SMART SCOTS GIVE IT ALDI (AND LIDL)

I remember hearing about a woman who used to take her neighbour shopping in her car. The neighbour liked to buy some of her weekly shop from one of the bargain supermarkets, but driver (a bit of a snob) informed everyone that she didn't even get out of the car.... The thought of being seen shopping in a cheap supermarket put her off.

I remember thinking that it was a shame to be so strung up on image, because the quality of the products in both Lidl and Aldi is pretty high.

Not being the kind that worries about being seen poking around in Oxfam or Save the Children (and having laid my hands on some fine brand names at a fraction of the cost of their new price, who can blame me), I've never been shy about shopping in the German supermarkets.

But until recently I wondered how they managed to make any profit. They were nearly always more or less empty, and even on a Saturday morning there was never a crush in the small car parks.

Now things are different, I suspect as a result of the 'neverendession' (to paraphrase one of the very few genuinely funny things that David Cameron has even said.

The car parks are full; the tills are all open and goods, far cheaper than the main British/American supermarkets are selling, are flying off the shelves.

Indeed according to this Yahoo article Aldi made £56.8 million in profit last year, having recorded a loss the previous year. They opened 29 new stores and plan to continue opening new ones in the coming year, creating over 4,000 new jobs (welcome, albeit most of them will probably be part time).

Lidl and Aldi concentrate on selling their own brands to the almost total exclusion of big brand names. This means no premium paid to the big names, and the savings can be passed on to the customer. In the other supermarkets only around 50% of their products are own brand.

Frequently supermarket own brands are of much poorer quality (some custard I bought at Asda was so inedible it had to be thrown out). Aldi and Lidl's brands in contrast are of very high quality. Indeed, recently a taste test organised by "Good Housekeeping" magazine found that Aldi's Christmas Pudding was the second best brand behind Waitrose. Fortnum & Mason came 29th!! And Aldi's pudding cost £7.99, whereas Fortnum's was around £29.00.

And a study by Grocer magazine found that on a shopping basket of 33 items Aldi was 16% cheaper than Asda, 20% cheaper than Tesco and 40% cheaper than Waitrose! And there is not a lot of difference in price between Aldi and Lidl.

Judging by the readers'  comments on the Yahoo article, Aldi's rise in the ranks is due in part to price, but also to the quality of service you can expect. Tesco's (the worst of all the UK chains, in my opinion), Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury and Waitrose, have all been working hard to try to maintain their market share in the straitened economic times. 

It seems they have no room for slacking.

**************
On rather a different topic I see from comments at Wings, and an article by Rod at Auld Acquaintance that there has been a debate in London about Scottish Independence, and that 336 - 5 found that Scotland would be better off in the union. 

Now, somewhere between 30 and 40% of the population wants independence, and around 20-25% is undecided, so it occurs to me that the presentation of Scots' views in the English parliament is very unrepresentative.

I understand that a further proposal put by the SNP that Scotland would enjoy a special relationship with the UK, rather like that enjoyed by Canada, Australia and New Zealand, was defeated by a similar number.

So it appears that the English (and the Welsh and Irish) don't really like us. If we go they will not be friendly towards us. But they want us to stay. 

Weird.

I can only conclude that that is because, according to them the North Sea has the potential to be the World's Global Energy hub. 

In other words they want our money.

Incidentally the 5 were the SNP members in the Commons chamber. (According to Rod, Stewart Hosie was not there due to illness. Get well soon, Stewart. You will surely be missed in London.) 

I was surprised not to have the support of the Welsh Nationalists.

IT'S TIME TO GET A GRIP

It is worrying that at Scottish Question in the London House of Commons the Labour MPs from Scotland seemed reluctant to hold Michael Moore and  David Mundell to account (as they are supposed to), on deprivation,  high fuel costs, lack of financial investment (there are currently 43 projects "shovel ready" to create thousands of jobs, but which London will not sanction).

Instead they preferred to join with the Home County Tories (why are they even there?) to ridicule the SNP government and ask Moore and Mundell about the iniquities of "separation". Some even, à la Lamont, refused to face reality and argue that despite Cameron and the First Minister signing the Edinburgh Agreement, the Scottish government does not have the right to call a referendum.

