It appears that a different set of economic laws prevail in Scotland, if one studies this BBC report. On the one hand it is suggested that Mr Broon’s (utterly pathetic and entirely inadequate) VAT temporary reduction will save some thousands of jobs, but on the other it is argued that if the UK exchequer had just handed over a mere £1bn to Mr Salmond and his SNP pals, this would have “created or saved” (nice weasel words there, btw) double this number of jobs. At every point the working assumption is that Scotland is special and needs more money. Why? I suppose the BBC loves the fact that Scotland has a public sector that provides more than 51% of Scottish GDP and so anything that further builds this dependency will always get a sympathetic hearing.
NORTH OF THE BORDER
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Surely you mean,’gobbles up’?
Don’t forget, the jocks provide a nice block vote for Nu Liebour of around 50 Labour MP’s. The fucking wankers will need them as well as the English won’t vote for that fat one eyed c**t next time.
Martin is both right and wrong . “The jocks” , or should that be “sweaties”, Martin , are no longer ready to put up with Nulabour’s Sophistry .
Unfortunately they have been forced by circumstance to vote for the slightly less odious SNP instead .
I wish it wasn’t so ,however , all this comes down to a political game between these two leftist s***e parties .
A non-story , but a reasonable post .
Alan Healy: You might have been right but since the Scottish banking system has had to be bailed out by the English tax payer and oil is worth less than a Zimbabwe rent boy the Scots won’t be voting for a party that wants independent very soon.
If they voted fatty one eye out of power I might forgive them.
Did you not see the last Scottish elections , Martin ?
Labour are as popular as a fart in a space-suit in Scotland .
What about the Glasgow East bye-election ?
These guys are seriously f****d in their own gerry-mandered satrapy .
Makes me laugh !
As for being fat and one-eyed – those are The Great Leader’s better qualities .
After Bambi I actually think it’s good to have a politician who looks superficially like a human being .
(That’s code for Davis , not Cameron) .
Scottish banking system/English tax payer – ain’t no such things , as you well know .
Just cos the word Scotland is in the title of a bank seems to be an excuse for you to claim that “hard-working families” south of the border are , yet again , susidising the thieving sweaties .
You can’t have it both ways ,Martin . Were we were living off of Social Security hand-outs while the booming English financial sector subsidised the whole UK economy , but now that financial sector has gone temporarily down the tubes it was Scottish all along ?
Anyway , if Zimbabwe rent boys are that cheap , maybe someone will tell Mandelson .
Anyway , if Zimbabwe rent boys are that cheap , maybe someone will tell Mandelson .
I think you will find the social disapproval of sodomy so strong in Zim that you’d not be able to find a rent boy in Harare, even in these times of woe, and even for a King’s ransom in hard currency.
The fact is that the BBC hates England full stop.
Whenever serious issues like the Barnett Formula and the WLQ are discussed it’s always from a Scottish perspective.
There’s the gross over representation of Scots across the board in the BBC.
There’s a BBC Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but no BBC England…
etc etc etc.
Martin
Neither HBOS nor RBS had to be bailed out by the English (or any other) taxpayer; HBOS was already negotiating with Lloyds TSB having bet and lost the ranch, and RBS was going to hurt but (probably) survive the consequences of overpaying for ABN. Then along came Darling to opportunistically redefine the rules and declare both banks insolvent, thus allowing him to part nationalise them. Bliar may have removed clause 4 from the written constitution of the labour party, but he left the aspiration there.
I think MarkE is right – the more state control our lords and masters can grab , the better for them and their Marxist ideology .
Wyrdtimes – BBC England would only be a good idea under a completely reformed , non-pc Beeb , don’t you think ? Is that not the real problem here ?
As far as I can see the BBC fails to discuss any important matter fully and impartially .
As for over-representation of Scots – I can only think of Brillo in News/current affairs . The over-representation of other , non-indigenous groups is striking by comparison .
Alan – listen to a days worth of Radio 4 – half of the voices will be Scottish. Like I say, well over represented.
