Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

Shakethedisease

skintmacflint wrote: »

Hosie, Swinney and Sturgeon are attempting to play down Scottish concerns over FFA, by suggesting it will take years for this to be negotiated and happen. Meanwhile Salmond suggests it will be FFA under the Smith commission rule of 'no detriment'. Any loss or disadvantage incurred by Scotland during the transition years will be covered by UK. FFA didn't form part of the Smith commission, as I understood it.?

Which contradicts what Salmond suggests in his 'book'. There he recommends FFA being achieved in a single piece of legislation, for ease and speed, with an adjusted Barnett for a single year to cover transition. In his book his concern is whether the 'no detriment' rule inferred Scotland having to pay money to UK if Scotland prospered.

In addition Sturgeon has said increased borrowing powers underwritten by the UK will form part of the negotiation process.
for FFA. This was in response to being questioned on her economy growth claim.

Spin ,double spin and treble spin from SNP IMO. Is England falling for SNPs friendship offer, like Natalie Bennett and Leanne Wood have?

Let me get this straight mcskinflint.. are you saying that Labour and/or the Tories are going to offer FFA in the next few months or so ? Is this what you think ?

Because otherwise you're complaining about a party 'playing down' something.. that isn't happening. Which on the face of it, seems a very sensible thing to do isn't it. Why would any political party, 19 days out from an election waste time justifying something, that isn't within their control to implement and isn't on offer anyway ?

Don't you think that given the above, that it's probably best, not to waste any significant time on it ? And concentrate on matters that actually are issues ?

You only have to witness the frothing at the mouth from some posters here, see above, at the very suggestion and see a virtual re-run of the independence referendum.. to realise why the SNP has played FFA down. Simply put, it brings the frothers out. And mulitply that x 1000 in terms of newspaper and media coverage.

All on something the SNP can't implement and isn't on offer from the other parties anyway. Why bother pandering to 'concerns'. The time to talk FFA is when it actually becomes a possibility ( like independence was in the ref )... not when it isn't one surely ?

Generali

Shakethedisease wrote: »

You only have to witness the frothing at the mouth from some posters here, see above, at the very suggestion and see a virtual re-run of the independence referendum.. to realise why the SNP has played FFA down. Simply put, it brings the frothers out. And mulitply that x 1000 in terms of newspaper and media coverage.

Twaddle from start to finish.

FFA will finish the SNP if they ever get it and Ms Sturgeon knows it.

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

Rubbish. The SNP should fight on their record especially as they plan to be Kingmakers in Parliament.

Sure, that's 6 MP's in Westminster who's record we can look at. Pretty good too. But they cannot ever vote on devolved issues, so don't have a record on it. That's what MSP's do. Neither will the 30 or 40 new SNP MP's be able to vote on devolved issues. MSP's will be the one's defending their records on policing and the NHS etc next year. The stuff on Hamish's posters are all Holyrood issues. Plenty of time for that yet.

But, when all is said and done, I wouldn't want to disturb those who keep making the huge mistake of fighting the wrong election entirely.. ( such as Scottish Labour )... It's doing the SNP absolute wonders in the polls ! The Scottish Labour leader is even looking shaky in a constituency that the SNP came fourth in, in 2010. Nice work. He must be thinking we haven't noticed yet that most of the stuff he talks about is not even 2015 election related. :eek:

Scottish Labour need to start talking now about Westminster, not Holyrood, if they want to pull back a bit in the polls. They've been wasting a lot of time frankly.

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

Twaddle from start to finish.

FFA will finish the SNP if they ever get it and Ms Sturgeon knows it.

You forgot to add 'in your opinion'. I hardly think a party that want's full independence, and fought a referendum just 7 months ago on it... is scared of the lesser prospect of FFA and thinks it will 'finish' Scotland !

Get a grip of yourself. You're confusing your own opinion with what Nicola Sturgeon and her party stand for. I think we know who's coming up with the twaddle here.

Generali

Shakethedisease wrote: »

You forgot to add 'in your opinion'. I hardly think a party that want's full independence, and fought a referendum just 7 months ago on it... is scared of the lesser prospect of FFA and thinks it will 'finish' Scotland !

Get a grip of yourself. You're confusing your own opinion with what Nicola Sturgeon and her party stand for. I think we know who's coming up with the twaddle here.

I didn't say it would finish Scotland and it takes a delusional nationalist extremist to think that the SNP and Scotland are synonymous.

Ms Sturgeon is an intelligent woman, you don't get to be head of the SNP by accident. She will have an economist or at least an accountant working for her. She will understand full well what FFA means. It means a cut in spending of £5,000 for every household in Scotland if Scotland is simply to maintain the same deficit as the UK as a whole.

None of that is in my opinion. It's a fact. You can bury your head in your elbow if you like but I am sure that the leaders of the SNP understand completely that FFA is untenable with oil prices below $100-120/bbl.

FFA is the end for the SNP.

skintmacflint

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Let me get this straight mcskinflint.. are you saying that Labour and/or the Tories are going to offer FFA in the next few months or so ? Is this what you think ?

Because otherwise you're complaining about a party 'playing down' something.. that isn't happening. Which on the face of it, seems a very sensible thing to do isn't it. Why would any political party, 19 days out from an election waste time justifying something, that isn't within their control to implement and isn't on offer anyway ?

Don't you think that given the above, that it's probably best, not to waste any significant time on it ? And concentrate on matters that actually are issues ?

