Scottish independence

black_taxi_2

Alistair Darling Speech against Scottish assembly,rape,pillage




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1YNgv-Z5m4

ColdIron

black_taxi wrote: »

Alistair Darling Speech against Scottish assembly,rape,pillage

Wonderful stuff, makes Oily Al look tame, must be a socialist thing

rpc

rpc wrote: »

The rUK NHS budget has increased in real terms. All parties are committed to real terms increases and any privatisation savings are to be reinvested. The SNP have imposed real terms cuts on the Scottish NHS.

And some numbers behind this from the IFS:

Evil_Tories_caught_red_handed_in_increasing_NHS_budget_scandal wrote:

Between 2009-10 and 2015-16 spending on the NHS in England will, on currently announced plans, have risen by about 4% in real terms despite an overall fall of 13% in English departmental spending.

3. Over the same period the vagaries of the Barnett formula mean that Scotland will have had to cut overall public service spending by less – by about 8% rather than 13%. But the Scottish government has chosen to protect the NHS in Scotland slightly less than it has been protected in England. Spending on the NHS in Scotland has fallen by 1%.

4. Analysis we published last year shows this is not a new pattern. Between 2002–03 and 2009–10 – years of plenty for public services rather than cuts – real-terms health spending per person grew by 29% in Scotland compared with a 43% increase across the UK as a whole. This was despite overall public service spending per person growing by a very similar amount in Scotland (26%) and the UK as a whole (28%).

So it seems that historically, at least, Scottish Governments in Holyrood have placed less priority on funding the NHS in Scotland (and more on funding other services) than governments in Westminster have for England....

jimjames

rpc wrote: »

And some numbers behind this from the IFS:

How can SNP stand up and say NHS is at risk when it's under their control. Why are the yes campaign claiming everyone else is lying when they're the worst of all.

Deal with facts and their arguments fall down.

zeupater

robin61 wrote: »

Absolutely. I would fully expect that the UK government to play hard ball and do everything they can to look after the interests of the rest of the UK and that means giving away as little as possible.

Even before negotiations have started the SNP are citing international maritime boundary law and claiming most of the UK's oil reserves for Scotland. Plus threatening not to take a share of the National debt if the 60m UK citizens don't agree to a monetary union with 5m Scots which in effect mean us acting as guarantors for another country !

Well if the debt belongs solely to Westminster so must all of the assets like the army, navy, foreign property and investments etc.
Normally in any negotiation both sides have something to offer the other. Scotland just appears to want to take and has nothing to offer so they do not appear to be in a very strong negotiating position to me. That being the case the SNP are simply not going to come out of this with anything like their wish list. No movement on the uk oil reserves or the national debt ane they may well come out of it with only the assets which are nailed down in Scotland.

... I'd open any negotiations by stating that as the Scottish Government initiated the process, then they become responsible for all costs ..... it'd be a pretty harsh opening position, but considering that the entire situation had been created by iScotland, then rUK is effectively the equivalent of the respondent in a divorce, therefore full separations costs could be argued as being iScotlands responsibility .... now, wouldn't that open up some interesting discussions around how this would be handled as a paper exercise .... probably end up as being billions more on an iScotland debt opening balance than have been considered, with a corresponding reduction in that apportioned to rUK (effectively leaving the net position unchanged) ...

Of course, this will be considered by some as being slightly 'unfair' (to say the least) and will shout 'Europe' & 'European Court' from the highest vantage point ... but would that be the very same bodies who would have an eye on the likes of the Basque region, Catalonia, Corsica, Flanders, Cyprus, Northern Italy, Austrian Tyrol region, Bavaria etc and would therefore be under severe pressure from multiple national governments and integration-obsessed bureaucrats to make the process as awkward and financially painful as possible so as to discourage others .... ??

.... just a thought process, but considering all negotiations start somewhere, you might as well start from a place where there's plenty of legal precedence rather than a simple wish ....

JAZZJIM

jimjames wrote: »

How can SNP stand up and say NHS is at risk when it's under their control. Why are the yes campaign claiming everyone else is lying when they're the worst of all.

Deal with facts and their arguments fall down.