Meanwhile Jim Murphy seems to be doing his best to close down shipbuilding on the Clyde, which is under threat because of a tightening of London's Defence budgets: 

"The Tory government plans are adding to the worries but there is one certainty which is that the SNP proposals would sink Scottish shipbuilding.

"The rest of UK would become a foreign country to Scotland and the UK Royal Navy has not built a warship in a foreign land in living memory.

"The Royal Navy order book keeps Scottish yards afloat but independence would see orders dry up. Thousands of jobs are put at risk by Nationalists' plans."

As a Scottish MP should he not be talking up the yards, at a time when at least one yard will have to close, pointing out that there are many other places to go for orders. Scottish shipbuilding is amongst the best in the world and there is no reason why we could not build ships for, for example, Gulf states. After all England builds planes for them!

But no, as in Holyrood where you would have thought there were many real problems waiting for the attention of our MSPs, hatred and division has become before real politics.

I remember the first time I attended a debate in Holyrood. I left the chamber walking on air and proud as punch that discussions in our parliament were so civilised, and yet relatively informal, without any of the (patently untrue, indeed laughable) "honourable/learned/gallant/reverend gentleman/lady" of the brawling of the London parliament. 

Now Holyrood has turned into a hate fest. The modus operandi appears to be: never mind the problems besetting the country, let's  talk for as long as we can, all the time putting down Alex Salmond, before putting a question. Let's get our hatred for the government on the BBC and in the papers never mind if we have to bend the truth to do it. And who the hell cares about the constituency questions that actually matter to real people: people who are not overly interested in the independence question 2 years before the date of the referendum?

Lamont's inability to get past her script doesn't help, of course, but her insistence on asking 4 questions which seem to fail to take into account answers previously given is an embarrassment:

"Why isn't Alex Salmond's government using Scottish steel to build the Forth crossing?"

"Because we don't make steel in Scotland."

"Alex Salmond says that we don't make steel, but why is his government going to China for its steel instead of using home made steel?"

"Because we don't make steel in Scotland."

"Has the First Minister thought about the number of jobs that would be created if he had chosen to use steel made in Scotland."

"As I've said before Presiding Officer, Johann Lamont knows that the London government shut down the steel making industry in Scotland and Labour did nothing to revive it. We have no suitable steel making facility in Scotland."

OK, the words are mine and I've used considerable licence, but that was a rough outline of how the argument went, although both Lamont and Salmond talked at length. But months after this point was made, Joanne Lamont still refers to the dreadfulness of buying steel from China.

She's not thick enough not to take in the fact that we didn't have the facility to make that steel in Scotland. She just thinks that its a good line that people will pick up on and hate Alex Salmond for; that jobless youngsters will be able to say..."If only Alex Salmond had bought Scottish steel, I could have got a job making it."

The trouble with all this is that it is not only causing division in the country, it is also putting people off politics. And I think it may be polluting the way that other people debate politics. After all, if the leader of the opposition or the Conservative party doesn't bother to try to make any constructive criticism of the government, why would Jock down the pub?

A definite plus once upon a time, for an independent parliament would have been a raised standard of debate. Unfortunately that is no longer so.

BAD NEWS FOR LABOUR AND THE NO CAMPAIGN

The campaign to save the union has, it appears, suffered a body blow. Scotland’s trade union movement are refusing to join the Bitter Together campaign, so beloved by the Labour Party, and the last I heard, funded by Tories in the South East of England.

The Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) is expected to say this week that it doesn't want to make any decision about Independence at the moment, and as such it would be wrong for them to come down on one side of the independence argument “for the foreseeable future”.

Worse news still for Johann Lamont and Alistair Darling, it is expected to warn of unrest over Labour's policies among the 630,000 trades unionists it represents and it will point out some benefits that independence could bring.

I hope that Mrs Lamont treats it with respect. 

