Salmond and Sturgeon Want the English Fish for More Fat Subsidies

Shakethedisease

Thrugelmir wrote: »

The "black hole" was far larger a few years back. As long as the direction of travel continues while remaining fairly painless. So be it. Autumn statement may well be tougher.

That was just for NHS funding shortfalls ?

Mr Johnson said that if the economic outlook gets darker: “I think he will be forced to put some proper tax increases in or possibly even to find some yet further proper spending cuts.” The Government faces having to fill a £56 billion black hole over five years — a stark contrast to forecasts made only months ago. Mr Johnson said that the 2019/20 picture could deteriorate on an even larger scale within the next year.


“It must be something, that if I were the Chancellor, would be keeping me awake at night now,” he added.


Mr Osborne has already broken two of his three fiscal rules, on the welfare cap and reducing debt as a share of national income.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/ifs-george-osborne-will-need-to-impose-proper-tax-rises-or-cut-even-further-a3205956.html

Anyway, these things in terms of a Scottish independence context, need to be considered too. We can all pick holes and rabbit on for 100's of posts about Scottish deficits, nightmare tax rises and spending cuts. But we like to look South and see how things are going there, especially under the Conservatives. Compare and contrast. The headline figures there aren't exactly looking too rosy for NHS patients either right now. Something to bear in mind, we certainly will be. :cool:

Mistermeaner

This is precisely why spending needs to be cut. We canmot afford all these lovely things.

Shorter lives would be beneficial to the economy

If english nhs has a funding problem now what do you think iscotland nhs has to look firward to?

chewmylegoff

Nearly there, just a few more posts....

Shakethedisease

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Nearly there, just a few more posts....

I'm starting a new one tomorrow. :A

Thrugelmir

Shakethedisease wrote: »

That was just for NHS funding shortfalls ?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer doesn't personally run hospital trusts and their individual budgets. PFI certainly doesn't help in this regard. Chancellors come and go but their legacies can last for decades.

Thrugelmir

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Nearly there, just a few more posts....

How many to go?

Shakethedisease

Thrugelmir wrote: »

The Chancellor of the Exchequer doesn't personally run hospital trusts and their individual budgets. PFI certainly doesn't help in this regard. Chancellors come and go but their legacies can last for decades.

Scotland's NHS has always been separate. Labour's PFI's are still causing problems here. However, it's yet another area where policies are diverging markedly between Scotland and England. Some of the things Osborne put in his budget yesterday would've caused riots up here. Just unthinkable. We're becoming very different countries within the UK.

Can you imagine the reaction across Scotland if the government announced the end of parental choice in education and the rapid conversion of local authority schools to privately-run but taxpayer-funded academies?...

Picture the apoplexy at BBC Scotland if hospitals here had debts of £2billion like health trusts in England. Many foundation trusts are failing to meet NHS waiting times for A&E care, cancer treatment, non-urgent operations in hospital and vital diagnostic tests.

..The Britain we thought we belonged to is being steadily dismantled from within by Westminster politicians whose tenure will be judged historically as more transformative than Thatcher’s. The Royal Mail sold off at bargain basement prices. The government no longer legally responsible for running health services. It’s devolved to regional groups with a legal requirement only to provide emergency care and ambulances. The rest is optional.

http://newsnet.scot/?p=116615

Thrugelmir

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Scotland's NHS has always been separate.

Then Nicola should have maintained Air Passenger Duty rather than abolishing it. All very well throwing out lots of sweets to win votes. When the money could have been spent better elsewhere.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Most of the others are gagging to start taxing even sooner than 2017 across the board right now. Would be laughed out the place for u-turning in 2017 and then advocating tax cuts.

And that is why it's such a very bad idea to give taxation powers to a bunch of glorified county councillors without the foggiest understanding of the Laffer curve.

Leanne1812

Generali wrote: »

Okay. First edit. Arrrrgh!!! GERS 2012-3 was released in March 2014. As the lecture was given in Jan 2014 this can't be the source of the figures as if our friend could travel through time with financial data he certainly wouldn't be giving a prezzo on YouTube with a few thousand views!

Ah yes, I see. He's used 2011-2. As it happens, the numbers in GERS to support an independent Scotland have deteriorated substantially but that's not really our analyst's fault as he is presenting then not now.

So some more claims from the time....

Scotland generates 9.9% of UK revenue vs 9.3% of spending Yup (as of then)

Scottish deficit is 5% of GDP vs 7.9% for UK Correct

Same average would mean GBP4.4bn. This is the 'independence dividend'. Yes it would have been for that year

Scotland kept the whole Thatcher bandwagon on the road No data but I would be surprised if 9% of the population kept 100% of the population

Scotland is charged 3.3bn for defence but gets 1.9bn of spend Specious argument. England (whatever) doesn't get all the gap. Most is in places like Afganistan, Iraq etc where the UK was fighting wars at the time or in places like Germany with British defence bases. Was Scotland going to withdraw from NATO or keep up her commitments?

Required spend should be £2.5bn per Denmark. Okay, great. Now we have 2 gaps between Scotland's share of defence spending and what 'should' be spent. I note no costing is included for sacking defence personnel.

GERS includes 4.1bn of interest payments- this should be lower as deficit is lower Hmm. There are many, many ways to skin this cat. I could as easily argue (accurately) that Scotland came into the UK with £300,000 in debt. If we add compound interest to that at the BoE base rate we get pretty much to a trillion squids. I can make a very good case that most of the UK's debt is Scotland's

If Scotland lost Barnett spending would be cut by 6.2bn.Aye, and here's the rub. If you look at Scotland and the UK as a whole then generally things like employment levels, average incomes and GDP per capita are about the same. Yes in the year our friend took Scotland was doing better. I would bet good money that she's doing worse now and was in the early 90s and period of end WW2-1979. In the round, Scotland has done very well from Barnett. Not in the year considered but if we were to look at this year there would be a very different picture.

Ok, from what I can glean here the analyst didn't tell any untruths. Possibly he put some spin on matters, and possibly you have too.

Agreed, Scotland is not doing so well right now but I'd imagine it's difficult if not impossible to calculate just how much Scotland has benefitted from Barnett if you count how much oil revenues alone she has put into the coffers.

Still unconvinced

( maybe it's cos I'm an acolyte)

Thanks for taking the time & putting in the effort to watch & respond.