Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

Shakethedisease

kabayiri wrote: »

Err, I have been on the receiving end of Hamishs' posts, you can ask him!

So have I, but some on these threads seem to think he's some kind of all seeing being when it comes to Scottish affairs. I keep getting quoted 'well Hamish said', or ' or looking at Hamish's figures'.. I don't mind replying to his posts directly.

I actually think that in some ways the oil price drop is a good thing. It brings the reality home. 7 billion is indeed a lot of money. 3 billion is a lot of money. Especially for just 5 million people.

Better to refocus your economy now whilst you have the benefit of a Union able to borrow money on the markets at historically low rates.

I guess we'll see what happens in the next few years. The narrative now from what I can see is changing from the SNP camp. Moving well away from the economics of oil prices and referendum stuff.. to simply having the opportunities to grow other areas of the economy through further powers.

Nobody wants to see Scotland fail. I rather like the place, even if deep fried McCains pizza is a truly stupid idea.

A stupid idea mabye, but one I do enjoy once in a while.

.string.

Generali wrote: »

Well that's the worst part for the fantasists: your spread sheet doesn't include the impact of oil prices falling off a cliff. We won't see that come into the published figures for a little while yet but they'll make grim reading when they do/

Of course you'll 'do a Sturgeon' and make up some different numbers that suit you better. The fact is that when the single export on which an economy and Government revenues are entirely dependent upon halves in price that country is in a mess.

You don't seem that interested in where the money for the fantasy SWF would have come from. Clearly having run a cumulative deficit of £50bn since 1980 would have made it impossible to create one.

Australia has a very nice SWF because she spent less than she taxed over many years.

There is a revealing analysis which corroborates much of what you have been saying about dependency on oil here.

elantan

Shakethedisease wrote: »

She was fantastic. I was watching and following comments on twitter from time to time, even hard headed unionists and newspaper editors were saying it was the best conference speech they'd seen for years !

She did really well. I wonder if Labour will respond to her 'call' to say decisively if they'll vote with them against a Tory minority government ? They're in a bit of a 'spot' with that one.

you been following the feminist fight online? I have noticed Labour are awfy quiet today :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

michaels

Just watched sturgeon talking to the faithful in glasgow. Do they only have white people in Scotland?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Hmmm do you know who Professor Ashcroft is married to ? Her name is Wendy Alexander. Former Labour First Minister, and Labour MP's Douglas's sister ? .

I'm just going to ignore, for a second, that you fell right back into the typical cybernat habit of attacking the source rather than actually addressing the data in any way whatsoever.

Because what you have basically alleged there, is that Professor Ashcroft falsified or spun his research data, purely on the rather tenuous basis that he's married to a sister of a Labour politician.

It's a shallow attempt to smear anyone who disagrees with you, by claiming they are part of a 'self serving political elite', and thus cannot be trusted.

Of course SNP supporters like to claim the SNP are distinct from this “narrow, self-serving, dishonest political elite” and independence was a chance to break from them to create a cleaner type of politics.

It wasn’t.

It wasn’t because the SNP are an extraordinarily cosy clique themselves.

So cosy, they could probably be described more accurately as the Scottish Nepotist Party.

For example...

Former MP and SNP President Winnie Ewing is the mother of ministerial brother and sister duo Fergus and Annabelle Ewing. The former was also husband of the late Margaret Ewing, MSP for Moray.


Nicola Sturgeon and her husband, Peter Murrell (the SNP’s Chief Executive), form a cosy couple in command of the party. The First Minister used to employ both her sister Gillian and her mother at Holyrood. Her mother is also the SNP Provost of North Ayrshire Council [7].


The Sturgeon clique was reinforced following the election of Stewart Hosie MP to the post of Deputy Leader. His wife is Shona Robison MSP, a key ally of Sturgeon, which partly explains her promotion to the post of Health Secretary [8].


Another candidate for the post of Deputy Leader was Keith Brown MSP, who is the partner of fellow MSP Christina McKelvie [9]. Her son, Jack, was an SNP candidate for Coatbridge and Chryston [10].


