Genuine outside chance that we win a majority next year on 35-38% of the vote.

Reform is taking more votes from the Tories & Labour than from the SNP, we aren’t that popular either, but “de-fault” is the two sweetest words in the English language

If we make those level of chances, at home, versus Denmark, my gosh we have a chance.

A very decent chance. We’ve rode our luck this campaign but we have good players - it’s still on (somehow) CMON SCOTLAND

Very much looking forward to listening to this later today.

Pretty amazing access that Tom has got there, a really fascinating read.

Reminds me a bit of the Big Short scene when they realise that the sellers are openly bragging about dodgy deals and morally dubious dealings (that aren’t necessarily illegal)

I’ve just seen “A TAKE” that says that they would rather us not qualify if we are going to stink the place out.

Take a hard look at yourself. 100% I’d take those performances in games over Greece & Belarus if you guarantee me the win.

Football doesn’t work that way though, no guarantees

Maybe he’s just channeling his inner man inside him youtu.be/Po4adxJxqZk?...

The only thing I would say in support of this that if you have to go above 32, then you should go in a multiple of 32.

The “best” third place teams getting through the group with the 48 team format doesn’t sit well with me.

Not a fan of it in the Euros either.

64 can at least can go: 32/16/8/4/2

I think the hype afforded to any youngster showing an ounce of promise in the EPL does lead to tonnes of kids being exposed to too much scrutiny far too young

I really like that Scotland are now seeing players move to Italy allowing them develop outwith the goldfish bowl of the EPL.

Or the reception Margaret Thatcher received at the 1988 Scotland Cup Final - both sets of fans loudly booked her and waved red flags at her

That’s not considering that different policy choices & the requirement to operate more “cannily” as a small independent state, would see a divergence of the structure of the current Scottish economy under the UK in the event of independence.

But the fiscal position is not insurmountable

Debt ran up by the British state, which is a state that has been badly mismanaged & defence spending - £13.6billion that are the two main drivers of the notional deficit of Scotland - take these two out and it’s broadly a country that can tax its citizens to afford the standard of spending as now

The only comparable example of a section of the British state leaving was the Republic of Ireland, politics & defence considerations directly affected the level of actual debt paid by the state, with the continuation state being the ultimate debtor publisher-prod65.cliffordchance.com/content/dam/...

This deal would involve Scotland not becoming a member of NATO, nor committing to spend at the current proportion of its revenue on defence.

Switzerland spends 0.76% of GDP on defence, that would be around £700 million for an independent Scotland, a notional deficit reduction of £4.4 billion!

Scotland “owns” a proportional percentage of the assets of the British state, such as militarily equipment. We’d likely forego assets such as these in return for a deal over debt.

This would also likely see the continuation of the Faslane as a “leased” base for a generation.

The reserved function categories though clearly would not have the level of spending afforded to them if Scotland was independent.

Scotland could not afford to pay £5.1 billion on defence.

In fact, it would be likely that a political deal would be done with rUK over the assets of the British state