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Light At The End of The Tunnel ?


Kingsmills

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We have gone from a week where a small group of homophobic, mysoginist, sectarian bigots seemed to be pulling almost all of the UK Prime Minister's strings for their own narrow minded agenda and where the maverick US president broke with decades of international consensus to deliberately provoke violence and unrest in the Middle East to a week of relative optimism.

Firstly we have a liberal, pro choice candidate with a proud record of prosecuting the Klu Klax Clan being elected to the US Senate and now we have a small but significant number of principled Tory MPs  standing up for those principles and against the rabid right wing press to give the UK parliament the opportunity to try to insure that Brexit might not be the unmitigated disaster it will be if the nutters get their way.

I may be naively optimistic but suddenly the world seems a slightly less dark place.

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4 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

We have gone from a week where a small group of homophobic, mysoginist, sectarian bigots seemed to be pulling almost all of the UK Prime Minister's strings for their own narrow minded agenda and where the maverick US president broke with decades of international consensus to deliberately provoke violence and unrest in the Middle East to a week of relative optimism.

Firstly we have a liberal, pro choice candidate with a proud record of prosecuting the Klu Klax Clan being elected to the US Senate and now we have a small but significant number of principled Tory MPs  standing up for those principles and against the rabid right wing press to give the UK parliament the opportunity to try to insure that Brexit might not be the unmitigated disaster it will be if the nutters get their way.

I may be naively optimistic but suddenly the world seems a slightly less dark place.

Those are both bits of good news certainly.  But one thing I haven't seen or heard mentioned regarding the Brexit vote, is that apart from it upholding the principle of parliamentary democracy, it surely helps in Britain getting a better deal?  The EU are bargaining hard with the UK Government confident that a Government that is committed to leave the EU will be prepared to leave on a tough deal for the UK.  Now that the deal has to be approved by parliament, the EU may feel it has to consider what parliament will be prepared to accept.  I suspect that Parliament will not accept the kind of deal that the Government would be prepared to accept.  

The other thing about this is that the referendum is not binding in law and Parliament could decide that if they don't think the deal is a good deal for the UK, rather than leave with no deal as the Government is saying, we simply withdraw our application to leave and stay in the EU.  Having said  that, one often gets the impression that lots of people are saying that if they'd known then what they know now, they would never have voted for leave.  However, whilst polls do now show a majority in favour of remaining in the EU, it is only a small shift in opinion from the referendum result.  Interesting times ahead I think.

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  • 4 weeks later...

There was talk about this last year.  It would be a radical change and I can't see it being introduced without some fairly major consultation.  However, it has been a mainstay of the Green Party's policy since well before the  Ecology Party changed it's name to the Green Party and I wonder if a commitment to consult on this with a view to it's introduction is part of any deal with the Greens to get the SNP budget through.

I think this would be a really positive development which should simplify the benefits and tax systems.  A real advantage is that it allows people who are able only to do small amounts of part time or seasonal work to be able to see the full value of the money they have earned.

Of course, this has to be paid for and somewhere in the middle there will be folk whose tax will need to go up by as much as the basic income they receive, whilst for higher earners it would be more.  That will not go down well with many and therefore this is another reason for careful and widespread consultation.  

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  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎1‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 6:10 PM, scottishhighlands said:

Like this topic there is a Light at the End of the Tunnel our  First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is going to bring in a Basic Income for all Scots £150 a week for Life

Certainly good news for tobacconists, oddbins, bookies and tanning salons.

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OK... so let me get this straight. She whinges incessantly that Westmonster won't give her enough cash for public services.... but still seems to have plenty for prescriptions, bus passes, university tuition for people who would be far better off in the Tecky Colleges she has starved of funds, and for various other vote-catching superficialities. And now she also wants to dish out £150 a week to everybody, much of which may well in the end reach the destinations suggested by Alex Jones - while food banks continue to flourish.

She tells us she wants to be judged on Education (well that's you knackered then, dear!) but, whilst funding all these vote catching dodges, she is so miserable to local authorities that, for instance, Highland Council are looking at slashing 300 jobs in schools.

What a nonsensical manifestation of The Emperor's New Kilt.

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There is worse to come :ohmy:

SCOTLAND Secretary David Mundell is under pressure after it emerged that the interim chief executive of failed construction giant Carillion is one of his top advisers.

Keith Cochrane CBE, who sat on Carillion's “business integrity” and audit committees before taking temporary charge of the the firm last year, is also the lead non-executive director at the Scotland Office.

The businessman, who spoke out against independence during the referendum, sits on a joint board with Mundell that considers constitutional issues like Brexit.

 

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No great surprise there. If you want to live in a country with a fair, progressive, compassionate and embracing culture with a public sector run for the benefit of the public then that is not going to happen in a continuing union. Small northern European nations tend to embrace these qualities. There is no reason why Scotland can't be one of them.

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What exactly is an 'embracing culture'? What is 'progressive'? 'Compassionate' to whom exactly and how? Too many buzzwords here, not enough specifics. Perhaps I'm getting old and cynical but this is just Tony Blairism 2.0. Well packaged propaganda with no substance.

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On 1/20/2018 at 11:01 PM, AlexJones said:

Certainly good news for tobacconists, oddbins, bookies and tanning salons.

This is kind of my thinking as well.  I understand that the more money people have in their pockets, the more they'll put into businesses etc. but surely a lot of people will just squander it on drink, drugs and the rest.  And what about millionaires - should they get £150 a week?  Not really...

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On 1/21/2018 at 12:05 PM, Charles Bannerman said:

OK... so let me get this straight. She whinges incessantly that Westmonster won't give her enough cash for public services.... but still seems to have plenty for prescriptions, bus passes, university tuition for people who would be far better off in the Tecky Colleges she has starved of funds, and for various other vote-catching superficialities. And now she also wants to dish out £150 a week to everybody, much of which may well in the end reach the destinations suggested by Alex Jones - while food banks continue to flourish.

She tells us she wants to be judged on Education (well that's you knackered then, dear!) but, whilst funding all these vote catching dodges, she is so miserable to local authorities that, for instance, Highland Council are looking at slashing 300 jobs in schools.

What a nonsensical manifestation of The Emperor's New Kilt.

Thanks to the SNP I get my free prescriptions and now have my bus pass since last year, I will be heading down to the shops tomorrow for a few things on the bus which saves taking the car to the old town.  I was also glad to get my daughter through university without having to pay a fortune and she now has a successful career.  

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4 minutes ago, IBM said:

Thanks to the SNP I get my free prescriptions and now have my bus pass since last year, I will be heading down to the shops tomorrow for a few things on the bus which saves taking the car to the old town.  I was also glad to get my daughter through university without having to pay a fortune and she now has a successful career.  

..and both the A9 and the A96 are going to be dual carriageway for their entire lengths much reducing the disadvantage that the Highlands endured in terms of geographical isolation for decades when the Westminster government were responsible for transport. 

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