Scottish Independence

[kevin horlocks wand]

Excuse me, I was Mr Angry’s Cousin, thank you very much.

Sorry we are all blue cousins

 

[Coatigan]

You called me mr angry for posting three classic snp quotes which we hear over and over

THATS THE SNP not Scotland.

Nobody is broadbrushing a nation, blueinsa bloody lives in Scotland so can he hardly broadbrush the place he lives and you called him mr angrys cousin.

As I say I think you have forgotten what your point is it.

You can’t have a beef with me I am totally ambivalent to a referendum, I live in Manchester not Scotland - upto people of Scotland. Like Scotland. Good golf, good walking, good fishing. So long as I can still visit.

It was the tone, particularly the last line, that came off angry, with lines that annoy you above. Followed a pattern on here, with a few rapidly consecutive similar posts.

But hey, fair play to you if i read that wrong.

 

[blueinsa]

It was the tone, particularly the last line, that came off angry, with lines that annoy you above. Followed a pattern on here, with a few rapidly consecutive similar posts.

But hey, fair play to you if i read that wrong.

You're new here.

Us leave voters have been right wing racist xenophobic nazi old bastards for the last 3 years.

 

[Coatigan]

You're new here.

Us leave voters have been right wing racist xenophobic nazi old bastards for the last 3 years.

And have i not pointed out the hypocrisy in that too, vs calling independence wishfuls anglophobic nats etc etc? hypocrisy always cuts both ways.

 

[blueinsa]

And have i not pointed out the hypocrisy in that too, vs calling independence wishfuls anglophobic nats etc etc?

Relax and read the posts as the vast majority make it clear it's the SNP that they are talking about.

 

[Saddleworth2]

I had, but only temporarily :-)

I don’t permanently “fuck people off” on here and I never put people on ignore.

Now on to the point. As a unionist, both in Europe and at home, can you see why the SNP and the William Wallace brigade boil my piss?

To an extent I can. They used to have the same effect on me especially that little shit Salmon. Overt Scottish nationalism is also a big turn off for me. I fucking hate ‘flower of scotland’ and all that anti English shite. But Brexit has changed things up here. Even hardened Unionists like me are far more open to the question of independence.

If The choice was a U.K. under a Johnson hard right government with god alone knows what type of Brexit against an independent Scotland which way would you lean? I genuinely don’t know. I just wish we could return to being an open welcoming nation (U.K.) with decent politics that reward the hard working but also look after those that most need it.
the SNP were a great deal more anti English with Salmon at the helm. he was an odious prick. Some of them still are but the key players aren’t I don’t think. What they are is completely focused on achieving their no 1 objective which has been unchanged for decades. Someone likened them yesterday to UKIP,that’s just plain wrong. They are a party of government and compared to other parties pretty damn capable. Over the last few years I have come to respect that.

Hope that helped explain my viewpoint. Let’s not fall out again -us Unionists need to stick together :-)

 

[FlemishDuck]

You're new here.

Us leave voters have been right wing racist xenophobic nazi old bastards for the last 3 years.

In belgian we have a expression "acting like a beaten dog"/"als een geslagen hond". It describes a sort of behaviour where a person puts himself in the position of the victim (typically uncalled for in those circumstances) as to give credit to ones partisan behaviour or "tone of expression".

Someone on the corner of some street called me a racist so now i have the right to act up... against all those who I in my infinite wisdom and self granted liberty associate with that behaviour

 

[Ban-jani]

To an extent I can. They used to have the same effect on me especially that little shit Salmon. Overt Scottish nationalism is also a big turn off for me. I fucking hate ‘flower of scotland’ and all that anti English shite. But Brexit has changed things up here. Even hardened Unionists like me are far more open to the question of independence.

If The choice was a U.K. under a Johnson hard right government with god alone knows what type of Brexit against an independent Scotland which way would you lean? I genuinely don’t know. I just wish we could return to being an open welcoming nation (U.K.) with decent politics that reward the hard working but also look after those that most need it.
the SNP were a great deal more anti English with Salmon at the helm. he was an odious prick. Some of them still are but the key players aren’t I don’t think. What they are is completely focused on achieving their no 1 objective which has been unchanged for decades. Someone likened them yesterday to UKIP,that’s just plain wrong. They are a party of government and compared to other parties pretty damn capable. Over the last few years I have come to respect that.

Hope that helped explain my viewpoint. Let’s not fall out again -us Unionists need to stick together :-)

They’ve improved since he left but the guise of professionalism only acts as a curtain to what they’re really about and I stand by my point that their closest related party is UKIP, in that the main purpose of them as an entity is to breakaway using nationalism as the vehicle.

UKIP are far more odious but still they are linked.

