Jump to content

The Holyrood Election thread


DoofersDad

Recommended Posts

16 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

But Alex, you were also quite sure that the oil price plunge was just a short lived blip of no consequence.... and that Grand Theft Auto is worth more to the Scottish economy than the oil (which it probably now is for that matter!)

And now you tell us that you are sure that if the need arises, the government will raise taxes. So the need hasn't arisen then? So our public services aren't struggling for lack of resources... our Councils aren't slashing services in a manner which could have been mitigated by a rise in Council Tax etc etc? Nothing, of course, to do with fostering resentment against financial stringency blamed on south of the border but really an active grievance-mongering policy of the SNP.

I find it very interesting that your bland and unsupported assertions mirror closely the very same thing that comes from the party you support. What the SNP has had to offer so far is nothing more than unsupported statements, many of which have been utterly blasted out of the water by post-referendum revelations that Scotland's deficit is sitting at levels that a central African fourth world republic would cringe at and that the resource you have tried to shove down our throats for decades is a busted flush.

And of course anyone casting sensible doubt on a lot of this fantasy and injecting some reality into the situation is simply accused... usually pretty loudly and aggressively in classic SNP style.... of "talking Scotland down"

All of this totally epitomises the manner in which the SNP have simply fed the electorate with a series of porkies and we do indeed now just have to pray that the public, as DD earlier hoped, waken up to what a bunch of chancers this lot are before they can inflict even more damage. Their problem is that they have painted themselves into a corner with a series of assertions which aren't actually related to what is best for Scotland but is merely designed to hold as many people, many of them poorly informed, to the only policy that matters to the SNP. Let's be quite clear - whatever the SNP has to offer between now and May 5th will have NOTHING to do with what is best for Scotland.

But, although it's taking a little time (and these things often do) the penny will eventually drop with the Scottish electorate that they are merely pawns in a big game which, if it had been successful in September 2014, would today INDEPENDENCE DAY:clapping::clapoverhead::cheer01: have had the whole lot of us staring into the abyss as our neighbours, and now rivals, removed the financial scaffolding at the request of a one-off slender majority of poor, deluded souls.

There are two types of people against independence. Those who think we'd fail and those who are followers of the loyal William. Which one are you Charles?

Fact: The Scottish budget for 2014/2015, as agreed by SP and WM, was £35 billion. Taxes raised in Scotland for same period £41.4 billion. If oil is taken out of the equation that figure is £40.1 billion. Anyone want to explain the black hole there.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You've got to love Bannermans anti SNP rhetoric. It comes across as so orange. SNP have successfully run our country, within the leash allowed by WM, for nine years. They will run it for at least five more. Why do I think that? Simple. The main two opposition are actually campaigning to be the opposition not the lead. What does that say about the ability to govern?

 

  • Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Alex MacLeod said:

There are two types of people against independence. Those who think we'd fail and those who are followers of the loyal William. Which one are you Charles?

 

Fact: The Scottish budget for 2014/2015, as agreed by SP and WM, was £35 billion. Taxes raised in Scotland for same period £41.4 billion. If oil is taken out of the equation that figure is £40.1 billion. Anyone want to explain the black hole there.

 

This will be another of Alex' "Facts".... like GTA being worth more than the oil, the oil price rapidly bouncing back to Salmondesque levels and thousands of 20 ton trucks grinding their way across the Minister's flexible truss end link on the Forth Road Bridge.:amazed: To Alex what he's said is just a "Fact"... another rabbit out of the hat.... with apparently no need to justify it. By way of explaining the "black hole" there, perhaps you could first explain to us where Scotland's share of the cost of defence, foreign affairs budgets, and other non devolved matters appears in your "Fact". Look at the Gers figures Alex.... the ones which are the official product of the SNP run Scottish Government!

"Gers".... now that brings me on to the breathtakingly simplistic first quoted statement with its nonsensical "loyal William" reference". Now Alex, I can appreciate that a lot of you SNP chaps will have some difficulty in conceiving of this, but there are actually also rather a lot of people - 55.3% the last time you insisted we had a count in 2014 - who don't really think that this separation lark is a hell of a good idea. Some of them, including myself, do also believe that such a step wold also crash and burn while others don't.... but still want to stay as we are. You were told back in 2014 that most of the people of Scotland want to stay as they are and not turn the clock back to the failed state predicament of pre-1707. You have to understand that history evolves and Scotland - which has never really interested me as an entity - was simply a transitional phase (albeit an unfortunately long and unsuccessful one) between Pictland/ Stratrhclyde/ Dalriada/ Lothian and the United Kingdom which, since 1707, has consistently been one of the most successful countries in the world. The real debate now isn't about turning the clock back to the bad old days but about how much further integration we want with other European states, some of the largest of which are also the products of political unions - except that they don't have equivalents of Whingeing Jocks to distract and embarrass them.

