Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

IveSeenTheLight

CLAPTON wrote: »

I don't understand what you mean

it would appear that London with a population of less that 10 million attracts about 27% of the immigrants
whilst Scotland with a population of more than 5 million attracts about 7%

Is your quibble that a population of 8.3% of the UK, only attracted 7% of immigrants?

You may be making my point about making the whole of the UK more attractive as opposed to centralised London

Shakethedisease

.string. wrote: »

The first but I believe and have changed my post.
But don't believe everything you read in the Scotsman.

Somewhere between 150 and 450 £million. Good enough for Goverment work I suppose.

I thought this would bring you out of hiding!!!

It was The Scotsman posting a piece by John Swinney. So they are his words not the Scotsman's. And since Swinney has been the Scottish Finance Minister for the last 8 years.. then you can either believe what he says or not. But the buck really does stop there in terms of Scottish devolved finances and spending.

I haven't been in hiding. I am just extremely bored with the same old referendum stuff re countries/nations/ Generali's hysterics over 'nationalism' etc being recycled here over and over again. The below might prove interesting.. Certainly rang a lot of bells for me.

Crucially, commentators need to stop painting a picture in which the majority of Scotland predominantly base their political decision making mostly on their national identity. There has been no rise in nationalistic sentiment in Scotland. As we (amongst others) have repeatedly shown in our research, the strongest determinants of both independence and SNP support were pragmatic evaluations about economic prospects, trustworthiness and political personnel.

For most people in Scotland the SNP is a normal party, that they like, hate or are indifferent to, but those evaluations for most are based on whether people agree with their policies and how they evaluate their representation.

If commentators want to understand why the SNP is successful, they need to make a greater effort at properly understanding how public attitudes are formed in Scotland. Suggesting that it is down to sentiment is lazy at best, but actually misrepresenting the majority of Scottish voters.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/there-was-no-rise-in-scottish-nationalism-understanding-the-snp-victory/

Sapphire

What a rabble those SNP reps look in the UK House of Commons – if I were a Scot I would be ashamed of them, as indeed some Scots appear to be…

tberry6686

Generali wrote: »

Dundee has a population of 140,000, Inverness 72,000.

Why do these places need motorways going to them. This is just a fantasy of nationalism. How many people go from Edinburgh from Dundee that it requires a 6 lane road to get there?

The Hume Highway from Sydney to Canberra (our capital) is a single lane each way for a large chunk. That links cities of about 6,000,000 and 400,000 together. At a guess Canberra to Sydney is roughly the distance of Aberdeen to the Central Belt. (bored now, not looking it up).

Think about this. From any reasonably sized city in northern Europe you can drive to any other on dual carriageways and motorways. You then reach Aberdeen, widely accepted as possibly the most economically important citiy in Scotland. What is the entrance to the city like ?

The first thing you see is an old bridge with strict width and weight restrictions. Quite simply the transport infrastructure in and around Aberdeen has been totally ignored by Hollyrood until they decided to allow Aberdeen to get a bypass (about 30 years too late) and even now when they have just about scratched the surface of building it, no-one is sure if it will be a dual carriageway or not.

Quite simply, outside of the central belt, all infrastructure is ignored by Hollyrood

IveSeenTheLight

Sapphire wrote: »

What a rabble those SNP reps look in the UK House of Commons – if I were a Scot I would be ashamed of them, as indeed some Scots appear to be…

[shakes head] Deary me [/shakes head]

.string.

Shakethedisease wrote: »

It was The Scotsman posting a piece by John Swinney. So they are his words not the Scotsman's. And since Swinney has been the Scottish Finance Minister for the last 8 years.. then you can either believe what he says or not. But the buck really does stop there in terms of Scottish devolved finances and spending.

I haven't been in hiding. I am just extremely bored with the same old referendum stuff re countries/nations/ Generali's hysterics over 'nationalism' etc being recycled here over and over again. The below might prove interesting.. Certainly rang a lot of bells for me.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/there-was-no-rise-in-scottish-nationalism-understanding-the-snp-victory/

I thought it might have been someone like that. The url address had the words letter in it so I thought of referring to letters, which would have been more pithy, iHowever I could not be sure because the link did not work. Needless to say I don't have the same trust as you do in Swinney.

I'm inclined to agree with you about the surfeit of small points at the moment but definitely not about your current bete noir Generali. I think he is probably the most balanced amongst us, his advantage being removed from the day to day stress of it.

