The Scottish Politics Thread

[Bimbowomxn]

Richard Murphy is a dishonest crank. All he’s doing getting involved in GERs is looking for another mug punter for his dribble now Labour have moved back to sensible.

[tc27]

I've tried several times to post the first part of my reply, but it always comes back in an error message, I was asking about the first point in the link I gave, rather than attacking the source, I was asking about the substance of what he says

Sorry about that I did link to a very long form refutation of Murphy.

In my opinion he's basically bluffing about GERS and that video is a good example.

The video is a selective edit of his performance, the guy who posted it has other videos which don't hide his viewpoint. I'm not really interested in attacking sources, more whether or not there is any substance in what is said.

Check out the link

https://chokkablog.blogspot.com/2017/04 ... r.html?m=1

[Tichtheid]

According to ONS methodology, there are 12 areas in which they count GDP, Scotland lies fourth in this table, https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdom ... 1998to2018

However, as I said before, any capital spend via PFI is counted as spend in Scotland and as income in London.

An independent Scotland would not have to do that, selling bonds, or more accurately borrowing, would be a much more economical way of raising funds for infrastructure projects. As things stand Scotland can't do that.

If Scotland does do that, it also takes away some of the surplus in London and the discrepancy suddenly doesn't look so bad, especially if there is a federalism in England and the other parts of the UK, whereby they can fund their own spending.

It doesn't work for everything of course, the NHS benefits from the economy of scale, but we are about to lose that, despite how Scotland voted.

[Tichtheid]

As far as I'm aware, not one country has asked to be brought back under the "protection" of Britain once they had managed to secure their independence, but I'm open to correction.

Maybe Hong Kong would do so right enough, but that is a somewhat exceptional case, given their alternative.

Doesn't really answer my point..not sure why you threw this in.

Anyway Scotland is not a colony of the UK its actually part of the unitary state that is the UK.

I threw it in because there were arguments in every single case that those countries were better off staying with the UK, arguments that had to be overcome.

[tc27]

According to ONS methodology, there are 12 areas in which they count GDP, Scotland lies fourth in this table, https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdom ... 1998to2018

Yeah Scotlands not a poor region in the UK really but spending is significantly higher in Scotland than elsewhere (hence the gap in GERS)

However, as I said before, any capital spend via PFI is counted as spend in Scotland and as income in London.

A quick delve into GERS answers this.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/gover ... s/pages/5/

Unitary Charge Payments

Payments for both PFI and NPD projects take the form of a unitary charge which is usually paid annually over the lifetime of the contract. It is worth emphasising that these payments are already fully reflected in the GERS spending figures. In addition, the table below includes Ministry of Defence projects in Scotland which are procured by and entirely funded by the Ministry of Defence. Scotland is assigned a population share of this expenditure in GERS. Unitary charge payments cover repayment of capital, interest payments, and in some cases service charge payments. Figures are shown here for the years 2014-15 to 2018-19 to be consistent with other tables in this report. The underlying spreadsheets on the GERS website have data covering the period back to 1998-99 as well as estimated payments into the 2040s. Additional information about the individual procuring authority (e.g. individual local authority and health board information) and comparisons with the UK are also provided.

So I think your point is that the beneficiaries of these PFI payments have corp HQs in London so Scotland is missing out on corporation tax from the profits these companies make..I mean lets be extremely simplistic and say 19% of those payments should go back to the Scottish treasury or be assigned to Scotland in GERS (they may already be) - thats approx £250 million..the fiscal transfer is 15 billion...the amount is peanuts.

An independent Scotland would not have to do that, selling bonds, or more accurately borrowing, would be a much more economical way of raising funds for infrastructure projects. As things stand Scotland can't do that.

An independent Scotland would have to issue bounds to cover a 10% deficit - the chances of having much headroom for infrastructure projects is unlikely (I do agree PFI is a stupid way to fund projects).

If Scotland does do that, it also takes away some of the surplus in London and the discrepancy suddenly doesn't look so bad, especially if there is a federalism in England and the other parts of the UK, whereby they can fund their own spending.

As I said the best possible case for PFI is £260 million - it hardly makes a dent.

It doesn't work for everything of course, the NHS benefits from the economy of scale, but we are about to lose that, despite how Scotland voted.

Not sure what your saying here.

[Tichtheid]

So I think your point is that the beneficiaries of these PFI payments have corp HQs in London so Scotland is missing out on corporation tax from the profits these companies make..I mean lets be extremely simplistic and say 19% of those payments should go back to the Scottish treasury or be assigned to Scotland in GERS (they may already be) - thats approx £250 million..the fiscal transfer is 15 billion...the amount is peanuts.

Like I said on the issue of Solar power, you don't expect to replace Torness power station with photovoltaic cells in Scotland, rather you use a portfolio approach, or indeed decide that building Torness 2 is the best way forward, but it's for Scots to decide.

No one is saying that stopping PFI repayments to London alone will redress any balance of payments issue.

This is a constant issue in these debates, the Unionists say "See, that won't work, so your whole argument for independence is rubbish".

[Caley_Red]

Biffer, you are free to ignore me- that's your prerogative and my previous post was a little churlish. However, I am no uber unionist ideologue, I dont start from a position and select facts to suit my case, I arrived at my position because the facts objectively support it: Independence would severely damage the economy, the SNP are an illiberal party under sturgeon (as evidenced by the raft of oppressive laws they've attempted to pass), their handling of devolved matters has caused severe degradation to areas like education.

I also happen to think that their policy making and governance has made Scotland a worse place to live and work. Given the nature of my work and education, I'm fortunate to be in a position where I have an advanced understanding of economic policy, particularly around central banking and statistics hence, I have a very bleak view of the SNP's proposals for an independent Scotland. Please don't equate me with deranged and extremist nationalists but feel free to engage me on any of the points I've made.

If I'm honest, I wasn't really referring to you

We're all guilty of getting overly antagonistic on this every now and again, I genuinely try not to. But there are some on each side who are thoroughly ignorable due to various levels of frothing, whether it's Saltire or Union Flag tinged spittle involved.

Oh, apologies, I thought you were referring to me.

[Caley_Red]

So I think your point is that the beneficiaries of these PFI payments have corp HQs in London so Scotland is missing out on corporation tax from the profits these companies make..I mean lets be extremely simplistic and say 19% of those payments should go back to the Scottish treasury or be assigned to Scotland in GERS (they may already be) - thats approx £250 million..the fiscal transfer is 15 billion...the amount is peanuts.

Like I said on the issue of Solar power, you don't expect to replace Torness power station with photovoltaic cells in Scotland, rather you use a portfolio approach, or indeed decide that building Torness 2 is the best way forward, but it's for Scots to decide.

No one is saying that stopping PFI repayments to London alone will redress any balance of payments issue.

This is a constant issue in these debates, the Unionists say "See, that won't work, so your whole argument for independence is rubbish".

Everything discussed above could easily be summarised as a cent on the dollar either way; there isn't enough statistical wiggle-room to make any sizable dent into the fiscal deficit.

The cash deficit will, in all likelihood, also be a larger proportion of the economy post independence due to the likelihood of a severe recession but even in the case it were not, it still must be financed on day one.

With debt:GDP over 100% and, assuming no fiscal changes, c8% of the economy must be financed to fund the budget deficit. It will be incredibly difficult to finance that given there is still no plan on monetary authorities and currency (and I would argue there never was), the SNP could issue hard debt in sterling and pay for expensive hedges back into whatever domestic currency they come up with, this means that systematic risk can rise exponentially: a currency crisis can become a debt crisis with a self-reinforced cycle.

That's not to mention the substantial spread over Gilts that will have to be on offer at the bond auctions so that 8% over 10 years can look more 11%. I can't be bothered running the numbers but the inpact of the deficit, currency and budget mean that any debt roll over scenario is likely to consume more of the fiscal budget YoY. The deficit would have to be financed this way every year unless significant cuts to spending are made and, in reality, that's what will have to happen as footloose corporations can't be expected to cough up and the scale of income tax rises would damage consumption which will already be fragile.

I also expect the banking sector to have all re-domiciled elsewhere depriving the exchequer of a huge sum of money (this is a near certainty given the geographical spread of operations and the role the central bank plays in providing liquidity to the sector); I also expect there to be increased emigration (disproportionately skilled) and general flight to safety further compounding the situation. All being said, these arguments on GERS are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, the largest systematic danger to the economy is a currency and financial crisis which compounds the existing fiscal crisis.

People can be crudely partitioned into two camps on this, those who think that 10 to 15 years of horrendous economic hurt is worth it and the others who don't (in reality, I've discounted the third group thinks everything will be grand from the off).

