Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

Froggitt

They had a separation vote and it was defeated. So they should get equality. Nothing more, nothing less.

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

Pretty standard stuff for Nationalists. Take credit for doing what you can and blame your failings on the 'out group' be they Jews (a traditional favourite), Hutus, The English (we all know what the SNP mean when they say 'Westminster'), the EU (UKIP's bloody foreigners of choice) or someone else.

These politics of division end in very dark places.

Does this work because voters are looking for simple solutions to what are in truth fairly complex problems. Voters want someone or something to blame.

E.g Austerity vs No Austerity. It sounds an easy choice. It isn't of course, and perhaps we should discuss the nature of the austerity required - do we need a rebalance of the economy for example.

CLAPTON

kabayiri wrote: »

Does this work because voters are looking for simple solutions to what are in truth fairly complex problems. Voters want someone or something to blame.

E.g Austerity vs No Austerity. It sounds an easy choice. It isn't of course, and perhaps we should discuss the nature of the austerity required - do we need a rebalance of the economy for example.

to some extend the UK press has been very soft on the SNP (just like it used to be on the LibDems) and still is on the Greens and Welsh nats.

there has been almost no comment on the unfair distribution of UK money, no discussion on the failing of the Scottish health service or the consequences of tuition fees, or the consequences of ever more borrowing, so the agenda is set entirely by the SNP.

Generali

kabayiri wrote: »

Does this work because voters are looking for simple solutions to what are in truth fairly complex problems. Voters want someone or something to blame.

E.g Austerity vs No Austerity. It sounds an easy choice. It isn't of course, and perhaps we should discuss the nature of the austerity required - do we need a rebalance of the economy for example.

Probably. Voters are normally looking for a solution which is simple and involves increasing their consumption of Government services while paying the same or less tax.

That's why FFA at current oil prices would end the SNP. More tax and less spend is a toxic combination.

Shakethedisease

CLAPTON wrote: »

Lord Forsyth is a born and bred Scot.

He doesn't believe in fairness and equality for all the peoples of the UK but believes Scotland should have special privileges that aren't available to e.g. the people of Yorkshire.


It's outrageous and undemocratic for SNP politicians to vote on mainly English laws.

His solution is basically not to tell the truth about SNP policies or the Barnett formula and to give the SNP everything they want:-

lots more money than for Yorkshire, unlimited voting powers in Scotland and unlimited voting powers for the SNP in England too , and unlimited ability to borrow (and never need to repay).

The Scots need to understand what fairness and equality mean and if they don't want to be merely equal then let them vote for separation.

We will all be better off in our different ways.

I think you may need to Google Michael Forsyth and the Poll tax. I don't think there are many Scots who were around them are of the opinion he ever acted in 'Scotland's best interests'...:eek:

CLAPTON

Shakethedisease wrote: »

I think you may need to Google Michael Forsyth and the Poll tax. I don't think there are many Scots who were around them are of the opinion he ever acted in 'Scotland's best interests'...:eek:

Whilst I was against the poll tax, we can all be absolutely sure that if it had been trialled in Yorkshire rather than Scotland, the reaction would have been more mature.

It would have been repealed as it was widely unpopular but the people of Yorkshire wouldn't have reacted with the Scottish victim mentality.

Many other parts of the UK protested but only Scotland still has the chip on the shoulder and still to this day feels that it was somehow a particular slight to the sensitive souls of Scotland.

Like Bannockburn, everyone but the insular Scots have forgotten about it and are fighting 21st century issues instead.

Does Forsyth support the totally unjust and unfair Barnett formula?

zagubov

CLAPTON wrote: »

Whilst I was against the poll tax, we can all be absolutely sure that if it had been trialled in Yorkshire rather than Scotland, the reaction would have been more mature.

It would have been repealed as it was widely unpopular but the people of Yorkshire wouldn't have reacted with the Scottish victim mentality.

Many other parts of the UK protested but only Scotland still has the chip on the shoulder and still to this day feels that it was somehow a particular slight to the sensitive souls of Scotland.

Like Bannockburn, everyone but the insular Scots have forgotten about it and are fighting 21st century issues instead.

Does Forsyth support the totally unjust and unfair Barnett formula?

You can be sure if you like. I'm not.

CLAPTON

zagubov wrote: »

You can be sure if you like. I'm not.

do you have an evidence to suggest such a thing?

lots of things have been trialled out in a region before national rollout: can you select any examples where that particular region still has a huge chip on the shoulder 25 years later?

Generali

Froggitt wrote: »

They had a separation vote and it was defeated. So they should get equality. Nothing more, nothing less.

That's a very good point.

So as a question for the SNP apologists, what exactly do you want now?

Independence is off the table "for a generation", FFA is unaffordable. So what exactly do Nats want from the SNP now if not independence nor fiscal autonomy?

What does the SNP stand for now? Is it just more and more pork: an ever increasing subsidy from London? Is it a genteel decline into poverty as taxes and spending in Scotland equalise or something else? Do you all get your prayer mats out and beg the Big Yin to push oil prices back up?

Shakethedisease

kabayiri wrote: »

Interesting Shakey. You seem to describe a different world almost from what I see here.

The biggest story yesterday concerned the number of people who hadn't registered to vote. It wasn't pro or anti any one party.

It's pretty calm here I have to say.

Well it wasn't here. I think you might be missing quite a lot..

She’s King Herod. She’s Lady Macbeth. She’s Attila the Hun. Nicola Sturgeon has really caught Boris Johnson’s eye. Piers Morgan is more circumspect. For him, Sturgeon is merely “the most dangerous woman in Britain”. This, says Sturgeon, is “possibly one of the nicest things the Mail has ever said about me”.
The newspapers that carried these gentlemanly hysterics, the Telegraph and the Mail respectively, both agree that Sturgeon is a kidnapper, warning the UK on their pages that she is holding the country “to ransom”. The Times eschews such hyperbole, suggesting only that she is only going to hold the UK’s defence to ransom.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/21/nicola-sturgeon-snp-leader-old-two-party-system

even a Labour minority propped up by the SNP (as opposed to a formal coalition) is, in Cameron's terminology, "despicable"...

...In the Mail on Saturday, you could see the cogs painfully turning. Headlines included "STURGEON HOLDS BRITAIN TO RANSOM" and "Scotland has lost its marbles". In its editorial, it said, "a terrifyingly plausible vision is looming" – a Lab-SNP government, a "hideously undemocratic 'coalition of chaos'". The next page, Robert Hardman writes of Sturgeon that despite securing "just 4 percent of the national vote, she could... be king maker". UKIP, he continues, will get three times more votes than the SNP, but ten times less seats – "a democratic deficit to make the blood boil".

In Platell's column she writes that it would be "the greatest democratic injustice to befall our entire nation". Just to recap: both the Mail and the Conservatives worked very hard to retain the undemocratic first-past-the-post electoral system that is now causing these big mismatches between votes won and seats won. It's just that this time they're getting butt-hurt because the system is working against them.

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/queen-palace-coup-miliband-snp-cameron-huitson-345

The right wing press is running very scared. The polls haven't turned and time is running out.