Oddquine

It isn't how much a deficit is which defines austerity...it is the use to which the deficit is put. The UK Government defines austerity as wealthy people having less to leave to their descendants, big businesses getting less in profit, company managers (and bankers) even when making losses, get less in bonuses, political parties(mostly conservative) getting less in donations, and the UK not being able to strut the world, waving their nuclear threat and taking part in wars to get more resources to make more profit for arms manufacturers. Seen in those terms, we don't have austerity.......which is why it makes a mockery of the weasel words "We are all in this together"..because we are not. Austerity for the less elite who actually suffer it, comes when the UK Government tries to reduce the deficit by making lower level Civil Service staff redundant, while increasing the numbers of those on senior Grades Six and Seven; when the UK government spends annually £1.25 billion+ in paying salaries, expenses etc for our Cabinet, MPs and plethora of Lords, for SPADS, and for running the elite club which is the Houses of Parliament, and making a stab at paying for it by targeting sanctions at job-seekers who are wasting £2.4 billion trying to keep their heads above water. Austerity for the less elite comes because it is much more important to keep 520 employed in polishing Trident and others planning its currently un-authorised replacement, and keeping a reserve specially so we can bomb brown people in foreign countries at the behest of the USA (and Israel), than using that money to prevent people having to use foodbanks, or to remove the perceived need to take aids away from the disabled and to stop under 21 year olds from accessing housing benefit etc. The problem up here is that those who are wanting to spend more money to pursue their pet policies are those who probably won't have to suffer the consequences in their pockets.....and given they are talking about playing about with tax and spend in the first year of a new tax set-up which doesn't allow them to tax single bands, or spend on anything remotely useful, bar hand money back to Westminster to pay them for the likes of bedroom tax, and without knowing how any of their brainfarts will impact on next years block grant, it seems to me particularly sodding stupid to be doing anything more than holding the line in the meantime....and being pragmatic. Anyhow, who would vote for any political party which has Jackie Baillie as its financial spokesperson?

The SNP do sensible, unlike the Tories, the Greens, RISE, Labour and LibDems, who can make any promises they like, because they will never have to implement them. The SNP, from current poll showings, if you believe polls, is the party which will have to put our money where their mouths are, so have to practise the art of the possible, within a system which, currently, does not allow them to increase any single tax band without increasing all others by the same amount,and with no facility to raise the income tax bands to compensate lower earners. There is also the problem of private sector business people, in the higher tax bands particularly, if they are able to do so, either clearing off over the border, and back to the 45% rate, or moving a part of their annual income from salary to dividend on profits. As Scotland has no dibs on Dividend/savings income, just on income from salaries, that would mean that the Westminster coffers would get the benefit of the dividend tax and Scotland would lose a chunk of the expected tax on a salary which had been thus reduced. Just another of the tax loopholes carefully built in to the plethora of pages of the UK tax code for the wealthy, even down to getting the first £5000 of dividend income tax free. I know most of you won't read it, but it is explained well on Wings As I have said all along, devolution within the UK is a poisoned chalice, intended to cut the feet from under the SNP and nothing else.

But it had been an project in mind for some long time before that, DD, at least in traffic management terms, if not in bridge safety ones......although a second bridge started then, by Westminster, via the TORY Scottish Office, might have prevented some of the problems faced by the original bridge later...because in 1995 Westminster was looking at the possibility of a second bridge..something to which Alistair Darling objected and which he called this ridiculous bridge. Those plans were shelved when the Labour Government took power after the 1997 GE.....and, while there was a Lab/LibDem Executive in Scotland from 1999 to 2007, neither they, or FETA, which they dominated in membership numbers, considered a new bridge more "essential" than trying to keep the old one open. The decision to proceed with a replacement bridge was taken at the end of 2007, not at any stage between 1999 and the 2007 election. Given that in 2003, Nicol Stephen commissioned a study into the cost of a second bridge, why was the decision not made then, and the process started? Given that FETA supported a new bridge in 2005, when it became clear that the old bridge was showing real problems, why was nothing done then and the process started? Given in 2006, even Alistair Darling thought the new bridge wouldn't be a ridiculous bridge, why were steps not made to get something off the ground then? Given that, in 2003, the cost of the new bridge was priced at £300 million, why did the Scottish Executive find it so hard to spend the cumulative £1.5 billion (£273 million of it added in 2004/2005) it handed back to the Treasury during their time in power? Why did they not use that money to undertake consideration of the planning options, conduct the planning enquiries, get the objections from the environmentalists and the NIMBYs out of the way, agree the contracts and get the proposal through Holyrood themselves? After all, they had from 1999 to do it, and even if they didn't ever get in again, no Scottish Executive coming after them would be daft enough to dump an "essential" project such as that. The SNP, I notice, weren't worried enough about somebody else getting the credit for their work that they waited to see if they were going to succeed in 2011 before getting things set up ready to go. As it is, because the 1999-2007 Scottish executive talked a lot but accomplished nothing definitive regarding the construction of a second Forth Crossing,it took until 2010 for the SNP to get all the planning issues dealt with, contracts in place, get it through Holyrood (which alone took a year),and get Royal Assent... and construction started in September 2011 (and, by then, the cost had shot up to around £3 billion rather than the £300 million of eight years before). So, let's be clear.......the original idea was a Tory one, the Scottish Executive prior to 2007 spoke about the Tory idea, paid out cash to study various aspects of it......and did absolutely squat about any part of the results of those studies of various aspects. The SNP Scottish Government actually did all the work required to get a second crossing built....because nobody else did! I'd probably have agreed with you if you had said that the Scottish Executive, prior to 2007, had set up policies like home care for the elderly and bus passes because they did.and the SNP just built on that, although they are receiving all the credit now......but come on....the Lab/LibDem Scottish Executive didn't initiate any process, because if they had, then the SNP, from 2007 to 2010 wouldn't have had to jump through all the planning/contract/parliamentary hoops they had to circumnavigate....they could just have come into power to deal with the same fait accompli that they would have left for Labour...... if Labour had managed to achieve a majority in 2011. If talking about stuff was all it took to make stuff happen, and then allowed somebody who had done nothing constructive, to claim the credit for that happening, even if somebody else accomplishes the project, then, if the Lab/LibDem Scottish Executive had actually removed their thumbs from their behinds and constructed the second bridge after 1999, would you be on forums claiming that the Tories should be getting the credit, because the process to explore the options was initiated by them before devolution?