I'm not going to argue that, in thirty years time, Scotland may be better off (it could be depending on what policies are undertaken) but if the current administration is an indicator of the quality of future governance, I think that initial decade will be subsequently compounded with mismanagement. Further, I have seen nothing in the last 6 years which convinces me that the SNP have any better thought-out plans to remedy the current and future economic ills.

The initial deficit- although a substantial issue- isn't even in the top three economic hurdles that need to be overcome in the event of independence. This puts into perspective the size of the economic challenge and we haven't even spoke of the deficit being closer to 30% of GDP this year, wouldn't want to be in some unofficial currency union with no monetary and little fiscal flexibility (which is where 'sharing' the pound would put us).

[MoreOrLess]

Why UK’s oil and gas revenues are dwarfed by Norway’s

https://www.businessforscotland.com/uks ... d-norways/

This isn't really a like-for-like comparison considering Norways boe/yr is greater than the UKs.

Norway have also developed almost all of the monster fields in the North Sea, particularly recently. Granted the UK has Clair and a 45 year old Forties system, but Statfjord, Ekofisk, Oseberg etc. are all massive, plus Johan Sverdrup just starting and Mariner coming online too.

On top of that, the cost of producing in the UK is twice as high as it is in Norway. The UK can barely break even at $40/bbl. Given that its admirable we can make any money from O&G at the moment.

Chrysaor , which is currently the largest producer in the UK Sector of the North Sea is breaking even at $14 / barrel , and they have already hedged the next two years production at over $50

I think that's the key. The only groups that can make any money on the UKCS are lean PE back operators with extremely low costs. That's why Shell et al are moving out and offloading all their assets to the likes of Chrysaor and Hurricane.

It's a big ask to pay a lot in tax when you're not making much money!

[Tichtheid]

Can I get back to you on all of that?

It's Sunday at the end of a long weekend and as far as I can see most of the arguments against independence here start from the fact that those posters identify as British and cherry pick to suit their argument.

I'll come back to this, but we have to talk about tax take, and levelling up an Indy Scotland's tax take to that of the likes of Germany and France

[clydecloggie]

As fun as the annual GERS discussion is, I don't think it is a solid basis for a discussion on what the economy of an independent Scotland would look like. It IS a good starting point for a discussion on what the economy of the Republic of Scotland would look like if it did everything the same as the UK does, which will patently not be the case.

Scotland would prioritise different things (e.g. no Faslane nuclear subs that primarily serve as a deterrent for having money in the bank), and would presumably make different fiscal policy decisions.

My major worry that made me waver in the run up to my 2014 Yes vote was that Scotland's credit rating would be poor for a long time, making the cost of borrowing considerably higher than for the UK. But as with most things, Brexit has changed the other side of the equation so much - we are no longer comparing the uncertainties of independence with the 'strong & stable' of staying in the UK. We are comparing it with certain turmoil, falling credit ratings, and being tethered to ugly British (English) nationalism.

Aye, independence will be tough. Funnily enough, so will staying in a dysfunctional Union.

I think many Unionists have still not grasped this yet - that their own offering has changed beyond comprehension since 2014. All the (at least partially) justifiable warnings and doom-mongering don't make any sense anymore because they apply at least as much to the UK as a whole. Deficits in trillions, the NHS falling apart despite meaningless rhetoric about 'best health care system in the world', mass unemployment etc...we're already experiencing that. Scare us with something else.

[Bimbowomxn]

Deficits are not in the trillions.

[Biffer]

As fun as the annual GERS discussion is, I don't think it is a solid basis for a discussion on what the economy of an independent Scotland would look like. It IS a good starting point for a discussion on what the economy of the Republic of Scotland would look like if it did everything the same as the UK does, which will patently not be the case.

Scotland would prioritise different things (e.g. no Faslane nuclear subs that primarily serve as a deterrent for having money in the bank), and would presumably make different fiscal policy decisions.

My major worry that made me waver in the run up to my 2014 Yes vote was that Scotland's credit rating would be poor for a long time, making the cost of borrowing considerably higher than for the UK. But as with most things, Brexit has changed the other side of the equation so much - we are no longer comparing the uncertainties of independence with the 'strong & stable' of staying in the UK. We are comparing it with certain turmoil, falling credit ratings, and being tethered to ugly British (English) nationalism.

Aye, independence will be tough. Funnily enough, so will staying in a dysfunctional Union.

I think many Unionists have still not grasped this yet - that their own offering has changed beyond comprehension since 2014. All the (at least partially) justifiable warnings and doom-mongering don't make any sense anymore because they apply at least as much to the UK as a whole. Deficits in trillions, the NHS falling apart despite meaningless rhetoric about 'best health care system in the world', mass unemployment etc...we're already experiencing that. Scare us with something else.

Yeah, the brexiters don’t realise they’ve manufactured a situation which is analogous to the one they capitalised on in former industrial areas in the North of England and the Midlands. A lot of people in those areas heard the economic arguments for remain and it was completely out with their experience. There was a bit of ‘what we have now is shit, how much worse could it be?’. A similar we’ve-got-to-get-out-of-this-flaming-shitpile mentality could be one of the factors which will increase a pro independence vote.

[Tichtheid]

It turns out that someone has made my point for me https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2020/08/2 ... low-taxes/

[I like neeps]

As fun as the annual GERS discussion is, I don't think it is a solid basis for a discussion on what the economy of an independent Scotland would look like. It IS a good starting point for a discussion on what the economy of the Republic of Scotland would look like if it did everything the same as the UK does, which will patently not be the case.

Scotland would prioritise different things (e.g. no Faslane nuclear subs that primarily serve as a deterrent for having money in the bank), and would presumably make different fiscal policy decisions.

My major worry that made me waver in the run up to my 2014 Yes vote was that Scotland's credit rating would be poor for a long time, making the cost of borrowing considerably higher than for the UK. But as with most things, Brexit has changed the other side of the equation so much - we are no longer comparing the uncertainties of independence with the 'strong & stable' of staying in the UK. We are comparing it with certain turmoil, falling credit ratings, and being tethered to ugly British (English) nationalism.

Aye, independence will be tough. Funnily enough, so will staying in a dysfunctional Union.

I think many Unionists have still not grasped this yet - that their own offering has changed beyond comprehension since 2014. All the (at least partially) justifiable warnings and doom-mongering don't make any sense anymore because they apply at least as much to the UK as a whole. Deficits in trillions, the NHS falling apart despite meaningless rhetoric about 'best health care system in the world', mass unemployment etc...we're already experiencing that. Scare us with something else.

Yeah, the brexiters don’t realise they’ve manufactured a situation which is analogous to the one they capitalised on in former industrial areas in the North of England and the Midlands. A lot of people in those areas heard the economic arguments for remain and it was completely out with their experience. There was a bit of ‘what we have now is shit, how much worse could it be?’. A similar we’ve-got-to-get-out-of-this-flaming-shitpile mentality could be one of the factors which will increase a pro independence vote.

Agree. The global economy is ruining national economies and the top 1% hide money in tax havens, or own assets through shell companies and multinationals create such webs of transactions they never pay their fair share of tax.

Until globally an effort is made to end shell companies, tax havens, rampant asset inequality caused by QE, tax evasion and shells. I think we need to bring back some sort of Bretton Woods or politics is going to get more and more fractious and extreme.

It's not bizarre they don't see that. Thee brexiteers don't believe a word of the leveling up agenda. They said it to get votes but as you can see from UK govt procurement it's really a chumocracy. Cummings, Johnson, Sunak and the likes don't give a hoot about Redcar and never have. Never will either.

Economically indy will be bad for Scotland. But the status quo is also bad. So...

[Wylie Coyote]

Can I get back to you on all of that?

It's Sunday at the end of a long weekend and as far as I can see most of the arguments against independence here start from the fact that those posters identify as British and cherry pick to suit their argument.

I'll come back to this, but we have to talk about tax take, and levelling up an Indy Scotland's tax take to that of the likes of Germany and France

From what I have seen of your interaction with tc27 he has patiently dismantled your points only for you to change topics. You're doing a Trump here, accusing your opponent of doing the very thing you are doing.

[Tichtheid]

.

[Biffer]

Douglas Ross claiming this morning that we need a 'Scottish Dynamo' to compete with the 'Northern Powerhouse' and 'Midlands Engine' .

Aside from the skin crawlingly awful rhetoric, this is designed to level us down to being on a par economically with the North of England and the Midlands when in reality our GDP per head is 10-15% ahead of those areas. It's a deliberate mis-stating of the Scottish economic position to make us seem poorer than we are.

[Tichtheid]

Can I get back to you on all of that?

