Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

...
The gap between the UK borrowing 4% of GDP on Scotland's behalf (as well as on behalf of Cornwall, Wessex and Wales) and the Scottish spending gap is about £7.6bn it is supposed.
...

Independence advocates will present that £7.6bn as the annual deficit; a political sleight of hand.

The poor voters get mugged with tricks like this.

Generali

kabayiri wrote: »

Independence advocates will present that £7.6bn as the annual deficit; a political sleight of hand.

The poor voters get mugged with tricks like this.

Yup. The actual deficit is almost double that. The deficit Scotland has which is greater than the UK's as a whole is ~£7.5bn.

Shakethedisease

skintmacflint wrote: »

Glad to see you're admitting mentioning FFA was simply a trap for Labour and the other parties to fall into . Looks like it has backfired on her somewhat. She certainly wasn't looking confident or credible in that debate with Brewster. She came across as a a local councillor in a bun fight,where has all her statesman qualities gone.

Do you know where this 15 billion additional onshore growth by 2020 is coming from? You're a member of Business for Scotland. Do they know?

Nice of Sturgeon to publicly admit, in an effort to calm waters, she couldn't deliver FFA. IMO it serves to highlight SNPs single purpose at Westminster is to ensure the agreed constitutional changes pass through Westminster, and are possibly enhanced, at any cost including all their talk of anti austerity policies, and the poor etc.

Normal SNP voters ( not the demented ones) expect spin and manipulation from every other party SNP have demonised up here but not from their own party . Which pretends it's honest , upfront, and always has Scotlands best interest at heart.

SNP better be careful with their 'long game ' plan here. Because the clock is ticking on them being well and truly found out that Scotlands best interests is only relevant if it happens to agree with SNPs best interest.

Well I don't know mcskinflint, because this morning Balls, Miliband and Ummuna just chucked Jim Murphy under the bus big style. Effectively, perhaps giving up the game in Scotland for the moment ?

On the Daily Politics Chuka Umunna, the shadow business secretary, was asked about Jim Murphy’s claim that a Labour government would not need to make further cuts after 2016. Ed Balls rejected Murphy’s proposition earlier (see 9.22am), and Ed Miliband did the same in his Q&A (see 11.56am). But Umunna was even more blunt.

"The leader of the Scottish Labour party will not be in charge of the UK budget. The leader of our country, the next prime minister Ed Miliband, will be in charge of the UK budget. And he’s just answered the question when that was put to him: Will there be cuts over the course of this parliament, not just in the first financial year but in the following financial years? And he was absolutely clear there will be a need for further consolidation and cuts throughout the rest of the parliament."

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2015/apr/13/election-2015-live-ed-miliband-labour-party-manifesto

James Forsyth ‏@JGForsyth
Chuka Umunna’s brutal line that leader of the Scottish Labour party doesn’t set UK Budget, suggests party beginning to write off Scotland

The SNP has nearly doubled its lead over Labour in Scotland, according to new polling, with 52% of adults who are certain to vote in the general election saying that they would cast their ballots for the party, compared with 24% who plan to support Labour.
The 28-point lead recorded by TNS is nearly double the figure from last month, when the parties scored 46% and 30% respectively.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/13/snp-has-almost-doubled-lead-over-labour-in-scotland-poll-shows

I'm not sure how Scottish Labour and Jim Murphy come back from this. This is a big blow for them. Miliband however, did quite well this morning though ! I'm not a member of Business for Scotland. And that debate was really awful. Looking at the fallout from what was said.. it looks like it was considerably more awful for Jim Murphy than Nicola Sturgeon.

Shakethedisease

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

OK....

I'm not going to try and score points here, I'll just keep to as clear an explanation as I can, as I'd genuinely like to spur a bit of debate about how Scotland could improve it's financial position regardless of politics.

The current annual deficit for Scotland is in the range of £14 bn to £15 bn a year.