So if it's not too much trouble to attempt to cast your nationalist blinkers aside, maybe you could wake up to the simple FACT that there is a majority of Scots out there who, when asked by the SNP in 2014,told them that they are actually quite happy as they are.

Edited by Charles Bannerman
  • Disagree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, dougiedanger said:

Actually, Scots voted yes, as did the  good citizens of Sneck. :smile:

Yup.... 44.7% of them voted yes while 55.3% of them voted NO. And could you please quote me the verified figures for Inverness to support your assertion? On the other hand I'm sure it would have been very different but for yet another of Alex' "Facts" - that MI5 and the BBC conspired to add a further 77% of NO votes to the postal tally.:lol:

  • Agree 1
  • Disagree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, dougiedanger said:

People born in Scotland voted a majority Yes, as did the good people of Sneck, so I guess that makes us the majority.

While very firmly in the Yes camp, I take great issue with the proposition that those people born outwith Scotland who choose to make their domicile her and contribute to the wellbeing of the nation have any lesser right to a say in the future of the country than native born Scots.

That is a very narrow and insular form of Nationalism and not one I espouse or recognise from the great numbers of supporters of independence I know.

  • Agree 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Kingsmills said:

While very firmly in the Yes camp, I take great issue with the proposition that those people born outwith Scotland who choose to make their domicile her and contribute to the wellbeing of the nation have any lesser right to a say in the future of the country than native born Scots.

That is a very narrow and insular form of Nationalism and not one I espouse or recognise from the great numbers of supporters of independence I know.

Who said that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, dougiedanger said:

People born in Scotland voted a majority Yes, as did the good people of Sneck, so I guess that makes us the majority.

Those assertions may-or-may-not be true.
The only official 'breakdowns' of the poll were the 32 Council Regions' figures.
Inverness (unfortunately) is not a Council Region so that claim can't be held as factually correct. Nor can the claim that Scots born voters opted for a majority YES. 

Neither 'claim' can be proved, nor disproved, so they simply can't be considered as fact.

The most recent census figures (2011) state that 83% of the population of Scotland were born here (that figure is a shock to me! - I would have guessed around 93%).
"Country of Birth' - the first bullet point, from here http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/news/census-2011-release-2a

Forgive my arithmetic, but I reckon, it would have taken over 60% of Scots-born voters to vote YES to win it - and that's assuming every non Scottish-born voter voted NO - which simply, wasn't the case.

Obviously, this example is very simplified, but could be extrapolated:
100 voters: 83 Scottish; 17 other...(and let's say 50% wins it, for sake of argument)
To get 50%, then 50 of 83 Scots-born voters would have to vote YES. Which is over 60% of the Scots-born voters' electorate. (50/83). And again, that's assuming that every non-Scot voted NO - which certainly didn't happen!

But, my theory is unfounded and has no more relevance than dougiedanger's claims. Both are conjecture, speculation and completely without substantive evidence. 
But, what we do know as fact is that the Highland Council area voted NO and that Scotland said NO!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Kingsmills said:

The staunchly unionist Daily Record carried a poll that bore out that Scots did vote yes, marginally, and while I agree that the independence movement should be inclusive and non-nationalist in a way, I would say that strategists will consider the failure to attract a higher percentage of the non-native note highly relevant and a key part of any future campaign. 

Not sure what happened with the quote function there.

Edited by dougiedanger
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I watched the Leader's Debate last night which, as anticipated, shed more heat than light.

However, what it did demonstrate, if such were needed, is that the racist xenophobic UKIP party and their obnoxious reptilian Scottish 'leader' have no relevant role to play in Scottish politics and we are at least the morally better for that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Inverness did indeed vote Yes, it was actually one of the higher percentages of the evening (64% rings a bell) will confirm this with a link when I'm on here next

"Scottish born" people as a statistic also voted Yes, it's been referenced on What Scotland Thinks and was pretty common knowledge when the demographics were broken down 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/independence-referendum-figures-revealed-majority-5408163#qE0yrP5LIo4Drbq4.97

Not that it matters, my wife and her parents voted Yes and they are English 

  • Agree 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, dougiedanger said:

People born in Scotland voted a majority Yes, as did the good people of Sneck, so I guess that makes us the majority.

