Scottish Politics Thread

[buggrit]

A friend of mine just shared this on FB. What flabbers my gast is that he's a very intelligent, decent bloke. It just amazes me the pish people believe! Especially since the actual figures are so readily available if you just look for them.

 

[BetwixtandBetween]

But it must be true.

Revealed: The ACCOUNTING TRICK that Hides Scotland's Wealth (2020)
3 months ago
by Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp

It’s not all about oil though, as is made remarkably clear from the evidence in our publication Scotland the Brief. Scotland has everything that it takes to be an extremely prosperous and successful independent nation, and more. Scotland with only 8.4% of the UK population possesses 34% of the UK’s natural wealth.


This prompts the question – why does a naturally wealthy nation with a strong, resilient and diverse onshore economy, booming exports, a highly educated population, low unemployment, a wealth of oil and renewables, and a wide range of strong economic sectors have a set of accounts (GERS) that suggest that Scotland’s finances are weak? That is a trick question, it doesn’t. GERS is not a set of accounts for spending in Scotland it contains spending outside of Scotland that doesn’t benefit Scotland economy and that Scotland didn’t generate. GERS also contains clear evidence of mechanisms for removing wealth from Scotland’s accounts which then creates a phoney deficit. There are actually several hidden mechanisms for stealthily removing Scotland’s wealth. The one we will look at in this article is debt loading.

 

[HCL]

A friend of mine just shared this on FB. What flabbers my gast is that he's a very intelligent, decent bloke. It just amazes me the pish people believe! Especially since the actual figures are so readily available if you just look for them.

View attachment 526226

But this is so true, Scotland has centuries of experience in exporting wigs, combs and mirrors. Why are the populace no celebrating this in an annual festival? It's all the English's fault, so it is.

 

[Electromagnetic]

But this is so true, Scotland has centuries of experience in exporting wigs, combs and mirrors. Why are the populace no celebrating this in an annual festival? It's all the English's fault, so it is.

And racism. Don't forget racism.

 

[Fang_Farrier]

Povlsen accused of 'hypocrisy' over Shetland spaceport investment

£1.43m investment in Shetland Space Hub comes after landowner's firm called for judicial review of Sutherland bid

www.northern-times.co.uk

"Scotland's richest man – who has taken legal action to ground the UK's first vertical launch spaceport near land which he owns in Sutherland – has now caused fury by investing £1.43 million in a rival rocket launch facility."

 

[Fang_Farrier]

NHS Highland Covid jump linked to Faslane nuclear submarine base

A JUMP in Covid-19 cases in the NHS Highland area is linked to an outbreak at the Royal Navy's Faslane naval base, health bosses have finally said.

www.northern-times.co.uk

All those nasty MOD folk bringing the plague to the isolated North, fecking up our figures!

If the RN get us moved out of Tier 1, they will not get a Christmas card!

 

[Murphy_Slaw]

NHS Highland Covid jump linked to Faslane nuclear submarine base

A JUMP in Covid-19 cases in the NHS Highland area is linked to an outbreak at the Royal Navy's Faslane naval base, health bosses have finally said.

www.northern-times.co.uk

All those nasty MOD folk bringing the plague to the isolated North, fecking up our figures!

If the RN get us moved out of Tier 1, they will not get a Christmas card!

It's only the English sailors that have tested positive as well!

 

[johnboyzzz]

NHS Highland Covid jump linked to Faslane nuclear submarine base

A JUMP in Covid-19 cases in the NHS Highland area is linked to an outbreak at the Royal Navy's Faslane naval base, health bosses have finally said.

www.northern-times.co.uk

All those nasty MOD folk bringing the plague to the isolated North, fecking up our figures!

If the RN get us moved out of Tier 1, they will not get a Christmas card!

That is what you get for all your gloating with a pint the other week

 

[Fang_Farrier]

That is what you get for all your gloating with a pint the other week

With a curry.

After 6pm.



Might go to a pub to watch the rugby this afternoon as well.*




*In my dreams, as although feasible, think we are having check the MiL still has food in her fridge!

 

[johnboyzzz]

With a curry.

After 6pm.



Might go to a pub to watch the rugby this afternoon as well.*




*In my dreams, as although feasible, think we are having check the MiL still has food in her fridge!

I have a asda delivery in the next hour or so, so will be stocked up and ready for an afternoon on amazon prime

 

[Dredd]

Posted (or should I say shared) on the United Against Separation FB page just now - interesting read:

Thank you, Nicola Sturgeon. I look forward to my £500 bonus.

Thanks for holding out on the calls of unions for care staff to wear masks at work, until as late as April 9th, long after the virus had infiltrated many care homes.

Thanks for hiding shamelessly behind weasel words in April and May, when ministers claimed that testing of care staff was 'being rolled out', in spite of basic arithmetic (the number of tests and the number of care staff) proving that it simply wasn't happening.

Thanks for falsely claiming in February that Scotland had "probably the best testing capacity in the world" - and for closing a covid testing lab in July.

Thanks for refusing suggestions to test in various situations - students arriving on campus, at airports, NHS staff, visitors to care homes - while all the time praising Scotland's testing system.

Thanks for relying heavily on a clinical director who told journalists in March that he would happily visit his grandmother because he did not have symptoms, promoting the dangerous assumption - not one the Chinese made when they chose to lock 12 million people in their homes in January - that the virus is not transmitted asymptomatically.

Thanks for allowing covid positive patients to be moved from hospitals into care homes, and for continuing to allow it even now - defending the practice, in spite of your health secretary telling parliament that it is no longer happening.

