The wonders of austerity

[Baxter Parp]

http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/Minimum-pricing-will-be-heard-in-Europe-c0e.aspx

The Scotch Whisky Association, exactly.

[Tubbs]

The Scotch Whisky Association, exactly.

So you agree there is a long running challenge ?

Legislation passed in 2012, passed to Europe this year, circa 16 months before a result from them.

[Baxter Parp]

So you agree there is a long running challenge ?

Legislation passed in 2012, passed to Europe this year, circa 16 months before a result from them.

Two years is nothing and the dispute is with the "suppliers and manufacturers" who you thought would benefit from the legislation.

[Tubbs]

Get around it?

How can we get around it on a fixed budget without cutting elsewhere?

It's not a real power. Have you seriously not understood that?

Treating people like idiots isn't going to endear them to you.

Spoken like man raging that a work around has robbed him of a political point scoring opportunity.

You are right it is a fixed budget and that has cost the SG money they could have used to give more money to the rich

[ayrmad]

^^^proud to be shafting the most needy in our society.

[Tubbs]

^^^proud to be shafting the most needy in our society.

Ignoring the tax breaks to the rich and happy for vast sums to be committed to buying back Royal Mail and building an airport link - cos the needy are always sending letters and flying. School budgets being cut as education is not important to the needy ?

[ayrmad]

Ignoring the tax breaks to the rich and happy for vast sums to be committed to buying back Royal Mail and building an airport link - cos the needy are always sending letters and flying. School budgets being cut as education is not important to the needy ?

Do you really want a proper list in reply to your nonsense?

We've already got a bunch of thieving phaedophile protecting tax avoidance encouraging b*****ds in charge, that's the status quo, that's Westminster,anything else is wouldacouldashoulda.

[Confidemus]

Ignoring the tax breaks to the rich and happy for vast sums to be committed to buying back Royal Mail and building an airport link - cos the needy are always sending letters and flying. School budgets being cut as education is not important to the needy ?

I'm sorry Tubbs but this is sheer scrambling for relevance.

Austerity, foodbanks, poverty, massive gap between rich and poor and you come up with this?

[Tubbs]

I'm sorry Tubbs but this is sheer scrambling for relevance.

Austerity, foodbanks, poverty, massive gap between rich and poor and you come up with this?

My point is attacking the point that some see indy as the solution to these major problems. I just don't see that and I am just pointing out that politicians will still make political points and go for easy wins that they think will attract votes. Hence the SG has and continues to make huge spending commitments that will not tackle these issues; they will try to buy votes from the rich by cutting taxes as well.

Austerity but we have 1000 extra cops when crime is plummeting across the western world purely and simply cos a few years ago in opposition it was a point scorer and it is seen a politically beneficial.

You can pretend that this is just the tricks they are using to achieve their overall political aim and that once indy is achieved there will be some kind of social revolution and politicians will start focussing on the poor; but as the least few years as shown as Scot we might like to think we are to left of things but the rich still like to be looked after - if we didn't the SNP wouldn't be cutting taxes and would still be saying a penny for Scotland.

[HaikuHibee]

Tubbs - you are far gone. Westminster is much much worse, no comparison.

[Confidemus]

Tubbs - you are far gone. Westminster is much much worse, no comparison.

To even pretend that Westminster is comparable with even the worst, most unknown iScotland is laughable. The union is fucked. Westminster is fucked. The gravy train rumbles on and we have our chance to get off and make a Scotland we and future generations can be proud of.

[Tubbs]

Interesting that the spending priorities of the SG that I have questioned have not been challenged; the preference is and has been to attack the weaknesses of the current system but to be less critical of the here and now decisions already being made in Scotland. If the yes position is that Scotland can make better decision then an analysis of their record to date is surely a reasonable place to start.

[HaikuHibee]

Interesting that the spending priorities of the SG that I have questioned have not been challenged; the preference is and has been to attack the weaknesses of the current system but to be less critical of the here and now decisions already being made in Scotland. If the yes position is that Scotland can make better decision then an analysis of their record to date is surely a reasonable place to start.

It's complete nonsense. Look at land reform to start, then social housing.

Then the NHS, where we have kept it public. You're blaming Scotland.

[Ad Lib]

It's complete nonsense. Look at land reform to start, then social housing.

Then the NHS, where we have kept it public. You're blaming Scotland.

The land reform implemented in the first 2 sessions of the Scottish Parliament were long overdue, but largely based on work that had been done by Westminster Select Committees earlier. It is rightly heralded as one of the areas where having a dedicated legislature dealing with Scottish affairs can implement comprehensive and very technical reform where Westminster couldn't (mainly because of constraints on Parliamentary time). However, it is untrue to state that Holyrood has, necessarily, done a good job of land reform. That we're having to look at land reform again barely a decade later, when this is supposed to be a system designed to work over the course of decades and centuries rather than years, is hardly a ringing endorsement.

