Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

chewmylegoff

CLAPTON wrote: »

there is absolutely no possibility that she will agree to FFA unless it comes with a guaranteed £8bn subsidy from the English

The presentation will be a little different of course.

Why would it matter whether Nicola Sturgeon agreed with FFA or not? She doesn't have some sort of veto over the UK Parliament.

zagubov

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Why would it matter whether Nicola Sturgeon agreed with FFA or not? She doesn't have some sort of veto over the UK Parliament.

She doesn't have to "take" the powers she's offered. She can accept them and kick them into the long grass instead of exercising them.

That's happened before.

CLAPTON

zagubov wrote: »

She doesn't have to "take" the powers she's offered. She can accept them and kick them into the long grass instead of exercising them.

That's happened before.

absolutely correct

if FFA was offered she would obviously reject them using some faux excuse and blaming the English
because if scotland was run on FFA the SNP would be in the wilderness for 50 years and any hope of the 'YES' would die too.

chewmylegoff

zagubov wrote: »

She doesn't have to "take" the powers she's offered. She can accept them and kick them into the long grass instead of exercising them.

That's happened before.

FFA isn't really a "power" though is it. This wouldn't be an optional power to raise income tax rates. It would be the devolution of the overall responsibility to collect and spend money. I don't see how holyrood could refuse to do it.

elantan

This thread is a bit like a scab, should really be left alone but I can't help picking at it

.string.

The key in the FFA/FFR scenario is the amount of responsibilities that are devolved. The tax raising powers are needed to pay for those extra responsibilities which are not some abstract principles but welfare and civil responsibilities which affect people, things which can't be neglected.

The problem though is that the amount of money that is needed to pay for those things will be more than are covered by income tax alone which is why the SNP also want income from other charges, like national insurance and "business taxes"; and VAT and what else.

So that is a spiral, each step, as we know, is unaffordable without the English Subsidy all the way up to independence and beyond. So I don't see any settlement which, in the SNP's eyes, would not involve handouts from Westminster. Once full independence is achieved, the penny would finally drop with the SNP-voting Scots, but then it would be to late for them to change their mind.

In that process of creeping nastiness I wonder when we would reach the point where the English people themselves would have had enough. When would they stop buying Scottish goods and services , when would business relocate to England? When will the English feel betrayed enough so that the gloves come off?

I certainly feel that the approach to UK investment in infrastructure in Scotland should be reconsidered in the light of continued UK hostility by the SNP; maybe the subsidy and infrastructure money could be put in the same (limited) money basket.

Generali

.string. wrote: »

The key in the FFA/FFR scenario is the amount of responsibilities that are devolved. The tax raising powers are needed to pay for those extra responsibilities which are not some abstract principles but welfare and civil responsibilities which affect people, things which can't be neglected.

In that process of creeping nastiness I wonder when we would reach the point where the English people themselves would have had enough. When would they stop buying Scottish goods and services , when would business relocate to England? When will the English feel betrayed enough so that the gloves come off?

I certainly feel that the approach to UK investment in infrastructure in Scotland should be reconsidered in the light of continued UK hostility by the SNP; maybe the subsidy and infrastructure money could be put in the same (limited) money basket.

The only gloves that need to come off are for the Scots merely to be given to spend on Government what they tax, less their share of things like debt interest, defence etc.

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

The only gloves that need to come off are for the Scots merely to be given to spend on Government what they tax, less their share of things like debt interest, defence etc.

This.

Moreover, we don't need some complicated 'phasing' rubbish. If Scotland receives that same £1000 to spend that they do today but choose to spend an extra tenner on social programmes and a tenner less on business support then who am I to argue.

They already get £8bn of subsidy. The SNP claim is that they can prove they can run independently. There should therefore be a timetable set out to reduce this subsidy from £8bn to zero. This will make the whole UK healthier, which is surely what we all want.

How they spend the money they get? That's their choice.

.string.

Well that is basically the plan, to empower the Scots to run things as they see fit with their priorities while still in the Union. ( Not the SNP plan who don't give a toss about the Union). The trick is to ensure that the money they get to do that is sensibly the same as is spend on corresponding expenditures and responsibilities in the rest of the Union. In that sense the extra money they get from the Barnett formula not only helps them to achieve what the Scottish people want to see in Scotland but it also tests the SNP's stance that they can afford everything they say they can afford.

The other part of the Devolution split should involve the things we do as a Nation, and in that area it is incumbent on the UK Government to show that what they provide for Scotkand is better, and better value than that which Natland could afford by itself.

Not an impossible job I would have thought.

zagubov

Ah, it had to happen - more division in the SNP ranks. Thanks to the Herald for pointing out that a SNP backbencher didn't vote SNP in the election.

It'll give you some idea why when the unionist media say "water is wet", you'd better go out in the rain to check it for yourself.