Thanks for claiming in the summer that the prevalence of the virus in Scotland was a fifth that of England - a claim rebuked by the Statistical Authority, since at that point no population survey of the prevalence of the virus in Scotland was being carried out.

Thanks for using parliamentary time during a pandemic for a motion to prepare for an independence referendum, and for demanding that one be held in 2021 - in spite of the obvious fact that the fallout for jobs and health will be unfolding for the whole of that year and well beyond it.

Thanks for your rhetorical anger about the UK disrespecting the will of the Scottish parliament, while you continue to block an inquiry into deaths in care homes in spite of parliament voting for one.

And thanks, again, for the bonus. Thanks for pretending that it cannot be a full £500, announcing the policy along with a ridiculous attack on the UK Government. You must know that the tax you say is being stolen from Scotland's health and social care workers will be returned in due course to the Scottish Government, to spend as it wishes, and that it is therefore your choice to offer it as £500 gross rather than net. Creating bad blood between two governments during a global emergency is really classy.

Sincerely, I understand why you have a reputation for being smart, kind and conscientious. Such reputations are hard-earned. You have a very difficult job.

But your flaw is that you are blinded by ideology. You committed as a teenager to a plan to separate Scotland from the UK, and you cannot see the harm this does to your ability to govern.

If you get your way, as the sketchy economic blueprint you commissioned concludes, on the basis of sums done before the covid debt burden, that by severing our finances from wealth that is concentrated in the southeast of England we will be forced to cut funding for public services for a decade.

Your intention is to implement these cuts as soon as possible, pandemic or not. Your plan is to do so without a central bank that can create money to finance debt. You risk the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable people, not your own.

United Against Separation | Facebook

 

[Dredd]

And hard on the heels of that one, another excellent article on the YesNP Ministry of Truth activities:

Lily of St. Leonards: SNP lies. Part 1 (effiedeans.com)

 

[Gabion Groyne]

Should have been a tunnel

Farce Road Bridge: Disbelief as Queensferry Crossing forced to shut yet again despite new ice sensors | HeraldScotland

Rest and be Thankful Walt.

 

[Mick9abf]

Povlsen accused of 'hypocrisy' over Shetland spaceport investment

£1.43m investment in Shetland Space Hub comes after landowner's firm called for judicial review of Sutherland bid

www.northern-times.co.uk

"Scotland's richest man – who has taken legal action to ground the UK's first vertical launch spaceport near land which he owns in Sutherland – has now caused fury by investing £1.43 million in a rival rocket launch facility."

Isn’t it funny how the SG never question Povlsen and his ownership of vast tracts of land in Scotland yet if an English landowner owns less but chooses to use it differently they are targets for Nationalists, Anti shooting groups, so called wildlife charities and ultimately are a target for Land Reform.

 

[Electromagnetic]

I have a asda delivery in the next hour or so, so will be stocked up and ready for an afternoon on amazon prime

What's wrong with British Beef? Think of the rain forest.

 

[shouldknowbetter]

Should have been a tunnel

Farce Road Bridge: Disbelief as Queensferry Crossing forced to shut yet again despite new ice sensors | HeraldScotland

I admit I haven’t read deeply into this but I fail to see how ice sensors would prevent the closing of the bridge. Surely all the sensors would do is alert you to the presence of ice and allow you to close the bridge before falling ice became an issue. Unless the sensors were alongside some form of trace element heating to stop the buildup they aren’t going to stop falling ice.

 

[Dredd]

I admit I haven’t read deeply into this but I fail to see how ice sensors would prevent the closing of the bridge. Surely all the sensors would do is alert you to the presence of ice and allow you to close the bridge before falling ice became an issue. Unless the sensors were alongside some form of trace element heating to stop the buildup they aren’t going to stop falling ice.

The question then is - since many countries in the northern hemisphere probably have similarly long road bridges, how many of these are routinely closed in winter for the same reasons? If not, why not?

High winds - yes. Forth Road (as was), Tay and Skye bridges are closed from time to time due to unacceptable risk, but can sometimes allow restricted crossings for vehicles other than high sided ones, so the disruption is limited.

 

[tgo]

Povlsen accused of 'hypocrisy' over Shetland spaceport investment

£1.43m investment in Shetland Space Hub comes after landowner's firm called for judicial review of Sutherland bid

www.northern-times.co.uk

"Scotland's richest man – who has taken legal action to ground the UK's first vertical launch spaceport near land which he owns in Sutherland – has now caused fury by investing £1.43 million in a rival rocket launch facility."

I thought rocket launch facilities were better nearer the equator, in the case of the UK the southernmost point sure isn't in Shetland...

 

[exbluejob]

I thought rocket launch facilities were better nearer the equator, in the case of the UK the southernmost point sure isn't in Shetland...

Yes better near the equator because the spin of the earth at those latitudes gives rockets extra thrust into high orbits. However these rockets aren't going outer space, they're for launching satellites with polar or sun synchronous orbits, think of Elon Musks Starlight satellites. The flow country or Shetland are perfect because they're remote from large centres of population. Access is more difficult but if you used boats or flew there Unst is ideal, has its own little airport and harbour at Baltasound.

 

[Fang_Farrier]

Yes better near the equator because the spin of the earth at those latitudes gives rockets extra thrust into high orbits. However these rockets aren't going outer space, they're for launching satellites with polar or sun synchronous orbits, think of Elon Musks Starlight satellites. The flow country or Shetland are perfect because they're remote from large centres of population. Access is more difficult but if you used boats or flew there Unst is ideal, has its own little airport and harbour at Baltasound.

And Tongue has no air link, no rail link, no nearby port and served by single track roads.

Ideal then!