The Sunday Times has got a hold of the draft of the STUC's report which (and this is even more disturbing for Labour) apparently shows that there is “concern and, on occasion, outright anger at some of the economic, social and international policies which have been pursued at Scottish and UK levels”

I was taught that he who pays the piper calls the tune. I don't know what proportion of the funding that goes into the Scottish branch office of the Labour Party comes from the unions, but at 630,000 members in Scotland, I'm guessing it may be quite substantial. I'm wondering if it is about time that the leadership listened to the people who contribute so much of their hard earned cash to the Labour party. Otherwise perhaps they will decide to stop giving it.

This disconnect between the Labour leadership and much of the membership is what we have all been talking about for so long. 

It's what Niko has genuinely been struggling with recently, as Harriet Harman tried to haul him back into the fold (or some minion pretending to be Harriet Harman, let's be honest) and get her hands once again on his political levy.

The Labour Party and its policies no longer relate to the people it should be representing in Scotland, because they are being dictated in another country, for another country, and no matter how much they tell us that Scottish Labour and English Labour are separate, they are not and can never be as long as they sit on the same green benches in London.

It's time for change.

******

SNAPS ON SATURDAY

Sooooo, first of all there was their new logo, quite truthful, for a change

Then there was their new campaign, which left itself open to the odd bit of ridicule here...

...and here...

...and here. Wait a minute...Johann??? Who can tell the difference

Just a little reminder of the last post

And another reminder that we may run our own Health Service, but we are dependent on them for our money

Er, well what are you wasting your time for... Let's do it.

From a Labour man, Niko. I've been telling you. 

If you want the Tory take on it, here's Johnny Crude Bum.

Good news on Westminster voting intentions, from a very sizeable sample. Guess who's winning... 

Face reality: We could be as prosperous as Norway

No apologies for lifting this lock stock and barrel from the Herald. It is so good, everyone should be reading it.


Iain MacWhirter, THURSDAY 22 NOVEMBER 2012
I have often regretted coining the phrase "the arc of insolvency" in this column in 2008 to describe the financial crisis as it afflicted Iceland and Ireland.

It was only ever one side of the story. While some neoliberal small nations exploded because of their irresponsible banks, the rest of the Nordic arc – Denmark, Sweden and Finland – passed through the eye of the storm largely unscathed. Certainly, in Norway, where I have been hanging out this week, there is no sign of any financial hangover from the great crash.
Oslo is, as usual, a building site. There can be few cities outside south-east Asia that are so obviously booming. Unemployment here is very low, salaries are very high, beer is ruinously expensive at £8 a pint – though that doesn't seem to stop people going to the pub. Even the banks are doing well in Norway, largely because they didn't get caught up in the property madness that exploded Iceland and Ireland.

Deficit? Nonexistent – Norway has the largest budget surplus of any AAA-rated nation in the world. Growth is "only" 3.7%; inflation is 1.4%; unemployment at 3.3% is the lowest in Europe and poverty is almost too low to measure. This is a country which regularly tops the global quality-of-life indexes. So what is the secret? Why has Norway been largely immune to the economic crises that left countries like Britain as debt zombies, kept going only by zero interest rates and money printing?

Well, oil for a start. Norway is Europe's largest exporter. Mostly the revenues have been parked in the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, which is now the third largest in the world and worth $500 billion. The government is only allowed to take a tiny amount out each year, so this wealth accumulates without generating inflation.

When you visit Norway you really appreciate how giddily altruistic the Scots were in the 1970s and 1980s – giving their oil away in exchange for the Barnett handout and a couple of savage industrial recessions. The Scottish people were the ultimate ragged-trousered philanthropists: the only nation, region, principality or state in the world to have discovered oil and never to have directly benefited.

The oil is running out, of course, but there's still "enough" as Norwegians like to say, and gas is all over the place. Norway is now the second largest gas exporter in the world. There is much anguish in Scotland about how North Sea oil is a "sunset industry", and how no country can depend on a diminishing natural resource. But it can be a pretty long sunset. It might surprise people in Scotland to learn that Norway does not put its economic success down to natural resources but to social solidarity.

