Be afraid Scotland; be very afraid.

[Corky Smeek]

The screengrab below is from a House of Lords Constitution Committee report on the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) for Brexit (click the image to enlarge it).



This allows the UK Government to amend or repeal the Scotland Act 1998 and to close down the Scottish Parliament without any need to consult either the UK or Scottish Parliaments. They can just do it on a whim - probably if we get a wee bit uppity.

Why has BoJo see fit to include this in the WAB? What sinster intention does he have in mind for Scotland? No wonder he only wanted two days for the debate.

If we don't start taking matters into our own hands NOW then BoJo will start grabbing huge chunks of power back from Holyrood or closing it altogether.

You have been warned! And this time the (SNP) Scottish Government will not be able to pass legislation to negate the impact as it did, for example, with the Bedroom Tax as it will have been abolished or had its powers massively curtailed.

If we are not careful pretty soon we will be living in Scotlandshire or North Britain.

It's time to wake up folks. This is for real. This is a foretaste of the sinister future that might lie ahead of us if we don't do something about it now. On December 12th vote to ensure that Scotland gets to decide its own future.

[Goodfellers]

"North Britain". you do realise that 'Britain' is not England. Scotland is already in Northern Britain. These is the simple errors nationalists make, confusing Britain with England and Westminster for England.

You paint a bleak picture with your "sinister future", I hope you look back in a year or two and wonder why you were getting so stressed out!

[orkneycadian]

If we don't start taking matters into our own hands NOW then BoJo will start grabbing huge chunks of power back from Holyrood or closing it altogether.

Yay! Does that mean we might start seeing proper policing, education and health services again? A share of the 20,000 new police officers? An end to poor accident victimes left to die at the side of the road for 3 days? The streets of Govan being represented in parliament once again?

[Corky Smeek]

Yay! Does that mean we might start seeing proper policing, education and health services again? A share of the 20,000 new police officers? An end to poor accident victimes left to die at the side of the road for 3 days? The streets of Govan being represented in parliament once again?

Are you seriously suggesting that Westminster would be better than Holyrood at running public services? Take the NHS for instance. The Scottish NHS consistently out-performs the other 3. Since the tories got their hands on the NHS in England (2010) the following has happened:-

Surgical waiting lists have soared to 4.4 million
District nurses culled by 50%
15k hospital beds closed
Cancer waits the worst on record
NHS now short of 43k nurses & 10k doctors

Public services may not be perfect in Scotland but they are a lot better than they are in other parts of the UK. I'm pretty sure the people of Scotland know how lucky we are to have a buffer between us and relentless Tory austerity. That might explain why, after 12 years of being in Government in Scotland and being the largest Scottish party at Westminster they are still way out in front in the polls.

[orkneycadian]

Hows that Sick Kids hospital in Edinburgh coming along?

[Corky Smeek]

Hows that Sick Kids hospital in Edinburgh coming along?

Yes, let's adopt the Westminster government approach to large scale infrastructure, shall we.

Cross Rail (London) - Designated a UK infrastructure project so everyone in the UK has to pay whether it benefits them or not
London Sewer Upgrade - Designated a UK infrastructure project so everyone in the UK has to pay whether it benefits them or not.
HS2 (London - Birmingham) - Designated a UK infrastructure project so everyone in the UK has to pay whether it benefits them or not.

Queensferry Crossing - Nothing to do with UK infrastructure. If you want it Scotland, you pay.
Borders Rail Link - Nothing to do with UK infrastructure. If you want it Scotland, you pay.
Dualling of the A9 between Perth & Inverness. Nothing to do with UK infrastructure. If you want it Scotland, you pay.

[Fulmar]

Some of us do venture south of the border occasionally!

[Corky Smeek]

If you want to see the full report mentioned in my opening post here is the link:-

https://publications.parliament.uk/p...onst/21/21.pdf

And, just a reminder. This is about the Tory Government seeking the powers (if re-elected - which it probably will be) to make wholesale and unilateral changes to the devoltion settlement for Scotland. If passed, this will allow Boris Johnston to abolish or severely restrict the power of the Scottish Parliament. It would also allow him to make changes to the Human Rights Act, again without any need to consult parliament.

Remember "The Vow" after IndyrefI? We were told we were getting great swathes of new powers for Holyrood. The promises dissolved into nothing and now we are staring down the barrel of a huge power grab by Westminster.

Even Murray Foote, the architect of "The Vow", has seen the light and is now in favour of independence. He said that "...the UK Government had shown "blatant contempt" for devolution ....".

This whole issue is really pretty serious for all of us in Scotland. It should figure very strongly in the election campaign but it won't because the main stream media don't want you to know about it.

[Corky Smeek]

Some of us do venture south of the border occasionally!

And even more venture north of it.

[Headwark]

Can anyone please tell me if an Independent Scotland could afford to fund a National health service.

[Fulmar]

I'm afraid you sound so terribly anti the rest of the UK, Corky and more particularly against England.
I was glad that there were good working sewers in London when I recently visited my extremely hard worked daughter who is an NHS nurse.

[Corky Smeek]

I'm afraid you sound so terribly anti the rest of the UK, Corky and more particularly against England.
I was glad that there were good working sewers in London when I recently visited my extremely hard worked daughter who is an NHS nurse.