Discussion will get more interesting when we get to the nitty gritty on the Devolution package. There are going in positions on both sides, it remains to be seen if either conform to their stereotyping. Maybe they will not maybe that will but I think the chances of some sort of result are better than that would have been with Labour in charge since I don't actually think Miliband would have been as malleable as some thought (some being both the Tories and the SNP).

IveSeenTheLight

tberry6686 wrote: »

Quite simply the transport infrastructure in and around Aberdeen has been totally ignored by Hollyrood until they decided to allow Aberdeen to get a bypass (about 30 years too late) .

Lets consider this, who was in power 30 years ago.

Oh that's right, there was not even a Holyrood, let alone an SNP party in charge.

tberry6686 wrote: »

and even now when they have just about scratched the surface of building it, no-one is sure if it will be a dual carriageway or not.

What makes you think it isn't?

I've looked at the Balmedie - Tipperty sections , it certainly appears to be dual carriageway. So if that is dual, I can;t see why they would not dual the actual full route

http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/road/aberdeen-western-peripheral-route/community-engagement#maps

.string.

tberry6686 wrote: »

Quite simply the transport infrastructure in and around Aberdeen has been totally ignored by Hollyrood until they decided to allow Aberdeen to get a bypass (about 30 years too late) and even now when they have just about scratched the surface of building it, no-one is sure if it will be a dual carriageway or not.

Quite simply, outside of the central belt, all infrastructure is ignored by Hollyrood

Do you think there is some sort of trade-off going on between needs and policy?

tberry6686

What makes you think it isn't?

I've looked at the Balmedie - Tipperty sections , it certainly appears to be dual carriageway. So if that is dual, I can;t see why they would not dual the actual full route

As I said. No one is sure. They have been very quite about whether or not it will be dual carriageway. Why would they not make it dual carraigeway - because it would be cheaper ? only reason I can think of.

As far as the SNP not being in power 30yrs ago, I never said they were. I was inferring that the transport links outwith the central belt have been pretty much ignored throughout that time. Something that is not going to improve with or without the SNP.

Shakethedisease

.string. wrote: »

I thought it might have been someone like that. The url address had the words letter in it so I thought of referring to letters, which would have been more pithy, iHowever I could not be sure because the link did not work. Needless to say I don't have the same trust as you do in Swinney.

I'm inclined to agree with you about the surfeit of small points at the moment but definitely not about your current bete noir Generali. I think he is probably the most balanced amongst us, his advantage being removed from the day to day stress of it.

I don't think anyone that can't tell the difference between 'ethnic nationalism' and 'self-determination/civic nationalism' can be even vaguely called 'balanced. It colours every single post made when people can't see otherwise with marked racist overtones ( which aren't in evidence ). And drags down the debate as people like myself are constantly on the defensive being portrayed as extremists or those that hate others simply due to their country of birth. It gets extremely wearing debating with that sort of narrative. Especially when a rather handsome Englishman happens to be the love of my life.

Discussion will get more interesting when we get to the nitty gritty on the Devolution package. There are going in positions on both sides, it remains to be seen if either conform to their stereotyping. Maybe they will not maybe that will but I think the chances of some sort of result are better than that would have been with Labour in charge since I don't actually think Miliband would have been as malleable as some thought (some being both the Tories and the SNP).

The SNP are coming out with more details of what they want devolved as a matter of priority. In their manifesto they were calling for "devolution of powers over employment policy, including the minimum wage, welfare, business taxes, national insurance and equality policy.." And it looks like they are straight out of the starting gate, going to push hard for them in Westminster.

THE SNP's group of 56 MPs will seek to win £9 billion of extra spending for Holyrood's budget by demanding the early devolution of National Insurance contributions, party sources have confirmed...

...The £8.7bn revenue raised in Scotland from National Insurance would fund welfare programmes the SNP also want to be devolved as a matter of urgency. However, the Scottish Government may not raise as much, as the Nationalists also support "targeted reductions" in employers' National Insurance contributions to help firms create jobs and extend of the living wage.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/wider-political-news/snp-mps-bid-for-9billion-national-insurance-boost-for-holyrood.125818438

The Human Rights act is also going to be a rather thorny issue. Mundell is insisting it will affect Scotland if it's scrapped. The Scottish Govt says no. As does NI and Wales.