Norway is one of the most egalitarian of countries. In 2010, 95% of Norwegians earned less than £50,000 a year, and they have one of the flattest income distributions in the world. They look with horror on countries like America and Britain where millions are in poverty while the top 1% get richer and richer. They believe that low wages damage the economy – and they are right.
In Norway, pay is still mostly negotiated centrally by a tripartite arrangement of unions, government and business. It sounds like something out of the 1970s and probably is. But Norwegians feel this corporatism works well in a small country of five million people and that social solidarity is not incompatible with economic dynamism. The state in Norway doesn't have to spend billions on tax credits to subsidise low pay because firms pay decent wages. And because labour costs are inelastic, Norwegian companies have a strong incentive to grow by innovation in productivity. Compare and contrast with Britain where productivity is flatlining as employers cut wages to keep going through a triple downturn.

Also, consumer demand in Norway is steady and predictable because people feel secure and able to spend for the future. Thus you don't get the debt cycle of boom and bust that happens in Anglo-Saxon countries such as Britain and America where people had to borrow to maintain living standards and are now cutting back, burdened by debt. Effective demand is stable in Norway so companies can invest with greater security.

There are so many lessons for Scotland here, it's hard to know where to begin. Obviously, if Scotland had benefited from its oil wealth since 1970 it would be a very different country to the one it is today. It is doubtful whether we would still have some of the worst mortality rates for middle-aged people in Europe, as the Glasgow Centre for Population Health reported this week. Also, Scotland is not backward or naive in favouring collective solutions like free higher education and elderly care, which are all regarded as essential pillars of the Norwegian welfare state. The feel of Norwegian society is very much like Scotland, in terms of social expectations and outlook. Looking at Norway today, it is hard to argue that Scotland could fail to be an extremely successful independent country, were the Scots to vote Yes – though they don't seem to minded to take this option.

Once independent, Scotland would probably find a place as one of the energy-rich small nations of the true arc of Nordic prosperity. As for the debate about Scotland in Europe, Norway is of course not a member of the European Union and has its own currency, the krona. The Norwegians stayed out of the EU largely on the grounds that it was too right wing – a proposition that astonished the Tory Eurosceptic former defence secretary Liam Fox on a visit here last month. Norway is one of a block of Nordic currencies including Denmark and Sweden that kept the krona though they are in the European single market. Which confirms there are many ways small countries can relate to the EU, and to neighbouring countries.

Norway isn't that much engaged with Scottish independence. Most people still call the UK "England" – the country that helped liberate Norway from the Nazis. They are intrigued at the prospect of a referendum on independence. In 1905, the Norwegians voted to dissolve he union with Sweden by a margin of 99.5%. Only 184 people voted No. So, perhaps a little way to go yet, Alex.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/face-reality-we-could-be-as-prosperous-as-norway.19483723

STILL WANT TO VOTE NO TO INDEPENDENCE?

'So', says Andy Auchterlonie on Facebook, 'you think you should vote NO to Scotland being independent? Then you better be aware what exactly you will be voting for by voting NO...............

1. Privatisation of the NHS.

2. Privatisation of the Royal Mail.

3. Privatisation of the Post Office.

4. Privatisation of Scottish Water.

5. Privatisation of the Forestry Commission.

6. Roads and bridges tolls with a vengeance.

7. End of free student tuition fees.

8. End of free care of the elderly.

9. End of free travel for the elderly.

10. End of free prescriptions.

11. Trident at a cost of £30+ Billion.

12. Toxic waste dumping in Scotland.

13. More foreign owned, heavily subsidised, nuclear power stations.

14. More scrap nuclear submarines being dumped in Scotland.

15. All 33,000+ civil service jobs in Scotland being moved south.

16. Faster oil extraction to spend the revenue before we can become independent.

17. Massive increases in PFI/PPP expenditure building huge debts for future generations.

18. All planning powers taken back to Westminster to allow them to do whatever they want in Scotland.

19. Drastically reduce Holyrood powers.(best keep the natives under control)

20. Huge increases in Council Tax.

21. Most FE colleges will be closed.

22. All private firms will be encouraged to relocate south with tax breaks for those complying.

23. Sickness, disability and unemployment benefits slashed in Scotland.

24. Winter Fuel payments triggered by average temperatures in Torquay.

25. Lots of, all expense peerages, for all the Bitter the Gither quislings.

26. Keeping your local MPs on the London gravy train. MPs like Gordon Brown, who earns £65000 for being an MP, £120,000 for being an ex PM, and UNLIMITED EXPENSES. Or Margaret Curran, £65000 wages and UNLIMITED EXPENSES (she claimed £155,000 last year).

