Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

CLAPTON

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Oh no, we understood the difference re the £ and currency union very well. It seemed to confuse BetterTogether though who were absolutely adamant that Scotland couldn't use the pound at all ! Which of course as you say is total nonsense. So they came across as, total liars. Hence somehow managing to lose a 22 point lead during the campaign.

Support for the Yes campaign started going up immediately after Osborne's announcement actually as it happens. ( Iain McWhirter details it all wonderfully in his book ). But no, we understood the difference very well.

so you all absolutely agree that had Scotland become independent than
- England would have continued to set Scotland 'bank ' rate
- England would have continued to decide on the Scottish money supply
- England would have determined Scottish government budget deficit.

Strange that the majority of the scottish voters chose the 'liars' : you hold your fellow citizen to low esteem

CLAPTON

Shakethedisease wrote: »

The SNP don't do PFI. Anything in that department is down to when Labour where in power. They kept free prescriptions, eye tests, hospital parking, free tuition fees, a council tax freeze 9th year in a row, no bedroom tax, a big NHS cash injection, and investment into a house building program though.

But pretty much a 'steady as she goes' budget. They'll have five years to do far more ambitious stuff after May should they win a majority.

Scotland is running on a sea of debt; some called PFI and some not ; the result is debt everywhere.
The SNP government have reduced the local government allocation grant : a very together Tory policy . the shortfall will be funded by local authority debt.

Look up the figures of Scottish local authority debt and compare with other parts of the UK

However, does it matter? Once independent scotland will just refuse to pay and default.

I do agree that you do choose to subsidise rich people in scotland at the cost of the poor : but that's your democratic right- no problem with doing that.
Still don't understand how you proudly support a bedroom tax for poor people in private rented accommodation but consider it immoral in council property- but I guess that based on the Tory model.

.string.

Shakethedisease wrote:

Everyone DID get oil prices wrong before the referendum. I provided you with a graph and everything showing them. The SNP have admitted they did.

Still evading the issue. Did the SNP modify their oil-dominated budget forecast prior to the referendum? Go on Shakey prove it.

Support for independence however, has gone up almost in tandem with oil prices falling since June 2014. Logic being that oil prices are not the 'arrow to the heart of independence' you think it is. Never was, and probably never will be.

Nonsense, the arrow is still stickking there; the financial mountain got bigger.

Again, any possible future referendums will hopefully be starting out with complete disregard to oil prices/oil volatility/running out, and the EU. Both are busted flushes. As is keeping the £. And in the white paper they seemed pretty upfront about 'challenging conditions' to me.

( from the White Paper ).

I'm sure that if there ever was another Nevererendum that there would be SNP claims about an imminent explosion in oil prices and a huge oil well that had just been about to be discovered in Sturgeon's back garden. And for the EU there would still be ludicrous claims about membership of the EU without adopting the Euro and without any loss of fiscal authority and so on. But if the EU is a "busted flush" why the current SNP fuss on Brexit/No-Brexit?

The currency will remain a problem and you know it, Natland will probably need to set one up for itselb. Don't hoard any Scottish pounds. Shakey.

Re your remarks about the White Paper being up front and the quotation you gave. I recognise, as much as anyone a bit of PTA when I see it and something published in November 2013 does not qualify as being up front when it comes to coming clean when things changed in June of 2014 before the Referendum in September

But really, I'm not sure reliving the referendum campaign here once again, is moving things forward any.

If there's to be a future referendum, it will come with completely different debates and challenges for both sides than the last one.

Another bit of " That was yesterday" Shakey

Shakethedisease

kabayiri wrote: »

That's not true.

http://www.glasgowarchitecture.co.uk/new-victoria-hospital

There are PFI commitments to sign up to all the way through these contracts.

Scotland relies on PFI just as the other bits of the UK do.

Historical PFI. The SNP took over in Holyrood in 2007. The article you quote is from WELL before that.

The 41,500 m2 new Victoria Hospital Glasgow building, which is planned to commence construction on site in December 2006 and be fully operational by 2009,

An investigation by BBC Alba's Eorpa programme has revealed that some contracts included leases lasting more than a century.Infrastructure Secretary Alex Neil described these deals as "shameful".
PFI was favoured by Labour for funding big building projects.
It was scrapped by the SNP when they came to power and the alternative Scottish Futures Trust was set-up.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-14995385

There is 22bn's worth of historical PFI debt on Scotland's balance sheets back from when Labour ran Holyrood, and 9bn since the Scottish Futures Trust was set up. The SNP don't do PFI.

CLAPTON

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Historical PFI. The SNP took over in Holyrood in 2007. The article you quote is from WELL before that.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-14995385

There is 22bn's worth of historical PFI debt on Scotland's balance sheets back from when Labour ran Holyrood, and 9bn since the Scottish Futures Trust was set up. The SNP don't do PFI.

how exactly do the SNP fund their infrastructure?

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/15/scotland-pfi-boom-public-spending-holyrood-snp

Shakethedisease

CLAPTON wrote: »

so you all absolutely agree that had Scotland become independent than
- England would have continued to set Scotland 'bank ' rate
- England would have continued to decide on the Scottish money supply
- England would have determined Scottish government budget deficit.

