What is the point of labour ?

[Big Rider]

2 hours ago, Leith Green said:

Mind a few days before the GE, Jackie Baillie was all over the press saying she would look to have a Scottish Visa system to attract skilled migrants? This was welcomed - obviously - by all parties, inc the SNP.

One week later, Sarwar has said it isnt happening.

Fucking lying to the Scottish electorate - again.

Keep eating your cereal, Jackie. Mind that you're just a Branch Office.

[Granny Danger]

4 minutes ago, Big Rider said:

Keep eating your cereal, Jackie. Mind that you're just a Branch Office.

^^^ thinks Jackie Ballie eats cereal!  

[Freedom Farter]

Blair didn't build anywhere near enough council homes. Need to hope Starmer improves on that.

 

Edited July 8 by Freedom Farter

[Leith Green]

......and another beauty from Baillie today. 

 

 

[strichener]

On 06/07/2024 at 22:23, tamthebam said:

I believe it was prisoners that built Peterhead prison. 

How's that for community service? 

They built the harbour, don't think they built the prison.

[ICTChris]

New housing targets, incoming planning reform and ban on onshore wind farms lifted. Build, baby build.

 

[JS_FFC]

 

[Granny Danger]

3 hours ago, Leith Green said:

......and another beauty from Baillie today. 

 

 

So the answer to the huge healthcare problem is to put more money in the pockets of the private healthcare facilitators.  £400/£500 for a nurse for a single shift with about one third of that going to the nurse and the rest going to the facilitator.

No doubt nests already being lined in preparation for them being kicked out in 2029.

Anyone in doubt should just look at how well Tony Blair has fared in his days since being PM.  He has laid out the roadmap for others to follow.

 

 

[Jedi2]

51 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

So the answer to the huge healthcare problem is to put more money in the pockets of the private healthcare facilitators.  £400/£500 for a nurse for a single shift with about one third of that going to the nurse and the rest going to the facilitator.

No doubt nests already being lined in preparation for them being kicked out in 2029.

Anyone in doubt should just look at how well Tony Blair has fared in his days since being PM.  He has laid out the roadmap for others to follow.

 

 

Always useful to cite what Jackie Baillie 'actually' said of course, quoted from the same National Article.

Robertson said: “It’s not just about using the private sector in terms of private beds to bring down waiting lists, there are other ways the private sector can be involved and already are involved in the health service in England. Are you saying no to that happening in Scotland?”

Baillie replied: “No, I mean the private sector is already involved in the health service in Scotland but it simply does not have the capacity it does in England. So there needs to be different solution in Scotland that suits our circumstances.”

So, in short, Private Sector already used in Scottish Healthcare by the SNP as we already knew  with Neil Gray saying that he wants to 'go further', and of course he is the only person in place to make such decisions on a fully devolved service in Scotland 

Jackie Baillie saying that the English model of private use 'wouldn't work in Scotland in any case, so not actually repeating Wes 'the NHS would be privatised over my dead body (his words) Streeting's 'plans'.

 

[Cheese]

5 minutes ago, Jedi2 said:

Jackie Baillie saying that the English model of private use 'wouldn't work in Scotland in any case, so not actually repeating Wes '170 grand in campaign donations from private healthcare firms' Streeting's 'plans'.

 

FTFY

[Jedi2]

57 minutes ago, Cheese said:

FTFY

£850 million in Scotland (so far) shuffled into Private Provision, and as said, Neil Gray wants 'more'. 

Returns to the point: Govt funds for Private use in the NHS by the SNP=good.

Any such provision by Labour (and again they can only do it in England and Wales, not Scotland)=Baaadd

[Jedi2]

Analysis of Scottish Government ministers’ engagement in 2020 shows that meetings, potentially of key public interest, were not in the register, including those between ministers and companies awarded multi-million pound UK and Scottish contracts to supply the NHS in the run-up to Covid-19.

“As these meetings took place by phone they did not fall under regulated lobbying rules, an exemption which means they don’t need to appear on the lobbying register. Others in this category included meetings between ministers and the billionaire steel tycoon behind GFG Alliance, Sanjeev Gupta.”