It's Sunday at the end of a long weekend and as far as I can see most of the arguments against independence here start from the fact that those posters identify as British and cherry pick to suit their argument.

I'll come back to this, but we have to talk about tax take, and levelling up an Indy Scotland's tax take to that of the likes of Germany and France

From what I have seen of your interaction with tc27 he has patiently dismantled your points only for you to change topics. You're doing a Trump here, accusing your opponent of doing the very thing you are doing.

Woah, easy Tiger. I disagree with what tc 27 has said, what do you want, a pantomime “oh no it’s not, oh yes it is?”

That gets us nowhere

[Biffer]

As fun as the annual GERS discussion is, I don't think it is a solid basis for a discussion on what the economy of an independent Scotland would look like. It IS a good starting point for a discussion on what the economy of the Republic of Scotland would look like if it did everything the same as the UK does, which will patently not be the case.

Scotland would prioritise different things (e.g. no Faslane nuclear subs that primarily serve as a deterrent for having money in the bank), and would presumably make different fiscal policy decisions.

My major worry that made me waver in the run up to my 2014 Yes vote was that Scotland's credit rating would be poor for a long time, making the cost of borrowing considerably higher than for the UK. But as with most things, Brexit has changed the other side of the equation so much - we are no longer comparing the uncertainties of independence with the 'strong & stable' of staying in the UK. We are comparing it with certain turmoil, falling credit ratings, and being tethered to ugly British (English) nationalism.

Aye, independence will be tough. Funnily enough, so will staying in a dysfunctional Union.

I think many Unionists have still not grasped this yet - that their own offering has changed beyond comprehension since 2014. All the (at least partially) justifiable warnings and doom-mongering don't make any sense anymore because they apply at least as much to the UK as a whole. Deficits in trillions, the NHS falling apart despite meaningless rhetoric about 'best health care system in the world', mass unemployment etc...we're already experiencing that. Scare us with something else.

Yeah, the brexiters don’t realise they’ve manufactured a situation which is analogous to the one they capitalised on in former industrial areas in the North of England and the Midlands. A lot of people in those areas heard the economic arguments for remain and it was completely out with their experience. There was a bit of ‘what we have now is shit, how much worse could it be?’. A similar we’ve-got-to-get-out-of-this-flaming-shitpile mentality could be one of the factors which will increase a pro independence vote.

Agree. The global economy is ruining national economies and the top 1% hide money in tax havens, or own assets through shell companies and multinationals create such webs of transactions they never pay their fair share of tax.

Until globally an effort is made to end shell companies, tax havens, rampant asset inequality caused by QE, tax evasion and shells. I think we need to bring back some sort of Bretton Woods or politics is going to get more and more fractious and extreme.

It's not bizarre they don't see that. Thee brexiteers don't believe a word of the leveling up agenda. They said it to get votes but as you can see from UK govt procurement it's really a chumocracy. Cummings, Johnson, Sunak and the likes don't give a hoot about Redcar and never have. Never will either.

Economically indy will be bad for Scotland. But the status quo is also bad. So...

The modern paradigm of a service based consumerist economy has at its heart the concentration of assets into a small set of hands. This is happening all over the economy, but the simplest way to highlight it is to look at the consumption of music, television and film. The modern way to do this is to stream it - in other words you hire it for a while but never own the asset. This gives the consumer more choice in the short term and less ownership in the longer term. If you spent £10 a month on music 20 years ago, after ten years you'd have a collection of over 100 CDs. If you spend that money now, you have no asset at the end of it. And the money doesn't go into the hands of artists, who make a pittance from things like spotify - it goes into the pocket of the owners of the platforms. Similarly for car finance. A four year deal used to be deposit up front and pay the remainder of four years. Now you pay the deposit up front and at the end of the four years you still owe £10k. It allows you to access a better car for those four years but keeps you locked into a cycle of new deals rather than having a tradeable asset at the end of the finance deal.

Moving to a service based economy increases the overall size of the economy but that increase doesn't trickle down as it was suggested it would in the eighties, nineties and noughties. Trickle down has been proven to be a false paradigm.

[I like neeps]

My favourite example I think of film and how the global economy works is the making of The Wolf of Wall Street. Famously a film about a man who ripped off thousands of people, presumably ruining more than a few lives, and committed a lot of crimes. Was lionised in a film that was funded by a gentleman called Jho Low ripping off the Malaysian state , stealing billions, hiding them in various offshore shells including the one that financed the film about massive fraud.

Good film mind.

[Bimbowomxn]

My favourite example I think of film and how the global economy works is the making of The Wolf of Wall Street. Famously a film about a man who ripped off thousands of people, presumably ruining more than a few lives, and committed a lot of crimes. Was lionised in a film that was funded by a gentleman called Jho Low ripping off the Malaysian state , stealing billions, hiding them in various offshore shells including the one that financed the film about massive fraud.

Good film mind.

It was a crime though and one where the western banks involved were fined far more than they made.

Malaysia is a terrible example of the “global economy “

[I like neeps]

My favourite example I think of film and how the global economy works is the making of The Wolf of Wall Street. Famously a film about a man who ripped off thousands of people, presumably ruining more than a few lives, and committed a lot of crimes. Was lionised in a film that was funded by a gentleman called Jho Low ripping off the Malaysian state , stealing billions, hiding them in various offshore shells including the one that financed the film about massive fraud.

Good film mind.

It was a crime though and one where the western banks involved were fined far more than they made.

Malaysia is a terrible example of the “global economy “

No doubt but the practices of it - money being taken from one country and laundered around the world through various banks, accountants, lawyers, property and art is fairly commonplace.

Maybe Malaysia aren't but are Goldman a good example? What about Arabian riyal families?

[Bimbowomxn]

My favourite example I think of film and how the global economy works is the making of The Wolf of Wall Street. Famously a film about a man who ripped off thousands of people, presumably ruining more than a few lives, and committed a lot of crimes. Was lionised in a film that was funded by a gentleman called Jho Low ripping off the Malaysian state , stealing billions, hiding them in various offshore shells including the one that financed the film about massive fraud.

Good film mind.

It was a crime though and one where the western banks involved were fined far more than they made.

Malaysia is a terrible example of the “global economy “

No doubt but the practices of it - money being taken from one country and laundered around the world through various banks, accountants, lawyers, property and art is fairly commonplace.

Maybe Malaysia aren't but are Goldman a good example? What about Arabian riyal families?

What ? Money and capital movement around the globe is a good thing . Crime is a bad thing.

Goldman Sachs did wrong and were fined billions. If that was actually the business model they’d be bust in a month.

By all means criticise aspects of globalisation however your example is actually one where the system worked.

[Slick]

NEEPS!

[Slick]

Douglas Ross claiming this morning that we need a 'Scottish Dynamo' to compete with the 'Northern Powerhouse' and 'Midlands Engine' .

Aside from the skin crawlingly awful rhetoric, this is designed to level us down to being on a par economically with the North of England and the Midlands when in reality our GDP per head is 10-15% ahead of those areas. It's a deliberate mis-stating of the Scottish economic position to make us seem poorer than we are.

That seems a very odd take on what he is saying. Our economy certainly needs a plan and the SH don’t have one - this isn’t anti SNP, we don’t have a coherent plan. Why not take the good bits the Northern Powehouse etc and try and come up with a credible way forward we can all agree on?

My skin is also crawling from the names

[Biffer]

Douglas Ross claiming this morning that we need a 'Scottish Dynamo' to compete with the 'Northern Powerhouse' and 'Midlands Engine' .

Aside from the skin crawlingly awful rhetoric, this is designed to level us down to being on a par economically with the North of England and the Midlands when in reality our GDP per head is 10-15% ahead of those areas. It's a deliberate mis-stating of the Scottish economic position to make us seem poorer than we are.

That seems a very odd take on what he is saying. Our economy certainly needs a plan and the SH don’t have one - this isn’t anti SNP, we don’t have a coherent plan. Why not take the good bits the Northern Powehouse etc and try and come up with a credible way forward we can all agree on?

My skin is also crawling from the names

He's giving the impression that Scotland is at the same level or behind them. It's a sly way of grouping us with the midlands and North as economically backwards, instead of looking for a strategy to compete with It's entirely deliberate. For example, the North East of England is £6k per head less gdp than Scotland, the South East is £5k per head more. Why don't we want a strategy to compete with those we're trying to catch, instead of those who are trying to catch us?

[Bimbowomxn]

2k of the “extra” Scottish GDP is the over spend of UK tax vs the North East of England.

[Northern Lights]

It turns out that someone has made my point for me https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2020/08/2 ... low-taxes/

So when we post links to official government data or respected news sources, you are countering with a blog

Let's take the OECD as a starter http://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/tax- ... 0in%202018.

