The Dirty Independence Question

[Comfy Bean]

On 09/03/2016 at 7:15 AM, eFestivals said:

comfy's been slagging me off recently because I've pointed out that devolution doesn't work in a practical sense.

I wonder if he's going to be slagging off the SNP now, who are currently pointing out the same thing over Sunday trading?

 

Hey Neil. This is not how I recall things but fair enough. From memory I stated, genuinely, that I hadn`t realised till recently that you would have the Scottish , Welsh, Irish Parliaments shut down and all power returned to the South. I respect your right to believe that would be best for us all but I honestly thought you were against Indy ( obviously ) but also in favour of us being " allowed " to make some decisions for ourselves.

Much like our airports ( see Prestwick) it turns out you would have everything shut down and all power returned to the Tories in the South East. You obviously assume that they would in no way favour the South of the Country with investment decisions etc and I also assume that you probably live down that way 

I recall from our blether around this that you thought the decision maker didn`t require to be local to the problem to know what was best for the local community. I made the point at the time that this is a popular opinion with some when it comes to Iraq etc.

I disagree with you of course. 

The SNP are in favour of Sunday trading, I explained this before. They are also in favour of protecting workers rights / pay. Next you will be telling me that this was at the top of the Tories priorities for Sunday trading 

[Comfy Bean]

On 09/03/2016 at 0:39 PM, krisskross said:

The tax from north sea oil has dropped incredibly. 

	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15
Licence fees	69	67	69	71	72
North Sea corporation tax	6,864	8,840	4,393	3,556	2,073
Petroleum revenue tax	1,458	2,032	1,737	1,118	77
Emissions trading scheme revenues	11	18	16	19	32
Total	8,402	10,957	6,215	4,764	2,254

 

and Nicola S. wants more tax breaks for corporations?!?

 

Fortunately we are well informed on the falling oil price on this forum. Bloody snippers ruining the oil price.

Your right of course, the oil price has dropped incredibly. Not just yesterday though and not just in the North Sea.

[Comfy Bean]

On 09/03/2016 at 0:44 PM, eFestivals said:

Greece at it's worse crisis point has nothing on Scotland, which has the biggest deficit in Europe.

Not sure on this Neil. Gideon has been telling us about strong performance and growth. Best of both worlds, better together etc.

Have you and Stash got your letters into the Beeb about their ridiculous lies yesterday around these GERS numbers. I`m sure I heard something about this being the first time since the early 80`s that the per head tax figure was NOT higher in Scotland.

BBC SNP biase in my opinion.

[Comfy Bean]

On 09/03/2016 at 1:08 PM, eFestivals said:

 

No amount of baseless hopes can cover the missing revenues. Even a recovery in the oil price won't to $120 a barrel won't do it.

Perhaps a different approach or path than the one the Tories are taking us down would help us improve our performance. Now...........how could we hope to achieve that with say a Labour or SNP Government .....

[Comfy Bean]

On 09/03/2016 at 2:24 PM, russycarps said:

It is now proven beyond all doubt that the raving nationalists want independence no matter what the cost. The only thing that matters is no westminster influence on scottish affairs. The financial ruin of the country is a price worth paying for that. 

Hopefully now all the laughable lies about them wanting independence to benefit the poor can be put to bed. 

It is only about nationalism. 

 

 

I disagree with quite a bit of this Russy. These figures are bad and I don`t really grudge you fellas a day or two of enthusiastic posting about the mess of Scotland`s finances. The " tone " seems a bit triumphant though, especially around the oil price but as I say, each to their own 

When you speak of the " cost " it`s as if you think we already are independent ( I realise you don`t ). All of us are being led by the Tories and we are 1.5 gazillers in the hole. I voted for something different last year. Scotland governing itself and being led in future by a Labour or SNP Govt.

You speak of no westminster influence on Scottish affairs without a hint of irony while highlighting the deficit we currently have while part of Great  britain. What % of Scotlands affairs still come directly under Tory influence do you imagine ? The figures are shit but to put all the blame at the door of the SNP is a bit disingenuous. We are all playing with a hand heavily influenced by Tory spending policies and cuts. It is their agenda that I think we would be better moving away from. Most up here agree hence they have 1 ( one ) MP.

On your last point, LJS seems to me like the most fair minded fella on either side of our debate and I can assure you I am far from a flag waving nationalist type. If you took a moment to see it from my side, the nationalism, unionism, union jack, rule brittania guff could also be seen as nationalism and how dare we " break " the United Kingdom, proud history blah blah blah.

