Performance of SNP in exercising devolved powers.

[Oddquine]

On 10/12/2015 at 0:34 PM, DoofersDad said:

Having moved the discussion to a new and rather more appropriately titled thread, we seem to have moved away from the original point which was the inappropriate credit being given to the SNP for pressing ahead with the 2nd crossing.  As I stated in the other thread, the process to explore the options was initiated before the SNP came into power following a report which made it clear that the bridge would not be able to cope with current, let along increased traffic flows.

Since then we have had claims that the SNP could not have progressed it sooner because their first administration was a minority government and all the other parties opposed the idea.  The fact is that the crossing had the support from all except the Greens.  Nor is it true that the SNP had to wait till they had a majority Government to get parliamentary approval.  Final approval was given following a debate on 15th Dec 2010 (before the 2011 election) when MSPs voted 108 - 3 in favour!  There is simply no justification for the SNP to claim credit for implementing something which everybody recognised was an essential project.

 

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?

 

[+DoofersDad]

Complete nonsense, Oddquine. How about we just stick to the facts?

I'll keep it simple.  The detailed Forth Replacement Crossing Study was commissioned by Transport Scotland during the last Lab/Lib administration.  The first 3 reports of that study were published in February 2007 which was before the SNP came into power and the Final report of the study was published in June 2007 which was after they came into power.

The Lab/Lib government could not have acted on the study because they were no longer in office when the final report was published!

The SNP on coming into Government were presented with the report which gave options for the crossing which by this time most people had accepted was urgently required.  The ground work was all in place and the SNP simply had no option but to take the process forward.

To state that the Lab/Lib government didn't initiate any process is demonstrably wrong as is your equally absurd statement that the SNP government did all the work to get the crossing approved.

[Charles Bannerman]

SWINNEY BOTTLES IT

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-35106701

They've been girning and greeting away about "more powers". They've been whining and whingeing about austerity and the Tories. And then when they get the powers to set a Scottish rate of income tax which could bring in funds to do something about austerity, what do they do?

Nothing.

They stick with George Osborne's Westminster rate of tax. And when they could alleviate the desperate situation local government services have been thrown into by allowing increases in Council Tax, what do they do?

Nothing - again.

It almost beggars belief (until you remember that this is coming from a party that doesn't give a toss about people and cares only for its sole, destructive ideology of breaking up the UK) that anyone can bleat on for years about a problem and then, when presented with the means of alleviating it, does absolutely nothing.

Clearly, their tunnel vision takes them no further than the May elections and the SNP don't want to risk annoying people with tax increases. For a start, this begs the question of how seriously people take austerity if paying a bit more is all that unacceptable as a means of easing it?

But the real bottom line is that John Swinney and his pathetic bunch of separatist obsessives have had a choice between solving the very problem they have complained about for years, which they say has had such a bad effect on people' lives.... and getting themselves re-elected. And they have chosen the saving of their own self interested skins well ahead of protecting the interests of the people of Scotland. It really is becoming so obvious that even the most naïve separatist convert has to be able to twig that the SNP is simply pulling their privates for political gain.

[+DoofersDad]

Spot on, Charles.  Actions speak louder than words and despite all the tiresome anti Tory, anti austerity rhetoric of the SNP, Swinney has delivered an austerity budget that goes beyond even what Osborne delivered for the UK in that not only has he not raised the income tax rate, but yet again he has refused to allow local Councils to increase Council Tax.

The pathetic justification given for not using the new devolved tax raising powers they have been shouting long and hard for is that it would be an unacceptable burden for the poorest in our society.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The poorest in our society don't pay any income tax and by progressively raising the tax threshold to £11,000, the current government has already taken nearly 300,000 Scots out of income tax altogether. (Wicked, wicked, Tories!)  And with regard to the Council tax, Swinney has even more scope to focus any higher payments on those who can afford to pay.  Raising the basic rate of income tax would benefit the poorest most and would cost them nothing.  Allowing Councils to increase Council Tax rates would again cost the poorest least and give them the most benefit.  Whilst appealing to the most vulnerable with their rhetoric, this wretched Scottish Government willfully refuses to use the powers it has in order to raise the money required to support these folk.  They claim to be anti-austerity and yet impose austerity with a vengeance for fear of losing the votes of those on whom the tax burden would fall.  The level of hypocrisy is truly breathtaking.