They’ve even got “Alba” a gaelic language channel now. Bet your life that’s not being funded with money from Scotland.
As for the future I don’t care really care about a BBC England I want to see the BBC replaced by the EBC where English taxpayer’s money is spent on England.
The BBC should be completely scrapped and the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish should be left to their own devices funded by their own taxes and whatever they can scrounge from their new masters in Europe.
It’s no wonder the BBC approves of Salmond’s position. He says that Scotland could use the money to create jobs for “building bridges, roads, schools, hospitals early and better.” In other words, Mr. Brown’s beloved PFIs. This moves the expense off the budget (since Brown rewrote the rules a while back), and creates jobs in the public sector which do not create wealth. Unless one counts increasing the tax base as creating wealth. Oh, wait….
Never mind that these jobs will dry up when the PFI cash runs out. Like, for instance, earlier this year, when all those construction industry jobs were lost when the PFI cash ran out. Yes, let’s do more of that.
The brilliant BBC Scotland business and economics editor then regurgitates First Minister Salmond’s press release.
Wyrdtimes – I don’t listen to Radio 4 , so I’ve missed these guys (probably just as well).
As you are an English nationalist an EBC does sound the best option as far as you’re concerned . Some of my more partizan compatriots already refer to our state broadcaster as the EBC , however .
Agree with you that Gaelic radio is of , at best , marginal interest . However I can just about see the justification for promoting an endangered indiginous culture , rather than an imported foreign one (BBC Asian Network for example).
As far as funding not coming from Scotland goes , your assertions presuppose that no one in Scotland pays any taxes of Licence Fee . I can assure you that’s not the case .
Your point about our EU masters is much more relevant , however . They want us squabbling amongst ourselves so that they can take over . Why do we oblige ?
Are there (m)any English born Scottish M.Ps.? Are there (m)any English born “voices” on BBC Scotland?
How do they seem to afford so much more state spending – easy they get 11% of the cake for 10% of the population. This might not seem a lot but the extra 1% gives them 10% a head more!
I believe the Scottish Parliament has tax raising powers to the extent of something like 3p on income tax. I wonder why they don’t use those powers. Perhaps if the were reduced to a fair share of the cake they might have to use those powers. I can hear the screams of protest already!
Can’t believe the ignorance shown in these comments.
First of all the SNP Govt in Scotland is not in control of the UK fiscal and monetary policy. The argument of the economic advisers however is that the VAT decrease is not as good as bringing forward “public works”in preserving jobs. That argument would apply to England as well as Scotland.
So it’s not EXTRA money. Nor does it mean that the SNP supports PFI as the man in the USA seems to think. Incredible!
Finally to link the BBC with support for the SNP is so bizarre–you obviously don’t have to listen to BBC Scotland TV or radio or you wouldn’t make such stupid remarks (also remember Kirsty Wark on Newsnight).
I’m going to have a wee lie-down now. My faith in the normally reasonable arguments on this blog has taken a pounding.
Andrew | 22.12.08 – 10:36 pm |
So public sector construction, funded by the money that would (in theory) be there if the VAT wasn’t cut, wouldn’t end up as PFI? You know which Scottish person controls the purse strings, so don’t you how he likes to spend it to keep the books looking okay? Scotland isn’t as autonomous as all that.
In any event, those jobs would only be a very temporary band-aid on the wound, and would not actually help rebuild the economy.
“So public sector construction, funded by the money that would (in theory) be there if the VAT wasn’t cut, wouldn’t end up as PFI?”
No, PFI would involve private finance funding and building the infrastructure which would then be leased to the government. Which as well as a neat accounting trick to keep dept off the public balance sheet in artificial fashion might not have been such a bad idea if public servants weren’t far too stupid to negotiate a decent contract and if the British private construction industry wasn’t such a two bob crock of sh*t.
Obviously if there isn’t any private finance then PFI is dead which means that the public purse has to fund and manage the projects, which makes me think that for all the bullshit sums these clowns might come up with its probably better “give” people 2.5% more of their own cash to spend on fags than a bridge that’ll fall down within 6 months.