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andrewduckerLargely because linking direct to the FT causes you to hit the paywall. Going through Google should get you there, if you search for this.
But in any case, here's the first few paragraphs, following on from claims that it would cost £1.5Bn to set up Scotland with the institutes it would need:
Direct link to the article here, if you want to give that a go before trying the Google route.
But in any case, here's the first few paragraphs, following on from claims that it would cost £1.5Bn to set up Scotland with the institutes it would need:
Ministers in London have misled Scottish voters over how much it would cost to set up an independent government in Edinburgh, according to the man whose analysis underpins the Treasury’s case for Scotland remaining in the UK.
Patrick Dunleavy, politics professor at the London School of Economics, told the Financial Times the Treasury had manipulated his research to make the one-off costs of setting up a new government look ten times larger than they were likely to be.
His claims undermine part of the Treasury’s case for staying in the union, as both sides in the referendum battle are to unveil their contrasting claims about the economic costs and benefits of Scottish independence.
Prof Dunleavy said: “The Treasury’s figures are bizarrely inaccurate. I don’t see why the Scottish government couldn’t do this for a very small amount of money.”
Direct link to the article here, if you want to give that a go before trying the Google route.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-28 05:30 pm (UTC)The main quotes from this are from
I've butted heads with him a few times, including recently, one of his big bugbears is to try to debunk "Duverger's Law", and his principle method is to create a strawman version of stuff assemlbing things Duverger didn't say and then trying to prove they're wrong, if you point him at what Duverger actually said and observe that his figures seem to reinforce Duverger's work he changes to saying that there are lots of citations in Google Scholar for people saying what he says the Law is, etc.
I, obviously, have no clue who's correct. OTOH, while I do respect the man and think he's done a lot of good work, he is someone for whom you have to go double check things from because the prism he sees the world through is so radically different from mine.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-28 05:42 pm (UTC)If he's reliable, then they're misusing them, and if he's unreliable then they shouldn't be using them at all.
Either way round is a bad result for No.
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Date: 2014-05-28 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-05-28 06:44 pm (UTC)The Treasury said the £2.7bn that appeared in its briefing paper last week did not represent its official calculation. Instead it says it is focusing on the figure of £1.5bn, which it says is based on research by Robert Young, politics professor at Western Ontario university.
...
Prof Young told the FT however the £1.5bn estimate was not his, but rather was extrapolated from the top of a range of estimates provided by academics looking how much it would cost Quebec to separate from Canada. The lowest of those estimates would put the cost at 0.4 per cent of Scotland’s output, equivalent to £600m.
So they're going for a figure only three times as high. That's just fine then!
no subject
Date: 2014-05-28 06:48 pm (UTC)Why are they concentrating on economics anyway? Same mistake Clegg made about Europe, concentrate on the long term stuff people care about not some disputed figure made by a speculative study.
no subject
Date: 2014-05-28 06:50 pm (UTC)And most people won't believe any promises of that.