said to be privately concerned about the referendum

:: 3. What amendments would there be to the constitution?

The negotiating teams would devise a new constitution for Scotland and dissolve the 1707 Act Of Union.

:: 4. What would happen to the Queen?

The Yes campaign has said Her Majesty would stay as monarch so it would not be surprising if Mr Salmond seeks an audience with the Queen in the days and weeks after the vote.

:: 5. Would Scotland take part in the May 2015 General Election?

Scottish voters would still be able to take part, but their representatives would only potentially serve a 10-month term in office.

Scottish voters would still be able to vote in next year's General Election

:: 6. What currency would Scotland use?

That is still being thrashed out and yet to be decided. The three main Westminster parties - the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats - have ruled out a currency union, although Mr Salmond insists an independent Scotland would keep the pound.

:: 7. How much of the UK national debt would be transferred to Scotland?

This is not yet known, but it is likely to be worked out on a per capita share - based on population.

:: 8. What would happen to Scotland's standing in global affairs?

Scotland would have to negotiate its own entry into the European Union and Nato, and the population would have to decide whether they want to have the euro.

Some Scottish troops service in historic English regiments

:: 9. What effect would independence have on Scotland's defence force?

The issue of defence is probably one of the most emotive - and uncertain. Scotland is likely to have its own independent defence force, in time, depending on practicalities and finances, for it has its North Sea oil and fishing industries to protect. Scottish nationalists are opposed to having the Trident nuclear deterrent and would want to see it removed from Faslane, on the west coast of Scotland, as soon as possible. However, Nato is fundamentally a nuclear alliance, and if Scotland struggles to become a member of Nato, it is likely to struggle to join the EU too, which would have a big impact on the Scottish economy. There is also the matter of service personnel - some of which will be currently serving in historic English regiments. Any division of troops north and south of the border would take years.

:: 10. What would independence mean in terms of travelling across the Scotland-England border?

An independent Scotland would control its own borders. The SNP would like to see an open border, but Home Secretary Theresa May has already warned she will not allow Scotland to be used as a back door for immigrants getting into England if Scotland adopts a looser immigration policy. So, we could see passport controls on the border between the two countries.

Scotland would introduce its own passport

:: 11. Would Scottish citizens need new passports?

A lot depends on whether Scotland joins the EU. Scottish citizens would be entitled to a Scottish passport, but a UK passport would still be valid until it expires. British citizens who were habitual residents in Scotland would be automatically considered Scottish citizens.

:: 12. What would happen to benefits and taxes?

Benefits and taxes will become the responsibility of the new Scottish government. In its white paper on Scotland's independence it says the Scottish Parliament will ensure that the personal tax allowance and tax credits increase in line with inflation.

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