I accept that you don`t think I want to benefit the poor by moving away from Tory rule. It`s not something I can prove on the internet. Hopefully changes to the Council Tax higher bands while not increasing the 4 lower bands will be replicated with the income tax bands. These type of ( small ) steps will help to make Scotland fairer and do something about the ever growing rich / poor gap. There is also talk of a fairer approach to the benefits the SNP can influence and NS already has all Govt staff on the living wage.

[eFestivals]

12 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

Hey Neil. This is not how I recall things but fair enough. From memory I stated, genuinely, that I hadn`t realised till recently that you would have the Scottish , Welsh, Irish Parliaments shut down and all power returned to the South.

Nice bit of bullshit there.

I would have one version of law across one territory. So the sort of bollocks that happened this week doesn't happen.

 

12 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

I respect your right to believe that would be best for us all but I honestly thought you were against Indy ( obviously ) but also in favour of us being " allowed " to make some decisions for ourselves.

I'm in favour of you being allowed to make decisions for yourselves. I'm against you making crap decisions and expecting other people to pay for them.

I've actually seen a few posts overnight from snippers, saying "we should go indy anyway, because there's no way rUK will let us sit in our own shit via that deficit". It doesn't get funnier than that.

 

12 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

Much like our airports ( see Prestwick) it turns out you would have everything shut down and all power returned to the Tories in the South East.

The Scottish govt claims for itself to be the richest part of the UK.

Care to tell me how it deserves ever-more money, given Scotland's own claim? I thought you said you wanted to help the poor, but it actually turns out you're wanting the poor from other place to make you rich. It doesn't get more tory than that.

 

12 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

You obviously assume that they would in no way favour the South of the Country with investment decisions etc and I also assume that you probably live down that way 

The south has the largest slice of population. Scotland has a smaller population than Yorkshire.

Scotland has - so snippers love to tell us - employment as good as the UK average, investment higher than the UK average, and a quality of life greater than the UK average. And the Scottish govt tells us that Scotland is the richest place in the UK.

Oh, and Scotland gets 120% of the UK average spending.

Yep, Scotland is treated dreadfully, and it's really being fucked over by the south, eh?

The facts get to show there's at least one big lie in all you're saying ... take your pick for which part is the lie, you, the Scottish govt, or the facts. I don't much care which one you pick, because whichever it is the bollocks you said above is proven wrong.

 

12 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

I recall from our blether around this that you thought the decision maker didn`t require to be local to the problem to know what was best for the local community. I made the point at the time that this is a popular opinion with some when it comes to Iraq etc

I said it doesn't matter where a decision is made. What matters is the quality of the decision.

GERS gets to show that your own decisions are poor, but that very luckily for you, the decision of Scots as a whole is far better than your own decisions.

 

12 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

I disagree with you of course. 

yep, but you also disagree with the facts, and with the Scottish govt and the SNP w3hen they claim Scotland as richer than the rest of the UK. You say Scotland is shit ... and I think you should really stoop doing Scotland down.

It's the richest part of the UK, in Scotland's own words. Want to tell me again why it should have even more of other people's money to that Scotland can live it up at the expense of poor people you claim to care about?

 

12 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

The SNP are in favour of Sunday trading, I explained this before. They are also in favour of protecting workers rights / pay. Next you will be telling me that this was at the top of the Tories priorities for Sunday trading 

Care to point out where I criticised anything but the SNP's hypocrisy?

 

[eFestivals]

12 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

 

Fortunately we are well informed on the falling oil price on this forum. Bloody snippers ruining the oil price.

Your right of course, the oil price has dropped incredibly. Not just yesterday though and not just in the North Sea.

but most importantly, what has dropped are a massive chunk of what would be an indy Scotland's govt revenues.

----

You do know what Scotland's only option is to get indy, don't you?

It's for Scotland to reject the Barnet formula, to take the massive hit to your lifestyles that will cause, to live by (just) your own means, and then there's nothing to lose by going indy.

I look forwards to seeing you campaigning for it. Freedumb!

 

[eFestivals]

12 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

Not sure on this Neil. Gideon has been telling us about strong performance and growth. Best of both worlds, better together etc.

England has a strong performance and growth, but very strangely the SNP haven't reproduced that in Scotland. In fact, they've turned it the other way.

You're certainly better together ... unless you think not having the money for all of the SNHS makes Scotland a better place?

Isn't George evil for running that nasty deficit, btw? The UK is failing cos Gidiot has clocked up a debt of £1.5tn! But let's not mention that 25% of the extra being added is being added for Scotland.