The final deputy leadership candidate was MSP Angela Constance. She formerly employed her mother-in-law at Holyrood, on a tax-payer funded salary [7]. Her husband, Garry, is an SNP activist and campaign manager and stood for election as an SNP councillor in West Lothian in 2012 [11, 12]. His father, Roger Knox, was an SNP deputy provost in East Lothian [40].


Willie Coffey, SNP MSP for Kilmarnock & Irvine Valley, employs his sister on a tax-payer funded salary at Holyrood [27]. She is also an SNP Councillor (for Kilmarnock North), her election coming after the passing of the former SNP councillor, who was her other brother, Danny Coffey [13].


George Adam is the SNP MSP for Paisley. His wife is Stacey Adam who works for him at the Scottish Parliament as a volunteer [14]. I wonder if this is the same Stacey Adam who was formerly the National Membership Secretary for the SNP’s youth wing, Young Scots for Independence? [15].


The husband of SNP MSP Clare Adamson acted as an SNP agent in North Lanarkshire during the referendum and the last European elections [16, 17].


Colin Beattie is the SNP MSP for Midlothian North. He is married to SNP councillor Lisa Beattie, who quit as the leader of Midlothian Council after five weeks and ran up a bill of £7,000 for using the publically-funded Council limo [18]. The Scotsman claimed she “had reportedly clocked up almost 4,500 miles in the authority's chauffeur-driven limousine, despite having her own Porsche and living near the council's Dalkeith headquarters” [19].


Nigel Don, SNP MSP for Angus North and Mearns, is married to Wendy Wrieden, who previously stood for election as an SNP councillor in Dundee [20].


Cumbernauld & Kilsyth MSP Jamie Hepburn is married to Julie Hepburn, an SNP 2010 General Election candidate and former SNP Policy and Research Officer [21, 22].


Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banffshire & Buchan Coast, is married to Sandra Stevenson, a fellow SNP member who previously stood for election to the party’s National Council [23].


Stuart Maxwell, MSP for West Scotland, has employed his wife as a part-time researcher at Holyrood for over a decade on a tax-payer funded salary [24].


Professor Drew Scott, one of the SNP’s advisors on Scotland’s position regarding EU membership, is the partner of South Scotland MSP, Aileen McLeod [25].


SNP election candidate Natalie McGarry is the daughter of Alice McGarry, an SNP councillor in Fife. She is also the niece of Holyrood Presiding Officer, former SNP MSP Tricia Marwick [38]. Marwick has also employed her son at Holyrood as a constituency assistant since 2009 [45].


Renfrewshire councillor Mags MacLaren is the wife of fellow councillor Kenny MacLaren, both of whom were involved in the burning of the Smith Commission report [26].


Cabinet member Alex Neil has employed his wife at Holyrood since 1999 on a tax-payer funded salary [27]. The couple made a £100,000 profit on second home in Edinburgh after Neil paid just £4,720 towards the property and used public money to pay the rest of his £90,000 interest-only mortgage costs [28]. Similarly, while Health Secretary, Neil also appointed an official from his local SNP branch to an NHS post instead of a respected social work expert with 40 years of experience in her field [39].


Sandra White, MSP for Glasgow Kelvin, formerly employed her daughter and now employs her son at Holyrood at the tax-payers expense [7, 24].


Given that MSP Joan McAlpine shares a surname with and has an uncanncy resemblance to Jill McAlpine I would suspect that they are related. Jill runs the SNP’s Inverness City branch [37].


Maureen Watt, MSP for North East Scotland, is the daughter of former SNP MP Hamish Watt [29]. Maureen's son, Stuart Donaldson, is the SNP's election candidate for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine. Stuart also works as an assistant to Christian Allard, the SNP MSP for North East Scotland [43].

SNP Westminster candidate for East Renfrewshire, Kirsten Oswald, is the daughter of Helen Oswald, an SNP councillor in Angus. [41, 42].