The 'black hole' of that is £7.6bn. This is how much extra Scotland would have to borrow each year to cover our current higher spending per capita versus what we would if we kept to the same ratio of borrowing to GDP as the rest of the UK.

At the moment we don't really borrow the whole £14bn, Scotland's debt under any credible calculation is only a population share of the UK's debt, so in effect the £7.6bn is our subsidy from the rest of the UK's taxpayers each year.

Now before anyone gets their nose out of joint, Scotland absolutely deserves that subsidy, our population is sparse and infrastructure is therefore very spread out, it simply costs more (per person) to run a country the size of Scotland with only 6 million people than it does in more densely populated areas. But the fact remains, it IS a huge subsidy.

To put that number in perspective, £7.6bn is roughly equivalent to the entire local government budget for Scotland (so all the councils, their staff, services, etc), or about two thirds of the Scottish NHS.

The current changes to the Barnett formula don't really change much, some tax raising powers are being transferred to Scotland, and the total from those taxes collected is being deducted from Barnett. The subsidy remains intact under the smith commission output that Scotland should be no worse off after the changes.

Full Fiscal Autonomy is a different beast altogether. It would end Barnett and the subsidy inherent to it, and we'd need to raise taxes, reduce spending, or increase borrowing to compensate, but either way the full burden would be borne by Scotland, without any subsidy from rUK.

So why is this a good thing?

And what ideas do people have for closing the fiscal gap to the rest of the UK and increasing Scottish financial/economic performance?

FFA/Devo Max phased in gradually ?

HOWEVER, Smith took out an effective insurance policy before he had the parties sit down. He dragooned them into agreeing to a set of principles before they set about agreeing to the precise proposals.
This was done on October 23 last year. Principles five and six are the ones which concern us here.

Principle five set out the policy of “no detriment” while number six was even more explicit, guaranteeing any devolution proposal should be made without Scotland or Westminster “gaining or losing financially”.

That means whatever is devolved in taxation, an equal amount of revenue is deducted or added to the financial arrangements between Scotland and London. That would apply whether a lot is devolved, as the SNP proposes, or just a little is conceded, as the London parties suggest.
It would apply whether the transfer of power occurred in a year when Scotland was in a stronger or weaker budgetary position than that of the UK as a whole.
It renders ridiculous the claims of Labour of a supposed “financial black hole”. Unless, of course, they are explicitly reneging on what they solemnly signed last October.

http://www.thenational.scot/politics/westminster-is-warning-scotland-the-snps-plans-will-leave-us-broke-theyre-lying-says-alex-salmond.1964

The Smith Agreement principles five and six read that the powers devolved to Scotland should: “5) not cause detriment to the UK as a whole nor to any of its constituent parts” and “6) cause neither the UK Government nor the Scottish Government to gain or lose financially simply as a consequence of devolving a specific power.” (Click here to read more).

From what I can tell it's some kind of 'balance' mechanism in order to keep both Scotland and the rUK stable regardless if it's a little, or a lot of 'devolving' that is taking place. No shocks or 'black hole's' if you will. No idea how it would work in practice mind you. But assume since Labour, SNP, Lib Dems, Greens and Tories all signed up to it that they do.

Key is that the principle remains the same however much, or little is devolved while Scotland remains in the union.

( ps I read Salmond's book and he does indeed go 'in-depth' about these 'no detriment' clauses included in the Smith commission in the last chapters in the book.. but wasn't 100% enthused by some of the possible consequences from them iirc. But I can't remember if it was the principles themselves, or if it was due to some kind of Westminster 'veto' slipped in,in the small print ).

CLAPTON

as always the paper is a nonsense

it says that there won't be any detriment but it also says it will be fair to all the people of the UK

obviously both can't be true as the people of Scotland are unfairly subsidised compared to the people of Yorkshire et al.

skintmacflint

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Well I don't know mcskinflint, because this morning Balls, Miliband and Ummuna just chucked Jim Murphy under the bus big style. Effectively, perhaps giving up the game in Scotland for the moment ?

