The New Fat Scotland 'Thanks for all the Fish' Thread.

elantan

Generali wrote: »

Yes it's a torment to me that is probably only matched by what was done to the Titans. That or I think you're a bit of a prat for writing in a fake accent and am taking the rise. Take your pick really.

It's ANZAC Day weekend over here so we'll be celebrating that tomorrow by going to the dawn service and having a couple of beers later on. Thank you for the St George's Day wishes and I wish you a happy ANZAC Day in return.

Ooooo I either torment you or your thinking about me ... I'm sure it's the latter and as I'm taking my pick I can just imagine in what way your spending your time obsessed with me ... Cheers Gen making me smile as always

Generali

elantan wrote: »

Ooooo I either torment you or your thinking about me ... I'm sure it's the latter and as I'm taking my pick I can just imagine in what way your spending your time obsessed with me ... Cheers Gen making me smile as always

It's all a bit of fun. I hope people don't take this stuff too seriously. When people take politics too seriously we end up with things like WW1 which is basically what is commemorated on ANZAC Day.

Generali

elantan wrote: »

See those SNP... now they are to blame.for Scotland's obesity crisis ... handing oot sweeties in SNP wrappers, how very dare they

That's a bit mental.

I Googled Scottish obesity. Almost two thirds of Scots are overweight or obese with 28% obese! That's incredible, even worse than Aus (half and 18% respectively) and Aussies are right porkers. I'm not sure that handing out a few lollies on ANZAC Day weekend to potential supporters is adding much to the problem though. Irn Bru and deep fried mars bars are far worse.

What's the take in Scotland on the soda tax? I think it's a brilliant idea myself and would like to see the same thing in Aus.

elantan

Generali wrote: »

It's all a bit of fun. I hope people don't take this stuff too seriously. When people take politics too seriously we end up with things like WW1 which is basically what is commemorated on ANZAC Day.

Absolutely

elantan

I personally agree with the sugar tax, and I'm obese, I havnt really heard much negativity about it either except the way it's being done, some things will be taxed whilst other more obvious ones not

I'm still hoping we get a price per unit of alcohol soon as well, but that's still toed up in the courts just now

Generali

elantan wrote: »

I personally agree with the sugar tax, and I'm obese, I havnt really heard much negativity about it either except the way it's being done, some things will be taxed whilst other more obvious ones not

I'm still hoping we get a price per unit of alcohol soon as well, but that's still toed up in the courts just now

I've done some back of the envelope numbers on it and it is very, very clear what the sugar tax is aimed at: 3l for a couple of quid, very cheap, generic pop. Make no mistake, like taxes on cigarettes this will be a very regressive tax. Assuming all the tax is passed on, which it won't be, someone buying 3l of cheap soda from Aldi or Tesco will be paying well over 100% tax as things stand. Someone buying a bottle of Fevertree tonic to put in their Bombay Sapphire won't feel a thing.

The soda companies will try to tie this up in the courts because of its selective nature of the tax but it's clearly the road that the world is going down. Soda companies have been acting an awful lot like cigarette companies in the 60s: trying to muddy the waters by paying for and promoting alternative studies that show that it's not their tawdry product that is killing people. In the US alone, soda companies have paid well over $100,000,000 effectively to buy science that favours their viewpoint which is that obesity is about calories out (exercise) rather than calories in (soft drink). The fact is that for the vast majority of us, burning off the extra calories in a 600ml bottle of coke and a chocolate bar is going to be almost impossible.

I don't particularly struggle with my weight. My BMI is about 27 but most of that is leg muscle due to the cycling. I could probably lose a stone to become a better cyclist but at that weight I look really skinny. The 32" waist says more about my size than my BMI.

I'm not so sure about minimum unit pricing. TBH I think Brits need to sort out their relationship with drink and I don't know how much an extra few bob on the price of a bottle will help. The problems with Britons and alcohol run deeper than that.

antrobus

Shakethedisease wrote: »

My view is what will realistically happen. As long as a single penny of Scottish taxes go directly to the UK Treasury, then Barnett will have to exist in some form. End of discussion on that....