So how many people did they actually ask in the Gelluns the night after the referendum to "confirm" their "majority" in Inverness? I must have missed the pollsters there when I popped in that night to sample the "atmosphere" and order my pints of Schadenfreude and Scottish Bitter.

The link to the Record is alarmingly light on how rigorous the analysis referred to there may or may not be. That it's by "Edinburgh University" isn't necessarily an endorsement and I'd also be interested to know how the claimed number for the Inverness subdivision of the Highland count was really established. Even if it wasn't in the Gelluns it was presumably from some poll or other but again, given how wrong even the "professional" pollsters can be, it would be interesting to see how reliable this is in its claim that Inverness is so far out of step with the rest of the Highlands. But in any case, the SNP decided to have that referendum, they set the rules.... and they lost. And given the number of Christian Allards and Tasmina Ahmed Sheiks that are around, it would be difficult for them to complain about non-natives.

But, perhaps to return to the upcoming Holyrood elections, these assertions of dubious provenance about who voted where in the referendum simply join the lengthening "Alex MacLeod" queue of GTA, 20 tonners on the Forth Road Bridge, resilient oil prices and the Scottish economy being in surplus to illustrate the extent to which peddling unsubstantiated and downright erroneous assertions has simply become a nationalist way of life. It certainly doesn't say much for the level of critical thought that goes into voting Yessenpee. So, despite the SNP's woeful administrative record and recent cataclysmic economic data, their ballot fodder will, for the moment, still uncritically put their crosses in that box - until the bawbee drops.

I don't believe that stage is too far away but, given the woeful state of the other parties, there is little doubt about the outcome on May 5th.

Edited by Charles Bannerman
  • Disagree 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

While very firmly in the Yes camp, I take great issue with the proposition that those people born outwith Scotland who choose to make their domicile her and contribute to the wellbeing of the nation have any lesser right to a say in the future of the country than native born Scots.

That is a very narrow and insular form of Nationalism and not one I espouse or recognise from the great numbers of supporters of independence I know.

Well said!  I may have been born in England but have spent my entire working life in Scotland and have lived in Scotland for more years than many of the SNPs recent intake to Westminster.  I think that should give me some sort of right.  But don't forget all those Scots born people who embrace the reality of the Union every day by living in other parts of the UK and who did not get a vote. Some Scots voted yes. some voted no and some weren't allowed to vote.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Judging by the number of Labour and especially Hangman's Noose placards already in Inverness High Street, it wouldn't surprise me if campaigning down there were to be in full swing tomorrow.

Presumably we can expect the usual form from the Nats - they trot out some unsupported political or economic fantasy..... you point out its obvious weaknesses..... they tell you that you are "Anti Scottish" and move on to their next unsupported political or economic fantasy.......

  • Disagree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is simply no way of knowing how the populace of Inverness voted.
There are no stats for that - it's pure speculation and now, utterly irrelevant. Twitter or Facebook utterances as 'fact' don't change that.

The boxes of voters' papers in Highland were not regionalised and so no official number can be allocated to each area. To sate that 'Inverness' voted YES is neither correct nor incorrect - it's simply unknown. Where has this 'Inverness YES' assumption come from?
Indeed, what's the official 'definition' of Inverness? Where are the boundaries? Do we count North Kessock, Balloch, Culloden? Croy? Tomatin? Where do you 'literally' draw-the-line?

Far too many unknowns. It's like saying that the folk in Scorguie voted x,  Dalneigh voted x, Hilton voted x, Lochardil voted x....where are the cut-offs?
But...enough of this Inverness voted 'YES' nonsense. It's completely unfounded. I've never seen an official source for it...and I never will!
Highland's votes were counted as a Region. NO official breakdown of areas was made.

Inverness may have voted YES or may have voted NO. To claim either way is absurd. We just don't know!
What we do know is that Highland voted NO and Scotland voted NO.