You can read Salmond's mind? Well done you! Who says a generation is 20 to 30 years? There are a number of kinds of "generations", societal, familial, political, biblical etc......which one do you favour? . Certainly looks as if it is going to be once in the lifetime of many of my generation I suspect, though, Yngwie. However, neither of your quotes said whose lifetime/generation they were talking about, or didn't you all notice the indefinite article? They could have said my generation, or our lifetime or qualified it in another way to make the interpretation less nebulous, but they didn't.......now why could that have been, I wonder?

Let's put it this way.... I don't think a parliament in Edinburgh was particularly high on too many people's agendas and while they voted to have one as opposed to not having one, kind of like the way many people will pocket a proffered Jehovas Witness leaflet, rabid Nats should not judge that 1997 outcome by their own obsessional standards as something for which there was a massive clamour. More to the point, 63% of voters in 1997 opted for tax varying powers so why, in their 8 years in charge, have the Nats not respected the will of the Scottish people and used there powers.... especially since they constantly bang on about benefits and poverty which they then fail to address by sticking a couple of p on the basic rate? That would be for exactly the same reasons the Labour/LibDem Governments from 1999 to 2007, didn't Charles, because they knew the Scottish people wouldn't wear being higher taxed than any other part of the UK, while 70% of their taxes went into the Westminster maw. The SNP did try the "penny for Scotland" in the 1999 election, and we got a Lab/LibDem Government......so that was a lesson learned, I hope, particularly as they can't raise just a single band, but have to raise all bands by the same amount, which will not help the lower paid.......or Scotland, because the tax take from any growth in the economy will head straight down to Westminster. Devolution, Westminster style is a con trick, devised to damage the SNP, not to benefit Scotland......just as it has been since 1979.

Charles, define a generation. In my family three generations have already had one bite of the independence cherry......so if you say a generation what do you actually mean by that....do you mean after my generation, who were born in the 1930/40s, or after my children's...born in the 1960/70s, or after my grandchildren's...born in the 1980/1990s...or are you thinking of after my great grandchildren's who won't be old enough to vote until after 2030? Or do you mean, as I suspect was meant, a political generation which is five years in the UK and four years in Scotland.....and which is why the SNP has consistently said that .the holding of a referendum in any Scottish Parliamentary term will be a decision taken by the Scottish people (and Mundell actually said the same.) Independence might be in the SNP's Constitution, but that means diddly squat if it isn't in a manifesto and the SNP are in a position to action it.. But, whatever was meant by generation, it wasn't the SNP who said it as it was never party policy to only have a referendum once in a generation, however that is defined.....it was Alex Salmond who said it (and the FM can't make policy on the hoof, whatever the media thinks), and then he promptly resigned anyway. If one Government can't bind another government, even if a law has been passed, why on earth would you think a remark from an outgoing FM would bind his successor? And sure as hell, not one of the 44.7% even considered not having another referendum when the time was right, whenever that might be.

So what you are saying, DD is that it doesn't really matter what the majority of Labour Party members want. Democracy, Labour style, isn't really democracy unless the majority of Labour MPs want the result the people choose as well, as if the MPs are not simply Party members like Joe Public. You are saying that a couple of hundred or so MPs, arguing a case predicated solely on getting into power and holding onto their jobs, should have more say than a couple of hundred thousand Party members and supporters who would prefer that the party represents all of them and not just the careers of the MPs. It appears you are another who thinks the only purpose of politics is to govern, and not to oppose or amend. There seems to me to be a real dichotomy there, in a situation in which it appears to be perceived, by the average Labour punter, that the only difference between the policies of our two Buggin's turn Governments is one of method and not one of ideology. This perception has been confirmed regularly since 1997, and is still being underlined by the Labour abstention propensity, even when the abstentions mean they refuse to vote against Bills/clauses in Bills which damage the people who vote for them, or used to vote for them, along with everybody else.....like the Bedroom Tax, the moratorium on fracking, the Welfare Reform and Work Bill etc. With the best will in the world, the only job in Westminster of the Buggin's turn party, when not in Government, is to oppose anything which conflicts with the principles/manifesto commitments on which they were elected, but since 2010, the Labour Party has even failed at that, perhaps because it has pretty much agreed with everything the Government was and is doing. It doesn't really matter, imo, if that opposition does not stop a bill or change a clause, they have to be seen to be standing up for their principles....or they are not being seen to be doing the job they are paid to do. And that, more than anything, is why, in Scotland, there is simply no other party which has the credibility with the electorate to get the electorate to either understand that or vote for an alternative manifesto......because there is no other Unionist party which has an alternative manifesto, in Scotland or in the rest of the UK, and haven't had since 1979, because they are all of one mind...the need to get elected in swing seats in the South of England. If Corbyn doesn't get elected, there won't be any alternative manifesto.........you know it and I know it....... there will just be small variations on the theme of trashing those on benefits, whether working or not, to impose austerity on those who have no voice any more, enriching those who are already well-off and growing the poverty gap..... because Labour has gone over to the dark side to try to persuade the Southern electorate that they are not so different from the Tories really and safe hands to continue to meet their middle class aspirations and prejudices. As Margaret Thatcher is meant to have said, DD, her greatest legacy was the Labour Party of Tony Blair, the party which was in power as long as she was and made no effort to repair the damage she did, but simply applied more Germolene and sticking plasters to the wounds she inflicted.It is now reaping what it has spent the last twenty years sowing.