The SNP are far from being a success too, on basic governing. Here’s a snippet outlining this and why-

Fifteen year old Scottish Cabinet papers become available for inspection, unlike south of the Border where a more stringent 30 year rule applies.

The latest batch covers 2003, when Labour’s Jack McConnell was First Minister, John Swinney was SNP leader, and Alex Salmond languished in semi-retirement.

It was also the boom years of devolution. Increases in spending, made possible by strong economic growth, led to chunky rises in Holyrood’s block grant. An expansion of the public sector was possible.

McConnell entered 2003 in sound political health. Free personal care for the elderly had been passed and was on its way. The NHS and schools were enjoying record funding increases. The Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition was comfortably re-elected.

Devolution in 2018 is unrecognisable from those days. The SNP has been in power for over a decade and the funding settlements are tighter. However, the accretion of financial powers to Holyrood has given the Nationalist administration an unprecedented range of options to raise resources. It can be done if there is a will to do so.

Having covered Holyrood for over a decade, I feel confident in saying that 2018 was the worst year for public service delivery since the creation of the Parliament. At best, Nicola Sturgeon’s record merits a C-minus. Most Governments in Europe would be staring into the electoral abyss after putting in a similar performance.

Consider the evidence. When she succeeded Salmond in 2014, Sturgeon insisted that closing the educational attainment gap for poorer children was her top priority. Then the language shifted. The SNP spoke of making “significant progress” towards this goal, after which it was watered down further to “demonstrable” progress. Now the Government has settled for closing the “poverty related” attainment gap.

Policy-wise it has been little better. Education Secretary John Swinney was forced to shelve his “governance” bill before the summer recess due to a lack of political support. His plans for primary one assessments were voted down by MSPs in the autumn and some councils have refused to implement the initiative.

As of December, the gap was still huge. Fewer than three out of five pupils (59%) leaving primary school in the poorest areas were meeting the necessary standards in literacy. This was in contrast to 83% of children in the most affluent communities. Swinney said the gap had narrowed “slightly”.

The Government’s performance on the NHS was even less impressive. After over a decade of SNP control, the health service suffers from shortages in key staffing areas, while “statutory” waiting time targets are routinely missed due to the strain. Shona Robison, appointed Health Secretary in 2014, paid for the crisis with her job and left her post in the summer.

Her successor Jeane Freeman’s “clear the decks” strategy revealed the scale of the task facing the NHS. In October, she announced that around £150m of emergency loans provided to failing health boards would be written off. Weeks later, Freeman gave the NHS nearly three years to hit the targets set by previous SNP Ministers. Audit Scotland concluded that the NHS was "not financially sustainable” in its current form.

Rail passengers are also unlikely to remember 2018 as a vintage year. Some of the criticism was misplaced – many of the cancellations and delays were caused by Network Rail, not ScotRail – but in the eyes of the public the service is unreliable and a rip off. Echoing Freeman’s approach, Transport Secretary Michael Matheson agreed to waive the operator’s performance benchmarks until next June. Or, as a leading trade unionist put it, he gave ScotRail “carte blanche to fail”.

 

[DenisLawBackHeel74]

The Guardian
2018-2019
Scotland’s notional deficit stood at £12.6bn or 7% of GDP, including North Sea oil revenues, compared with the UK’s total £23.5bn deficit, which includes Scotland’s figure. The UK deficit is equivalent to 1.1% of its GDP.

Total state spending in Scotland was £1,661 higher per person than the UK average at £75.3bn, while tax receipts were £307 less per head than the UK average, at £62.7bn. Excluding oil revenues, the deficit exceeded £14bn, equal to 22.5% of tax revenues.

So just to paraphrase, there is more per capita head spent on Scottish people, they pay less tax than UK average, and their national debt is around 50% of the total UK debt......but that fucking nutter Sturgeon wants to leave the union.

*shakes head then goes for a lie down.

 

[Ban-jani]

The Guardian
2018-2019
Scotland’s notional deficit stood at £12.6bn or 7% of GDP, including North Sea oil revenues, compared with the UK’s total £23.5bn deficit, which includes Scotland’s figure. The UK deficit is equivalent to 1.1% of its GDP.

Total state spending in Scotland was £1,661 higher per person than the UK average at £75.3bn, while tax receipts were £307 less per head than the UK average, at £62.7bn. Excluding oil revenues, the deficit exceeded £14bn, equal to 22.5% of tax revenues.

So just to paraphrase, there is more per capita head spent on Scottish people, they pay less tax than UK average, and their national debt is around 50% of the total UK debt......but that fucking nutter Sturgeon wants to leave the union.

*shakes head then goes for a lie down.

When they inevitably get this 2nd referendum, I hope this is clearly communicated by the no campaign.