Charles Bannerman

An independence referendum for Glasgow and Dundee? Given that I am a member of the 55% majority who appear to be of the view that much of it ain't particularly broke etc etc and don't really share that radical socialist zeal for constant revolutionary change, my main priority would be for the Labour Party in particular to get its act in gear and provide a credible challenge to the Posh Boys who currently comprise the administration. But unfortunately, having abandoned its traditional political ground and elected a leader who both looks and sounds like Mr Bean, ther Labour Party does have some way to go.

What a wonderful expression of the "you don't agree with me which makes you so unworthy that you don't deserve an opinion" brand of politics which has been prevalent among the Yes side of the recent debate. Interesting too that a viewpoint which embraces the bigger picture of the United Kingdom and rejects the kailyard pseudo-politics of the Little Scotlanders should be described as "parochial". That's a New/Doublespeak of which even George Orwell would be proud

Interestingly enough Robert Peston has just filed a report about the Barnett Formula on the BBC (cue the usual suspects shouting "bias") which shows that per capita spending on railways is actually 72% higher in Scotland than in England. So, it seems, yet another unsubstantiated Nationalist assertion, made to try to provoke dissent and grievance, bites the dust. On the subject of the Barnett Formula, this referendum has of course now drawn Scotland's considerably higher level of public funding within the Union to the attention of the entire UK and many outwith Scotland will now, understandably, begin to question this. But I am quite sure that the SNP would be delighted if the Barnett Formula were to be questioned and even more delighted if it a were to be scrapped, leading to lower levels of public spending for the Scottish people. Because this would give them yet another opportunity to sow grievance, division and ill feeling (*) among the Scottish people who in reality count for damn all to the SNP compared with their sole obsession of separation to which everybody and everything else is subsidiary. (*) - remember the good old days when Scotland was actually quite a happy place to live in? I mean the days before the Nats set about their mission to create as much misery and discontent as they possibly could in order to sway the disaffected over to their cause. Now, after seven years of Nationalist control of Holyrood, Scottish society distinctly oozes with grievance and resentment as the SNP misery machine proceeds on its distinctly unmerry way. You just have to take one look at them to see what a uniformly humourless bunch they are - which is probably why so many of them end up getting married to each other. Given that the spreading of misery and discontent is such a cornerstone of SNP strategy, That Ghastly Woman must indeed be the overwhelming candidate to become the next SNP leader since she is the possessor of by far the most miserable and discontented looking gob in Scotttish politics. (Mind you, the recent performance of Councillor Liz MacDonald of Nairn may mean that Nippy Sweetie Nicola has competition ere long!)

Only because there wasn't a "b****r off" box available

untitled.png We ARE amused! Positively "purring" there I would say!

Oh for God's sake why can you people not come to terms with the fact that having this damned referendum was your idea, you were allowed to hold it under your own rules and, despite wholesale bribes to the politically naive, YOU LOST?

Alex... "up to £126 million". Have you been borrowing that SNP oil revenues calculator again? Thats what it says here Charles http://www.hie.co.uk/regional-information/digital-highlands-and-islands/next-generation-broadband/ What that HIE press release says is.... The public sector investment is being delivered through the Scottish Government from a broadband fund, which includes finance from the Scottish Government, BDUK, and there is £12m from HIE’s own budget. There is an additional private partner investment from BT as part of the project, this on top of the business’ own commercial rollout programme for the region. Given the number of... "funding partners" is I believe the latest buzzword.... it looks to me as if "funding of up to £126 million" is a pretty optimistic claim on behalf of "What has the SNP done for the Highlands?"

This aftermath is becoming a complete pantomime. Yes supporters now seem to have invented so many sub-divisions of the electorate where they claim actually to have won that there can't be any votes left to make up the 2 million who voted NO. Oh but I forgot. They have video "evidence" that every single one of these 2 million NO votes was fixed. Within a couple of hours of the result being confirmed I said - if there is one sight that is more glorious than a bunch of Nationalists in defeat, it's a bunch of Nationalists in defeat after thinking they were going to win! Maybe instead of "glorious" I should have said "hilarious".

Alex... "up to £126 million". Have you been borrowing that SNP oil revenues calculator again? Renewable energy projects.... there are lots of people up here who could (and indeed do!!) see them far enough. As for the rest of that fairly unremarkable "sanctioning" heavy list, I would be very disappointed if they were not doing things like this. That, after all, is what they got elected for and with any luck, with their total preoccupation with the referendum now at an end, maybe they might get back to doing the rest of what they were elected to do.