You say that without knowing the first thing about my nationality or heritage. All I want is for Scotland to get a fair crack of the whip. I am not anti-anywhere except Westminster. I find the double standards to be intolerable and impossible to justify.

[Fulmar]

All I want is for Scotland to get a fair crack of the whip
Not a pleasant analogy- who exactly do you want to be whipping? Advise that you remember the flak occasioned by the former assertion by Alec Salmond that he would 'hold Westminster's feet to the fire'.

[Corky Smeek]

All I want is for Scotland to get a fair crack of the whip
Not a pleasant analogy- who exactly do you want to be whipping? Advise that you remember the flak occasioned by the former assertion by Alec Salmond that he would 'hold Westminster's feet to the fire'.

OK, I'll take the bait. My analogy may have been clumsy but I feel sure you really know, deep down, that it was just a figure of speech. Whilst we are on the subject of the moral high ground perhaps you would join me in condemning the vile, misogyny, primarily directed at our First Minister, by a notable correspondent in this forum. The sentiments expressed by that person far exceed any imaginery outrage you may be feeling about my poor choice of words.

All I am saying is that I wish Scotland (and every other part of the UK outwith the SE of England) to be treated fairly by the Westminster government. It is not just people in Scotland who agree that London maintains too much of the wealth. The same argument is made all over these islands.

[Fulmar]

I do condemn it and I do not like it and I do not want to see it or read it.
I especially abhor the violent hatred expressed against all politicians whatever their party and think it should be taken with the utmost seriousness and dealt with in the courts when it occurs. Far as I'm concerned, look what the decline in respect, not just in politics but in other areas, had led to. Society in general is the poorer for it and it is a threat to all the things that I hold dear.

[Corky Smeek]

I do condemn it and I do not like it and I do not want to see it or read it.
I especially abhor the violent hatred expressed against all politicians whatever their party and think it should be taken with the utmost seriousness and dealt with in the courts when it occurs. Far as I'm concerned, look what the decline in respect, not just in politics but in other areas, had led to. Society in general is the poorer for it and it is a threat to all the things that I hold dear.

Thank you for this. I agree entirely.

I am all for robust political debate but surely that doesn't have to take place within an atmosphere of hatred concocted to make cheap political points. It needs to stop.

[Oddquine]

Can anyone please tell me if an Independent Scotland could afford to fund a National health service.

Why wouldn't the SG be able to fund an NHS if independent? They manage to fund it now from the block grant, which is simply the return to us of some of our taxes, plus maybe some input from locally raised taxes.

[j4bberw0ck]

It is not just people in Scotland who agree that London maintains too much of the wealth. The same argument is made all over these islands.

It's inconvenient, then, that London actually generates a quarter of the entire UK GDP. Figures from the EU (taken from Wiki):


************************************************** ************************************************** ***************
The most recent (2017) regional GDP estimates calculated by Eurostat, the EU civil service statistics authority, suggest the following:^[2]

Region	GDP (trillion $)	GDP (trillion €)	GDP (trillion £)[3]
Total UK GDP:	2.5	2.3	1.8
Great Britain:	2.4	2.2	1.7
England (including London):	2.2	2.0	1.6
England (excluding London):	1.6	1.45	1.1
London:	0.6	0.55	0.43
Scotland:	0.2	0.18	0.14
Wales:	0.09	0.08	0.06
Northern Ireland:	0.06	0.05	0.04

This would make the economy of England taken alone (£1.6tn / €2.0tn) approximately the world's 8th largest economy (just behind France, and ahead of Italy) as opposed to the 6th largest for the UK as a whole (between India (5th), and France, 7th) by the usual criteria. Scotland's economy, for comparison, would be roughly the size of Hungary's (54th).
************************************************** ************************************************** **************************************

Just sayin', is all..............

[orkneycadian]

Thank goodness for Joel Barnett, thats all I can say!

[Corky Smeek]

It's inconvenient, then, that London actually generates a quarter of the entire UK GDP. Figures from the EU (taken from Wiki):


************************************************** ************************************************** ***************
The most recent (2017) regional GDP estimates calculated by Eurostat, the EU civil service statistics authority, suggest the following:^[2]

Region	GDP (trillion $)	GDP (trillion €)	GDP (trillion £)[3]
Total UK GDP:	2.5	2.3	1.8
Great Britain:	2.4	2.2	1.7
England (including London):	2.2	2.0	1.6
England (excluding London):	1.6	1.45	1.1
London:	0.6	0.55	0.43
Scotland:	0.2	0.18	0.14
Wales:	0.09	0.08	0.06
Northern Ireland:	0.06	0.05	0.04

This would make the economy of England taken alone (£1.6tn / €2.0tn) approximately the world's 8th largest economy (just behind France, and ahead of Italy) as opposed to the 6th largest for the UK as a whole (between India (5th), and France, 7th) by the usual criteria. Scotland's economy, for comparison, would be roughly the size of Hungary's (54th).
************************************************** ************************************************** **************************************

Just sayin', is all..............

Yet, despite this it still sucks in massive amounts of money from Scotland to fund vanity projects that have no material benefit to us. Scotland's GDP is somewhere in the region of £160 Billion yet the Barnet formula only gives us roughly £30 Billion to fund all matters under the control of Holyrood.