[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]The Plan for Public Services have been thought through and will be FREE at point of use. They will be paid for by Higher Taxes on the Rich and those in the Middle Classes who enjoy very high salaries.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]Lower Corporation Taxes will see Companies,in their droves,flocking into Scotland.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]More jobs will be created and unemployment will dramatically fall. There will be increased support for Nursery Education which will allow more 'stay at home' Mums to go back to work. They will need to go back to work to fill the growing number of jobs that will be created in an Independent Scotland.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]There is also the vast Oil reserves that we already have and the untapped deposits that rest in the West. Alex Salmond has explained that we cannot access these reserves at this time because of the UK Governments restrictions on drilling because of the Faslane Naval Base. When Trident leaves we will access these vast reserves which will further increase our wealth.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]Nicola Sturgeon already says were are richer than England and one of the wealthiest Countries in the World.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]The Golden Years for Scotland lead by Alex Salmond lie ahead.[/FONT]
:j

mollycat

JAZZJIM wrote: »

[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]The Plan for Public Services have been thought through and will be FREE at point of use. They will be paid for by Higher Taxes on the Rich and those in the Middle Classes who enjoy very high salaries.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]Lower Corporation Taxes will see Companies,in their droves,flocking into Scotland.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]More jobs will be created and unemployment will dramatically fall. There will be increased support for Nursery Education which will allow more 'stay at home' Mums to go back to work. They will need to go back to work to fill the growing number of jobs that will be created in an Independent Scotland.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]There is also the vast Oil reserves that we already have and the untapped deposits that rest in the West. Alex Salmond has explained that we cannot access these reserves at this time because of the UK Governments restrictions on drilling because of the Faslane Naval Base. When Trident leaves we will access these vast reserves which will further increase our wealth.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]Nicola Sturgeon already says were are richer than England and one of the wealthiest Countries in the World.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]The Golden Years for Scotland lead by Alex Salmond lie ahead.[/FONT]
:j

Would be hilarious if not so desperately sad.

robin61

JAZZJIM wrote: »

[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]The Plan for Public Services have been thought through and will be FREE at point of use. They will be paid for by Higher Taxes on the Rich and those in the Middle Classes who enjoy very high salaries.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]Lower Corporation Taxes will see Companies,in their droves,flocking into Scotland.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]More jobs will be created and unemployment will dramatically fall. There will be increased support for Nursery Education which will allow more 'stay at home' Mums to go back to work. They will need to go back to work to fill the growing number of jobs that will be created in an Independent Scotland.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]There is also the vast Oil reserves that we already have and the untapped deposits that rest in the West. Alex Salmond has explained that we cannot access these reserves at this time because of the UK Governments restrictions on drilling because of the Faslane Naval Base. When Trident leaves we will access these vast reserves which will further increase our wealth.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]Nicola Sturgeon already says were are richer than England and one of the wealthiest Countries in the World.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arimo, sans-serif]The Golden Years for Scotland lead by Alex Salmond lie ahead.[/FONT]
:j

What's it like up there in cloud cuckoo land ?

colsten

You should be looking at what Alex and Nicola don't tell you, and you should be vigorously testing what they do say.

For example, on the tax front. Alex earns £140K plus expenses a year, so you can be sure nobody earning less than £140K would see a tax increase. But more importantly, how many people in Scotland earn more than £140K? How much extra money could theoretically be raised from them? And why would they possibly want to stay in Scotland if they can pay less tax on the same or higher salary elsewhere? Someone on £140K and above will easily get a job anywhere else in the world. Look at how much more tax was collected when the 50p level was introduced by Labour a few years ago. You will find that it was actually less than would have been collected on the max 40%. Why would it be substantially different in Scotland? Look at what happened in France when Hollande's socialist government put the tax rates up to 70%. People just leave. Neither Alex Salmond nor Nicola Sturgeon can stop people from leaving, and neither can Jim Sillars. Your hope for increased tax revenues from higher earners is a day dream.

Lower corporation tax? Scotland already runs on a deficit and cannot afford lower corporation tax. More importantly though, which business would want to expose themselves to the threats Jim Sillars issued this week, and which Alex Salmond can barely manage to deny? He effectively repeated Sillars' threat just not in so many words, when he said businesses could find themselves with increased pressure from unions. There is a break point for any business - if the terms of doing business are prohibitive, low corporation tax doesn't matter. The businesses will just not be there. As with people, neither Alex Salmond nor Nicola Sturgeon can stop businesses from leaving, and neither can Jim Sillars or any union.

Did you ask where all the extra jobs will come from? Did you hear any big companies say they will create new jobs in Scotland?

In the words of Gordon bless his cotton socks Brown: You can ignore what some people say some of the time. But you can't ignore all of the people all of the time - which is what Alex Salmond and the Yes campaign are doing.

Wilkins

ColdIron wrote: »

Really? Seems a little myopic to me

With no banks (because most of them have scarpered) and no oil (because the Oil Cos will be nationalised) are you going to make all the shortbread and Aran sweaters yourself?

Pedantic point. Aran sweaters are Irish because they are made on the Aran islands in the Republic of ireland, not the Isle of Arran in Scotland.


I agree with your sentiment, however.