Sanjeev Gupta, as it happens, has paid just just £5 (five pounds) towards the acquisition of a Highlands smelting plant – with taxpayers financing the rest of the £330 million deal. The research also found that:

“…engagements with big business, including energy companies and renewables chasing Scotland’s booming renewables sector, dominated the diaries of several ministers.”

Let’s just think about this. The First Minister announces a National Energy Company in 2017. Nothing happens. Then, in 2021, SNP members want to raise the issue again to add some urgency to the plan. They vote overwhelmingly for the policy at their conference. Again, nothing happens. At the same time government ministers were having meetings, outside of the public record, with big businesses seeking to cash in on Scotland’s renewables industry.

Before we know it, the Scottish Government launches a “green investment portfolio” worth £3 Billion of Scottish green assets. This package, a substantial component of Scotland’s economic future, is to be bought up by private and foreign capital. As we know, ScotWind has already seen large tracts of renewable wind energy sold, cheaply, to the likes of British Petroleum. Meanwhile, Scotland’s six offshore wind farms have paid a derisory £150,000 to nearby communities in the last 12 months

“Freeports” are bound up with the Tory incarnation of Brexit. The are special zones that, as the TUC report, “sit outside the UK’s main tax and tariff rules, with lower regulations to attract investment and business.” This means that once again the dice are loaded in favour of big business and against workers and local communities. They are also loaded against SNP conference decisions which are effectively superfluous to events, as the SNP Trade Union Group noted in relation to the “green freeports.”

While the behind the scenes lobbying runs like a well oiled machine, there are occasions when the Scottish Government will be very upfront about whose interests they are loyal to. Naturally, the Growth Commission, the George Osborne variant of “independence,” was brought together by Scotland’s premier corporate lobbying firm, Charlotte Street Partners, while the trade unions were excluded.

The “Economic Recovery Group” set up during the pandemic, was led by the former CEO of Tesco bank, Benny Higgins, who is now Chairman of the estate of Scotland’s largest feudal landowner, the Duke of Buccleuch.

The council to advise on a ten year plan for Scotland to “unleash entrepreneurial potential and grow Scotland’s competitive business base,” included Sir Nick Macpherson, a former Treasury permanent secretary who advised George Osborne to reject a currency union during the 2014 referendum campaign.

The hotchpotch of word salad this apparently chaotic group arrived at, known as “Scotland's National Strategy for Economic Transformation” has so far produced a couple of events which the press were excluded from, and the formation of a new post known as Scotland’s “Chief Entrepreneur” who is to be paid a salary of £192,000 for working just 8 days a month.

Then we can come to the so-called National Care Service (NCS). The design for this has been contracted to multinational consultancy firms PriceWaterhouseCoopers and KPMG. Incidentally, KPMG have recently been fined £18.4m for deliberately misleading regulators. In addition, “four of its senior staff have been banned from the accountancy profession, over the firm’s botched audits of collapsed outsourcing company Carillion.”

As Lilian Macer, convener of Unison Scotland, said of the NCS contracts:

“PriceWaterhouseCoopers and KPMG have a track record of promoting private health and social care, this is not what most people in Scotland want. Care should be delivered in and for the community. It is a public service not a commodity. Big private equity firms have led us to the tragically dysfunctional care system we have now.”

• In 2021 Kate Forbes set up something called the Scottish Technology Ecosystem Review. It was led by Mark Logan. As ever, the process was outsourced. This time a contract worth £100,000 went to a private business called Ipso Facto Ltd. Mark Logan is the co-founder of Ipso Facto. He is also a Director of, drum roll, Travelnest Ltd.

All of this fits neatly into the system of patronage set up around the leadership of the Scottish Government sprawling beyond the corporate sector and into wider parts of public life.

Thus, the Chair of the Economic Recovery Group, is also the Chair of Buccleuch Estates and is also Chair of the National Galleries of Scotland board, alongside Andrew Wilson of Charlotte Street Partners who is also the author of the Growth Commission, alongside Willie Watt who is also the inaugural chair of the Scottish National Investment bank.