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2015/apr/13/election-2015-live-ed-miliband-labour-party-manifesto
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/13/snp-has-almost-doubled-lead-over-labour-in-scotland-poll-shows

I'm not sure how Scottish Labour and Jim Murphy come back from this. This is a big blow for them. Miliband however, did quite well this morning though ! I'm not a member of Business for Scotland. And that debate was really awful. Looking at the fallout from what was said.. it looks like it was considerably more awful for Jim Murphy than Nicola Sturgeon.

Can't access your link, it's our poor rural broadband service which SNP have assured will be super fast by 2020.

You've missed my point I think. Everyone up here knows what Jim Murphy is like, but Sturgeon is our FM, and was reduced to a shrill over shouting fishwife at several points in that debate. As well as being caught out for her own spin.

In the Aberdeen debate, Sturgeon thanked Murphy for admitting there would be cuts. Don't know if that's relevant or not to comments in your article link.

But with access to all these articles and reports , do you know where the 15 billion onshore growth is coming from, or are you in the dark about it, like the rest of us.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Shakethedisease wrote: »

FFA/Devo Max phased in gradually ? .

So you want the subsidy to continue.

In effect, that Scotland should keep all the revenues raised, and ask Westminster to write a cheque every year for the top-up to cover the additional deficit.

OK, not a million miles away from what happens now, but assuming you'd actually prefer we stood on our own two feet at some point, what policies would be implemented to achieve the growth to cover that gap in funding?

What would make Scotland so much more successful than the fastest growing economy in the developed World?

Shakethedisease

skintmacflint wrote: »

Can't access your link, it's our poor rural broadband service which SNP have assured will be super fast by 2020.

You've missed my point I think. Everyone up here knows what Jim Murphy is like, but Sturgeon is our FM, and was reduced to a shrill over shouting fishwife at several points in that debate. As well as being caught out for her own spin.

In the Aberdeen debate, Sturgeon thanked Murphy for admitting there would be cuts. Don't know if that's relevant or not to comments in your article link.

But with access to all these articles and reports , do you know where the 15 billion onshore growth is coming from, or are you in the dark about it, like the rest of us.

I don't think your reflection of the debate is one many others recognise, but that's politics for you I suppose. Murphy has actually been saying that there will be no more cuts after 15/16. Scottish Labour has also been running an 'anti-austerity' campaign in Scotland. That's why they made such a big deal about the 7.6 billion 'black hole' trying to paint the SNP as the one's that would be implementing cuts through FFA. Murphy also took the role as Scottish Labour leader saying he wouldn't be 'taking orders from London'.

Milliband, Balls and Ummuna this morning basicially ripped up Scottish Labour's entire election campaign. Murphy has refused any interviews on any of the Scottish political programs tonight.. on a Labour manifesto launch day ? All is not well there.

The 15 billion onshore growth you refer to I've already answered. It's hypothetical.

Shakethedisease

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

So you want the subsidy to continue.

I voted for full independence remember.

In effect, that Scotland should keep all the revenues raised, and ask Westminster to write a cheque every year for the top-up to cover the additional deficit.

OK, not a million miles away from what happens now, but assuming you'd actually prefer we stood on our own two feet at some point, what policies would be implemented to achieve the growth to cover that gap in funding?

What would make Scotland so much more successful than the fastest growing economy in the developed World?

The same fiscal powers and reponsibilities the fastest growing economy in the developed world has would be a good start then wouldn't it ?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Shakethedisease wrote: »

The same fiscal powers and reponsibilities the fastest growing economy in the developed world has would be a good start then wouldn't it ?

Sorry, you seem to be missing the point, Scotland is already part of the fastest growing economy in the developed world.

What is it specifically about Scotland that would enable even more growth if we had, say, the same fiscal powers and responsibilities as all those other developed world countries that are growing less quickly than us?

Can you identify what policies would be introduced to make Scotland grow so quickly, and why other countries haven't been able to do so?