The entire first part of this blog is nonsense, France as the OECD link shows is actually 46.1% not 53.2% like your blogger contends, that is an enormous difference they are also the highest in the OECD not Norway, so the entire premise of this blog is wrong with the most basic fact checks.

The UK is just below the OECD average on tax take to GDP. The fundamental question for you Nats is what are you going to do differently not broad oh we will make it fairer, greener more Scottishy. What exactly are you going to do, are you going to pursue a high tax regime ala France, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden or go for a low tax regime like Ireland, US, Mexico, Chile, Turkey?

We are getting sold both by the SNP and their followers: it is always hey look at Ireland or look at Norway they are fantastic and we are shite, you cant have both which path do you want to go down and why? The UK is middle of the road, for good or ill, you want to dramatically change that, go for it but there will be big ramifications on the path you want to go down.

This again though escapes where our biggest problem lies and it is not on revenue, it is how much is spent and no Trident does not equate to £15 billion for Scotland which is our deficit, the entire Defence expenditure in the GERS number came to £3.3bn so you still have another £12 billion to find assuming we dont bother with defence.

Kerevan is not just a socialist, he is full on Marxist and clearly favours the Norway/ Scandi model to that of Ireland and to stop the capital flight proposes putting in strict capital controls, new currency and our own central bank. The new currency and own central bank i agree with but the capital flight will be long gone by the time they get around to setting this up, it simply cant be stopped. The day after a Yes vote, there will be an enormous flight to safety as people rush to protect assets whilst they see how things pan out, this simply cant be avoided. You can then say godbye to the central bank and own currency if/when we rejoin the EU, so how he then contends to stop capital flight is beyond me but maybe he doesnt want to join the EU either.

I seriously doubt the SNP will run on a high tax, high spend model for next years election, it will be more unicorns and fairies and you can have the best of both worlds. You can't, it's nonsense like the blog you have just posted. Do you even try and use mainstream news sources or respected commentary?

My biggest issue with Nats and Brexiteers is the lack of critical thinking with any of them, Trumpers are the same. Trump has Breitbart, you have this bloke.

[Biffer]

Also this morning Douglas Ross saying he wants to maintain standards and doesn't want chlorinated chicken etc in the UK.

He voted against an amendment to protect current food standards a few weeks ago.

[Northern Lights]

Douglas Ross claiming this morning that we need a 'Scottish Dynamo' to compete with the 'Northern Powerhouse' and 'Midlands Engine' .

Aside from the skin crawlingly awful rhetoric, this is designed to level us down to being on a par economically with the North of England and the Midlands when in reality our GDP per head is 10-15% ahead of those areas. It's a deliberate mis-stating of the Scottish economic position to make us seem poorer than we are.

That seems a very odd take on what he is saying. Our economy certainly needs a plan and the SH don’t have one - this isn’t anti SNP, we don’t have a coherent plan. Why not take the good bits the Northern Powehouse etc and try and come up with a credible way forward we can all agree on?

My skin is also crawling from the names

He's giving the impression that Scotland is at the same level or behind them. It's a sly way of grouping us with the midlands and North as economically backwards, instead of looking for a strategy to compete with It's entirely deliberate. For example, the North East of England is £6k per head less gdp than Scotland, the South East is £5k per head more. Why don't we want a strategy to compete with those we're trying to catch, instead of those who are trying to catch us?

So rather than critically consider whether this investment is a good idea or not, you want to complain about some perceived slight where there is none. If another political figure had come up with this investment plan on infrastructure would you still be so opposed?

I havent actually seen any detail beyond the headline so havent looked into it myself yet.

[Northern Lights]

More on GERS this time from the Beeb, decent article.

GERS: A challenge to change

Douglas Fraser
Business/economy editor, Scotland

GERS shows the gap between Scottish tax take and spending is big, but coronavirus is set to make it humongous, with fiscal repairs requiring years of effort.
Annual publication fires up the independence debate. Allied to the current crisis, and a point of disruption, there is a case for revisiting the economic case for independence.
The case for independence may yet be won on non-economic grounds, but even if it is, there will still be a need to set out an economic plan.
Presentational white space
It's a brave person who forecasts where we'll be a year from now, but it's a reasonable bet that there will be a humongous gap between taxation and spending in Scotland when the GERS figures are published next August.
The Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland reckoning highlights a gap for 2019-20 that already looks alarmingly large, at £15.1bn, and 8.6% of Scottish output.
That had only a tail-end impact from the start of the pandemic crisis. Since then, billions have been poured into the health effort, disease controls, and mitigating the impact of lockdown on businesses and individuals.
The UK government is forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to have a budget deficit this year of at least 16% of GDP (the standard measure of total economic output), which would be the highest in peacetime, up from 2.5% last year. The benchmark safe and sustainable ceiling for borrowing in any one year is reckoned by the European Union to be 3%.
Gers figures: Scotland's public spending deficit rises to £15.1bn
Strictly speaking, the OBR is not offering a forecast, but a scenario, and the central scenario (not too hot, not too cold, but merely astonishing) rises to perhaps 19%.
So if that's the scale of increased deficit, what about Scotland? The Institute of Fiscal Studies has run the numbers, and on the same basis, it reckons the GERS figures could be showing a notional deficit for 2020-21 of about 27%.
Rich country club
What does that mean? For every £100 generated in the economy, £27 would have to be borrowed just to pay for government spending commitments and make up for the shortfall in tax.
That would be up there with the worst of wartime years in the 1940s, when tax revenue was very low and money was being borrowed and poured into the battle for survival - these days meaning grants and loans to businesses, with furlough payments, rather than stepping up munitions and Spitfire production.
But at least the pandemic year should be a one-off, right? Well, not so fast. We don't know if the pandemic and lockdowns continue into 2021-22.
Even if they don't, repairing the fiscal damage is going to take time. To keep going with the OBR scenario, the UK could still be facing a deficit of 4.6% four years from now. And David Phillips, at the IFS, has extended that Scottish assessment, to reach a deficit of 11%. That's the same level as the worst year of the financial crash just over a decade ago.
It's clear that the UK is not going to be alone in facing these challenges. But there's a reminder from the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, the rich country's club, that the UK has so far come off among the worst from the economic downturn.
Andrew WilsonIMAGE COPYRIGHTPA
image captionAndrew Wilson was chairman of the Sustainable Growth Commission set up by the SNP
And that feeds through to the Scottish independence debate, which gets re-provisioned with GERS ammunition at this time of year. The figures released this week will be the last for some years that reflect a sort of stable equilibrium.
They come as a reminder that the economic case for independence remains in a state of flux. There was a big growth commission, chaired by former SNP MSP Andrew Wilson, which gave the party faithful some difficult home truths about closing that fiscal gap. But in getting Scotland onto a faster growth path to help achieve that, it left a lot of awkward choices yet to be made about tax and spending levels.
The economist and public finance wonk John McLaren has gone back into the argument, and come up with some further challenges for the independence cause. At current rates of growth, he argues that Andrew Wilson's 10-year plan to fiscal sustainability will require deeper spending cuts than the past 10 years have seen, and even more so for programmes other than health if that continues to gobble a growing share of the budget.
Dr McLaren is not seen as a friend of the independence cause, but he seems genuine when he offers advice - to get back into the economic case for independence, and use this moment of tumult and disruption to set a new path for the economy.
He points out that the economic model offered to Scottish voters by the SNP has been something similar to the UK's one, but tweaked and improved with fairness bells and growth whistles.
Resilience and flexibility
However, there's evidence that people want to see change coming out of the current pandemic crisis: less inequality, a much cleaner, greener environment, improved health and care services with better paid workers, and a better work-life balance than we have had.
The pressure is on to shorten supply chains and reverse the process of globalisation. That would mean sacrificing efficiency and cheap consumer goods to achieve a higher level of resilience.
Applied to public services, that raises the question: can we afford to have an NHS that runs close to capacity at all times, when we now know it needs more capacity and flexibility to handle sudden surges in demand?
The Scottish government would catch some of these within the broad notion of 'wellbeing', the vaguely-defined concept with which it is seeking to balance the SNP's past focus on economic growth.
But rather than tweaking, Dr McLaren is saying this might be the time to spell out more clearly what a wellbeing economy would look like - with significantly higher taxes, for instance, similar to Scandinavia?
The answer to that used to be 'no need - we've got North Sea oil revenues'. But that can no longer be the case.
Matching reality
And he's raising a more political point. Where is the leadership in this? Ministers are rather busy dealing with short-term challenges. Some perceive the SNP as being too absorbed in internal battles. So is anyone else - other, perhaps, than Andrew Wilson - doing the heavy-lifting for setting out that economic case?
It might be that there's no need. The independence cause and another referendum might well be won on non-economic issues, such as identity, or through the failure of the pro-union side to mobilise an effective counter-offer and campaign.
But there's a warning that comes from observing Brexit. John McLaren says it is essential that the basic economic and fiscal principles of any new beginning are clearly laid out and coherent: "To avoid doing so, as with Brexit, is asking for trouble".
In other words, if you win, you'd better be sure what you're going to do next, and prepare the ground for the possibility that easily-made campaign pledges don't match up to reality.