On current polls can you see any of them doing much, Charles? But just say by some happenstance they did.....who do they have who is capable of running the country at least as well as the SNP? Bear in mind, while you may not like what the SNP has done, going by the polls, they have certainly done enough to satisfy more voters than voted YES last September, or voted for them in 2015.......and they have consistently done more, with less, than any of the LibDem Coalitions managed from 1999 to 2007. Who would you fancy for the next First Minister and Finance Minister, then? Ruthie and Gavin Brown, or Willie Rennie and somebody? Or maybe (and more likely if the polls are wrong) Kezia and Jackie Baillie,bearing in mind that Scottish Labour is controlled from Westminster, and there we currently have a Labour Party who can't differentiate between Tony Blair/Gordon Brown and liabilities..... which just illustrates the level of their ineptitude. Or would it just be, as usual.......anyone but the SNP?

Which excellent post of Laurence's? I must have missed that one? Do you mean the one in which he said that the bill on which Labour abstained was the Finance Bill, and MPs are not in Westminster to oppose anything but to govern? Or do you mean the one he posted, after I said that it was not the Finance Bill, that they abstained on, but the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, C& Ping the parts of the Finance Bill, he rather liked. Which? What disruptive and irresponsible behavior..really? How much disruption did clapping in the House instead of braying and hooting cause? I'd call that civilising behaviour, myself. Bercow said that if members voted to allow clapping, clapping would be allowed. That raises the rather amusing spectacle of MPs in the past having voted to allow hooting and braying and not clapping.but then I suppose it is the only way many MPs will ever say anything in the House at all. True, the Holyrood elections are not too far away......and we will see then what we will see, but currently it isn't looking too good for the Unionist Parties.The SNP has, afaik, so far,not approved any referendum proposal to be debated at the conference, which will more or less decide the thrust of the manifesto, so probably the only people who will bang on about it are Unionists to deflect attention from the complete lack of policies, leadership and talent in the Scottish branches of their parties..

Isn't this law just formalising something which already exists and simply giving people,who already have a certain amount of responsibility for the well-being of children the clout to oblige parents and others to co-operate to help the child? Health visitors and teachers in nurseries and schools already have a duty to "interfere" if they have reason to think a child is in distress. I know it says each child has a named person, but does that mean that each child in Scotland has a different named person to every other child (there's the unemployment figures sorted at one fell swoop) ......or does it mean that, for pre-school children, someone like the health visitor is the named person for her area and in school the named person is perhaps a dedicated member of staff or one of the guidance teachers who makes him/herself available to the children or to teachers with worries about one of the children? There are things a child will not talk about to their parents. They aren't going to sit down and discuss their abuse by their parents with their parents, are they? And it appears that many of them also do not sit down and tell their parents they are being sexually exploited/abused inside or outside the family. I can't see that making it easier for children with problems to talk about those problems and perhaps get some resolution of them is such a bad thing. I see CaleyD has already said much the same as I have, but as he posted just as I finished my post, I am going to add my tuppenceworth. .

Laurence, can you tell me which were the parts of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill (not the Finance Bill) that the Labour Party thought so damn good that they thought it better to abstain and let the whole Bill go through unopposed by those in the Labour Party who are, or hoped to be sometime, in the (Cabinet/)Shadow Cabinet), without having to make a stand in either direction on the most important economic decision to be made this year. Given even some of the abstainers, like Andy Burnham, did get off their right wing backsides and actually vote for the Labour amendment to refuse a second reading, would you care to try explaining to me the difference in real terms between refusing a second reading and voting against a bill, pretty please? Are you really saying that, if the Bill had been voted down on the 21st or so of July, it wouldn't have been rejigged, maybe even taking some cognisance of the points made in the debate by opponents of it, in order to make it more likely to be voted through another time, and produced again after the recess? Are you really saying that the only way there would ever have been a Welfare Reform and Work Bill is by accepting one with very little to recommend it, and hoping against hope that a Conservative heavy committee will decide to allow amendments to it, which would then have to be voted on in a Conservative heavy legislature? If you are, would voting against it not have been a the very best way of opposing it....by removing at a stroke,£12 billion of Welfare cuts and sending the Tories homeward to think again? If you can say Maybe members are elected to govern not oppose? you seem to have missed the whole point. Members might think the whole point of being in Westminster is to govern, but it isn't.........the whole point of being in Westminster is to represent your constituents first.....all your constituents. It is not about representing only your party,and those who voted for your party, though it is looking more and more as if even many of those who voted to elect Labour MPs aren't being represented either. In Government in the UK, party ideology should not produce policies which subsume the collective good of the UK as a whole, but it does......so it is also UK Governments who only represent their party and their voters country-wide, and not the whole population country-wide. As an example of representative democracy, Westminster is the equivalent of 5ft 1 inch 6 stone me being an example of a cat-walk fashion model......in other words, there is no resemblance whatsoever. The job of opposition is to oppose....but not to oppose good policies which will either benefit or do no harm to their constituents....that is opposing the political party which proposed it, not opposing bad policies. It is, tbh, the same stance that the Labour Party in Holyrood has followed with regular monotony since 2007....if proposed or supported by the SNP, oppose it on principle (one of the very few principles Labour has left) and something which appears to have carried over to Westminster. Opposing the Tories, on the other hand, appears to consist of putting forward some amendments ,to try to alter the worst bits during the process of a bill, and even where those amendments are rejected, and the bill they thought bad enough to try to change then goes unchanged, all they do is find the nearest rock, crawl under it to hide from having to actually do their job (which is not to succour the Tory Party at all times) and hope their voters don't notice.

That's because on the back of a high horse is as near as he can get to the moral high ground!