Don't see the relevance of that statistic. Everyone choosing to make Scotland their domicile was entitled to vote on the future of their country irrespective of their place of birth and quite properly so. A very fair comment from a supporter of Yes Scotland.

You mean in the same way as the Poles moaned about Britain and France declaring war on Germany in September 1939? Or are you Neville Chamberlain in disguise? (Mmm.... given your rather outdated mid-20th century brand of utopian ultra Socialism... perhaps not!) Interesting though. "Most people don't want nuclear weapons"....... "Most people don't support strikes against ISIS". You have clearly found your close scrutiny of "The Alex Salmond Book Of Unsubstantiated Assertions" highly influential!

Alex... much of what Ayeseetee has said in this debate I have disagreed with, but I am totally with him in what he says in post 1614. There is also a sub-plot to the carrying of guns question in that it is certainly even less necessary in the likes of Inverness than it is in the central belt, but our one size fits all National Police Force dictates that our local cops should have to have them as well, hence depriving us of local control. There's the irony. At a time when there is much shouting about devolving powers from "Westminster" to Edinburgh, we are also seeing powers being centralised from areas like the Highlands... also to Edinburgh. and until yesterday many of us would have said 'even less necessary in the likes of Shetland'. I may be wrong but I believe Police Scotland headquarters are actually in Alloa. Alex... you know quite well that I am using "Edinburgh" in the same generic manner as Qddquine and others use "Westminster"!

Centralisation of police forces in England is something that is being punted by the Cops themselves presumably for their own particular reasons. The political will down there is to keep policing local - as it should be. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29105022 Up here it's the politicians who want to centralise policing just like they want to centralise everything else and the policy looks highly unlikely to save nearly as much as they claim.

Of course I have a profound dislike of the SNP, as of Nationalist parties in general, but what I said specifically about the A9, in relation to yet another moan about infrastructure in SE England while the poor old Scots are victimised, was this:- I would prefer the analogy that it might be better to have had the money spent on the A9 years ago rather than on a second Forth crossing or on the Edinburgh trams. I am not actually criticising the SNP here (note that in the quote I say YEARS AGO) since the above statement merely illustrates the generality of the lack of concern shown by the central belt for the Highlands over a long period of time. Centralisation of Police and Fire and Rescue on the other hand took place on the SNP's watch. Meanwhile prioritising other projects down south ahead of the A9 originates from before that - although they do need to hold their hands up to more recent delays while average speed cameras flourish.

Including the SNP Oil Revenue Calculator?

Oh well, there you go. That's official then.

Could someone please quote me some evidence - or is this simply the latest unsupported assertion from Yes supporters, based on anecdotal claims and self serving "estimates" of what they would like to think they saw on polling night.

Alex... much of what Ayeseetee has said in this debate I have disagreed with, but I am totally with him in what he says in post 1614. There is also a sub-plot to the carrying of guns question in that it is certainly even less necessary in the likes of Inverness than it is in the central belt, but our one size fits all National Police Force dictates that our local cops should have to have them as well, hence depriving us of local control. There's the irony. At a time when there is much shouting about devolving powers from "Westminster" to Edinburgh, we are also seeing powers being centralised from areas like the Highlands... also to Edinburgh. Charles you and many others seem to be believing all the local media propaganda! The old Northern Constabulary were carrying hand guns before they became Police Scotland but it is not the routine arming of the police as stated by many. There are a few trained firearms officers on duty at any one time who will attend other calls if they are required and go into a shop or filling station to purchase lunch. I am not concerned at all if I see them on my day to day business and am sure others would not notice either if it was not in the papers every week. IBM, I am aware of that but the timescale is such that the decision was quite clearly influenced by what was equally clearly the shape of things to come. On the infrastructure questions, irrespective of which party was involved we are looking at extensive investment in the central belt while all we can see in the Highlands are average speed cameras - which most definitely ARE the creation of the SNP.

If you are going to quote me, please do so accurately. I said I was in "absolutely no doubt". I do, however, find it interesting that, in common with many of your political persuasion, you regard those expressing views contrary to your own as "an irrelevance". However I feel I really must bow to the vast experience of these things which you have clearly picked up in much less than 50 years and without even having lived on this side of the border for much of the time.