While the corporate lobby exercises a hundred times more power and influence than the SNP membership, the party hierarchy also comes down hard whenever the working class start to mobilise in their own interests. They have shown they are willing to utilise Tory anti-trade union laws against striking cleansing workers in Glasgow.

Indeed, Susan Aitken, who wins the award for reintroducing the word “ned” into public discourse, is driving an agenda in Scotland’s largest “Yes” city based on a programme of massive privatisation. If John Swinney really did cut and paste Osborne’s business rate proposals for his conference speech in 2015, then Susan Aitken is a dead ringer for David Cameron.

If you really want to talk about lobbying by Private interests to line their own pockets, the SNP sure have some record, and these examples are the tip of the iceberg: snouts in the trough at every opportunity.

https:/jonathonshafi.substack.com/p/the-snp-and-the-corporate-lobby

Edited July 8 by Jedi2

[MarkoRaj]

Keep that absolute shite to substack where it belongs

[Jedi2]

4 minutes ago, MarkoRaj said:

Keep that absolute shite to substack where it belongs

The 'report' from the National about Jackie Baillie or the matters of public record about SNP ministers anf private interests?

[KirkieRR]

9 minutes ago, Jedi2 said:

The 'report' from the National about Jackie Baillie or the matters of public record about SNP ministers anf private interests?

You're aware the election is over and unreadable bore-posts are pointless?

[Highlandmagar]

3 minutes ago, KirkieRR said:

You're aware the election is over and unreadable bore-posts are pointless?

It will never be over for these right wing Tory lites.

[Cheese]

1 minute ago, Jedi2 said:

Whataboutery 

I'm not a SNP member, supporter or voter.

I think privatisation of the public sphere is bad regardless of who is doing it. Unlike yourself of course who simply cannot answer a question on this website without resorting to whataboutery.

You also know fine well that public spending levels in London/England affect the amount of money the other 3 nations receive. 

But we were talking about Wes '170 grand in donations from private healthcare' Streeting's 'plans' of course. And I see that objectively the worst people in the country, the swivel eyed Tory press are obviously upset about having Labour in government, but are absolutely rock hard for wee Wes' NHS 'reform' plans. 

Whatever could that mean ?

[Jedi2]

I would rather think that 'right-wing' applies to heavy acceptance of Corporate Lobbying with govt ministers using public money to line their own pockets.

The election may be 'over' but the cycle until the next one has already started with (some) writing off a new govt after 4 days.

[Leith Green]

38 minutes ago, Jedi2 said:

Analysis of Scottish Government ministers’ engagement in 2020 shows that meetings, potentially of key public interest, were not in the register, including those between ministers and companies awarded multi-million pound UK and Scottish contracts to supply the NHS in the run-up to Covid-19.

“As these meetings took place by phone they did not fall under regulated lobbying rules, an exemption which means they don’t need to appear on the lobbying register. Others in this category included meetings between ministers and the billionaire steel tycoon behind GFG Alliance, Sanjeev Gupta.”

Sanjeev Gupta, as it happens, has paid just just £5 (five pounds) towards the acquisition of a Highlands smelting plant – with taxpayers financing the rest of the £330 million deal. The research also found that:

“…engagements with big business, including energy companies and renewables chasing Scotland’s booming renewables sector, dominated the diaries of several ministers.”

Let’s just think about this. The First Minister announces a National Energy Company in 2017. Nothing happens. Then, in 2021, SNP members want to raise the issue again to add some urgency to the plan. They vote overwhelmingly for the policy at their conference. Again, nothing happens. At the same time government ministers were having meetings, outside of the public record, with big businesses seeking to cash in on Scotland’s renewables industry.

