MORE REASONS TO BE CHEERFULLY INDEPENDENT 1, 2...

One of the issues concerning the proposed new single police force for Scotland, highlighted by Les Gray, chairman of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, pictured), is that the new body will be due to pay VAT.


Mr Gray suggests that the bill might be as much as £22 million per annum (-500 officers). He doesn't seem to mention that the savings of having one administration would be around £125 million (using the Acpos figures, +3,000 officers). Net balance: +2,500 officers.


I know which I'd rather have.


It couldn't be that Acpos is looking after the interests of the most senior officers, the need for whom would be substantially reduced under the single force plan, could it? You have one police force, you need one chief constable!



Having no knowledge at all of the regulations regarding the payment of VAT, I'm not sure why one police force covering five million people would be due for VAT and eight forces covering the same population would not. I'm sure however, that if Mr Gray says that it is so, then it will be so.


But, one thing is for sure, if Scotland were independent we could make our own VAT rules, which might not involve the police paying it. And even if they did, they would at least be paying it to the Scottish government, so it could be recycled for the good of the country.

*****


The BBC doesn't rate Scotland as being of much importance, we all know. After complaints last year that their "British" riots coverage was causing cancellations in the Scottish tourist trade, they rather forcedly agreed to refer to the riots as "English", although you could almost hear the contempt in their voices as they emphasised the word, as in "We have to call them English riots otherwise these chippy Scots get all bent out of shape about their tourism". This reluctant demarcation lasted for a while.

However, I've noticed that the Beeb is slipping back to its bad old ways. Recent news about the shameful neglect of dementia patients in English hospitals was reported simply as "failings in the NHS", never mind that there are separate services for the different countries .

And yesterday BBC news gave Scotland a 30-second acknowledgement of the election of the new leader of the opposition, somewhere towards the bottom of the running order. (Imagine how they will treat the election of Mr Miliband's successor. More that 30 seconds?)


Right after that we were transported to a shopping centre in Gateshead, where the annual unseemly rush to grab money in the name of Jesus Christ was at full tilt, in what we must remember the prime minister has described as a Christian country.


We were introduced to a succession of women, dressed in their finest, telling us how hard things were this year; that they were trying not to get too overdrawn and that they had had to think about what presents to buy this year (in so doing admitting that in the past they didn't bother with thinking).


Then, as if we hadn't had enough, we went to London's Oxford Street where more celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ was taking place.


I'm sure that Ms Lamont will be pleased that she got some coverage in Munguin's Republic, because the national broadcaster sure as hell wasn't interested.


I understand that the bulk of the BBC's viewers weren't much interested in what was going on up in haggis land, which is precisely why we should have control of our own broadcasting.


Because we, in our turn, are not that interested in how the citizens of Mr Camergoon's Christian country show respect for their saviour.