 



 

  • Agree 1
  • Disagree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Sneckboy said:

There is simply no way of knowing how the populace of Inverness voted.
There are no stats for that - it's pure speculation and now, utterly irrelevant. Twitter or Facebook utterances as 'fact' don't change that.

I'm sticking with my Gelluns Poll theory as the origin of the assertion! It seems to subscribe to the expected standards of reliability and impartiality.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

This will be another of Alex' "Facts".... like GTA being worth more than the oil, the oil price rapidly bouncing back to Salmondesque levels and thousands of 20 ton trucks grinding their way across the Minister's flexible truss end link on the Forth Road Bridge.:amazed: To Alex what he's said is just a "Fact"... another rabbit out of the hat.... with apparently no need to justify it. By way of explaining the "black hole" there, perhaps you could first explain to us where Scotland's share of the cost of defence, foreign affairs budgets, and other non devolved matters appears in your "Fact". Look at the Gers figures Alex.... the ones which are the official product of the SNP run Scottish Government!

No Charles I got the facts from here http://news.scotland.gov.uk/news/parliament-backs-2014-15-budget-8ff.aspx

 and here 

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/464199/HMRC_disaggregated_receipts_-_Methodology_Note.pdf

GERS is not a reflection of how Scotland would fare on its own. All figures within GERS reflect how Scotland is faring under a WM government.

 

  • Agree 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Alex MacLeod said:

No Charles I got the facts from here http://news.scotland.gov.uk/news/parliament-backs-2014-15-budget-8ff.aspx

 and here 

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/464199/HMRC_disaggregated_receipts_-_Methodology_Note.pdf

GERS is not a reflection of how Scotland would fare on its own. All figures within GERS reflect how Scotland is faring under a WM government.

 

OK, maybe I didn't explain this to Alex as thoroughly as it seems I needed to earlier this afternoon, so I'll try again now, and a bit more meticulously.

His first quoted link does indeed seem to say that the Scottish Government does get £35bn a year to run health, education, police and all the other things it so conspicuously mismanages - ie the Devolved Functions.

And yes, his second quoted link does seem to say that Scotland contributes a touch over £40bn a year to the UK exchequer. Now it's here that I would normally get to the "and your point is?" stage, because here we have two figures which do not actually relate to each other. This ithe the crucial element here, but what I think Alex is trying to make us believe here is that because 40odd is a bigger number than 35, then we are subsidising the rest of the UK. Simples!!!! However what he is trying to do is to establish the difference between 35 apples and 40 oranges which is as good an example as I have seen of a great big non sequitur. Unfortunately these are the kind of simplistic non sequiturs with which the SNP have been conning the gullible for decades.

Indeed, Scotland does contribute £40bn+ to the UK Exchequer (including Grand Theft Auto revenues!), but that's not only to cover the £35bn it gets back to fund devolved functions, it also includes Scotland's contribution to non-devolved UK-wide functions such as defence, foreign policy, pre-Smith welfare and pension matters etc etc. All of these cost a lot of money and while the Gers figures aren't a precise and categorical expression of the net difference, the magnitude of what they say still indicates that when you take into account ALL the things, devolved and reserved, that we benefit from as UK citizens, then up here we are being subsidised pretty generously by the rest of the UK.

As things stand, that amounts to a Scottish DEFICIT of £15bn which is an eyewatering % of GDP.... as opposed to the £5+bn (40odd - 35) surplus that Alex seems to be trying to con us into believing. Alex also tells us that Gers applies to Scotland as part of the UK as opposed to a separate entity. Here I do really have to ask "and your point is?" For a start, Alex seems to assume that all Scotland would need to do post-separation would be to wave that big saltire-tipped magic wand and that deficit of Zimbabwean proportions would simply disappear just because we're doing things "the Scottish way". This obviously makes the assumption that things must get better post-separation. Again, what justification does he have for this apparent assertion? How does he not know that things would not get much WORSE? After all, the way the currently devolved powers have been administered to date (and not only by the SNP) has been far from impressive, so God help us if we also have the Big Ticket items to deal with.

So in summary.. yes £35bn to run devolved powers and yes £40odd bn in tax revenue - but these two numbers simply aren't comparable and when you add in the cost of all the other reserved functions Alex has (conveniently?) failed to mention, then we do have that multi-billion Big Black Hole.

Sorry if this seems a bit lengthy whilst coming over as pretty obvious to many, but needs must.....