Before we know it, the Scottish Government launches a “green investment portfolio” worth £3 Billion of Scottish green assets. This package, a substantial component of Scotland’s economic future, is to be bought up by private and foreign capital. As we know, ScotWind has already seen large tracts of renewable wind energy sold, cheaply, to the likes of British Petroleum. Meanwhile, Scotland’s six offshore wind farms have paid a derisory £150,000 to nearby communities in the last 12 months

“Freeports” are bound up with the Tory incarnation of Brexit. The are special zones that, as the TUC report, “sit outside the UK’s main tax and tariff rules, with lower regulations to attract investment and business.” This means that once again the dice are loaded in favour of big business and against workers and local communities. They are also loaded against SNP conference decisions which are effectively superfluous to events, as the SNP Trade Union Group noted in relation to the “green freeports.”

While the behind the scenes lobbying runs like a well oiled machine, there are occasions when the Scottish Government will be very upfront about whose interests they are loyal to. Naturally, the Growth Commission, the George Osborne variant of “independence,” was brought together by Scotland’s premier corporate lobbying firm, Charlotte Street Partners, while the trade unions were excluded.

The “Economic Recovery Group” set up during the pandemic, was led by the former CEO of Tesco bank, Benny Higgins, who is now Chairman of the estate of Scotland’s largest feudal landowner, the Duke of Buccleuch.

The council to advise on a ten year plan for Scotland to “unleash entrepreneurial potential and grow Scotland’s competitive business base,” included Sir Nick Macpherson, a former Treasury permanent secretary who advised George Osborne to reject a currency union during the 2014 referendum campaign.

The hotchpotch of word salad this apparently chaotic group arrived at, known as “Scotland's National Strategy for Economic Transformation” has so far produced a couple of events which the press were excluded from, and the formation of a new post known as Scotland’s “Chief Entrepreneur” who is to be paid a salary of £192,000 for working just 8 days a month.

Then we can come to the so-called National Care Service (NCS). The design for this has been contracted to multinational consultancy firms PriceWaterhouseCoopers and KPMG. Incidentally, KPMG have recently been fined £18.4m for deliberately misleading regulators. In addition, “four of its senior staff have been banned from the accountancy profession, over the firm’s botched audits of collapsed outsourcing company Carillion.”

As Lilian Macer, convener of Unison Scotland, said of the NCS contracts:

“PriceWaterhouseCoopers and KPMG have a track record of promoting private health and social care, this is not what most people in Scotland want. Care should be delivered in and for the community. It is a public service not a commodity. Big private equity firms have led us to the tragically dysfunctional care system we have now.”

• In 2021 Kate Forbes set up something called the Scottish Technology Ecosystem Review. It was led by Mark Logan. As ever, the process was outsourced. This time a contract worth £100,000 went to a private business called Ipso Facto Ltd. Mark Logan is the co-founder of Ipso Facto. He is also a Director of, drum roll, Travelnest Ltd.

All of this fits neatly into the system of patronage set up around the leadership of the Scottish Government sprawling beyond the corporate sector and into wider parts of public life.

Thus, the Chair of the Economic Recovery Group, is also the Chair of Buccleuch Estates and is also Chair of the National Galleries of Scotland board, alongside Andrew Wilson of Charlotte Street Partners who is also the author of the Growth Commission, alongside Willie Watt who is also the inaugural chair of the Scottish National Investment bank.

While the corporate lobby exercises a hundred times more power and influence than the SNP membership, the party hierarchy also comes down hard whenever the working class start to mobilise in their own interests. They have shown they are willing to utilise Tory anti-trade union laws against striking cleansing workers in Glasgow.

Indeed, Susan Aitken, who wins the award for reintroducing the word “ned” into public discourse, is driving an agenda in Scotland’s largest “Yes” city based on a programme of massive privatisation. If John Swinney really did cut and paste Osborne’s business rate proposals for his conference speech in 2015, then Susan Aitken is a dead ringer for David Cameron.

If you really want to talk about lobbying by Private interests to line their own pockets, the SNP sure have some record, and these examples are the tip of the iceberg: snouts in the trough at every opportunity.

https:/jonathonshafi.substack.com/p/the-snp-and-the-corporate-lobby

Boring pish

[lichtgilphead]

25 minutes ago, Jedi2 said:

The election may be 'over' but the cycle until the next one has already started with (some) writing off a new govt after 4 days.

Most didn't even give them that long.

Of course, that viewpoint is absolutely correct.