As a member of the Highland Council's Citizens Panel, I have recently completed a consultation survey on their Budget options.  They are looking to see how they can save over £20m from their budget.  It is sobering to think that if the SNP had allowed Councils to increase the Council Tax by a modest 1.5% each year, the Highland Council would be raising £16m more in Council Tax next year than the Government is allowing it to.  That is £4m more than wee Nicola grandly announced recently that Scotland was giving to "Global Climate Change Justice" to demonstrate her leadership in world climate change politics.  Just think, if this Government had not imposed its austerity strategy on the Council, we, in Highland with just 4% of the Scottish population, could have donated £12m to Nicola to save the world and still had £4m left to provide support for some of the most vulnerable in our community.

 

[Charles Bannerman]

1 hour ago, DoofersDad said:

  That is £4m more than wee Nicola grandly announced recently that Scotland was giving to "Global Climate Change Justice" to demonstrate her leadership in world climate change politics. 

 

Yup, that's a pretty hefty hit for the luxury of the leader of a devolved regional assembly trying to con the international community into believing that Scotland is actually a significant world player rather than simply the United Kingdom's equivalent of Bavaria, Tuscany, Wallonia and sundry regions of various other countries. However I suspect that the said international community is not going to be as easy to con as almost half the Scottish electorate have been - although evidence which will help the penny to drop there is now accumulating at a gratifyingly increasing rate.

But quite frankly, I find it just a bit embarrassing that Sturgeon should turn up in Paris at a meeting where dozens of delegates from the world's sovereign nations would have been asking in various languages "Who the HELL is that? David Cameron's PA or Wee Jimmy Krankie?" Mind you I suppose it's just the kind of grandiose showboating you would expect from a successor of Alex Salmond.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Charles Bannerman

[IBM]

A good news for Inverness story from this weeks budget.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-35125965

[Alex MacLeod]

On 12/16/2015 at 9:58 PM, Charles Bannerman said:

Yup, that's a pretty hefty hit for the luxury of the leader of a devolved regional assembly trying to con the international community into believing that Scotland is actually a significant world player rather than simply the United Kingdom's equivalent of Bavaria, Tuscany, Wallonia and sundry regions of various other countries. However I suspect that the said international community is not going to be as easy to con as almost half the Scottish electorate have been - although evidence which will help the penny to drop there is now accumulating at a gratifyingly increasing rate.

But quite frankly, I find it just a bit embarrassing that Sturgeon should turn up in Paris at a meeting where dozens of delegates from the world's sovereign nations would have been asking in various languages "Who the HELL is that? David Cameron's PA or Wee Jimmy Krankie?" Mind you I suppose it's just the kind of grandiose showboating you would expect from a successor of Alex Salmond.

I find it quite embarrassing to know that Bannerman, a fellow Invernessian and Scot, turned up on this earth.

[Charles Bannerman]

1 hour ago, Alex MacLeod said:

I find it quite embarrassing to know that Bannerman, a fellow Invernessian and Scot, turned up on this earth.

Keep them coming Alex. What we really need at the moment is ongoing insights into the ineffectiveness of the forces of nationalism - such as their legendary and inarticulate reliance, in the absence of any ability to state a case, on insults and sloganizing.

I thought you would at least have made some attempt to justify this latest instance of political masturbation on the part of the SNP which you highlighted above, rather than simply chunter.

Interesting to note, though, that the SNP appear to be realising that their party is not long for this earth and is responding with predictable self interest!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-35120884

Edited December 18, 2015 by Charles Bannerman

[IBM]

Gee whiz Charles fill up your glass its getting near Christmas

[+DoofersDad]

21 hours ago, IBM said:

A good news for Inverness story from this weeks budget.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-35125965

This is indeed welcome news both from the perspective of housing justice and related services in more appropriate premises and because it will release the undoubted tourism potential of the Castle.  But before we get too carried away with this scrap of good news we should remember that the budget overall is an appalling one for the Highlands. Whilst there may be money for the justice service, the Highland Council is facing a budget shortfall of around £40m as a result of the austerity measures proposed by the SNP Government.  Swinney's budget was even more Tory than Osborne's! 