The LibDems were not vilified for getting into bed with the Tories......but for ditching most of their principles to do so. If they had entered the election with most of their stated manifesto policies within a gnat's eyebrow of those of the Tories, the coalition might have been seen as less self-serving. I'd have been less irritated by a Labour/Tory coalition in 2015, if a coalition had been necessary, because there isn't a lot more than a gnat's eyebrow between Labour and Tory in the policy stakes any more. The prospect of losing the only chance Nick Clegg et al had of ever getting into Government in the UK under the FPTP system subsumed all the principles which, in an independent Scotland, would probably have made me a LibDem voter. But hey.Clegg has on his CV, for when he loses his seat and has to get back to the world of work, that he was once deputy PM of the UK and has a lot of important contacts.........can't be bad for him, even if he has probably killed off his party to do it. The Tories have free reign because Labour couldn't get the votes in England...simply that. Getting all the seats in Scotland wouldn't have produced a Labour majority, because they didn't do well enough in England....and Labour didn't get the votes in England partly because the Tories played them (and the English voter) very successfully over an SNP coalition, and they fell for it, (just as they fell for taking the lead in the Better Together Campaign funded by Tory money, and hacking off the Scots, even many NO voters, who punished them in the GE...was that thick or what?)... and partly because Ed Miliband was never Prime Minister material....not assertive enough (which is maybe why the Unions went for him). It is a pity he was ever elected to the job, because since he shed the chains of command he has become a much better speaker, because he doesn't have to weigh his words carefully so he doesn't offend anybody in either wing of his party. As an aside, Rev Stu of Wings, the one Charles and others call names and laugh at, said, in September 2012, that Labour would lose, saying It doesn’t matter how much the electorate likes your policies if it doesn’t believe your leader has the strength to carry them out. Labour is infamously reluctant to sack its leaders, and unless something makes Miliband voluntarily fall on his sword in the next three years – and we can’t imagine what that would be – he’ll lead Labour into the 2015 campaign. If he does, we’ll make our prediction now: regardless of what other events may transpire, Labour will lose. Actually, you are wrong....the SNP didn't want a Tory Government, although, to be fair, they were probably going to be in a win/win situation whichever way the vote south of the border went....but given it was likely to be a few years before there would be another referendum, why would they want, in charge of the economy, a party which would not only trash the poorest and most disadvantaged in our society, but also cut back on the money available to the Scottish Government to hand back to Westminster in order to ameliorate the effects of their policies on our people, making their own life more difficult.......and allied with MSM reporting, would make it look as if they were either incompetent, because they had to cut elsewhere to do so, or have to increase income tax, making the Scottish taxpayer the most heavily taxed people in the UK. Not the best way to build confidence in Scottish government capabilities wouldn't you say? An accommodation with Labour was the pragmatic choice, regardless of the fact that policy-wise the two were nearer each other, though not as little as a gnat's eyebrow nearer, (and that the majority of Scots would have tarred and feathered the SNP if they had dared deliberately put the Tories into Government) because that gave the possibility, however remote, that a few concessions could be wrung out of them re amendments to the Smith Commission Proposals as they went through Parliament. Randomly browsing as I do from time to time, I came across this on Labour Uncut. It was written on 23rd April this year, and was still thinking there would be as many as 23 LibDems. I was struck by the wishful thinking of the whole article, still pushing the SNP BAD mantra of course , probably because, as they said.....and more importantly, it would be electoral suicide for Labour to enter into any kind of agreement with the SNP. It would prove to Scottish voters that the SNP were right all along. Vote SNP and get a Labour government with a strong Scottish accent.(as if that was a bad thing when left of centre policies in any accent in the UK would be a change) I also noticed they were still pushing the lie that it was the SNP which brought the Callaghan government down, when we all know that it was their own rebel back-benchers, according to Callaghan.and the two NI MPs according to Hattersley. The only ones who blame the SNP are Labour in Scotland......but then it does fit with their SNP BAD obsession. Shame the SNP are so bad they're good at what they do, while Labour is so good they have been too busy preening and patting each other on the back about their goodness to notice what has been happening around them......and they are still doing it today. At least the UK candidates for Labour leader have one socialist among them, so they do still exist, (but I bet Corbyn won't get it as he isn't right wing enough), while in the Scotland Branch Office election, we have a set of Blair clones, and that is just what Labour needs in Scotland, isn't it? I didn't notice Hosie smiling.though I did see IDS looking pleased.

I'm inclined to think that we should be starting a thread entitled "Performance of Unionist MPs in Westminster while attempting to preserve the Union", because, so far, they aren't doing terribly well, if their intention is to send all we pro-indy people homewards to think again. Even the Daily Ranger, VOW carrier, is not overly enamoured of their attitude to date...though I suspect that is more of an effort to rescue a dropping sales figure than any real change in pro-union attitude. We appear to be surplus to Union requirements....and just us, going by the HoC ranting and braying....not the Welsh or the NI MPs, just the 56 non-unionist Scottish ones (though I suspect the relatively few NI and Welsh MPs will get their come-uppance sneaked in more quietly). So far, we have a Scottish Affairs Committee which consists of seven out of eleven members representing English constituencies, is that Scottish votes for Scottish Laws? So far we have had pretty much every amendment proposed to the Smith Commission based Scotland Bill voted down, regardless of who proposed it., whether SNP, Labour or Tory.......and even when every Scottish MP voted for it (bar, of course Scottish Governor General Mundell).....is that Scottish votes for Scottish Laws?. Speaking about the performance of Unionist MPs while attempting to save the Union, we can't ignore the "emergency" budget, which is such an emergency that it is going to be a year or two before the actions are fully applied. I don't really expect Charles et al to read the link on the principle that Wings is a pro-indy site and not to be countenanced, but if they do, can they argue cogently against my proposition that the OBR and the Tory Government are still doing what the coalition did during the whole of the last Parliamentary term, which is farting figures regarding the economy randomly out of their backsides. The article is commenting mostly on an illustration in the Daily Fail, Tory cheerleaders par excellence, which is rather fetchingly coloured in Tory blue, Labour red and misery black, and embellished with figures specially cherry-picked to look good and beneficial.......and its conclusion is....... Whether you work or whether you’re on benefits, or if you’re both, you’re going to get it in the neck so that the children of the rich can avoid paying a windfall tax on their inheritance, so that the UK can strut around on the world stage with more aircraft carriers, so that big businesses can pay even less tax (in the farcical hope that they’ll voluntarily pass these benefits down to workers in higher pay) and so that the Tories can accumulate a warchest for a future cut in the top rate of tax for the wealthiest. Good luck, Britain. Don’t lose your job or get sick. Wings on the Budget.