27. Finally you will be voting yourself out of work, having no benefit system to fall back on and a future of uncertainty, all whilst London and the SE of England lap it up at our expense.

OK, maybe I don't agree with everyone of these claims... 100%, but make no mistake, if we vote no, we will have to privatize; we will have to cut. You can't have nuclear weapons and play at being the worlds's deputy policeman, and look after your own people. 

It can't be done on the kind of money Scotland/Britain has at its disposal.
There will be no real benefits system and with all this QE, which will have to go on and on, you can forget having a pension of any worth. So get used to the idea of poverty, and big business owning everything and cheating you at every turn.

STILL WANT TO VOTE NO TO INDEPENDENCE?

CULTURE: AND NOW FOR SOME POETRY

OK, I just had to share this one with you guys.

Danny (Munguin's Man in America) sent me this poem and the history below.

Now to understand it fully you have to know that the symbol for the GOP or Republicans is an elephant.

And a sort of unofficial representation for the Democrats has been a donkey. For explanations of these symbols, see below.

So with that knowledge to hand here is the poem. (Don't worry: Milton it isn't and it's very short.)

The election is over,
The talking is done.
Your party lost,
My party won.
So let us be friends,
Let arguments pass.
I'll hug your elephant,
If you kiss my ass.



Explanation time!

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic 
hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the 
summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the 
winter.


The two most important events in all of history were the invention 
of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to 
get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern 
civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of 
humanity into two distinct subgroups:

1 . Liberals, and
2. Conservatives.

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the 
beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can 
were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around 
waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the 
brewery. That's how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to BBQ at 
night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what 
is known as the Conservative movement...

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to 
live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly BBQ's and 
doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the 
beginning of the Liberal movement.

Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. They became 
known as girlie-men. Some noteworthy liberal achievements include 
the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group 
hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide 
the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, 
most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are 
symbolized by the jackass for obvious reasons.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most 
prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but 
like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard 
liberal fare.. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of 
their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most 
social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in 
Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the 
designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher 
also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer, mostly Bud or Miller. They eat 
red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big 
game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, 
firemen, medical doctors, police officers, engineers, corporate 
executives, athletes, members of the military, airline pilots and 
generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own 
companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the 
producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals 
believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why 
 most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were 
coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and 
created a business of trying to get more for nothing.

Here ends today's lesson in world history:

SORRY SEEMS TO BE THE HARDEST WORD...FOR SOME

Apology has been very much on the mind of the political parties and press in Scotland over the last few days.

The unionist media has made much of Alex Salmond coming to parliament to apologise for an error he had made in further education figures. Headlines like "Salmond apologises for misleading MSPs at Holyrood", and "Salmond says sorry for misleading MSPs again" have had unionists rubbing their hands together and prophesying the end of independence hopes.

It appears that Salmond had said that the budget for further education had risen by 0.18%, whereas the truth is that it had been reduced by 1.7%.

Right let's get it out of the way. It was a bad mistake for the first minister to make. And someone who provided that figure will now be wishing most heartily that he'd checked again, just to be sure.

It's particularly bad for the FM, because of the number of times he has had to correct the mistakes on figures provided by Lamont, Gray and Alexander, who all seemed to have come to the chamber armed with incorrect statistics. Now it appears he has fallen victim to the same error.

There will be those who think that he deliberately lied to make the situation look better than it is, but that seems unlikely to me. Who would invent an increase of 0.18%? It seems far too small to be impressive, and if you are going to lie, and risk being caught out, you might as well do it for something a little more impressive than 0.18%. More likely that a civil servant provided the FM with false figures.

To my mind, the important thing was that the FM came to parliament and apologised.