Is there really anybody left who actually believes the SNP are the party to deliver social justice in Scotland?  Or are people finally getting the message that the SNP are prepared to sacrifice the needs of the most vulnerable in our society in their manic pursuit of independence?  Any credibility the SNP might have had left before was surely blown apart by yesterday's shameful budget.

 

[+DoofersDad]

7 minutes ago, IBM said:

Gee whiz Charles fill up your glass its getting near Christmas

Scrooge Swinney has ensured it won't be a very merry Christmas for Council workers threatened with redundancy or reduced hours, or for the folk who receive the services these workers provide.

[IBM]

Reading in todays Inverness Courier there is huge opposition to a £10 million new community centre which Highland Council are planning after spending over £1 million in recent years!  They have been very good at spending our money over the years on things like this that people don't want.  There are many ways to save money but as we all know the easy option is always to cut staff.

[+DoofersDad]

There's nowt so queer as folk.  I read that too and it seems quite extraordinary.  I'm not sure you could describe the opposition as "huge" but the gist of it seems to be that the proposal is to replace the current community centre in the Merkinch with a significantly bigger and better one.  It seems some protesters like the current place as it is and would feel intimidated about going into a bigger place.  Meanwhile, a larger place would allow better facilities for current and additional activities thereby enabling a wider range of individuals and groups to engage in community based activities.  The Council Official quoted in the report makes it quite clear that plans are at an early stage and if they can identify resource then the Council will consult with the community to identify what services folk want.  Added to which, the report makes clear that the current building is deemed not to be a long term option.

Fortunately we live in a democracy and decisions are made through a democratic process and not by a small number of protestors and journalists stirring things up to make a story.  The area is served by 4 Councillors and if the community was genuinely opposed to the proposal you can be pretty sure they would be telling the Council that and the proposal would be dead in the water.  You'll note that it was reported that 3 of the Councillors spoke to the demonstrators but the reporter failed to quote any comment any of them might have made.  I guess quoting the Councillors talking about the broader community support for improved facilities would have ruined the story.

The worry here must be that unless the community are united in supporting improved facilities, a cash strapped Council might see cancelling the project as a way of saving money.  Other groups will then not get the facilities they need and then, when the current building is no longer fit for purpose, one of the most deprived communities in Highland would be left with even fewer community facilities. 

[Alex MacLeod]

21 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

Keep them coming Alex. What we really need at the moment is ongoing insights into the ineffectiveness of the forces of nationalism - such as their legendary and inarticulate reliance, in the absence of any ability to state a case, on insults and sloganizing.

I thought you would at least have made some attempt to justify this latest instance of political masturbation on the part of the SNP which you highlighted above, rather than simply chunter.

Interesting to note, though, that the SNP appear to be realising that their party is not long for this earth and is responding with predictable self interest!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-35120884

Charles, I've given up on trying to make sensible comment because you totally spoil the debate with your constant insults. You use every opportunity in every thread you can to insult the SNP. No other person, not even DD, comes out with the same hateful vitriol that you write. No other person insults any other political party in the same way you do the SNP. Ok you dont like the SNP. Thats your choice but please stop destroying good conversation and debate with your bile.

[Charles Bannerman]

36 minutes ago, Alex MacLeod said:

Charles, I've given up on trying to make sensible comment because you totally spoil the debate with your constant insults. You use every opportunity in every thread you can to insult the SNP. No other person, not even DD, comes out with the same hateful vitriol that you write. No other person insults any other political party in the same way you do the SNP. Ok you dont like the SNP. Thats your choice but please stop destroying good conversation and debate with your bile.

They don't like it up 'em Captain Mainwaring, they do NOT like it up 'em.....

[+DoofersDad]

On 12/19/2015 at 1:41 PM, Alex MacLeod said:

Charles, I've given up on trying to make sensible comment because you totally spoil the debate with your constant insults. You use every opportunity in every thread you can to insult the SNP. No other person, not even DD, comes out with the same hateful vitriol that you write. No other person insults any other political party in the same way you do the SNP. Ok you dont like the SNP. Thats your choice but please stop destroying good conversation and debate with your bile.

