Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

.string.

Perhaps if the SNP Government paid up front for all relocation and redundancy charges for Trident and all submarines, it could be done.

IveSeenTheLight

.string. wrote: »

Perhaps if the SNP Government paid up front for all relocation and redundancy charges for Trident and all submarines, it could be done.

Defence is not a devolved power to the Scottish Assembly.

Surely if you want the Scottish Assembly to take ownership, you have to give FFA.

I think we are quite a way down the road away from getting to that stage.

Shakethedisease

chewmylegoff wrote: »

The identifiable costs are apportioned on a regional basis and the non-identifiable costs are just added up and presented as a total figure. Non-identifiable doesnt mean they don't know what the cost is - only that they cannot assign the cost to a region because there is a shared benefit. Debt interest is non-identifiable in this context.

If you like you can add a per capita share of the non-identifiable costs (it works out at about £1,450 per head) on top of the identifiable figure. However that is pretty pointless if you are comparing the amount spent on different regions as you are just going to add the same amount to both figures so the difference between them remains exactly the same.

The most recent figures broken down on this basis that have been released are here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/264286/Country_and_Regional_Analysis_2013.pdf

All depends on the methodology used.

His response was pretty straightforward. He points us towards the notes to the numbers which say that, save for a few local revenues, “separate identification of most other revenues for Scotland is not possible."

GERS therefore uses a number of different methodologies to apportion tax revenues to Scotland. In doing so, there are often theoretical and practical challenges in determining an appropriate share to allocate to Scotland. In certain cases, a variety of alternative methodologies could be applied each leading to different estimates.”

It is, says Ferguson, a “pretty blatant case of starting with the answer and working out the more granular line-by-line ‘estimates’ backwards”.

No economic figures are entirely accurate, but this is different: the basic revenue numbers are more or less guesswork, to which is added an so far entirely un-negotiated share of UK oil revenues.

http://moneyweek.com/one-less-thing-to-think-about-in-the-scottish-referendum-debate/

Shakethedisease

kabayiri wrote: »

HS1 was "English only", by that definition.

But...I don't seem to recall the same level of mass hysteria as we now have here over HS2.

Why didn't you/the SNP kick up a fuss then? You're just using HS2 as a political football aren't you?

HS2 is just a focal point for a perceived level of bias towards London spending compared to Scotland.

You need a reality check here. The whole of the UK relies on the income our capital city generates. London is going to continue to grow. This growth needs to be funded.

As a Northerner I would rather HS2 money be spent on further developing the regional city transit systems. Just because HS2 is on the table is not a good enough reason for me to demand the NW become independent.

I'm not convinced of the benefits of HS2 at all myself either. But it does serve to highlight an important point in terms of what is truly UK wide and that which is labelled UK.. but in reality is simply English only.

I also guess that lies aren't that popular up here. And besides, no-one ever listened to the SNP MP's when there were only 6 of them.

An Independent Scotland 'would lose its HS2', warns minister
Expensive plans to speed rail commuters from London to Glasgow and Edinburgh in under three hours would be scrapped if Scotland votes for independence, a cabinet minister has warned.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/an-independent-scotland-would-lose-its-hs2-warns-minister-9256659.html

SNP fury as HS2 finds 'no business case' for taking fast train service to Scotland
The £50bn High Speed Two rail link will not be extended to Scotland, as the team behind the project has found there is “no business case” for the undertaking.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/snp-fury-as-hs2-finds-no-business-case-for-taking-fast-train-service-to-scotland-10272342.html

Shakethedisease

Tromking wrote: »

The Tories are Unionist, pure and simple, they believe in the Union!
Why is that viewpoint so hard for you to fathom without claiming some sort of nefarious ulterior motive on their part?

You're obsessed by the Tories!:)
The subsidy is paid because Scotland is alone in the UK in displaying separatist tendencies. The UK establishment is scared witless that their beloved Union for the want of a bung could be lost.
Enjoy it, you got them by the balls!

Misty eyed sentiment then, holding the union together and justifying 'subsidies' to Scotland in order to stay. How nice...