[Slick]

Also this morning Douglas Ross saying he wants to maintain standards and doesn't want chlorinated chicken etc in the UK.

He voted against an amendment to protect current food standards a few weeks ago.

I made the mistake of going to Twitter yesterday and came across Ross banging on about this, embarrassing really.

Some of the comments from the heidbangers were insane though - “I’ve eaten Chlorinated chicken in the States and love it, what given you the right to take it away from me “ etc etc

[Northern Lights]

Today's Times

Coronavirus in Scotland: Freeman axed care home assessment
John Jeffay
Monday August 31 2020, 12.01am, The Times
Coronavirus
Jeane Freeman, the health secretary, activated emergency legislation that led to hospital patients being moved to care homes

Jeane Freeman, the Scottish health secretary, ditched a legal requirement for councils to carry out a needs assessment before moving elderly people from hospitals to care homes.

The longstanding safeguard, which involves older people being consulted by social workers on whether they want to go to a particular care home, was stripped out on April 5, one day after parliament went into recess.

Hundreds of elderly care home residents had already died from Covid-19 when the clause in Scotland’s emergency coronavirus legislation was activated by Ms Freeman. At the time she was piling pressure on hospitals to move bed-blocking elderly patients into care homes. Days before the needs assessment requirement was removed, Ms Freeman told parliament she was “working hard” to move more than 1,000 elderly patients out of hospitals “as quickly as possible”.

A week later government guidance was issued to local authorities, which gave the green light to move people without a full assessment.

Brian Sloan, chief executive of Age Scotland, said: “By removing the requirement for full needs assessments, the speed upon which older people could be moved into care homes increased dramatically. While these moves might be temporary, it nonetheless meant that people were decanted from hospital wards at a rate of knots.”

Nick Kempe, a former Glasgow city council head of services for older people, said: “An assessment could have stopped patients from going into a care home which had cases of Covid, but that safeguard was removed.”

The Scottish government said: “These powers, where used, allow local authorities to provide urgent care without delay. They allow local authorities the flexibility to focus on the most urgent need and protect the lives of those who are most vulnerable, while ensuring effective safeguards. The powers are only used while absolutely necessary to protect people and in response to short-term, urgent need. As the first minister has made clear there will be a public inquiry into all aspects of the impact and handling of Covid-19, and this will include care homes.

“However, our focus is on continuing to do everything necessary to save lives. It would not be appropriate to divert our attention from this . . . at this time.”

A report by the University of Stirling has found that 65 per cent of Scotland’s 1,057 care homes had suspected or confirmed cases of Covid-19, compared with 44 per cent in England.

Pretty damning stuff but this is where the worrying lack of oversight should concern us all.

[Northern Lights]

And commentary in today's Times

SNP needs to offer more than office politics

Creating jobs will require detailed plans, not just philosophical differences with Westminster

Magnus Linklater
Monday August 31 2020, 12.01am, The Times

A quick stroll through the city centre at lunchtime these days tells you a lot about two different approaches to business life. The half-empty cafés, shops with no customers and pubs operating at desultory levels show that fear still holds the economy in its grip. Boris Johnson wants to release that, to get office life going again, even if it means applying the stick of enforced redundancy for those who refuse to go back. For him, the need to re-engineer growth is all-important, as he tries to find ways of reducing a mountain of debt that is reaching wartime levels.

For Nicola Sturgeon, the idea of forcing people back to work is appalling. The risk is still too high, she says, and threats will get us nowhere. She speaks about home working as a better way of striking a life-work balance, and plays down the need to recharge the economy. Her daily press conferences still stress the risk of a new pandemic wave, and she points to local outbreaks across the country as evidence she is right.

Two approaches, two different philosophies. One is based on a tradition that stretches back to Milton Friedman, and the brisk Thatcher view that running a country is like managing the household budget, borrowing only what you can afford, and never letting debt get out of hand. The other view is that, with interest rates at an all-time low, these ideas are old hat. “These are outdated fiscal homilies which have no bearing on how economies actually work, which is through issuing debt,” was the way one nationalist commentator put it yesterday. Modern monetary theory relies instead on borrowing, without the need to pay for it in the form of taxes and with no risk of defaulting on debt, printing money to create full employment, and an economic model in which the only limit on spending is the need to control inflation.

This appears to be the strategy adopted by Kate Forbes, the finance secretary, who said last week: “I think it’s perfectly possible to manage your public finances without inflicting austerity. Countries around the world are facing unprecedented deficits, which they intend to manage in a way that doesn’t inflict austerity at a time when they need to be investing in recovery and growth.”

Given this approach, there is no urgent need to get people back to work, and the first minister is entirely justified in prioritising the health of the nation over its economic recovery. It is equally possible to write off the chilling picture of Scotland’s economy presented by the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (Gers) figures issued last week, which show the nation’s deficit worsening to something over 8 per cent of GDP, compared with 2 per cent for the rest of the UK. According to the figures, Scotland spent £15.1 billion more than it raised in taxes, amounting to an average of an extra £1,968 per person. In other words, Scottish taxpayers contributed £308 less per person than the UK average, while public spending was £1,633 higher. Since the period covered did not include the months of lockdown, the next lot of statistics will be a great deal worse.

Figures like these prompt a ritual, and increasingly wearing, argument about the protection that the union offers Scotland versus the potential of independence. So far, if the polls are anything to go by, the latter case appears to be winning. This is the way Ms Forbes puts it: “These figures demonstrate why the current constitutional arrangements are unsustainable and why, if Scotland had the right fiscal powers, we could do more. These figures are not a reason to celebrate the status quo, [they] should be a reason to change.”

If we are to believe that, we need proof rather than assertion. This week, both the Scottish Conservatives and the SNP will be presenting economic plans. The Tories will emphasise improving infrastructure, investing in transport links and incentivising local businesses; the SNP government is less clear. A previous idea was to issue a counter-blast to Gers: the former finance secretary Derek Mackay had promised that the party would come out with a report to challenge, or at least offer an alternative to, the Gers picture of the nation’s finances. That idea has been abandoned, as has the party’s own growth plan, commissioned then parked after its publication in 2018. We have yet to see what alternative is on offer.

Whatever it is, there is one element common to both views about the future of Scotland’s economy: the need to create jobs. When, in October, the safety net of the UK government’s furlough and business support schemes comes to an end, unemployment in Scotland is bound to rise. Simply promising a way out through a utopian view of massive borrowing as an independent country will not do. This is a distant vision, and a misleading one too; Ms Forbes must know that, as a result of the global pandemic, the cost of borrowing is rising and, for weaker economies, the impact can only get worse. As the Fraser of Allander Institute think tank said last week: “Put simply, it’s not possible to run structural deficits of this scale over the long run, even if you believe that a country’s central bank can simply print money to pay for it.”

This is a moral issue as well as a political one, because people’s livelihoods depend on it. The first minister and her finance secretary must explain how their economic plans translate into job creation, and that must surely include the re-energising of our city centres. Persuading people back to work may carry risks. But doing nothing is worse.

[Biffer]

That seems a very odd take on what he is saying. Our economy certainly needs a plan and the SH don’t have one - this isn’t anti SNP, we don’t have a coherent plan. Why not take the good bits the Northern Powehouse etc and try and come up with a credible way forward we can all agree on?

My skin is also crawling from the names

He's giving the impression that Scotland is at the same level or behind them. It's a sly way of grouping us with the midlands and North as economically backwards, instead of looking for a strategy to compete with It's entirely deliberate. For example, the North East of England is £6k per head less gdp than Scotland, the South East is £5k per head more. Why don't we want a strategy to compete with those we're trying to catch, instead of those who are trying to catch us?

So rather than critically consider whether this investment is a good idea or not, you want to complain about some perceived slight where there is none. If another political figure had come up with this investment plan on infrastructure would you still be so opposed?

I havent actually seen any detail beyond the headline so havent looked into it myself yet.

