Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

ruggedtoast

I am excited to see the effect the Corbyn zeitgeist has on the SNP. I always thought that Sturgeon would be a better Labour MP than an SNP one.

The future is Corbyn shaped!

.string.

ruggedtoast wrote:

The future is Corbyn shaped!

Maybe there is more to Corbyn than apears .....

But I doubt it.

PS. Sorry about the pun, well, not really.

.string.

@Skintmacflint - do you not think that the SNP strategy is crudely simple (or simply crude)?

They already know the substance of the new devolution deal, give or take a few finesses, but by promising all sorts of vague undefined goodies they can tune what that means in order to maximise the whinge-factor when the Bill is passed and they don't get the magic powers they want, blaming each and every omission on their imaginary Vow content not having been agreed.

The counter argument is that the amount of per-capita funding available to them at least equals and, I've heard it rumoured (!), exceeds that for the rest of us and if further needs to be done then the SNP have to decide what their Priorities are ; raise taxes or carry on whining and not facing the responsibilities of a devolved parliament.

There does seem to be this complaint that the SNP can't/won't define their programme. I wouldn't know, not having studied out particularly, but it does seems to be an off-recurring criticism. Maybe they have defined something or other in which case our resident SNP contributors should be able to give examples.

Not-holding-breath time?

In any case it seems that continually banging on about this lack of detail is a good approach, to mock and thereby defuse their strategy and pressure them to show their magic cards before they want to. The Scottish people, after all, need to know these things.

Rinoa

I'm surprised they haven't yet blamed 'Westminster' for the inadequacies of their football team.

Shakethedisease

Generali wrote: »

That is the great (only?) advantage of opposition, you don't have to put any policy alternatives up unless there's an election in the offing. When governing you make yourself a hostage to fortune with every decision.

There's just been an election... and there's another Scottish one in May. Scottish Labour policies ? I can't really think of any off hand..nor much beyond Jim Murphy ranting on about allowing booze back at Scottish football matches. (<---- Scottish Labour have a fairly recent but repeated tradition, of fighting General Elections on Holyrood devolved issues, and vice versa ). Mabye they'll learn for the next one.

Shakethedisease

.string. wrote: »

Oh come, be fair, don't forget that the "White Paper" was funded by the Scottish Government and that during the Referendum Salmon and Sturgeon et al were campaigning all over the place, with The Scottish Goverment in full spate.

Thank you for your last post aimed at me.

Purdah is a period of about 6 weeks just before any election/referendum. The White Paper was released in Nov 2013. Tory rebels seem desperate to make sure the same nonsense like the Vow isn't repeated again.. because they feel that it, well errm.. breaks the rules. Which is why the voted against their own party last night.

7 September 2015

Eurosceptic MPs protested that ministers must not be allowed a repeat of the controversial “vow” published by David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband just days before Scots went to the polls last year.

Tory backbencher Philip Davis asked his own frontbench if the Government could “like the clumsy intervention with the Scottish ‘vow’” tell the public “if you vote to stay in (the EU) we will address some of these issues (around membership)”.
David Lidington, the Europe minister, told him that “what he has just described would not be permitted” under the rules the Government was proposing for the EU vote.

Former First Minister Alex Salmond told MPs the the events surrounding the vow as a “cautionary tale” for those hoping for a fair EU referendum.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13651383.SNP_accuses_Conservative_Government_of_admitting_indyref_rule_breach/?ref=mr&lp=3

Shakethedisease

skintmacflint wrote: »

Nonsense to suggest only SNP are put under the microscope on policies. Unless your life stops and starts in Scotland, mine doesn't. If anything SNP have gotten away with many things up here, due to ineffective mealy mouthed opposition from most of our MSPS, and the fact it proves very difficult to get certain info from our government without involving official arbitrators.

Once again you seem to have misinterpreted my comment. Several times the Sturgeon has argued Scotland can grow her economy to cover our financial black hole caused by higher public spending. I'm waiting to hear how it is to be done. Certainly her Paper Scotland's Economic Strategy 2015 (I looked it up) doesn't reveal her policies to promote this.

And let's not forget, Independence if won, would be 6 months from now. She must have known a couple of years ago what plans and policies were needed to be put in place. And they are nowhere to be found or seen. Please don't insult me with the soundbite of she needed control of all fiscal levers from Independence to achieve this. If she'd any innovative plans at all, they'd have been shouted from the rooftops in a torrent of successive ' If only ' whines from her and her band of new SNP MPs over the past year.