Edited by Charles Bannerman
  • Agree 1
  • Disagree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 24/03/2016 at 7:49 PM, Caley Stan said:

 

I find the argument that the SNP are deliberately facilitating austerity in order to build support for independence a little far-fetched to say the least. Are you two usually gung-ho for tax rises or is this just another opportunity to put the boot in? If they'd announced a basic rate increase (the only increase that would have any meaningful effect on revenues) on Tuesday then you can be sure that Charles would've been straight on here giving it big licks on capital flight, brain drain and the rest of the Reaganite routine.

Scottish Labour have put together some interesting proposals on tax and it'll be very interesting see how the clear blue water that has finally emerged between them and the SNP on taxation plays out in the debate tonight, but there are many strong arguments against raising taxes in a small part of a country that is cutting them. You may not agree with those arguments but i suspect but that your haste in labeling them "cynical" and "grievance-mongering" from the outset is motivated primarily by tribalism.

I can assure you that my motivation is not tribalism.  I'll leave that to the SNP whilst I will continue to argue for a a greater level of working together for the common good.  Neither am I gung ho for tax rises; it is just that I feel we have reached a point that we need to put more money into public services and there is no other sensible way of doing this.

Let's go back a few years to when Blair first got elected.  He inherited one of those rare things in British politics - a budget surplus.  At that time Gordon Brown was renowned for his prudence, and whilst we moved into deficit in the next few years, it was nothing serious.  Then 2 things happened.  Firstly, Brown, having become PM decided he wanted to be popular rather than prudent and, with the help of Alistair Darling, significantly increased public spending.  No sooner had they done that than the recession arrived.  This caused expenditure to rise further with people losing jobs and needing welfare and bank bail outs etc.  Meanwhile income from taxes of all sorts dropped and the deficit (the difference between the government's spending and its income) rocketed from just under £10bn at end of March 2008 to £103bn in 2010.

In May of that year the Tories came into power in coalition with the Lib Dems and clearly faced a very serious crisis.  If deficit is funded by borrowing this in turn increases the level of the national debt.  In turn, higher levels of debt increase the interest payments and further squeezes what you can do with the income you get.  They had to contain the level of public spending whilst taking measures to encourage business to grow in order to create jobs and get the economy growing again.   Whilst there is much I don't like about the Tories, the fact is that, with some reservations, they handled the crisis pretty well.  We are now one of the fastest growing economies in the world, employment levels have never been higher and they have halved the level of the deficit with it forecast to move into surplus (in the UK) in around 2020.

The SNP, of course, have railed against the austerity measures and claimed we should have borrowed more to invest in public services and created jobs there.  They know fine that all that would have achieved would be to increase the deficit and the debt even more because we need jobs which earn the country money.  But it was easy to say because there was no chance they would be in a position to address the problems.  In this way the SNP have been able to sit back and let the Tories get the economy back on track again whilst at the same time blaming them for any perceived hardship and getting a nation to hate them .  That's pretty cynical, but what makes it worse is that in all this time the SNP have had it in their power to ease the pressure on public services by increasing Council Tax - even if only in line with inflation - and they have chosen not to do so.  Not surprisingly, Education and Social Services amongst others have been squeezed and people have suffered as a result.  They blame the Tories but that is SNP austerity pure and simple.

Looking at the debate yesterday I cringe every time I see Sturgeon spit out those 2 words "Tory austerity".  She spits the words out as though all Tories were child molesters, and yet it is the Tory policies which have, albeit with some pain, got the country's economy back on a sounder footing.  The irony is that should Scotland vote to become independent in the next few years, thanks to the Tories, the Scottish economy is in a far better shape to go it alone than had we attempted to borrow our way out of recession as the SNP and the loony left of the Labour party wanted.

But make no mistake, whilst the UK economy is steadily eroding it's deficit, the Scottish Budget deficit is growing.  The Scottish economy may be much better off than had we tried to borrow our way out of recession, but according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies the deficit per head in Scotland is 3 times the level it is in the UK as a whole.  In other words, the budget deficit in Scotland per head of population is currently higher than it was in the UK as a whole at the height of the recession.  It is expected to rise to over £12bn when the UK as a whole moves into surplus.  There is a huge black hole in the Scottish economy and it is about time the SNP Government took some responsibility for it rather than blaming the Tories all the time.  This is why there is a need to put up taxes.  It is either that or cutting public spending.