I've just paid for two via paypal.........at least I hope I have.

Yngwie, they didn't vote against having a referendum......they voted against that specific referendum bill as defined. They voted against having a referendum in which the 16-18 year olds couldn't vote, although they, being the ones who will have to live longer with the result, have more right to vote, imo, than those of us heading out of life. And they voted against a referendum in which Commonwealth citizens and the Irish citizens of the EU can vote, if they live in the UK, but no other EU citizens can, not even one of our MSPs....and they voted against a referendum in which there was no mechanism for compensating for the fact that the English voter can take us out of the EU however the other parts of the UK vote. I notice that some of the anti-EU Tories, like John Redwood and Bill Cash, are going to try to pre-empt the BBC's pro- Government bias, which was such a feature of the Independence referendum, and which just about every person in Westminster (and the BBC) denied was taking place. The BBC, which has impartiality written into its Charter (for all the good that has done for a number of years), could be forced by law to be impartial during the European Union referendum campaign, under changes to the broadcasting laws tabled by backbenchers, which also include requiring the appointment of an impartial adjudicator to rule quickly on cases of alleged broadcasting bias throughout the campaign, and a bid to stop civil servants issuing pro-EU documents right up to voting day in an effort to reimpose the purdah regulations removed in the bill. Shame that all the Unionist MPs appear to have learned from the Independence referendum is that, without (and tbh, even with) legal restrictions, they just can't trust the Government and the BBC to play fair.

How is she backing off from full financial responsibility? Who is even offering full financial responsibility for her to back away from, pray tell....(I must have missed that one)? I thought that in the GE manifesto, all they pretty much said was that they would get as much as they could from Westminster to try to fulfill the VOW. Or are you still mithering on about the referendum manifesto? If so, the reason Salmond said 18 months was not to get Scotland out of all the joint UK encumbrances, it was 18 months to the Declaration of Independence, by which time they would have set up basic necessary departments and systems to cope with our own newly minted, much less complicated ideas, but still not have managed to finish extricating Scottish money from the ludicrously complex Westminster system. Those negotiations would have still been ongoing, and given the Westminster rhetoric, somewhat difficult and acrimonious.and long-winded. Any financial devolution within the UK is not simple and does not allow the same level of tearing idiocy up and doing sensible as independence would. After all, there was a bill in 2012 giving Scotland some very small measure of devolution, and of some income tax and two small tax incomes, stamp duty and landfill.......and Stamp duty and landfill has only come in in 2015 (that's three years, btw.....and it is going to be 2016 before the income tax rasing is applied (and that is four years). Anything in the new Scotland Bill, whatever is in it, is not going to be applied much before 2020......which is five years from now. Laurence, like being in the House of Lords, being a Privy Councillor is a job for life.so Alex Salmond is one, just as Henry McLeish and Jack MacConnell are, and as is Nicola Sturgeon.......and for the same reason, the men have been First Minister of Scotland and the other is now the FM. Big Deal So you think it right to be introduced as rt. Honourable when you have only had a mandate for less than a month You would argue black is white if the SNP said so. If Sturgeon shouted jump we would have to pull you off the ceiling. Laurence, every MP who was handed a qualifying job in government when the first Cabinet was chosen after 4 days is now a Privy Councillor. If it took Nicola a month to be appointed, the establishment dragged their feet.( I am assuming that it is Nicola you are talking about, because Alex Salmond has been a Privy Councillor since 2007....two years less than Cameron and a few days longer than Milliband, in fact). If you want to make a point, better to do some research first, don't you think? You obviously don't know me very well. I am not a member of the SNP, and don't support them if I think they are wrong, but as you only read me on here, where most of my posts are defending pro-indy voters, the Scottish Government, and therefore the SNP, from the snide comments, misrepresentation and bile posted by some Unionists members, you won't be aware of that. Elsewhere, where the debate is a little less polarised and nasty.and more like a debate, I do and have criticised the SNP. The problem on here is that it is a very rare occurrence when someone actually makes a calm collected post criticising the actions of the Scottish Government with reasoned and cogent argument (and I don't have much hopes of that changing when it comes to the actions of the SNP MPs in Westminster), so I respond to the tone of what I read......and if all the posts continue to be variations on the eternal theme of SNP BAD, whether that is being applied to all of we YES voters, regardless of our politics, or the Scottish Government/MPs then of course I am going to post saying why SNP BAD is not an argument, which I accept to someone with an irrational bias against the SNP may well come across as If Sturgeon shouted jump we would have to pull you off the ceiling. Out of interest, have you ever made a calm collected post criticising the actions of the Scottish Government/SNP with reasoned and cogent argument? If so, can you link me to it? Big Deal Yet another reasoned and cogent Unionist response. Edited to add a completely O/T observation......I was looking through the EDMs on the Parliament Website, and I see ICT has been congratulated on its achievements this season....and that EDM has more signatories than the one on the Official Secrets Act and Child Abuse....and a lot more than the ones about the bravery of the soldiers who died in Afghanistan. Go figure!