Same for her guarantee of social justice and improving the lives of all those in alleged relative poverty in Scotland. Eg in areas such as Glasgow, North Ayrshire, Dundee, where relative poverty and social deprivation has been the norm for the past 35 years.

I've lived in North Ayrshire for 32 out of my 44 years. Things are a lot better than they used to be, that's for sure ! It took a long time to recover from all the Steel and Car plants that were shut down in the 80's. And it still hasn't fully. But yes, things are much better than they were even 15 years ago. Housing in particular is getting there ( there's been huge swathes of old council housing knocked down and replaced round my way ).

By demanding devolved control of full welfare policies to Scotland, the implication is she will either improve and increase them. Certainly the White Paper had nothing in it. But I know several new SNP supporters who are definitely expecting them for next year. So let's hear it from Nic , what she will improve, how she will pay for it and her other plans. Only relevant one I can think of is her enforced state guardians and soon to be enforced state nursery care. Which is an under the radar attempt to change the mindset of future generations . ( She's been very naughty on this one tsk tsk) Neither does it help today's alleged impoverished.

You might find this interesting..though why he's going on about FPTP when the SNP support PR I have no idea.

New Holyrood welfare powers must be beefed up, says former No campaign adviser
THE legislation delivering more powers to the Scottish Parliament must be changed to strengthen Holyrood's control over welfare, a former adviser to the No campaign has argued

http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/13651480.New_Holyrood_welfare_powers_must_be_beefed_up__says_former_No_campaign_adviser/

As for her manifesto promises etc, well they're much of the same, or mirror other parties. With some anti Tory, Labour, Westminster rhetoric cobbled in. Read her Nov 2014 SNP conference address without your SNP goggles and ears on. Once you remove , repeated anti Tory, Labour, Westminster swipes, emotive misleading poverty figures, reminders of what SNP allege to have done, there is nothing much left other than some nice fluffy soundbites.

As for what the Conservatives and Labour will offer to do with taxes and welfare next year, will wait and see. Not that it matters for the moment.But they haven't been promising the world on a plate with a nice doily and cupcake thrown in. SNP have for several years.

Of course it 'matters' for the moment what Scottish Conservative and Scottish Labour will offer with taxes/welfare/new powers next year. Their problems for the last few elections ( mainly Holyrood ones, but Westminster too ).. is that they concentrate far, far too much on the SNP and what they are doing. Trying to knock it down. In doing so they usually neglect getting their own policies and ideas across at all. As you point out the SNP is very good at doing both at the same time.. but then, they tend to spend a lot less time on dissing the others.

Attacks on other parties during GE. Scottish newspaper press releases..
SNP 26% ( mostly against Conservatives )
Labour 35% ( mostly against the SNP )
Conservatives 51% ( mostly against the SNP )
Lib Dems 34% ( mostly against the SNP )

Perhaps because the period we studied coincided with an election, a very large proportion of the press releases amounted to attacks on other parties. But here too there were clear signs that the SNP focused on its own game more than on that of other parties.

https://archive.is/C9Hae#selection-1029.1-1029.259

The other parties in the lead up to Holyrood next year need to spend much more time telling us what they will do with new tax powers and in fact any new powers. And much less time and effort attacking the SNP imo. It's not working well for them at ALL. Little sign of it happening yet though.

kabayiri

.string. wrote: »

Maybe there is more to Corbyn than apears .....

But I doubt it.

PS. Sorry about the pun, well, not really.

I'm waiting for the news story when he is caught with his pants down ..

... by the Corbyn Trouser Press !


(I'll get mi coat)

skintmacflint

.string. wrote: »

@Skintmacflint - do you not think that the SNP strategy is crudely simple (or simply crude)?

They already know the substance of the new devolution deal, give or take a few finesses, but by promising all sorts of vague undefined goodies they can tune what that means in order to maximise the whinge-factor when the Bill is passed and they don't get the magic powers they want, blaming each and every omission on their imaginary Vow content not having been agreed.

The counter argument is that the amount of per-capita funding available to them at least equals and, I've heard it rumoured (!), exceeds that for the rest of us and if further needs to be done then the SNP have to decide what their Priorities are ; raise taxes or carry on whining and not facing the responsibilities of a devolved parliament.