MP Angus MacNeil has employed his wife Jane as a caseworker since at least 2010. She is currently paid a tax-payer funded salary of between £20,000 and £25,000 [31, 32]. The couple own two properties in Scotland and a flat in London, which MacNeil bought under the old expenses system. The flat is just a 15 minute walk from the Commons but in the three years since 2012/13 he has claimed £42,000 for in Westminster hotel expenses [46].


MP Angus Robertson has employed his wife Carron as a caseworker since at least 2010. She is currently paid a tax-payer funded salary of between £20,000 and £25,000 [33, 34].


Together Robertson and MacNeil have paid their wives a minimum of £170,000 and a maximum of £210,000 of tax-payer funded salaries [35]. Since the records only go back to 2010 and they became MPs in 2001 and 2005 respectively the actual amount is most likely much higher.


MP Mike Weir formerly employed his wife Anne as a caseworker [36] at the expense of the tax-payer.

President of the SNP and MEP, Ian Hudghton, employed his wife to run his office for 15 years at the tax-payer's expense. She received up to £40,000 per year, meaning that she could have received a total of £600,000 over this period [44].

http://thequietno.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/family-fortunes-scottish-nepotist-party.html

Now....

I suppose you could respond by saying that in such a small country as Scotland, it's hardly a surprise that so many people in the Academic or Political classes end up married to or related to each other.

That such 'coincidences' don't mean they would falsify research data for example, or even, heaven forbid, milk the taxpayer to employ their relatives on 40K a year salaries.

But then that would rather blow a hole in your attempts to smear Prof Ashcroft...:)

zagubov

michaels wrote: »

Just watched sturgeon talking to the faithful in glasgow. Do they only have white people in Scotland?

The first six minutes of this will help.

In Scotland, immigration isn't a curse, but a potential solution to a problem of emigration. The SNP have had members take their MSP oaths in Urdu, Gaelic, French, Italian, two Scots dialects (Doric, which HAMISH would understand at least a bit and Lallans, which I would to a similar extent).

skintmacflint

Shakethedisease wrote: »

I guess we'll see what happens in the next few years. The narrative now from what I can see is changing from the SNP camp. Moving well away from the economics of oil prices and referendum stuff.. to simply having the opportunities to grow other areas of the economy through further

Didn't see her speech, so perhaps something different was said. But seems to me the narrative isn't changing, just the phrasing of it. Certainly they're down playing it somewhat. Party leaders are very careful when asked anything relating to the subject of another referendum, to give a standard response of 'for this election it's off the table' then follow that with it a future one will be only at the request of the Scottish people.

I'll possibly believe it's off the table for 5 years or so if another referendum isn't included as part of the SNP 2016 manifesto for the Holyrood elections.

Of course I don't trust SNP , or find them any more honest or less manipulative than any other party, so accept my opinion or interpretation could be biased.

elantan

I think its fair to say it will be on their manifesto next year Skint, Nicola wants independence for Scotland have no doubt about that, just now i think the aim is to get the "vow" delivered whilst helping the rest of the UK as well ... It certainly wasn't a speech only about Scotland

Shakethedisease

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

I'm just going to ignore, for a second, that you fell right back into the typical cybernat habit of attacking the source rather than actually addressing the data in any way whatsoever.

Because what you have basically alleged there, is that Professor Ashcroft falsified or spun his research data, purely on the rather tenuous basis that he's married to a sister of a Labour politician.

It's a shallow attempt to smear anyone who disagrees with you, by claiming they are part of a 'self serving political elite', and thus cannot be trusted

We've crossed posts on many occasions here Hamish. Please let's not pretend that you did anything other than dismiss any data, if it came from a pro-independence source... just because it came from a pro-independence source. You've did it many times. You're part of the reason many of us on this thread even bother to try posting data from anything that's even vaguely associated. Don't be hypocritical. We all know on this thread a poll, for example, commissioned by Wings or the SNP is to be dismissed because it can't be trusted. Yet a poll from somewhere like the Telegraph is to be treated as gospel.

Of course SNP supporters like to claim the SNP are distinct from this “narrow, self-serving, dishonest political elite” and independence was a chance to break from them to create a cleaner type of politics.