I don't consider it as an insult, I think it tells you his view of Scotland's economy though. Why doesn't he present it as aspirational, to catch up with the 3 regions of the UK that are ahead of us, instead of the 8 that are behind us? To me it's reflective of his view of Scotland's place in the UK. His ambition is to stay competitive with the worse regions, not to gain on the wealthier ones.

He's waffled about the money coming from 'better spending' of the Scottish budget. Refused to say where he'll cut within the Scottish budget to pay for the infrastructure and doesn't want an increase in the block grant.

I want additional infrastructure spend, but I disagree with how he wants to do it (or in some cases he's just hand waving and vague around how he wants to do these things, presumably because either he doesn't know or he doesn't want to announce a spending commitment). We need to dual the rail line to Inverness, and to put a line through Kinross to reduce the journey time from Edinburgh to Perth. We need to find ways to invest in Green energy for bus fleets, which will not only clean up public transport but provide a boost for the bus manufacturer Dennis. We need investment in building efficiency which goes beyond the grants to middle class homeowners for insulation and renewables and starts to look at how we retrofit the housing stock that consists of flats and former council houses. How do we build charging infrastructure for electric cars where people only have on street parking or open car parks in flats and housing estates? We need massive telecoms investment and novel solutions for rural 4G and 5G internet. We need to build business infrastructure that supports high value manufacturing, which has been done to a certain extent in niche areas but can be expanded - what's the government spend that will allow our photonics, space and energy domestic manufacturing companies to grow and to attract FDI? And what are the other sectors which need kick started which will provide high value jobs that aren't easily moved half way across the world when the money subsidy runs out?

The only actual infrastructure proposal in there is putting another lane on the M8. He want's faster rail between the cities, but how? More track, new, track, new rolling stock? How fast does he want it? What are the time improvements he's aiming for? Edinburgh to Glasgow is now 43 minutes - how much improvement does he want on that and what's the ROI for the time saving that he's proposing? To get anything more significant out of the current line is getting on for impossible, unless he's thinking of bypassing more of the intermediate stations (which goes against the content of some of the other things he said). He wants the smart card system, fine, it's a good idea which I think is already on the cards, but it's going to be a bought off the shelf system in reality from an overseas developer, as these already exist and it'd cost ten times as much to build a new one.

What he's said is mostly empty and vague headline grabbing stuff with no thought behind it - other than the headline - so far as I can see.

[Northern Lights]

He's giving the impression that Scotland is at the same level or behind them. It's a sly way of grouping us with the midlands and North as economically backwards, instead of looking for a strategy to compete with It's entirely deliberate. For example, the North East of England is £6k per head less gdp than Scotland, the South East is £5k per head more. Why don't we want a strategy to compete with those we're trying to catch, instead of those who are trying to catch us?

So rather than critically consider whether this investment is a good idea or not, you want to complain about some perceived slight where there is none. If another political figure had come up with this investment plan on infrastructure would you still be so opposed?

I havent actually seen any detail beyond the headline so havent looked into it myself yet.

I don't consider it as an insult, I think it tells you his view of Scotland's economy though. Why doesn't he present it as aspirational, to catch up with the 3 regions of the UK that are ahead of us, instead of the 8 that are behind us? To me it's reflective of his view of Scotland's place in the UK. His ambition is to stay competitive with the worse regions, not to gain on the wealthier ones.

He's waffled about the money coming from 'better spending' of the Scottish budget. Refused to say where he'll cut within the Scottish budget to pay for the infrastructure and doesn't want an increase in the block grant.

I want additional infrastructure spend, but I disagree with how he wants to do it (or in some cases he's just hand waving and vague around how he wants to do these things, presumably because either he doesn't know or he doesn't want to announce a spending commitment). We need to dual the rail line to Inverness, and to put a line through Kinross to reduce the journey time from Edinburgh to Perth. We need to find ways to invest in Green energy for bus fleets, which will not only clean up public transport but provide a boost for the bus manufacturer Dennis. We need investment in building efficiency which goes beyond the grants to middle class homeowners for insulation and renewables and starts to look at how we retrofit the housing stock that consists of flats and former council houses. How do we build charging infrastructure for electric cars where people only have on street parking or open car parks in flats and housing estates? We need massive telecoms investment and novel solutions for rural 4G and 5G internet. We need to build business infrastructure that supports high value manufacturing, which has been done to a certain extent in niche areas but can be expanded - what's the government spend that will allow our photonics, space and energy domestic manufacturing companies to grow and to attract FDI? And what are the other sectors which need kick started which will provide high value jobs that aren't easily moved half way across the world when the money subsidy runs out?

The only actual infrastructure proposal in there is putting another lane on the M8. He want's faster rail between the cities, but how? More track, new, track, new rolling stock? How fast does he want it? What are the time improvements he's aiming for? Edinburgh to Glasgow is now 43 minutes - how much improvement does he want on that and what's the ROI for the time saving that he's proposing? To get anything more significant out of the current line is getting on for impossible, unless he's thinking of bypassing more of the intermediate stations (which goes against the content of some of the other things he said). He wants the smart card system, fine, it's a good idea which I think is already on the cards, but it's going to be a bought off the shelf system in reality from an overseas developer, as these already exist and it'd cost ten times as much to build a new one.

What he's said is mostly empty and vague headline grabbing stuff with no thought behind it - other than the headline - so far as I can see.

Except that is not what he said:

“Scotland has been too divided for too long, not only constitutionally but economically too. We need a massive acceleration of infrastructure projects to bring people across Scotland closer together.” He said the proposals would bring “more high-quality jobs to towns and cities that often get overlooked in favour of Edinburgh”.

The plans would also involve the creation of a so-called Scottish Dynamo, similar to the Northern Powerhouse in England, providing investment to Scottish infrastructure.

Mr Ross, the MP for Moray, said: “We need to take power back from the government in Edinburgh and put power in the hands of people and communities across Scotland. We can do that by making it just as easy and attractive for a business to set up in Inverness as in Glasgow.

The comparison to the Northern powerhouse was to balance up between London and the North and moving investment and decision making from Edinburgh and put into the rest of Scotland.

As to the money being better spent, that seriously isnt hard. Ferries, Prestwick you name it the SNP have been shite at it. £100m cam to Scotland to help arts and culture survive the pandemic, only £25m visibly spent, where has the rest gone?

[Northern Lights]

As blogs are de rigueur on this thread, here is one form the other side:

https://www.thinkscotland.org/thinkpoli ... otland.org

Nicola Sturgeon: a dud who sparkles in fraudulent times
by Tom Gallagher
article from Wednesday 26, August, 2020
ONE OF THE CURRENT TRUISMS is that Nicola Sturgeon is supremely good at politics. The most visible figures in the political commentariat, such as Kenny Farquharson, Chris Deerin, and Alex Massie volubly assert this view. It is one shared also by others with less visibility and who reject their neo-nationalism, such as Ian Smart and Effie Deans. Smart blogged on Sundaythat “even her bitterest opponents would concede she is a politician of the first rank.”

What exactly does her prowess consist of? It is undeniable she is verbose, unruffled, assured, single-minded and determined. She is duly judged as a star in the field of political communications. But it is only in the information age that projection of image and control of the daily media narrative have been judged as that important.

If Clement Attlee or Ernest Bevin were up against her in London, I suspect they would be found wanting by the media for being dull, terse, uncommunicative, and occasionally splenetic. It is not necessary to rehearse Attlee’s achievements and it is all too easily forgotten that Bevin was decisive in building the West’s Cold War defences against a dangerously expansionist Soviet Union.

Few journalists ever bother to ask how, with the extensive powers at her disposal, has Scotland been changed during her many years at the heart of government. Where are the public sector initiatives, or infrastructure projects which will be pointed to as emblems of her time at the helm? The built landscape of Scotland has been remarkably unchanged in the nationalist era. For a party with such an electrifying line in rhetoric, it has only stirred itself in the most modest of ways.

One public procurement disaster has occurred after another. Incredible amateurism has been exhibited as her state has stepped in to try and build ferries, or revive the fortunes of an airport near to where she was born, by nationalising it. A new children’s hospital in Edinburgh remains closed because of serious design flaws. Another new one in Glasgow that has opened turns out to be a danger to the health of those admitted. The inability to tackle failings in the health and education sectors has ruined the reputations of successive ministers. Plunging educational attainment, record waiting times for medical treatment, a deepening mental health crisis, as well as some of the worst rates for drugs deaths in Europe, do not suggest a nation on the march.

In the Covid pandemic, much has been made by the media of her refusal to fall into line with London. But in reality her displays of independence have been deceptive. She had the powers to better shield Scots from the virus but her attention span has been spasmodic. The political duel with London over Scotland’s future remained a dominant concern. In the initial period of the pandemic she even insisted the Covid briefings she obtained should be verbal and unrecorded. This will hamper any later enquiry about how decisions were taken and who did what, where and when.