How is she backing off from full financial responsibility? Who is even offering full financial responsibility for her to back away from, pray tell....(I must have missed that one)? I thought that in the GE manifesto, all they pretty much said was that they would get as much as they could from Westminster to try to fulfill the VOW. Or are you still mithering on about the referendum manifesto? If so, the reason Salmond said 18 months was not to get Scotland out of all the joint UK encumbrances, it was 18 months to the Declaration of Independence, by which time they would have set up basic necessary departments and systems to cope with our own newly minted, much less complicated ideas, but still not have managed to finish extricating Scottish money from the ludicrously complex Westminster system. Those negotiations would have still been ongoing, and given the Westminster rhetoric, somewhat difficult and acrimonious.and long-winded. Any financial devolution within the UK is not simple and does not allow the same level of tearing idiocy up and doing sensible as independence would. After all, there was a bill in 2012 giving Scotland some very small measure of devolution, and of some income tax and two small tax incomes, stamp duty and landfill.......and Stamp duty and landfill has only come in in 2015 (that's three years, btw.....and it is going to be 2016 before the income tax rasing is applied (and that is four years). Anything in the new Scotland Bill, whatever is in it, is not going to be applied much before 2020......which is five years from now. Laurence, like being in the House of Lords, being a Privy Councillor is a job for life.so Alex Salmond is one, just as Henry McLeish and Jack MacConnell are, and as is Nicola Sturgeon.......and for the same reason, the men have been First Minister of Scotland and the other is now the FM. Big Deal So you think it right to be introduced as rt. Honourable when you have only had a mandate for less than a month You would argue black is white if the SNP said so. If Sturgeon shouted jump we would have to pull you off the ceiling. Laurence, every MP who was handed a qualifying job in government when the first Cabinet was chosen after 4 days is now a Privy Councillor. If it took Nicola a month to be appointed, the establishment dragged their feet.( I am assuming that it is Nicola you are talking about, because Alex Salmond has been a Privy Councillor since 2007....two years less than Cameron and a few days longer than Milliband, in fact). If you want to make a point, better to do some research first, don't you think? You obviously don't know me very well. I am not a member of the SNP, and don't support them if I think they are wrong, but as you only read me on here, where most of my posts are defending pro-indy voters, the Scottish Government, and therefore the SNP, from the snide comments, misrepresentation and bile posted by some Unionists members, you won't be aware of that. Elsewhere, where the debate is a little less polarised and nasty.and more like a debate, I do and have criticised the SNP. The problem on here is that it is a very rare occurrence when someone actually makes a calm collected post criticising the actions of the Scottish Government with reasoned and cogent argument (and I don't have much hopes of that changing when it comes to the actions of the SNP MPs in Westminster), so I respond to the tone of what I read......and if all the posts continue to be variations on the eternal theme of SNP BAD, whether that is being applied to all of we YES voters, regardless of our politics, or the Scottish Government/MPs then of course I am going to post saying why SNP BAD is not an argument, which I accept to someone with an irrational bias against the SNP may well come across as If Sturgeon shouted jump we would have to pull you off the ceiling. Out of interest, have you ever made a calm collected post criticising the actions of the Scottish Government/SNP with reasoned and cogent argument? If so, can you link me to it?

How is she backing off from full financial responsibility? Who is even offering full financial responsibility for her to back away from, pray tell....(I must have missed that one)? I thought that in the GE manifesto, all they pretty much said was that they would get as much as they could from Westminster to try to fulfill the VOW. Or are you still mithering on about the referendum manifesto? If so, the reason Salmond said 18 months was not to get Scotland out of all the joint UK encumbrances, it was 18 months to the Declaration of Independence, by which time they would have set up basic necessary departments and systems to cope with our own newly minted, much less complicated ideas, but still not have managed to finish extricating Scottish money from the ludicrously complex Westminster system. Those negotiations would have still been ongoing, and given the Westminster rhetoric, somewhat difficult and acrimonious.and long-winded. Any financial devolution within the UK is not simple and does not allow the same level of tearing idiocy up and doing sensible as independence would. After all, there was a bill in 2012 giving Scotland some very small measure of devolution, and of some income tax and two small tax incomes, stamp duty and landfill.......and Stamp duty and landfill has only come in in 2015 (that's three years, btw.....and it is going to be 2016 before the income tax rasing is applied (and that is four years). Anything in the new Scotland Bill, whatever is in it, is not going to be applied much before 2020......which is five years from now. Laurence, like being in the House of Lords, being a Privy Councillor is a job for life.so Alex Salmond is one, just as Henry McLeish and Jack MacConnell are, and as is Nicola Sturgeon.......and for the same reason, the men have been First Minister of Scotland and the other is now the FM.

You sure you aren't Charles? That is exactly the kind of thing I'd expect him to say. Hogging the bar? Hadn't heard that one. Please elucidate. Have heard that childish braying and mooing is more acceptable than polite clapping, unless, of course, the polite clapping is by Unionist MPs applauding Unionist MPs......can link you to a few youtubes which illustrate them doing just that in the House. The SNP will undoubtedly be braying and mooing in a Scottish Accent from now on, having had their knuckles rapped. And others not SNP have gone the selfie route in the Chamber, before you mention that as if it was something new. They didn't pinch anybody's seat, they just thought that, given the conventions, they should be entitled to sit in the seats which have always been used by the 3rd biggest party (once the Liberals) when in opposition. They are even going along with the convention that Dennis Skinner gets to sit where he always sits, even though there is usually heaps of room on the NuLabour benches for him. Puzzles me why any punter would be incensed, when the majority of non-SNP MPs aren't that bothered. It seems to just be another opportunity for the media, and some Unionist MPs, to continue repeating their SNP BAD mantra, in the hopes it sinks in before next May! Surprised you haven't also mentioned that they aren't taking much notice of the convention that you don't actually turn up for debates, to do part of the job you are paid to do.and that you don't eat chip butties and sit with the staff. Westminster convention is that of a 17th century English Parliament, not a 21st century UK one. More than the manner of electing the MPs to it needs to be changed. Personally, I think Scotland's voice will be heard, and the SNP MPs will certainly have more influence, as they will get places on key committees, but whether that will do much for Scotland, or the UK, in the long run will depend on NuLabour, the SNP, Plaid etc backing each others' sensible amendments to bills, and the Tories having a few decent MPs who are prepared to rebel against Tory idiocy. Seems to me that, provided they keep their noses clean, they are in a win/win situation...because they will always vote on what is best for the UK and for Scotland.and if that accomplishes nothing useful......well, that will be because all the other MPs have voted UK only, and it will just emphasise how much Scotland, in the great Westminster scheme of the doing the best for the UK/London, just doesn't matter. And whichever way it turns out....there will be another referendum, but hopefully not in a manifesto until 2020.....and I'd not be surprised if it got a YES this time. .