I haven't agreed with much of what IBM has said across the piece either, but I now find a firm area of common ground with him as well. My approach to politics is relatively straightforward. The overwhelming motivations for politicians as a species are self interest and the pursuit of power. The people they claim to represent are merely the vehicle they use in order to achieve these objectives. I support no political party. I simply dislike the SNP rather more than the others because I flatly disagree with their objective of separation. They also unfortunately seem to keep acquiring far more than their fair share of highly objectionable individuals among their hierarchy. As for Labour, just go back to the mid 90s and look at the way in which they cynically "changed" their core beliefs simply to win the 1997 election. This has caused political chaos across the entire UK ever since. Tories.. privileged "posh boys"... I am trying to keep this as brief as possible. And while some people for a while might have thought of the Lib Dems as some of Tim Nice But Dim's "bloody nice blokes", that disappeared with the 2011 election. As the referendum campaign got under way, I emailed three politicians with local connections expressing my hope that their parties could work fully together in the interests of a NO vote. I got a very helpful and constructive reply from Murdo Fraser (Senior Tory who is from Inverness). I got a complacent and patronising reply from a Gofer in David Stewart's Inverness office, assuring me he would pass the email on. I now know that he never did. And I got no reply at all from that arch opportunist Danny Alexander. Oops... I forgot the Greens. Maybe that's because these lentil munching beardies are quite simply highly forgettable - even when they do take their heads from out of their backsides for long enough to wring their hands in despair when they discover that CO2 levels have gone up another 20 parts per million, while they still fail to grasp that the fundamwental problem is actually population level. One of the problems about politics is political parties, because government tends to be exercised first and foremost in the interest of these parties rather than in the interest of the people who voted for them to fulfil their sovereign will. So what do you do? Stand as an Independent? Fat lot of good that is if you remember that Highland Council's fairly large number of Independent councillors then went on to form what was effectively an "Independent Party" which started getting heavy on some members for not following what effectively became Party Policy. Hence my overall response to politicians and political parties is "a plague on ALL your houses".... as long as the SNP's house can be visited by an altogether more virulent strain

I fully understand that you would wish to project Scotland as being rather more unified than it really is, but the stark truth is that central belt prejudice against the Highlands remains alive and well. And I am also in absolutely no doubt that a large chunk of the Nationalist persuasion are simply the same old Anglophobes as they ever were - it's just that, in the interests of electability, Party HQ has of late declared a ban on expressing it.

Alex... much of what Ayeseetee has said in this debate I have disagreed with, but I am totally with him in what he says in post 1614. There is also a sub-plot to the carrying of guns question in that it is certainly even less necessary in the likes of Inverness than it is in the central belt, but our one size fits all National Police Force dictates that our local cops should have to have them as well, hence depriving us of local control. There's the irony. At a time when there is much shouting about devolving powers from "Westminster" to Edinburgh, we are also seeing powers being centralised from areas like the Highlands... also to Edinburgh.

C100 - your contributions are at least commendable for their brevity and infrequency

I would prefer the analogy that it might be better to have had the money spent on the A9 years ago rather than on a second Forth crossing or on the Edinburgh trams. For the SNP to blame "Westminster" (or is it OK just to call them "the English" again now the vote is past?) is a bit rich when the SNP centralises power on itself and on Edinburgh and continues the practice of marginalising the Highlands in which central Scotland has indulged for centuries.

Well for starters.... * They have centralised control of the police who also now adopt "one (central belt) size fits all" policies such as the routine carryng of guns. * They will not save nearly as much cash through this policy as they claim. * They have also removed the Fire Service from local control. * They have imposed a Council Tax freeze which reduces the capacity of local councils to implement the wishes of their local electorates. * They have, whilst implementing all the above centralisation, set themselves up as paragons of the devolution of power. * They have made a total pig's ear of implementing their flagship Curriculum For Excellence policy in education. * They have failed to provide the women of Scotland with the childcare provision over which they have devolved power. * They have allowed public services to struggle by failing to use the tax varying powers afforded them by the devoluiton settlement of 1999 and instead blamed "Westminster". Now, not even having used powers already granted, they are screaming for more. * They have allowed their justice system to get into total disarray with issues like the corroboration question still in the air. * They have completely sidelined the day to day needs of the Scottish people whilst preoccupied for the last three years with their now failed vanity project.