However, someone else has also been giving false figures this week. Yes that's right, it's you... Stand up Maggie Curren.

I quote from Newsnet: "This week Margaret Curran used a speech to the STUC women’s conference to launch an attack on the way in which receipts from the 4G radio spectrum auction will be spent in Scotland and demanded that the Scottish Government to make clear how it will spend its ‘windfall’."

The trouble is that Scotland has absolutely no receipts whatsoever from the G4 Auction. That is to say no windfall, which means that they can't spend it on anything at all.

All monies from that go directly to George Osborne's Treasury and stay there. I'm not saying that some of the money will not be spent in Scotland, but if it is, it will be spent by Michael Moore, not Alex Salmond.

Several questions have been asked in the London parliament about this question and it has been made clear by Danny Alexander that there will be no Barnet Consequential for this money.

So, did Mrs Curren know this? 

If she didn't, then why didn't she? She is supposed to be the Shadow Secretary of State. She should know how the Barnet system works in general terms, and in this particular one she should be aware of questions being asked on the subject... and of the answers given.

If she did know then why did she mislead the STUC conference? Is she so blinded by hatred of the SNP and the Scottish government that she doesn't care what the Tories do with the money as long as she can take a pop at the SNP.

Mrs Curren should be aware (although maybe she is not) that the Scottish government has done much to help people worst hit by the inhumane policies emanating from London. Maybe she should make it her business to check exactly how John Swinney is finding money to help the poor.

When she has done that, she might like to emulate the First Minister and apologise for her error.

Or not. 

************

I thought it might be helpful to you to share with you one of the Pippatips that may be seen in Her Royal Highness's best seller "Celebrate". (Now less than half price on Amazon.com.)

#PippaTip: Save time by doing things more quickly
I was surprised to read that actually, I would have though HRH's answer to the time problem would be simply to employ more servants. Well, you live and learn.
What an excellent gift this book wouldn't make for Christmas.

SNAPS ON SATURDAY

We are still all in it together though, right?

Yep, all RIGHT in it together... except old Merv, who's not made a habit of being right about anything

"I tell you, my nose grew this long, but I don't think any of the thick Nats noticed...

... because of the body guards who stood in front of me, right through my speech"

Oui, Si, Ja, Sea, Ken, Jes, Hai, Oo, 是, Na'am

Does that mean I'll not be able to blog on Petula Clark any more?

Well, Spock is never wrong. That would be illogical

Quick word of congratulations to David Cameron and Theresa May on the splendid and obviously brilliant idea of having elected police commissioners which went down so well will the English and Welsh public. Bravo guys. And it only cost £100,000,000...

BONNE ANNIVERSAIRE MA CHERE PÉTULA

It's that time of the year again, and so Happy 80th Birthday, and congratulations on 70 years in show business, Petula Clark... 

Here's to the Paris Olympia in March.

FAIR AND BALANCED HEADLINE WRITING

One of the Daily Telegraph featured stories today (as at 22.42) was headlined:

RBS 'could quit an independent Scotland'

The under heading in large type read:

Royal Bank of Scotland's chairman has suggested the lender could consider moving from its Edinburgh headquarters if Scottish independence brought "extra difficulties".

The story actually is:

Asked whether the bank would look at where it is domiciled if Scotland voted for independence in 2014, he (Sir Philip Hampton) said: "The overriding requirement is to serve our customers and through that to produce the best value we can for shareholders. We have no intention or plan to relocate from Scotland."

He continued: "We are very happy and Scotland is a very effective place at the moment to do business.

"If, as a result of a vote for independence, we found extra difficulties or cost pressures or whatever arising from that, then we would have to think about alternatives.

"But we don't expect at the moment, we don't identify any clear rationale for making major domicile changes."

In short RBS could quit and independent Scotland (we can't quite see why the heading had quotes). At the same time the USA and Canada could become one country or Japan could kick out its emperor or Burma could declare war on Peru or Tris could be the next Prince of Monaco.

Each of these is possible; but none of them is likely. (Except the last one, which I am waiting to hear about any day!) 

The good old Daily Telegraph. Tabloid journalism with multi syllabic words.