It wasn’t.

It wasn’t because the SNP are an extraordinarily cosy clique themselves.

So cosy, they could probably be described more accurately as the Scottish Nepotist Party.

For example...


http://thequietno.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/family-fortunes-scottish-nepotist-party.html

Now....

I suppose you could respond by saying that in such a small country as Scotland, it's hardly a surprise that so many people in the Academic or Political classes end up married to or related to each other.

That such 'coincidences' don't mean they would falsify research data for example, or even, heaven forbid, milk the taxpayer to employ their relatives on 40K a year salaries.

But then that would rather blow a hole in your attempts to smear Prof Ashcroft...:)

The above is just a rant from start to finish. We all know hardly any of what you've posted have hit the headlines in any great detail and.. Just for starters the Angus McNeil allegations are not correct.

Angus MacNeil , the lowest-claiming backbencher in Scotland last year, has been told he can no longer charge taxpayers £252 a month for his two bedroom London flat.
Instead, he must claim up to £1,450 for a one-bedroom flat – nearly six times more. Mr MacNeil appealed to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) to allow him to continue his modest claim but was told he was ‘an anomaly’.
Mr MacNeil, the nationalist MP for the Western Isles, said his ‘hardearned reputation’ for low claims had been trashed by IPSA.
He added: ‘I am gutted. I will be staying in hotels for a while until I find somewhere else and I don’t want to do that either.The biggest loser in all this is the taxpayer.’

http://metro.co.uk/2010/08/22/mp-told-to-claim-six-times-as-much-487520/

I think you may need to stop believing everything you read and hear in newspapers/tv and ' thequietno' without question. I can assure you nearly half of Scotland have done so already.

Prof Ashcroft IS Wendy Alexander's husband ( former Labour First Minister ), and Douglas Alexander's brother in law ( Labour MP ). If we're going to talk 'cosy' lets start there. It's not who he is, what he says, or what he stands for that's the problem. It's the fact that if he'd been in the same situation quoting on positive reports SNP wise.. it would've been highlighted, a lot, we'd never have heard the end of it in fact. That IS the problem. And half of the Scottish electorate is well aware of it too.

The next time you quote 'thequietno' or 'unitedagainstseperation'.. I'm going to quote wingsoverscotland and see if you actually deal with the data, or just do the 'wavy hands' hands thing over who pointed it out because the site is too biased. You have a tendency to dismiss the source rather than actually addressing the data in any way whatsoever.

As I've already highlighted several times in recent posts.

skintmacflint

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

I'm just going to ignore, for a second, that you fell right back into the typical cybernat habit of attacking the source rather than actually addressing the data in any way whatsoever.

Because what you have basically alleged there, is that Professor Ashcroft falsified or spun his research data, purely on the rather tenuous basis that he's married to a sister of a Labour politician.

It's a shallow attempt to smear anyone who disagrees with you, by claiming they are part of a 'self serving political elite', and thus cannot be trusted.

Of course SNP supporters like to claim the SNP are distinct from this “narrow, self-serving, dishonest political elite” and independence was a chance to break from them to create a cleaner type of politics.

It wasn’t.

It wasn’t because the SNP are an extraordinarily cosy clique themselves.

So cosy, they could probably be described more accurately as the Scottish Nepotist Party.

For example...


http://thequietno.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/family-fortunes-scottish-nepotist-party.html

Now....

I suppose you could respond by saying that in such a small country as Scotland, it's hardly a surprise that so many people in the Academic or Political classes end up married to or related to each other.

That such 'coincidences' don't mean they would falsify research data for example, or even, heaven forbid, milk the taxpayer to employ their relatives on 40K a year salaries.

But then that would rather blow a hole in your attempts to smear Prof Ashcroft...:)

There's also Kenny Gibson MSP for North Ayrshire , whose wife Patricia Gibson has been the Westminster SNP candidate for a few years. As there was only a small difference between voting in the Ind Ref there as far as I can tell, there's a likely chance she'll be that areas MP in May.

According to her public info she served 5 years as an SNP councillor.