 

12 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

Have you and Stash got your letters into the Beeb about their ridiculous lies yesterday around these GERS numbers. I`m sure I heard something about this being the first time since the early 80`s that the per head tax figure was NOT higher in Scotland.

BBC SNP biase in my opinion.

Yep, I know. It looks like they now source their info from w*nkers over sense, just as you do.

 

[eFestivals]

12 hours ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

Perhaps a different approach or path than the one the Tories are taking us down would help us improve our performance. Now...........how could we hope to achieve that with say a Labour or SNP Government .....

well, I'd guess the first thing to do would be to reduce the public spend down from the astronomically large current 45%, down to somewhere around the European average, where Scotland might succeed in getting average European economic performance, instead of propped up performance.

The only people stopping Scotland reducing its public spend is Scotland... cos while George might send you money, you don't have to spend it.

I've got an idea, actually. Why not spend less and save what you don't spend? You could call it a 'national fund' or something, and you could use the money in that fund to see you thru any bad years.

I'm surprised no one has thought of that before.

[LJS]

42 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

Oh and she just lost her rag as well   and suggested the UK deficit was trillions...  No Nicola...  You are confusing debt and deficit   Dumb arse

 

Wrong again Barry, what she said was - "Westminster has a deficit of its own, its £1 trillion pounds in debt."

Andrew Neil in his impartial way tried to imply she was confusing the two (which she clearly wasn't) 

42 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

Andrew Neil at his best.  Awesome stuff.  Totally destroyed her!

I disagree, you will be shocked to learn. Andrew Marr came across as hectoring & repetetive. Nicola stood herr ground. 

[russycarps]

The independence dream is now utterly discredited. I don't know why they bother dedicating airtime to it. 

Anyone who still believes it's viable after the latest set of figures can safely be filed under 'crank'.

[LJS]

9 minutes ago, russycarps said:

The independence dream is now utterly discredited. I don't know why they bother dedicating airtime to it. 

Anyone who still believes it's viable after the latest set of figures can safely be filed under 'crank'.

And anyone who believes George Osborne is viable after the latest figures ...

[LJS]

31 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

But none of us do...  He should lose his job as much as that basket case Nicola...

Best stay in the deep south, Barry. It looks like somewhere between 50 & 60% of us up here like basket case Nicola (bcn) & her gang which by simple maths must include a fair few no voters.

Whilst I have no objection at all to Neil quizzing bcn on the gers figures, I am mildly outraged that he wasted the entire interview on that one subject. We have an election in Scotland in a couple of months. As it looks as though bcn will not be proposing a second Indy ref in her manifesto, hence making the gers stuff irrelevant, I'd actually like my politicians questioned on things that actually matter. 

 

Oh, we've also got an eu referendum too but no.mention of that either.

 

It's almost like all Neil's are the same & can only bang on about £14bn endlessly.

[lost]

24 minutes ago, LJS said:

Best stay in the deep south, Barry. It looks like somewhere between 50 & 60% of us up here like basket case Nicola (bcn) & her gang which by simple maths must include a fair few no voters.

Definitely. There will be a large number voting SNP who realize Independence isn't possible whilst the price of a barrel of oil is hovering around the same as a bucket of KFC chicken or even want it at all. They'll feel the SNP are the best option for getting more from the other countries in the union in the mean time. I guess Wales will be watching on and want some of the same for themselves. The only problem is it splits the left vote 3 ways so your going to end up with George as your PM.

Edited March 13, 2016 by lost

[LJS]

1 hour ago, lost said:

Definitely. There will be a large number voting SNP who realize Independence isn't possible whilst the price of a barrel of oil is hovering around the same as a bucket of KFC chicken or even want it at all. They'll feel the SNP are the best option for getting more from the other countries in the union in the mean time. I guess Wales will be watching on and want some of the same for themselves. The only problem is it splits the left vote 3 ways so your going to end up with George as your PM.

Yeah, that one Tory MP we elected last time made all the difference!!!

[LJS]

57 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

To be frank they are too dumb to do the numbers...  Scotland technically voting Tory...  
 

Barry technically talking shite.

[lost]

40 minutes ago, LJS said:

Yeah, that one Tory MP we elected last time made all the difference!!!

Do you understand how first past the post works and how this has generally worked in the past regarding areas of the UK and who they vote for?

Putting it another way do you see any other result than a tory government if labour doesn't take the majority of scottish and welsh seats or even do you expect Scotland to be governed by another labour government as part of the united kingdom in your life time?