Strange that the majority of the scottish voters chose the 'liars' : you hold your fellow citizen to low esteem

That's not what I said. BetterTogether went about telling voters that Scotland couldn't use the £ at all. So did the media, so did Osborne. Now people like me understand the differences between currency union and simply using the £. However, during the referendum the distinction, imo, was deliberately blurred for 'knee jerk' reaction.

However, the knee jerk reaction went the opposite way. Support for independence started climbing, after being stuck at the low 30% mark for ages, almost immediately after Osborne's announcement. Prof Curtice ( the guy that did the General Election exit polls ) confirms.

The image of a Tory chancellor erecting a financial Hadrian's Wall so that Scots couldn't use their own currency was highly damaging to the Union cause. The pound had never before been seen as “England’s property", something that could be taken away if Scots didn't behave. Opinion polls during the campaign confirmed this. Support for independence rose after the Declaration, and by the eve of poll, according to Professor John Curtice, even a majority of No voters didn’t believe the Chancellor on currency union.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/13651468.No__it_wasn_t_the_currency_that_lost_the_referendum/

A currency union imo, would only have been useful for a short transitionary period. I have no qualms about ditching the £ altogether if there's a next time. It's not like independence and negoitations will be overnight things anyway. So plenty of time to prepare.

CLAPTON

Shakethedisease wrote: »

That's not what I said. BetterTogether went about telling voters that Scotland couldn't use the £ at all. So did the media, so did Osborne. Now people like me understand the differences between currency union and simply using the £. However, during the referendum the distinction, imo, was deliberately blurred for 'knee jerk' reaction.

However, the knee jerk reaction went the opposite way. Support for independence started climbing, after being stuck at the low 30% mark for ages, almost immediately after Osborne's announcement. Prof Curtice ( the guy that did the General Election exit polls ) confirms.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/13651468.No__it_wasn_t_the_currency_that_lost_the_referendum/

A currency union imo, would only have been useful for a short transitionary period. I have no qualms about ditching the £ altogether if there's a next time. It's not like independence and negoitations will be overnight things anyway. So plenty of time to prepare.

there was no option of a currency union what didn't mean that London determined Scotlands interest rates, government borrowing and banking regulations and monetary policy.
THe SNP repeatedly lied about it just as the acolytes still do.

The reason to lie was to trick the people of scotland (which worked surprisingly well).

Shakethedisease

CLAPTON wrote: »

how exactly do the SNP fund their infrastructure?

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/15/scotland-pfi-boom-public-spending-holyrood-snp

Is that another Severin Carrell piece ? He wrote a load of crap the other day about the SNP running up 50bn's of forecasted debt/PFI which everyone laughed at ( fixed grant and only very limited borrowing powers from this year )... Obviously he was stung a bit.

You have to pick your way through the article and piece together isolated fragments of information to try to arrive at Carrell’s figure. As best we can make out it comprises:
£22bn – inherited PFI debts
£15bn – council debts
£9bn – Scottish Futures Trust projects
£4.9bn – proposed rail network upgrades

That total does indeed come to £50.9bn, but almost three-quarters of it (72.7%) is PFI projects passed on mainly by previous Labour governments and debt run up by local councils, almost none of which are SNP-run. (Just two of Scotland’s 32 councils have SNP majorities, with seven others run in coalition or as minorities.)
It seems extremely harsh to hold the Scottish Government responsible for a debt that it ran up, at most, about a quarter of.

http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-p*sh-gallop/#more-79935

Edited. Yes just had a look, there's no comments allowed on that second Carrell article. The last one nearly broke the Guardian site. The SNP don't control all but 2 councils, most of which are Labour run.

Shakethedisease

CLAPTON wrote: »

there was no option of a currency union what didn't mean that London determined Scotlands interest rates, government borrowing and banking regulations and monetary policy.
THe SNP repeatedly lied about it just as the acolytes still do.

The reason to lie was to trick the people of scotland (which worked surprisingly well).

Independence wouldn't have been overnight. The SNP position was that they would be negotiating for a currency union in the short/medium term. No voters didn't even believe the no currency union thing by the end.

But as I've already been over, two or three times. A currency union won't be a factor if there's a next time round. So we're discussing past hypotheticals which bear no relevance whatsoever to future independence debates.

CLAPTON

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Is that another Severin Carrell piece ? He wrote a load of crap the other day about the SNP running up 50bn's of forecasted debt/PFI which everyone laughed at ( fixed grant and only very limited borrowing powers from this year )... Obviously he was stung a bit.

http://wingsoverscotland.com/the-p*sh-gallop/#more-79935

in the same way you refuse to recognise the issues round currency union and independence, you also avoid the essential issues round debt and scotland.
it's very simple : the difference between what you spend and your income is funded by debt : SNP will spend more than their income.

At the moment that is fine, because the English bail you out: but if you want a decent independent future you will need to make some painful realistic choices.
No need at the moment as your game plan is to default on all debts but after that you need a realistic financial plan (its short name is austerity).