?

The bulk of my post simply stated what Hosie, Swinney, Sturgeon and Salmond have said over the past couple of weeks.

My opinion of it all was made clear at the bottom of that post . Spin, double spin and treble spin from SNP. Stop tying yourself knots STD . Lol.

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

I didn't say it would finish Scotland and it takes a delusional nationalist extremist to think that the SNP and Scotland are synonymous.

Ms Sturgeon is an intelligent woman, you don't get to be head of the SNP by accident. She will have an economist or at least an accountant working for her. She will understand full well what FFA means. It means a cut in spending of £5,000 for every household in Scotland if Scotland is simply to maintain the same deficit as the UK as a whole.

None of that is in my opinion. It's a fact. You can bury your head in your elbow if you like but I am sure that the leaders of the SNP understand completely that FFA is untenable with oil prices below $100-120/bbl.

FFA is the end for the SNP.

FFA will in all probability never be offered to the SNP. It's far too complicated, will take years to implement/transition and still ends up with the UK having to underwrite the still 'together but in name only' books. All that fuss over what amounts to a currency union with some defence spending thrown in ? ( Hamilton Paradox ? )..I don't think Labour or the Tories ( though there is a LOT of noise on some Conservative sites about federalism just now ) will go for it to be honest. Do you think they will ?

The SNP will push as far as they can possibly go with further powers through this parliament. But not to the extent the UK is compromised in any way. FFA on the SNP side, the other parties offering nothing bar watered down Smith. The likelyhood is they will meet somewhere in the middle. Even a delusional extremist can accept that.. for now.

If there's one thing the SNP have had to be for the last 20 years it's pragmatic in with what is achievable. For example supporting devolution in 1997 even when many in the party thought it was a betrayal of what the SNP stood for ( see Jim Sillars )... and working through and compromising with the other 3 parties in 2007-2011 via a minority govt in order to get anything done. The referendum was lost... it's back to pragmatism and realistics. But they will take FFA if it IS offered. That's for sure.

Much more important is probably behind the scenes stuff like seats on several powerful committees, the Scottish Office, Scottish Affairs Committee and at the Treasury etc. As well as how far being ( perhaps ) the third largest party at Westminster gets in terms of parliamentary time and questions.

But look at us. Hamish fighting one election an entire year too early, and you re-running all the facts, figures and arguments from the referendum lost last year... applying them to a situation that no-one even thinks will happen, or if to does, for years yet. Then trying to have anyone believe, seriously, that Nicola Sturgeon doesn't really want Scotland to stand on it's own two feet... that's it's all an act.

But in truth, and I've said it before, imo FFA isn't for now. Is a complete waste of time/effort for the SNP fire-fighting this one at the present time. Though there are a few Scottish newspapers today, once again trying to gain traction on the issue. Yawn. We're all far more interested in what's going to happen to Jim Murphy's 'biggest party gets to be government' line ! Goodness me the newspapers/media are going to have fun with that one if Labour don't have the most seats, but can still form government.

Shakethedisease

skintmacflint wrote: »

The bulk of my post simply stated what Hosie, Swinney, Sturgeon and Salmond have said over the past couple of weeks.

My opinion of it all was made clear at the bottom of that post . Spin, double spin and treble spin from SNP. Stop tying yourself knots STD . Lol.

Like future independence referenda, FFA seems only to come up in the course of this election, when someone else asks or is raving on about it. Nicola said she'd take it when the other parties offered it. Which is true.

Generali

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Like future independence referenda, FFA seems only to come up in the course of this election, when someone else asks or is raving on about it. Nicola said she'd take it when the other parties offered it. Which is true.

She's either lying or stupid in that case. She must realise that FFA would be the end for the SNP if they 'achieved' it. For the SNP it's something to be avoided at all costs!

I don't believe Ms Sturgeon is stupid.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Generali wrote: »

She's either lying or stupid in that case. She must realise that FFA would be the end for the SNP if they 'achieved' it. For the SNP it's something to be avoided at all costs!

I don't believe Ms Sturgeon is stupid.

There's a very good explanation of FFA and Scotland's finances here.

we spend about £1,450 more and raise about £250 less per person so we'd expect an average deficit difference of about £1,700 per person and that's exactly what we see.

Gross that up by Scotland's 5.3m population and you get to an underlying (before oil) deficit gap of £9.1bn. This is not just a snapshot - this has been true (give or take9) for every one of the 15 years for which data is available.

Of that £9.1bn gap only £1.3bn is due to lower tax generation (i.e. less successful economic activity); the balance of £7.8bn is due to higher public expenditure.

For Scotland to cover the underlying £9.1bn deficit gap we' need total North Sea oil revenues of £10.1bn (because c.90% of North Sea oil revenues are attributable to Scotland11).

This is where the IFS £7.6bn "black-hole" figure comes from; they're simply recognising that when Scotland's share of North Sea oil revenues slumps as low as £600m (as the OBR forecast for 2015-16) then more of the underlying deficit gap will be exposed.

Note that the OBR forecast a further slight deterioration of North Sea oil revenues in 2016-17; the black-hole is not expected to be getting any smaller.

Note also that £7.6bn is not the size of Scotland's forecast deficit as some seem to think - the forecast deficit is £14.2bn or 8.6% of GDP.

http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/full-fiscal-autonomy-for-dummies.html