Edited March 13, 2016 by lost

[LJS]

33 minutes ago, lost said:

Do you understand how first past the post works and how this has generally worked in the past regarding areas of the UK and who they vote for?

Putting it another way do you see any other result than a tory government if labour doesn't take the majority of scottish and welsh seats or even do you expect Scotland to be governed by another labour government as part of the united kingdom in your life time?

Please don't patronise me.

 

Of course I know how FPTP works. I also know that if Scotland had returned 59 Labour MP's at the last election we would still have a Tory government.

 

Do you know how arithmetic works?

 

As far as future Labour governments are concerned, more often than not Labour governments have not been dependent on Scottish mp's (I think from memory there were 2 elections since the war where they have been.)

 

Of course, if Labour were prepared to work with others who oppose the Tories, then that would certainly increase the chances of avoiding seemingly indefinite Tory rule.

 

[lost]

4 minutes ago, LJS said:

Please don't patronise me.

 

Of course I know how FPTP works. I also know that if Scotland had returned 59 Labour MP's at the last election we would still have a Tory government.

 

Do you know how arithmetic works?

 

If you could point point out the part I said we'd have a labour government if Scotland returned 59 MP's please or quit with the straw man arguments?

Quote

Of course, if Labour were prepared to work with others who oppose the Tories, then that would certainly increase the chances of avoiding seemingly indefinite Tory rule.

I'd say that would hinder them. Would you be more or less likely to support a party that wanted a coalition with English nationalist party? People will generally vote in their own perceived interests as we are seeing in Scotland.

[Comfy Bean]

On 11/03/2016 at 7:46 AM, eFestivals said:

Nice bit of bullshit there.

Apologies if I have the wrong end of the stick here. Do you think Holyrood should be closed down or, if you prefer, should never have opened in the first place ?

Care to tell me how it deserves ever-more money, given Scotland's own claim? I thought you said you wanted to help the poor, but it actually turns out you're wanting the poor from other place to make you rich. It doesn't get more tory than that.

Drivel !

Clearly I would prefer independence so how you assume I want poor people from other countries to make me rich I have no idea. I`ll assume you made that up.

 

The south has the largest slice of population. Scotland has a smaller population than Yorkshire.

My point is that the Tories favour the South East over the rest of the UK and before you start, I have nothing against London etc. As I`ve said before, the Tories have 1 seat up here. I disagree with their tactics but I can understand them. Votes / seats wise they have nothing to lose or gain by investing up North.

Yep, Scotland is treated dreadfully, and it's really being fucked over by the south, eh?

The South ? i`m talking about the Tories. As I understand it, my view is shared by plenty of folks who live in England.

 

I said it doesn't matter where a decision is made. What matters is the quality of the decision.

And I said that your world police attitude of knowing whats best for other countries ( I cited Iraq as an example ) is not one I agree with. The Empire is dead.

GERS gets to show that your own decisions are poor, but that very luckily for you, the decision of Scots as a whole is far better than your own decisions.

Lol. Many of the decisions that affect GERS are taken by Tories in Westminster. Not all of them of course and I never said our finance were in a good state.

 

It's the richest part of the UK, in Scotland's own words. Want to tell me again why it should have even more of other people's money to that Scotland can live it up at the expense of poor people you claim to care about?

You forgot " Subsidy junkies "

 

Care to point out where I criticised anything but the SNP's hypocrisy?

The SNP are in favour of Sunday trading but not in favour of eroding workers rights or pay. You would rather attack them than support their stance on these issues. Fair enough 

 

 

[Comfy Bean]

11 hours ago, Barry Fish said:

Andrew Neil at his best.  Awesome stuff.  Totally destroyed her!

Oh Barry 

[Comfy Bean]

4 hours ago, Barry Fish said:

But none of us do...  He should lose his job as much as that basket case Nicola...

 

[Comfy Bean]

3 hours ago, Barry Fish said:

To be frank they are too dumb to do the numbers...  Scotland technically voting Tory...  
 

Define " technically ".

[Comfy Bean]

9 hours ago, russycarps said:

The independence dream is now utterly discredited. I don't know why they bother dedicating airtime to it. 

Anyone who still believes it's viable after the latest set of figures can safely be filed under 'crank'.

Too poor ?

Surely a heavy influence from the Tories agenda Russy, within the GERS figures I mean ?

SNP were against austerity as you know. I`m not so sure Gideons plan is working.

[LJS]

16 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

Notice how LJS gets more angry as his, and his friends, are exposed

Notice how Barry has nothing useful to say.