The Barnett formula dictates that the level of funds available for public spending in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is distributed in proportion to the population of each nation. It's not applying Barnett to historic allocations that gives Scotland the advantage.

You really have absolutely no idea of what you are on about.:)

antrobus

Generali wrote: »

...I Googled Scottish obesity. Almost two thirds of Scots are overweight or obese with 28% obese! That's incredible, even worse than Aus (half and 18% respectively) and Aussies are right porkers. I'm not sure that handing out a few lollies on ANZAC Day weekend to potential supporters is adding much to the problem though. Irn Bru and deep fried mars bars are far worse.
....

Interestingly, HMRC recently produced a disaggregation of tax receipts across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Scotland has something like 8.5% of the UK population, but only contributes 7.3% of income tax receipts, and 5.3% of CGT receipts.

Except when you get to Tobacco duties and Spirit duty where Scotland contributes a whopping 13%!

That tells you something.

Generali

antrobus wrote: »

The Barnett formula dictates that the level of funds available for public spending in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is distributed in proportion to the population of each nation. It's not applying Barnett to historic allocations that gives Scotland the advantage.

You really have absolutely no idea of what you are on about.:)

Doesn't Barnett relate to the change in funding year-by-year?

AIUI, the Barnett formula should mean that spending in Scotland per head approaches the level of that in England but as the population of Scotland is growing more slowly than that of her southern neighbours Barnett means that these relative cuts in spending haven't been applied.

This causes a problem with devolution as devolved taxes will tend to grow with GDP, which is partly a function of population, rather than with the formula set out by Mr Barnett. As Scottish GDP isn't growing as fast as England's because its population growth is lower, and more recently because of the price of oil falling, when the UK devolves £100 of taxation and spending to Scotland after a few years it is likely that without devolution something like £150-equivalent of spending and £145-equivalent of taxation will be devolved. The more devolution the greater the problem and of course under maximum devolution, Scotland leaving the Union, the subsidy disappears entirely.

This leads to an interesting end point. Will Scots reject devolution of taxes and spending as it results in lower public spending in Scotland (unless they get busy in the bedroom) or will they get fed up with spending falling and go for the throwing the baby out with the bathwater option of going it alone and losing the London Subsidy altogether?

antrobus

Generali wrote: »

Doesn't Barnett relate to the change in funding year-by-year?....

Yes. It is applied to each extra tranche of funding, but is not retrospective.

Generali wrote: »

...AIUI, the Barnett formula should mean that spending in Scotland per head approaches the level of that in England but as the population of Scotland is growing more slowly than that of her southern neighbours Barnett means that these relative cuts in spending haven't been applied...

Yes again. Known as the 'Barnett Squeeze'. Was a matter of great concern to the likes of the SNP, less so since 2010, because we have had UK governments that have been cutting spending, so it has been more of a case of the 'Barnett Unsqueeze'.

Generali wrote: »

....This causes a problem with devolution as devolved taxes will tend to grow with GDP, which is partly a function of population, rather than with the formula set out by Mr Barnett. As Scottish GDP isn't growing as fast as England's because its population growth is lower, and more recently because of the price of oil falling, when the UK devolves £100 of taxation and spending to Scotland after a few years it is likely that without devolution something like £150-equivalent of spending and £145-equivalent of taxation will be devolved. The more devolution the greater the problem and of course under maximum devolution, Scotland leaving the Union, the subsidy disappears entirely.....

It certainly causes a problem with devolved taxes. The more powers Scotland gets over its own taxes the less it gets over everybody else's.:)

Generali wrote: »

....This leads to an interesting end point. Will Scots reject devolution of taxes and spending as it results in lower public spending in Scotland (unless they get busy in the bedroom) or will they get fed up with spending falling and go for the throwing the baby out with the bathwater option of going it alone and losing the London Subsidy altogether?

God knows.