With the new devolved powers it's becoming harder for the SNP to avoid taking responsibility,  Yesterday's debate was interesting in that Sturgeon's tactic was a continuation of saying what is most popular on every issue.  So she will increase welfare payments, invest more in education, the NHS and alternative energy but yet won't increase income tax.  Interestingly, her policy of not increasing income tax is going to raise an additional £2bn!  It just doesn't add up and I would expect the other parties to become increasingly effective at showing the public what frauds the SNP are.

Unfortunately, the SNP's failure to act is in keeping with their usual cynical manipulative strategy. The excuses are being trotted out already.  They say that if the better off are taxed more then they'll put their money elsewhere or leave the country - well, if that's the case and they are not going to use the powers, why didn't they think of that before they asked for them?  They will now expect the UK Government to bale them out and when they don't, they will bleat on about it all being the Tories fault.  They will point to the fact that we only have one Tory MP and Scotland doesn't get the Government it votes for.  And they will use this to fan the flames of independence again.  What's best for the Scottish people does not come into it.

 

 

  • Agree 2
  • Disagree 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So the 2nd TV debate has been and gone.  In line with the first debate, Sturgeon has demonstrated that she is head and shoulders up the other leaders in her ability as a politician.  Whilst others allowed themselves to be tied up with responding to points where they might have some policy difficulty, Sturgeon brushes it aside and launches into what she wants to say in the policy area.  She knows her policy inside out and speaks with great assurance.  She is a superb performer in these situations.  Superb performer she may be, but she looks vulnerable on the major issue of tax.  And so she should because her policy is looking decidedly shaky.  

As I said in my previous post, the SNP are promising increased funding across a range of policy areas and are claiming this will be paid for by the £2bn they propose to raise in additional taxes.  So given that they are not going to use the new powers to raise taxes at all, just where is the £2bn coming from?  

Firstly they claim £1.2bn will come from not implementing Osborne's £45k threshold for the 40% tax rate.  But Osborne is cutting tax for that group and therefore not implementing it does not raise more money, it simply keeps the revenue the same.  Secondly, they are ending the SNP's austerity squeeze on Councils and allowing them to raise Council taxes by up to 3%.  In addition, revenue will be raised by re-jigging council tax bands and increasing non domestic business rates.  It really is typical of the Scottish Nasty Party.  When they had no power to raise income tax they squeezed local councils and blamed the Tories for any pain.  Now they have the power to raise income tax, they duck the responsibility and release the squeeze on the Councils so that they can blame the Councils when local services fail to deliver or folk complain about the Council tax rises.

Of course, people in bigger houses will be hit with the double whammy of re-banding and rate rises, but people in bigger houses are not always the better off.  Many pensioners have worked hard all their lives to have a nice home for their retirement and will be badly hit by this.  It seems the SNP would rather have the Councils hit pensioners with a massive rates rise than increase the tax burden of the top earners by a single penny.  

One final point.  The stated reason for not increasing tax for the rich is that if the rate was increased to 45%, up to 7% of them might leave.  So why not go softly, softly and increase the rate to 41% this year, to 42% next and so on and review the impact on an annual basis?  I'll tell you why not.  What the SNP "research" actually tells them is that any tax rises will cost them votes.

  • Agree 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So who should we vote for up here?  I don't like the SNP and I could never vote for a nationalist party.  Far too authoritarian for me. Named person scheme, offensive behaviour at football act etc.

 

I am not very impressed with the other parties though.  Who to vote for.  hmmmm.

  • Agree 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This blame and grievance culture from the Nationalists has to stop.  I realise that it won't, because history tells us that Nationalists always win votes / gain power by blaming others.  They tell us we need them in order to end austerity.  Very similar to another well known but now defunct Nationalist Party who told the people of their country that they need them to end the economic stagnation.  Of course, if we need them, then there's ALWAYS a group of people who we really really don't need.  In this case, it's the English, to be specific it's middle class English they seem to despise.  They really do despise anyone who votes Conservatives.  The hatred and venom from Nicola Sturgeon when she uses the word 'Tory' is menacing.  Lots of codes are used in order to seem not racist / bigoted.  'English' is replaced with 'Westminster' or 'London'.  

 

Not all of us are fooled though.

  • Agree 3
  • Disagree 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. : Terms of Use : Guidelines : Privacy Policy