There has been criticism and some awkward moments. But the local media was usually deferential during her daily press briefings and the London media (to which she gave close attention) relied on the narrative that emerged from her press briefings to portray a feisty, activist regional leader usually on top of managing the pandemic while drift and confusion seemed to reign in London.

Even if the media had been more alert and sceptical, it is unlikely if Sturgeon’s poise would have been undermined. She is bound to be assured and unruffled when the political cards are stacked so much in her favour. Her husband has tightly controlled the day-to-day running of the party which she heads, for most of this century. Westminster continues to supply a great deal of Scotland’s financial needs. There is remarkably no comeback from London when it emerges that the additional billions sent to Scotland during the pandemic has not been used by her government in the way that it was designed for.

Besides she has her own de facto propaganda ministry composed of a phalanx of well-paid officials (along with well-wishers and sustainers in print and broadcasting) whose job consists of portraying her running of the devolved institutions and political campaigning in the most favourable of lights.



In nearly every part of the world the state’s response to Covid has been found wanting. But there are probably few other places where the ruling party, many years in office, has seen its popularity ratings soar despite decisions having been taken that impinge on the lives of many, from sending hospital patients back to care homes without being tested to banning travel to certain destinations and imposing local lockdowns on what appeared to be impulsive grounds.

The chief motivation behind Sturgeon’s approach to Covid, as with her stance on Brexit from 2016 to 2020, seems to have been the needs to differentiate herself from whatever the British government is doing. Her pugilistic stance is manna from heaven for journalists looking for a story involving two political adversaries which can be repeated for weeks on end with only slight tweaking.

Her minimalist approach to government while turning the rhetoric to 11, involving a retreat from serious administration and reform, basically parallels trends in journalism. As sales and advertising revenue has slumped, much of the Scottish media has cut back on reporting of everyday events, especially law-breaking. Instead, the focus is increasingly on opinion pieces on politics and lifestyle as well as news and views, about and from celebrities. Click-bait did not exist a dozen years ago.

Supporters of independence in the arts and entertainment field have not ceased to offer their opinions during the Covid crisis. The hype and artifice from this quarter has been enormously useful for keeping the main narrative focused on Scotland’s political destiny. Fascination with the constitutional drama also dominates serious political reportage in Scotland. The how, when and if a future referendum will happen – and how the issue shapes politics in Edinburgh and London, has spawned numerous op-ed pieces in Scotland whereas active politics has been suspended in many other countries. It’s an issue which separates Scotland from the rest of the island and only occasionally does it emerge, usually from a poll, that for most Scots it has a very low ranking in their list of concerns.

The 4th Estate of journalism may be shrinking in terms of readers, viewers and revenue but in a way much of its base has simply regrouped and switched to government. The SNP operates as a permanent opposition force in non-stop campaigning mode. Since propaganda rather than sound governance preoccupies it, journalists and those in the publicity sector are made a great fuss of by the party. The media also likes assertive left-wing leaders. Stalin was lionised as ‘Uncle Joe’ by the Daily Express in World War II and her own 2018 description of herself as ‘the Chief Mammy’ of Scotland often crops up in the press.

Much of the media, especially on the political left, now also shares her didactic and hectoring manner. At times, she can sound like a self-righteous Guardian op-ed contributor who insists the progressive path to a heavily regulated society is really the only one that should be on offer. Newspapers with such a crusading ideology naturally play down instances when disaster has occurred if put into practice.

Sturgeon too is a master of evasion. Recurring difficulties have occurred because she has appointed people based on loyalty to her rather than broad competence. This appears to be the case in the civil service where the parliamentary investigation into the events that led to the trial of her predecessor Alex Salmond have shown complacency and carelessness.

The litany of scandal and under-performance in her 5-year administration reached its apogee with the case of Derek Mackay. For most of this time he was an over-promoted finance minister – who had left university without a degree – and was being talked of in the media as her successor when he resigned this March on the day he was due to present the budget – after it was found he was sending suggestive texts to a teenage boy. Sturgeon sought to repair the damage by appointing a 29-year-old successor, Kate Forbes who seemed no more suitable for the post than Mackay but whose gender and youth made headlines.

Her standing in Sturgeon’s eyes will be enhanced not by her stewardship of the economy but by her ability to place the blame of a poor economic outlook on the shoulders of Westminster and Conservatives. On 26 August, the release of new GERS figures from the Scottish government showed that the Scottish deficit was approaching 30% of Scottish GDP. Predictably it was Brexit that was blamed for these figures by Forbes even though few other parts of the UK enjoy weaker trading ties with the EU than Scotland does.

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the neglect, faulty priorities towards, and mismanagement of the Scottish economy by a devolved administration whose economic and tax-raising powers have increased significantly of late, has greatly contributed to this malaise. A lawyer who practised for a short while before entering full-time politics, Sturgeon has shown no aptitude for, or abiding interest in economics even though competence in this area is vital for devolution to be a success.

Instead, she is someone who believes in relentless politicisation of both public life and private space as the controversial new Hate Bill shows. Her ideological zeal is a continual trademark with hostility to London being apparent in all seasons (even though her own commitment to independence is doubted by ardent nationalists). There is much vague posturing about the timetable for referendum. But she is single-minded in taking steps towards establishing a tightly controlled regime where it is hard to distinguish between the role of the party and that of the state. Meanwhile, health and education sectors continue to be bywords of inefficiency. As for the economy, it is increasingly bound up with the public sector but is now seeing accelerating capital flight due in no small measure to uncertainty over Scotland’s political future.

This is an unimpressive record – one that in a country where a leader’s fitness for office would be decided on competence in discharging her duties, would see Sturgeon struggle to survive. But Scotland has changed and is now one of the main global arenas where identity politics is of all-consuming interest. Feckless in fields where success once helped to stabilise democratic politics, Sturgeon possesses the low cunning and ruthlessness to shine in the dismal and dangerous field of identity politics. There are too many others like her both near and far which means the world is more prone to disruption than it has been for a long time.

Perhaps only if and when some kind of normality returns to the West, will it be acknowledged how much of a liability Sturgeon has been to Scotland in what otherwise could have been an improving age for the country.

Tom Gallagher is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Bradford University. He has written 16 single or main-authored books on European and British politics and contemporary history. 'Scotland Now: A Warning to the World' appeared in 2016. His latest is Salazar: The Dictator Who Refused to Die (published last month). He tweets at @Cultfree54

Photo of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon talking as Grand Marshall at the Glasgow Pride 2018 festival by Delphine Dallison - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.p ... d=70872999

[I like neeps]

And commentary in today's Times

SNP needs to offer more than office politics

Creating jobs will require detailed plans, not just philosophical differences with Westminster

Magnus Linklater
Monday August 31 2020, 12.01am, The Times

A quick stroll through the city centre at lunchtime these days tells you a lot about two different approaches to business life. The half-empty cafés, shops with no customers and pubs operating at desultory levels show that fear still holds the economy in its grip. Boris Johnson wants to release that, to get office life going again, even if it means applying the stick of enforced redundancy for those who refuse to go back. For him, the need to re-engineer growth is all-important, as he tries to find ways of reducing a mountain of debt that is reaching wartime levels.

For Nicola Sturgeon, the idea of forcing people back to work is appalling. The risk is still too high, she says, and threats will get us nowhere. She speaks about home working as a better way of striking a life-work balance, and plays down the need to recharge the economy. Her daily press conferences still stress the risk of a new pandemic wave, and she points to local outbreaks across the country as evidence she is right.

Two approaches, two different philosophies. One is based on a tradition that stretches back to Milton Friedman, and the brisk Thatcher view that running a country is like managing the household budget, borrowing only what you can afford, and never letting debt get out of hand. The other view is that, with interest rates at an all-time low, these ideas are old hat. “These are outdated fiscal homilies which have no bearing on how economies actually work, which is through issuing debt,” was the way one nationalist commentator put it yesterday. Modern monetary theory relies instead on borrowing, without the need to pay for it in the form of taxes and with no risk of defaulting on debt, printing money to create full employment, and an economic model in which the only limit on spending is the need to control inflation.

This appears to be the strategy adopted by Kate Forbes, the finance secretary, who said last week: “I think it’s perfectly possible to manage your public finances without inflicting austerity. Countries around the world are facing unprecedented deficits, which they intend to manage in a way that doesn’t inflict austerity at a time when they need to be investing in recovery and growth.”