There does seem to be this complaint that the SNP can't/won't define their programme. I wouldn't know, not having studied out particularly, but it does seems to be an off-recurring criticism. Maybe they have defined something or other in which case our resident SNP contributors should be able to give examples.

Not-holding-breath time?

In any case it seems that continually banging on about this lack of detail is a good approach, to mock and thereby defuse their strategy and pressure them to show their magic cards before they want to. The Scottish people, after all, need to know these things.

Well put String. Crudely simple I think. It's why they lost the Indy Ref. Before 2007 , the party had no real expectations.Things changed in 2007 when Salmond saw an opportunity, got his game plan strategy together, tho even he doubted they'd survive more than 3 months in minority government.

Since then everything, populist policies etc , targeting different voting groups along the way, has been the major drive of SNP,. With one aim in mind Independence. If you front yourself with an effective spin party, keep tight control of your MSPSand MPs, you can just continue along a similar path, and make up some on the hoof popular policies As suits. Which they have , and until now got away with. Even they knew it couldn't continue , pinching from essential budgets, but IMO they felt if they could just get as far as a Yes decision, it wouldn't matter. But they failed.

Totally due to Salmond's lack of detail , and his fat ego, his main weaknesses. IMO.

His immediate move was to latch onto 'The Vow' as a convenient excuse. Then have the cheek to claim it as SNPs' alone to defend. After embellishing it and some spin naturally, for whining room to manoeuvre down the road. In reality his 1.6 million supporters ignored it , and less than a tiny minority of undecideds were swayed by it, if at all. But it's got good spin mileage for his supporters.

If the Sturgeon believes their defence of The Vow is her way of representing the majority of No voters, she's making a huge mistake. Huge.

Imagine at the minute they're weighing up the capital of Corbyn as a Labour Leader possibility, and political mileage to be gained etc.

But Swinney is still under pressure to come up with his new revenue raising policies. Particularly as SNP voters want the SNP as their first choice, and the Greens or equivalent as second choice. Both big public spenders.

Should be fun to watch from the sidelines.

skintmacflint

Shakethedisease wrote: »

I've lived in North Ayrshire for 32 out of my 44 years. Things are a lot better than they used to be, that's for sure ! It took a long time to recover from all the Steel and Car plants that were shut down in the 80's. And it still hasn't fully. But yes, things are much better than they were even 15 years ago. Housing in particular is getting there ( there's been huge swathes of old council housing knocked down and replaced round my way ).

Of course it 'matters' for the moment what Scottish Conservative and Scottish Labour will offer with taxes/welfare/new powers next year. Their problems for the last few elections ( mainly Holyrood ones, but Westminster too ).. is that they concentrate far, far too much on the SNP and what they are doing. Trying to knock it down. In doing so they usually neglect getting their own policies and ideas across at all. As you point out the SNP is very good at doing both at the same time.. but then, they tend to spend a lot less time on dissing the others.

Attacks on other parties during GE. Scottish newspaper press releases..
SNP 26% ( mostly against Conservatives )
Labour 35% ( mostly against the SNP )
Conservatives 51% ( mostly against the SNP )
Lib Dems 34% ( mostly against the SNP )
https://archive.is/C9Hae#selection-1029.1-1029.259

The other parties in the lead up to Holyrood next year need to spend much more time telling us what they will do with new tax powers and in fact any new powers. And much less time and effort attacking the SNP imo. It's not working well for them at ALL. Little sign of it happening yet though.

I know North Ayrshire fairly well, along with several people who live there including Dreghorn. There is the small possibility I could know your Dad. Lol.

North Ayrshire AFAIK is still listed as a deprived area with a consistent high rate of long term unemployment, around 15% last time I looked. And it wasn't doing well according to Patricia Gibson in an online pre GE2015 election campaign speech, glumly talking about high Food Bank use and her deprived citizens in the 3 towns.

However I'm delighted to hear despite all the rhetoric, that things are much improved there , obviously in part thanks to the sharing of UK resource finances we have. Lol.

I hear from a housing point of view, much the same with housing has happened in Inverclyde, particularly in some deprived areas, largely due to significant EU funding in their case after their stock was taken over by Housing Associations.

Strangely every time I hear an SNP MSP or MP speak, there's normally a jibe at some other party or Westminser contained within it somewhere. With exception of Angela Constance, talking tonight about the introduction of new scoring assessments for reading and literature in our schools. But thought it was maybe because SNP central possibly felt she wasn't capable of pulling it off.