Just spent a week at a retreat (not a silent one....there are no miracles after all).....but there were no newspapers, no radio, and no internet in a deliberate attempt to break my posting habit so I can actually accomplish something tangible......like clean windows, starting and finishing a long promised birth sampler and weeding the patch of chucky stanes which pass for my garden. Tried to break the habit after the referendum as well, but it didn't work then either. I came back late this morning...and here I am again.....with a blog article by Derek Bateman, http://derekbateman.co.uk/2015/05/15/we-did-this/ from which I clip parts of two passages which pretty much say how I feel........ I’ve spent my life hating the cringe that tells us we somehow need approval to be ourselves – our vernacular culture, the way we talk – as if there was a higher being judging us. It is the very basis of the inferiority complex that stains our national character and leaves an opening to acceptance of failure as if second best was all we deserved. and The important thing is that identity isn’t the sole purpose of your politics but a frame within you make politics work. That’s what we have been doing – framing a politics that suits us, the Scots, developing positions that broadly suit the people who live here and defining what kind of country we want to be. That’s precisely what Labour should have been doing instead of trimming to meet the aspirations of people who live elsewhere with different needs. It's rather ironic, though that the very people, in government and among the population, who got what they wanted.....as in the continuance of the Union....are the very ones who won't let the referendum go, in Westminster or on forums/social media, and are likely, in the end, to be the ones to .break what they wanted to preserve...because they can't accept that the two main aims in the SNP constitution are independence and the furtherance of all Scottish interests. Independence as an active issue is off the agenda, imo, until the Scottish election after an EU referendum at the earliest, and the SNP contingent are currently in Westminster to further all Scottish interests within the UK system. I really don't see why any Scot would have a problem with that..........isn't that what all Scottish MPs, regardless of party, should always have been doing....putting Scotland first? Edited to add this https://mancunianspring.wordpress.com/2015/05/13/the-best-election-result-that-a-free-north-could-wish-for/ Interesting that many furth of Scotland get it that our current UK version of democracy is accepted as being broken, while so many in Scotland don't. If the 56 manage to do nothing else in the next five years, they have already rattled the Westminster cage and made people think that there could be something better with the will to buck the system and work for it.

I've obviously misunderstood something. It was the "Red Tories" Sturgeon wanted to lock out of Downing street! No wonder you are all so happy. Didn't you notice she said if a lot when she talked about what could happen after the election..... if as in if the Tories can't cobble together a majority and if Labour and the rest of the left parties can? The SNP has always said that they would try to put some spine into NuLabour whether that was in power or in opposition. It happens to be in opposition. Maybe this time round, the Tories will actually have one, then. However the Tories will have to watch their rebels, as their majority is a lot less than they had with the coalition, with just the DUP and UKIP, and if the LibDems finally want to commit suicide, them, to help out if they have rebels. Stu on Wings is having an "I told you so" moment and is reminding us that he said a year ago that the Tories would win in 2015, unless something dramatic happened. http://wingsoverscotland.com/bleeding-obvious-confirmed/ and nothing dramatic did. Murphy is sounding like IM Jolly on the radio...but he's not going anywhere soon, it appears.........at least not willingly. The Tory vote has gone up.and the anti-Tory vote has gone up more.........the winner in this election was the FPTP system.....time to get rid of it! Cameron is saying he'll govern as the party of one nation...is that not what he was meant to be doing from 2010 until now........or has he finally redefined one nation to include more than just the city state of London? If so, deep joy! It'll be interesting to see how NuLabour will behave in Westminster...and whether their SNP hatefest will continue, or if they can work together in opposition. I wouldn't however, like to see the SNP voting against any decent policies from the Tories just because they came from the Tories. Cutting off nose to spite face has never been a clever thing to do. Cameron says he will govern as One Nation. He seems to changed his tune. First it was "We Love you Scotland please stay" then it was the whole "English votes for English laws" nonsense straight away, which by the way, is going to be insanely difficult to actually implement. The whitewash of the Smith Commision (with all Tax Raising powers offset by a reduction in the block grant) then during the campaign we were only allowed to have a say if we voted for the right party, and now he is back to loving us again. Crazy. I will be interested to see if the SNP stick to their rule of only voting on things that affect Scotland, or if they break it. I, for one, would be disappointed if they did break it. I was reading somewhere, but right now I can't remember where, that in the last Parliamentary year, there were only, 6 or 7 bills passed which did not affect Scotland, out of loads of them. After all, while we have, for example, some aspects of energy devolved, others are reserved, like fracking.......and it is the same with other devolved responsibilities..few are completely under the sole control of Westminster. and most are dependent on what happens in England for funding. I'm inclined to think that if anything which does not affect Scotland at all comes up and if it is something which is covered in the manifesto, which was not a manifesto specifically for Scotland only, they have an obligation to vote on it.

That sounds remarkably like what the Labour Party were saying after the Atlee landslide of 1945. By 1950 their majority was down to 5 seats and the Labour government collapsed in 1951 leading to 13 years of Tory rule. Very often the electorate doesn't even have to tumble to the fact that it has been had in order to change its mind in a big way. That drop in 1950 was as much because of boundary changes, and the stopping of plural voting as anything else. In 1951 Labour got more votes than the Conservatives, but because of the changes to the voting system/boundaries, less seats....and as the National Liberals were allies of the Conservative Party and were never going to have a coalition with Labour, only the Conservatives could form a Government. Would Attlee have called an election in 1951 if the king hadn't been worried abut leaving the country to visit the Commonwealth in 1952, leaving a Government with such a slim majority in charge, I wonder? I think the reason Labour lost in 1951 was because they'd run out of steam, having accomplished pretty much what they wanted to between 1945 and 1950, and didn't really have much in the way of policies ready to replace them. All the Tories really had to do was not threaten what Labour had done and throw out lots of slogans about family life, the Empire etc.(much like the way the referendum was run).....and make Margaret Roberts tone down her rhetoric! You can't really equate Attlee's situation with the SNP, because even if they had been supporting a NuLabour Government, they wouldn't be making policy and having to pass it. I can't see the pro-independence vote collapsing any time soon.and all the SNP needs to do to maintain most of that is the very best they can, and be seen to do the very best they can, however the attempts turn out. As many eyes from Scotland for the next five years will be on how NuLabour behaves in opposition as will be on the SNP in opposition.

