[Jimi]

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Originally Posted by Chris

Ooh look, the Daily Mail.

You want more like?
Okay,there you go.Facts !!!



Wealth distribution in Britian is so skewed that Britain's five wealthiest families are worth more than the poorest 20%, or 12.8m people. In many cases these families inherited wealth from landowners and politicians going back centuries:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/10702213...ciety.html

In some cases - such as in David Cameron's case - that inherited wealth is directly linked to slave ownership and slave trade, as well as compensation given to slave owners after slavery was abolished:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/hom...08358.html

Meanwhile, despite this enormous wealth disparity, the policies of austerity currently being imposed in Westminster are overwhelmingly targeting the poor:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-simon...02793.html

This may be related to the fact that our Westminster government is run by personal millionaires(1), who are accountable to massive city finance donors (2) and extremely wealthy individuals (3):

1) - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics...llion.html

2) - http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011...-donations

3) - http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sun...ne-1846462

That same cabinet of millionaires overwhelmingly represent constituencies within commuting distance of London:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/brit...of-england

Perhaps coincidentally, 80% of new private sector jobs created in the UK since 2009 have been based in London:

http://www.standard.co.uk/business/busin...87093.html

Corporate tax avoidance - companies like Starbucks, Boots, Amazon etc. legally avoiding tax they would conventionally owe - accounts for £35bn in lost revenue annually:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013...nonpayment

Benefit fraud, on the other hand, costs us 1.6bn:

http://www.cas.org.uk/features/myth-bust...efit-fraud

Meanwhile, we actually save £2.8bn a year on benefits that go unclaimed:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17139088

Despite this, there were twelve mentions of welfare, and six mentions of benefit in David Cameron's 2013 Conservative Party Conference speech. No mention whatsoever of corporate tax avoidance, or tax evasion:

http://www.newstatesman.com/staggers/201...-full-text

There's been a fall in real wages by an average of 8.5% since 2009, which is the worst decline in living standards since 1870:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/regional-t...-2009.html

Meanwhile, income inequality growing faster in the UK than in any other wealthy country:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/...-faster-uk

Despite this, top level tax for earners over £150k was reduced by 5% in 2012 under the current government: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budge...o-45p.html

Whilst the gap gets bigger at a faster rate than any other rich country, 25% of Scottish children are living in poverty:

http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/where-...m/scotland

To date, no politician campaigning for the union appears to have even suggested that Scotland would be a fairer or more equal society if it remained part of the union; positive reasons generally appear to be thin on the ground:

http://www.bettertogether.net/pages/the-ve-case

Standard and Poor's credit assessment on an independent Scotland indicates that the economy would be rich and diversified, with wealth comparable to AAA-listed nations:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/209646043/Stan...t-Scotland

And the OECD ranks an independent Scotland as the 14th wealthiest nation in the world based on GDP per head of population:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0044/00446013.pdf

Scotland can afford to be independent, and David Cameron agreed:

"It would be wrong to suggest that Scotland could not be another... successful, independent country." - David Cameron (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/perso...nion.html)