Generali

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

There seems to be a vast difference between less than 1800 and 20,000.

One could argue that scrapping trident would release budget which could create even more jobs than just 1800.

Well yes, and that is a very good point. A pound spent on Trident is a pound not spent elsewhere. A pound borrowed to spend on Trident, and all marginal Government spending at present is borrowed money, is a pound not available to be invested by private enterprise employing people.

The fact of NATO membership AIUI is that all members are expected to spend 2% of GDP on defence and the UK is already pushing that number and looks set to go below it. Money saved on Trident would have to go into defence elsewhere and probably in reality be spent in a way that the Americans see as useful and valid to the organisation as a whole (e.g. putting a whole load of unemployed wasters through boot camp probably wouldn't pass muster if you'll excuse me mixing my services).

The money saved from Trident can't be used to pay for cancer meds or reducing uni fees.

So £100bn on let's say somewhere between 8-20,000 jobs over 30 years. That's somewhere between £167k and £417k per job per year. That's a pretty expensive job creation scheme although doubtless the Government has managed worse at some point in the recent past.

Having said that, you do get a nuclear deterrent thrown in for that money and with Putin's Russia in particularly belligerent mood alongside a Tea Party movement that looks hamstung at present but could have the US withdraw from Europe at some future point, having a few nukes up the sleeve could be quite handy.

Tromking

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Misty eyed sentiment then, holding the union together and justifying 'subsidies' to Scotland in order to stay. How nice...

....or maybe a steely-eyed sentiment by people who believe that we are better together. Scotland is just not for the Scottish you know, plenty of non-Scottish Brits view it as a integral part of THEIR nation.

Froggitt

Froggitt wrote: »

If Scotland doesn't want Trident, and however many jobs go with it, there are many other parts of the country that do.

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Go for it. Did you say that your local area was one of them?

We live in a village about 100 miles from the coast, but there is a pond here......not sure how many subs we could hide there, and they would have to get shifted to the coast via the M25, but I will be putting in a bid......I'm sure I can rely on your support.

IveSeenTheLight

Generali wrote: »

The fact of NATO membership AIUI is that all members are expected to spend 2% of GDP on defence and the UK is already pushing that number and looks set to go below it.

Indeed, a point I made to you the last time you cited this target, where I showed it was set to go below 2% and also showed that much of NATO contribute far lower and much less than the UK

Generali wrote: »

Money saved on Trident would have to go into defence elsewhere

I would question that assumption. Why does it have to be spent on defence elsewhere?
We have already agreed that the UK will soon fail the 2% target and that other nations are already far lower.
However even if it was redirected to other defence costs, it could actually save lives by providing better equipment where it's actually needed, rather than on something we never want to deploy

Generali wrote: »

The money saved from Trident can't be used to pay for cancer meds or reducing uni fees.

Why not?

Were already set to fail the 2%, so why can't this funds be spent elsewhere?

You seem to live by a very rigid, authoritarian, rule abiding almost military belief and are not keen or able to consider alternative options.

What if the 2% target was renogiated to be 1.2% more in line with what other nations are contributing? Would that allow the funds to be diverted in your eyes then?

Generali wrote: »

Having said that, you do get a nuclear deterrent thrown in for that money and with Putin's Russia in particularly belligerent mood alongside a Tea Party movement that looks hamstung at present but could have the US withdraw from Europe at some future point, having a few nukes up the sleeve could be quite handy.

I prefer to believe in the Nuclear Disarmament Treaty and Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons which came into force in 1970.

45 years on and were a long way away for that "target".

Maybe reducing the 2% target for defence would help focus the minds towards a better world.

IveSeenTheLight

Froggitt wrote: »

We live in a village about 100 miles from the coast, but there is a pond here......not sure how many subs we could hide there, and they would have to get shifted to the coast via the M25, but I will be putting in a bid......I'm sure I can rely on your support.

Yep, you could build a 100 mile canal for the subs to go through.

In fact, why not create a link through England to join the Atlantic with the North Sea to save the subs going around the country?