Alex, you seem to be getting the hang of SNP evasion tactics.  You say you have given up on sensible comment because you don't like Charles's "vitriol".  Yet you keep responding to him and not my, hopefully, objective comments.  If you think Charles's posts spoil the debate then don't respond to them!  You don't even have to read them!  But please, don't use them as an excuse to refrain from sensible debate.  You are better than that.  And goodness knows, we need somebody who can make some serious effort to defend what they are doing.

I have posted a couple of posts strongly criticising Swinney's budget but nobody has made any attempt to take issue with me or to defend the budget.  They do say that attack is the best form of defense and it does rather look to me as though you are attacking Charles because you can't defend the SNP over this Tory copying austerity budget.

But I rather enjoy Charles's posts.  I think it is because I share his contempt for the SNP in the way in which they sway with the wind, blame anyone but themselves when things go wrong, and adopt a shamelessly populist stance on all issues with the sole aim of gaining independence.  There may be parties with more objectionable ideologies (BNP for example) but at least they make pronouncements and take action consistent with their political ideology.  The SNP are only interested in gaining independence, and if those who have been persuaded to support them by the sway with the wind populist rhetoric find they have been shafted afterwards, then as far as the SNP are concerned it will be job done and a price worth paying.  Charles treats the SNP with contempt, because they are contemptible.  But please be fair, whilst some of his posts may be rants, others make very valid and hard hitting points (like his post above titled "Swinney Bottles it".)  Of course, it is those hard hitting, objective posts which don't attract the responses!

[Charles Bannerman]

2 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

.  Charles treats the SNP with contempt, because they are contemptible.  But please be fair, whilst some of his posts may be rants, others make very valid and hard hitting points (like his post above titled "Swinney Bottles it".)  Of course, it is those hard hitting, objective posts which don't attract the responses!

Bang on DD and the other great thing about Natbashing is that they absolutely hate it and positively foam at the sporran at the very thought of it. Of course my comments on the SNP exude ridicule and contempt because this is indeed a ridiculous and contemptible party who can think of nothing else but the highly regressive process of re-creating a failed state by turning the clock back more than 300 years. And of course what I say is often also heavily laced with satire which is a well established medium for political comment. Rants too... because they are great fun, especially when people get offended by them!

I fear that far too few people understand what a pernicious danger this single issue pressure group really is and that the manner in which they have grown is alarmingly reminiscent of the sinister development profiles of so many nationalist movements. Many years ago, Invernessians used to turn out in numbers at the Town Hall for the General Election declaration. In 1970 I remember this poor wee wifie called Athole Cameron standing there disconsolately on her own having just polled a couple of thousand votes for the SNP. At that time the SNP was simply a caucus of the kind of cranks that movements like this seem to appeal to and who are still there in numbers in the party's ranks.  But by October 74 they had invented "It's Scotland's Oil" (that's the stuff they now tell us was never more than a bonus but on which they built a party) and they took second place. But this time the renowned Nationalist rentamob had come into being and took over the Town Hall steps to regale everybody with incessant and intimidating chanting after the declaration. These people's progeny are now probably the new generation of Cybernats.  It was at this point that I began to worry since this so called party had now become something much more sinister than a bunch of harmless nutters. Since then, having started with the crank element and added in the sort of Sturm Macteilung mentality, they have moved on to stage three and conned more votes out of an unsuspecting public by telling them whatever they want to hear by way of baseless assertions and downright fantasies like $103 a barrel.

These three steps, however, have now gained the SNP a position of power and it's here - totally predictably - that they have seriously come undone, having presided over a lengthening series of disasters, most recently the Transport Minister's Stiffening Truss End Member. And, when given the opportunity literally to put their money where their mouth has been for a long time by way of exercising the powers they have been given, what does John Swinney do? Nothing. Instead he meekly rubber stamps Tory tax practices because they value their own party's skin far more highly than the interests of those Scottish people who have sleepwalked into voting for them.

Edited December 20, 2015 by Charles Bannerman

[dougiedanger]

 Merry chrimbo to all cybernats. 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14159083.Poll__SNP_increases_lead_despite_opposition_attacks_at_Holyrood/

 

SUPPORT for the SNP has increased in the face of opposition attacks over the Scottish Government's handling of the Forth Road Bridge closure and the NHS, a new poll has revealed.

The TNS survey found that the nationalists have extended their lead over Labour ahead of next May's Holyrood election, with Kezia Dugdale's party seeing its ratings drop since last month in both constituency and list voting intentions.