On social housing, we haven't done much differently through Holyrood since devolution. Most of this is a matter for councils and was before devolution too.

As for the NHS: the Westminster government have kept the NHS public too, by any reasonable definition. Even if the recent reforms are fully implemented over the next decade or so, over 90% of NHS expenditure will be on state-owned facilities and staffing. To say that constitutes not being public is essentially to claim that virtually none of the healthcare systems in Europe are public, including the one that most consistently ranks top for care quality and value for money, France.

[HaikuHibee]

The land reform implemented in the first 2 sessions of the Scottish Parliament were long overdue, but largely based on work that had been done by Westminster Select Committees earlier. It is rightly heralded as one of the areas where having a dedicated legislature dealing with Scottish affairs can implement comprehensive and very technical reform where Westminster couldn't (mainly because of constraints on Parliamentary time). However, it is untrue to state that Holyrood has, necessarily, done a good job of land reform. That we're having to look at land reform again barely a decade later, when this is supposed to be a system designed to work over the course of decades and centuries rather than years, is hardly a ringing endorsement.

On social housing, we haven't done much differently through Holyrood since devolution. Most of this is a matter for councils and was before devolution too.

As for the NHS: the Westminster government have kept the NHS public too, by any reasonable definition. Even if the recent reforms are fully implemented over the next decade or so, over 90% of NHS expenditure will be on state-owned facilities and staffing. To say that constitutes not being public is essentially to claim that virtually none of the healthcare systems in Europe are public, including the one that most consistently ranks top for care quality and value for money, France.

Oh f**k off matey. Get Land Reform through the Lords. Then get back to me.

AdLib says its fine. NHS is fine down south. Nothing to see here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25660555

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/02/doctors-bemoan-nhs-privatisation-by-stealth

[Confidemus]

http://munguinsrepublic.blogspot.co.uk/

LET THEM EAT... OH, WHATEVER IT IS THAT POOR PEOPLE EAT

The Tories don't know or care about food banks. They don't know the agony of being hungry. Not "just a bit peckish, but heading off for a spot of luncheon at the RAC Club with Lord Fortescue-Fotheringham-Fortescue", kind of hungry that one is after a game of polo, or a round at the Old Course, but the "haven't eaten for 3 days" kind of hungry, where you would take waste food out of a bin.

Not a clue how that feels.

And why should they? That kind of feeling isn't prevalent in prep schools, Eton, Oxford or the Guards.

But they preside over a country in which millions of people aren't getting enough to eat. We all know food bank use has increased dramatically under their period of government, and that the numbers using these modern day "soup kitchens" has increased by around 50% over the last year, but there are others who are managing to avoid the indignity of these places, by eating less and less, feeling sicker and sicker and building up health problems for the future.

So, little though it is, when the EU, recognising that this is a problem all over the continent, offer to give money to help feed those who are hungry, the Uk government comprised of gentlemen and aristocrats, is the only one in Europe to object.

"It is not", said one Tory, "for the European Union to dictate to member states how to run their welfare systems or how to help the needy". He went on to say that they wouldn't be taking lectures from the EU and that Britain would decide how to distribute help to people who were in need, whether from the government or from charity.

Britain is far too important to accept money to feed the poor. Britain GIVES money to help the poor in other countries (more so that it can comply with the membership requirements of the G8, than any kind of concern for the starving, I would imagine). Britain has a empire. Britannia rules the waves. Long live Queen Victoria...

People using food banks, according to government ministers, are only doing so because free food is free food. (The trouble with their Tories is that they tend to judge everyone by their own standards. They eat in subsidised Westminster restaurants and drink in subsidised bars because they can get something for next to nothing, and they assume that that is how the rest of us are put together as well.

Skinny Duncan Smith before free breakfasts

And when the whole social security kit and caboodle is run by a man who charges the taxpayer £37 for his breakfast, you begin to understand that we live in a very divided country.

Podgy Duncan Smith, well fed by the taxpayer

We really need to start treating them the way they treat our poor.

Britain is too proud to accept money from the EU to feed our starving.

Parliament should therefore immediately remove all subsidies from MPs', Lords' and the Royals' eating and drinking. Surely they are too proud to accept our charity.

Britain is very very very very important

And the EU should send the money to the TRUSSELL TRUST. The government of the UK isn't very interested in the day to day running of the country, and leaves it mainly to charities, while they get on with the important stuff of looking big and important.

It really makes you want to vomit.

[Ad Lib]

Rumours abound that IDS might be leaving DWP in the pre-election reshuffle, thought to be due on Monday.

[ayrmad]

Rumours abound that IDS might be leaving DWP in the pre-election reshuffle, thought to be due on Monday.

Oh goody, different face similar outcomes.

[Tubbs]

Repeating the problem over and over again does not make indy become the answer.

[HaikuHibee]

Repeating the problem over and over again does not make indy become the answer.

What do you propose? Shift all the blame to Scotland, with empty 'powers'?