I've obviously misunderstood something. It was the "Red Tories" Sturgeon wanted to lock out of Downing street! No wonder you are all so happy. Didn't you notice she said if a lot when she talked about what could happen after the election..... if as in if the Tories can't cobble together a majority and if Labour and the rest of the left parties can? The SNP has always said that they would try to put some spine into NuLabour whether that was in power or in opposition. It happens to be in opposition. Maybe this time round, the Tories will actually have one, then. However the Tories will have to watch their rebels, as their majority is a lot less than they had with the coalition, with just the DUP and UKIP, and if the LibDems finally want to commit suicide, them, to help out if they have rebels. Stu on Wings is having an "I told you so" moment and is reminding us that he said a year ago that the Tories would win in 2015, unless something dramatic happened. http://wingsoverscotland.com/bleeding-obvious-confirmed/ and nothing dramatic did. Murphy is sounding like IM Jolly on the radio...but he's not going anywhere soon, it appears.........at least not willingly. The Tory vote has gone up.and the anti-Tory vote has gone up more.........the winner in this election was the FPTP system.....time to get rid of it! Cameron is saying he'll govern as the party of one nation...is that not what he was meant to be doing from 2010 until now........or has he finally redefined one nation to include more than just the city state of London? If so, deep joy! It'll be interesting to see how NuLabour will behave in Westminster...and whether their SNP hatefest will continue, or if they can work together in opposition. I wouldn't however, like to see the SNP voting against any decent policies from the Tories just because they came from the Tories. Cutting off nose to spite face has never been a clever thing to do.

I'm writing this after the exit polls but before any Scottish result, btw, so I have no idea of the results. Charles, I wish you would stop spewing ordure. You pass yourself off as an intelligent man...it would help to convince us you are right if you acted like one. When I was active in the SNP from 1979 to around the early 2000s, at elections, there was always an agent from each party at polling stations at all times where I was. In the early days, it tended to be one agent for the SNP floating around local polling stations, and one from each party at each of them. By 1997, when I stood in the local election, the tendency was more one from the SNP at each polling station, and those from the other parties tending to have one at one of the polling stations and another floating between the rest, but all parties canvassed and leafleted with volunteers. Today, our local polling station had a Green visit (which may have been the candidate(a nice bloke) doing the rounds), and seemingly the UKIP one turned up when the SNP agent was in the toilet. Other parties can't find enough people to stand at polling stations any more, because if they could, they would be there,if only because there are people who arrive, polling card in hot little hand, who won't decide until they are faced with the options and have to make a decision. It is little short of ludicrous to even think that someone who is standing for four hours at a stretch, as they did today, in freezing cold and off and on rain/hailstones, is doing it in order to put people off voting. They are there partly to make sure that the agents of other parties are playing by the rules, and partly to be available if any undecided voter comes along and says "why should I vote for you?" (which has happened more than once, though I don't know if they did vote for us in the end), and to show that at least we think our candidate is worth electing to the extent we are prepared to freeze our bahookeys off to make the point. I haven't worked in an election for the last 15 years or so, but I have voted in every one, local, national and UK, in two constituencies, and know what to look for, both in canvassing/leafleting terms, and election day activity, and the SNP are more active than any other party, only beaten in voter contact terms by the independent candidate for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross in the Scottish election in 2011. I, personally, haven't seen a canvasser from any party here in Moray, and I haven't had a hand delivered leaflet from any party, and as I didn't put up my posters until Monday this week, it wasn't because they knew it was a waste of time, as nobody here is lucky enough to know me, or my politics. (I don't get SNP leaflet deliveries, I make them...and the SNP don't canvass me, obviously, but they do canvass) Politics in general, before the referendum had become so boring and predictable as to stop people joining parties and becoming involved, so there are even fewer people prepared to disrupt their routines to do the mundane standing around in all weathers to show a presence. You can see that by the numbers who have postal votes for no other reason but that they can't even be bothered to get off their backsides and go to the polling station. I was standing, before I went to vote, chatting to the SNP agent, who was very kindly pulling open the heavy door into the polling station for the punters, when she was accosted by a large (mostly width-ways) male Tory and accused of being intimidating. I assume her rosette was threatening to bite him, as he went inside and reported her rosette to the Officer in Charge of the polling place.(who took no action because no rules were being broken) He was however not as nasty as another male Tory voter, but I won't repeat what he said...but what upset her most was that he is someone she has worked closely with in local community forums. However, I expect you will not, as you never have, acknowledge that, regardless of the truth or not of media reports, there are a) numpties in all political parties, and b) some people are too fragile to live in this world if they think a rosette is intimidating, an egg is an exocet missile equivalent, a single sticker is vandalism and someone who lets you make your speeches, but proceeds to interrupt your firing up of your relatively small crowd into chanting in support of you, for the benefit of the cameras, with a microphone set louder than yours is a reason to flee the scene screaming intimidation and the ugly face of nationalism. All politicians need to grow up.and it would be useful if their supporters did as well. Edited to say that it is now 6.15 am on 8/5/2015 .Scotland, so far has 55 SNP MPs (on more than 50% of the vote) 1 Tory MP, 1 Labour MP (Ian Murray who thinks a sticker is vandalism....and the only decent Labour MP in Scotland, Katy Clark has gone) and 1 LibDem MP (and I can't believe it is Carmichael rather than Charles Kennedy). Tory going to be next Government......and so the fun begins!