It was also found that more people in Scotland oppose the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent than support it, although there is not an overall majority in favour of scrapping the weapons system among the public north of the border. New evidence also emerged that interest in the upcoming election is waning, less than six months out from the vote.

[Charles Bannerman]

1 hour ago, dougiedanger said:

 Merry chrimbo to all cybernats. 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14159083.Poll__SNP_increases_lead_despite_opposition_attacks_at_Holyrood/

 

SUPPORT for the SNP has increased in the face of opposition attacks over the Scottish Government's handling of the Forth Road Bridge closure and the NHS, a new poll has revealed.

The TNS survey found that the nationalists have extended their lead over Labour ahead of next May's Holyrood election, with Kezia Dugdale's party seeing its ratings drop since last month in both constituency and list voting intentions.

It was also found that more people in Scotland oppose the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent than support it, although there is not an overall majority in favour of scrapping the weapons system among the public north of the border. New evidence also emerged that interest in the upcoming election is waning, less than six months out from the vote.

Well you would hardly expect the separation-leaning Herald to run the headline "SNP fail to match summer poll peak despite Corbyn"

[dougiedanger]

Herald is unionist Elmer. 

[IBM]

Train operator Scotrail has announced a £475m programme, pledging new trains, thousands of extra seats, more at-seat power points and better wifi.  Including improved trains for the north.  ScotRail's new High Speed Train fleet will be introduced from autumn 2017 and throughout 2018 and used on the Glasgow-Aberdeen, Edinburgh-Aberdeen, Glasgow-Inverness, Edinburgh-Inverness and Aberdeen-Inverness routes. As this fleet is made up of four and five-carriage trains, rather than current three-carriage trains, the seating capacity will increase on these services by, on average, 36%.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-35153722

 

[Charles Bannerman]

3 hours ago, dougiedanger said:

Herald is unionist Elmer. 

Relative to your views, I'm sure most papers are - even the National whereas the Herald reads more like the product of a bunch of closet Nats. Probably a more subtle approach than the National which is sort of like the Daily Worker with thistles on.

Edited December 21, 2015 by Charles Bannerman

[+DoofersDad]

It is hardly a surprise to see a further fall in support of the Labour Party, but what I do find surprising is the failure of the Tories and, in particular, the Lib Dems to start to pick up support from the low base they have fallen to.  Both Ruth Davidson and Willie Rennie are likable personalities and have been very effective in pointing out the failings and hypocrisy of the SNP administration.  But it seems nobody is listening to reasoned political argument any more.  As some of us said during the referendum, the SNP appear to have reduced political argument to social media sound bites and support for the SNP seems to based on following a trend rather than considering the arguments.  Like many popular brands, the SNP's product is low quality and expensive and relies purely on slick marketting for it's success.  They claim credit for everything good and blame Westminster for anything the voters don't like. They get away with it because so many voters can't be bothered to look at the detail to understand that all too often the credit should be going to Westminster and the blame to Holyrood.  As long as voters only concern themselves with the superficial image of the SNP and their vote winning sound bites then they will continue to flourish. 

 

[Charles Bannerman]

2 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

 They get away with it because so many voters can't be bothered to look at the detail to understand that all too often the credit should be going to Westminster and the blame to Holyrood.  As long as voters only concern themselves with the superficial image of the SNP and their vote winning sound bites then they will continue to flourish. 

It unfortunately also has to be recognised that these simplistic and superficial representations will also tend to appeal disproportionately to those among us who are less able to grasp the concepts behind what is being discussed. So I would suggest that a large part of SNP support comes from the one third of the electorate or even more who simply don't have a scooby about what's happening and never will. However what does appeal to them is the superficiality and the sound bites DD refers to and many of them will be the same people who, for a long time before that, obediently placed their X in the Labour box - also without the remotest clue about what the issues were.

[ed]

I don't understand the SNP. At Westminster, they shriek and cry about 'austerity'. Their supporters / SNP voters do the same, especially on social media.

 

But the SNP have just delivered a hard hitting austerity budget at Holyrood. No complaints from their MP's. No social media out cry from their supporters.

 

So are the SNP folks on here *really* happy with their pro austerity budget or are they only really caring about a single issue?