Given this approach, there is no urgent need to get people back to work, and the first minister is entirely justified in prioritising the health of the nation over its economic recovery. It is equally possible to write off the chilling picture of Scotland’s economy presented by the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (Gers) figures issued last week, which show the nation’s deficit worsening to something over 8 per cent of GDP, compared with 2 per cent for the rest of the UK. According to the figures, Scotland spent £15.1 billion more than it raised in taxes, amounting to an average of an extra £1,968 per person. In other words, Scottish taxpayers contributed £308 less per person than the UK average, while public spending was £1,633 higher. Since the period covered did not include the months of lockdown, the next lot of statistics will be a great deal worse.

Figures like these prompt a ritual, and increasingly wearing, argument about the protection that the union offers Scotland versus the potential of independence. So far, if the polls are anything to go by, the latter case appears to be winning. This is the way Ms Forbes puts it: “These figures demonstrate why the current constitutional arrangements are unsustainable and why, if Scotland had the right fiscal powers, we could do more. These figures are not a reason to celebrate the status quo, [they] should be a reason to change.”

If we are to believe that, we need proof rather than assertion. This week, both the Scottish Conservatives and the SNP will be presenting economic plans. The Tories will emphasise improving infrastructure, investing in transport links and incentivising local businesses; the SNP government is less clear. A previous idea was to issue a counter-blast to Gers: the former finance secretary Derek Mackay had promised that the party would come out with a report to challenge, or at least offer an alternative to, the Gers picture of the nation’s finances. That idea has been abandoned, as has the party’s own growth plan, commissioned then parked after its publication in 2018. We have yet to see what alternative is on offer.

Whatever it is, there is one element common to both views about the future of Scotland’s economy: the need to create jobs. When, in October, the safety net of the UK government’s furlough and business support schemes comes to an end, unemployment in Scotland is bound to rise. Simply promising a way out through a utopian view of massive borrowing as an independent country will not do. This is a distant vision, and a misleading one too; Ms Forbes must know that, as a result of the global pandemic, the cost of borrowing is rising and, for weaker economies, the impact can only get worse. As the Fraser of Allander Institute think tank said last week: “Put simply, it’s not possible to run structural deficits of this scale over the long run, even if you believe that a country’s central bank can simply print money to pay for it.”

This is a moral issue as well as a political one, because people’s livelihoods depend on it. The first minister and her finance secretary must explain how their economic plans translate into job creation, and that must surely include the re-energising of our city centres. Persuading people back to work may carry risks. But doing nothing is worse.

I just don't see why commuting and office work is seen as the engine of the economy that we must revert to asap. Because people saving money on commuting are going to spend that money, plan jobs for where they spend it. Companies are going to save on rents, hopefully they invest that into their company and their staff, if not tax the higher profits they'll have and invest that money in job creation schemes.

Also I don't buy people will no longer want coffee or lunches/dinners or to see friends. Anecdotally, where I live slightly outside of Oxford the cafes and pubs are doing a much better trade than I've ever seen. The coffee shop I used to go to a Saturday is now full all day every day. There's jobs to be created with imagination. Hoping the Pret/Starbucks/WH Smith at the train station is back to what they are is stupid. That isn't happening. Lets plan for what is next, not what was.

[Northern Lights]

And commentary in today's Times

SNP needs to offer more than office politics

Creating jobs will require detailed plans, not just philosophical differences with Westminster

Magnus Linklater
Monday August 31 2020, 12.01am, The Times

A quick stroll through the city centre at lunchtime these days tells you a lot about two different approaches to business life. The half-empty cafés, shops with no customers and pubs operating at desultory levels show that fear still holds the economy in its grip. Boris Johnson wants to release that, to get office life going again, even if it means applying the stick of enforced redundancy for those who refuse to go back. For him, the need to re-engineer growth is all-important, as he tries to find ways of reducing a mountain of debt that is reaching wartime levels.

For Nicola Sturgeon, the idea of forcing people back to work is appalling. The risk is still too high, she says, and threats will get us nowhere. She speaks about home working as a better way of striking a life-work balance, and plays down the need to recharge the economy. Her daily press conferences still stress the risk of a new pandemic wave, and she points to local outbreaks across the country as evidence she is right.

Two approaches, two different philosophies. One is based on a tradition that stretches back to Milton Friedman, and the brisk Thatcher view that running a country is like managing the household budget, borrowing only what you can afford, and never letting debt get out of hand. The other view is that, with interest rates at an all-time low, these ideas are old hat. “These are outdated fiscal homilies which have no bearing on how economies actually work, which is through issuing debt,” was the way one nationalist commentator put it yesterday. Modern monetary theory relies instead on borrowing, without the need to pay for it in the form of taxes and with no risk of defaulting on debt, printing money to create full employment, and an economic model in which the only limit on spending is the need to control inflation.

This appears to be the strategy adopted by Kate Forbes, the finance secretary, who said last week: “I think it’s perfectly possible to manage your public finances without inflicting austerity. Countries around the world are facing unprecedented deficits, which they intend to manage in a way that doesn’t inflict austerity at a time when they need to be investing in recovery and growth.”

Given this approach, there is no urgent need to get people back to work, and the first minister is entirely justified in prioritising the health of the nation over its economic recovery. It is equally possible to write off the chilling picture of Scotland’s economy presented by the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (Gers) figures issued last week, which show the nation’s deficit worsening to something over 8 per cent of GDP, compared with 2 per cent for the rest of the UK. According to the figures, Scotland spent £15.1 billion more than it raised in taxes, amounting to an average of an extra £1,968 per person. In other words, Scottish taxpayers contributed £308 less per person than the UK average, while public spending was £1,633 higher. Since the period covered did not include the months of lockdown, the next lot of statistics will be a great deal worse.

Figures like these prompt a ritual, and increasingly wearing, argument about the protection that the union offers Scotland versus the potential of independence. So far, if the polls are anything to go by, the latter case appears to be winning. This is the way Ms Forbes puts it: “These figures demonstrate why the current constitutional arrangements are unsustainable and why, if Scotland had the right fiscal powers, we could do more. These figures are not a reason to celebrate the status quo, [they] should be a reason to change.”

If we are to believe that, we need proof rather than assertion. This week, both the Scottish Conservatives and the SNP will be presenting economic plans. The Tories will emphasise improving infrastructure, investing in transport links and incentivising local businesses; the SNP government is less clear. A previous idea was to issue a counter-blast to Gers: the former finance secretary Derek Mackay had promised that the party would come out with a report to challenge, or at least offer an alternative to, the Gers picture of the nation’s finances. That idea has been abandoned, as has the party’s own growth plan, commissioned then parked after its publication in 2018. We have yet to see what alternative is on offer.

Whatever it is, there is one element common to both views about the future of Scotland’s economy: the need to create jobs. When, in October, the safety net of the UK government’s furlough and business support schemes comes to an end, unemployment in Scotland is bound to rise. Simply promising a way out through a utopian view of massive borrowing as an independent country will not do. This is a distant vision, and a misleading one too; Ms Forbes must know that, as a result of the global pandemic, the cost of borrowing is rising and, for weaker economies, the impact can only get worse. As the Fraser of Allander Institute think tank said last week: “Put simply, it’s not possible to run structural deficits of this scale over the long run, even if you believe that a country’s central bank can simply print money to pay for it.”

This is a moral issue as well as a political one, because people’s livelihoods depend on it. The first minister and her finance secretary must explain how their economic plans translate into job creation, and that must surely include the re-energising of our city centres. Persuading people back to work may carry risks. But doing nothing is worse.

I just don't see why commuting and office work is seen as the engine of the economy that we must revert to asap. Because people saving money on commuting are going to spend that money, plan jobs for where they spend it. Companies are going to save on rents, hopefully they invest that into their company and their staff, if not tax the higher profits they'll have and invest that money in job creation schemes.

Also I don't buy people will no longer want coffee or lunches/dinners or to see friends. Anecdotally, where I live slightly outside of Oxford the cafes and pubs are doing a much better trade than I've ever seen. The coffee shop I used to go to a Saturday is now full all day every day. There's jobs to be created with imagination. Hoping the Pret/Starbucks/WH Smith at the train station is back to what they are is stupid. That isn't happening. Lets plan for what is next, not what was.

I dont either FWIW but we are miles behind our continental peers in getting the economy moving again and rhetoric from Nicola that we must all stay scared and at home certainly doesnt help get the economy going again. Quite simply if we dont have so many commuting, we dont need so many people employed to commute them and to feed them in the cities, now this could well just be a structural shift and as you say the cafes on the outskirts of Oxford do better at the expense of the City ones, so be it but as the economy shrinks so do the tax receipts and i am not seeing anything from the SG that remotely deals with this, the all consuming message is elimination of the virus which incidentally cant be done IMHO.