Friday 22 February 2013

SCOTLAND'S FUTURE IN SCOTLAND'S HANDS


Yes to a Fair and Just Scotland


• We all want to live in a fairer, more equal, and more successful Scotland. A Yes vote for independence offers the best route to achieving this.
• This latest phase of the Yes Scotland campaign is built around our response to the STUC’s A Just Scotland interim report.


Westminster isn’t working for a fairer Scotland


• The current welfare changes and austerity cuts coming fromWestminster are set to reduce the incomes of 700,000 working
people in Scotland and 1 million Scottish households.
• Income inequality among working age people increased more quickly in the UK than in any other OECD country. The UK is now the 4th most unequal country in the developed world.
• Across Scotland, people are ‘feeling the pinch’ because we live in such an unequal nation. One in five children in Scotland live in poverty, and one in five young Scots are unemployed.


Scotland is wealthy enough to be a fairer nation


• Our country generates a massive amount of wealth each and every year. Scotland is one of the wealthiest nations on the planet and is blessed with abundant natural resources.
• The vast majority of people in Scotland would be better off if that wealth was shared more fairly. Doing this would also make the people of Scotland healthier and happier. 


But we need more powers to make Scotland a fairer nation


• The Scottish Government’s Fiscal Commission recently stated that:“without access to the relevant policy levers, particularly taxation and welfare policy, there is little that the Scottish Government can do to address these trends”. We agree.
• Independence will empower the people of Scotland to choose a fairer path, so we can work towards creating a nation where people are happier, healthier, wealthier and more fulfilled.
• A No vote is a vote for ‘more of the same’ while a Yes vote will allow us to take control of the relevant policies to allow us the options and opportunities to tackle inequality. 


Fairer and more equal countries are successful countries


• Countries that are more unequal do not do as well, do not grow as well, and are less stable.
• Policies that tackle inequalities are not harmful to economic growth. On the contrary, it has been proved that it is those countries that are most equal that are best placed to succeed. 


We can choose to build a fairer Scotland – one that cares and works well


• …where our resources are shared to bring happiness and health for all the people of Scotland. With independence we can work towards a ‘fair share’ of resources for everyone.
• …where people have rewarding and fulfilling work as part of an economy that works for them, with a fair labour market, employment rights, and good quality work. With a Yes vote we can choose a more appropriate path designed for Scotland’s needs and priorities.
• …where people are rewarded for the work they do for others, where we can decide not to spend our money on weapons of mass destruction and instead invest so that families have access to quality childcare, and we care well for our older people and those with disabilities.
• … where families have affordable, decent and safe homes and neighbourhoods. A country where vulnerable people are not under the threat of a punitive and unfair ‘bedroom tax’.
• … where everyone has affordable access to enough food, and to healthy foods. A country where families and older people do not have to choose between ‘heating or eating’.
• …where children do not live in cold and damp homes, go to school hungry, and suffer ever-poorer health because they live in poverty though no fault of their own.

YESSCOTLAND.NET

12 comments:

  1. tris

    What was that read like something from Watchtower

    Jehovah’s Witnesses

    Life in God’s New World

    The Messiah’s rule will bring earthly benefits beyond compare, accomplishing everything good that God originally purposed for his people to enjoy on earth. Hatreds and prejudices will cease to exist, and eventually everyone on earth will be a true friend of everyone else. In the Scriptures, God promises that he will ‘make wars to cease to the extremity of the earth.’ “Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war anymore.”—Psalm 46:9; Isaiah 2:4.

    The whole earth will eventually be brought to a gardenlike paradise state. The Scriptures say: “The wilderness and the waterless region will exult, and the desert plain will be joyful and blossom as the saffron.…For in the wilderness waters will have burst out, and torrents in the desert plain. And the heat-parched ground will have become as a reedy pool, and the thirsty ground as springs of water.”—Isaiah 35:1, 6, 7.

    There will be every reason to be happy in the Paradise earth. Never again will people feel hunger because of lack of food. “The earth itself will certainly give its produce,” the Scriptures say. (Psalm 67:6; 72:16) All will enjoy the fruits of their own labor, as our Creator promises: “They will certainly plant vineyards and eat their fruitage.…They will not plant and someone else do the eating.”—Isaiah 65:21, 22.

    In God’s new world, no longer will people be crammed into huge apartment buildings or run-down slums, for God has purposed: “They will certainly build houses and have occupancy…They will not build and someone else have occupancy.” The Scriptures also promise: “They will not toil for nothing.”—Isaiah 65:21-23.



    There is too much hate in Scottish society the idea even if the snp were to win a yes vote the Scots would all live happily together.
    Is completely against the hate filled reality.
    No all you would get is Scottish society tearing itself apart for the next fifty years.

    The Nationalists hate the Unionists the Unionist hate the Nationalists and that will never change until we are all dead.

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    Replies
    1. I don't believe a word you say Niko be that on your relations or anything else as it is an illusion to suit your ideology and get some self sympathy to justify your posts. Happy sunbathing on your beach.

      Delete
    2. I can honestly say I don't 'hate' Tris, or even Cynical.

      I disagree (sometimes near violently vis-a-vis Cynical) but I couldn't live without this here banter :P

      No, whatever way Scotland votes ... Scots will come together. This isn't Ireland Niko my old pal

      Delete
  2. Niko:

    I fear you may have a point regardless of how it goes.

    I know that I'll be so angry if a decent future is thrown away because people, for some amazing reason believe, Alistair Darling and David Cameron, two inveterate liars, and their ilk... and as a result, and I have to grow old in the UK.

    It's not something I relish, because unless you are rich, or criminal, or preferably both, you aren't work sh*t in the UK.

    I just can't stand what it's all about here. Rich people getting richer and richer at the expense of the poor, while Osborne's cronies don't pay tax...

    Cameron and his sort creeping up the president's backside, bombing anyone and everything that they are told to, having the forth largest military in the world, and the population, who are treated like they are scum, clapping their hands with glee...

    We may be poor, and hungry and cold, and Gtranny may have been left to die of starvation in hospital, but we have the forth most powerful military in the world and we could blow Moscow to kingdom come... aren't we British just the dog's bollocks!

    Nope... yer not. Much more like the dog's bum.

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  3. Look, lets all be reasonable about this.

    The broader point this post raises is 'should Scotland seek the powers to pursue a different agenda from Westminster?'

    The answer, even Niko should admit this, is yes.

    But my central point is simple: we can achieve that via maximum devolution. It is a safer bet, less economically risky, and doesn't threaten our position in the EU.

    The answer isn't a bet-all-cards gamble on separation; it is pursuing devolution to her natural conclusion.

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    Replies
    1. Genuine questions
      What is devolution's natural conclusion?
      How do YOU define maximum devolution?
      What powers would Holyrood have?

      but the main question is how likely is it that these powers will EVER be devolved?
      Remember the proposed 1979 parliament had more powers than the one set up after 1997. The Calman commission and Scotland Act have devolved little of substance and there is no proposal from any of the Better Together partners of what further devolution will entail. Sounds like another pig in a poke to me. The people of rUK will NEVER accept further devolution. So lucky for them that substantive powers aren't ever going to be devolved, though some window dressing might.

      Delete
  4. Dean

    I have looked into the true nature of Scottish polity and see it for what it is.
    you move away its the best option for you of a better more happy life.

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  5. Mr Cameron has ruled that out Dean.

    I'm glad you think that we should have more powers.

    We should have ones that count.

    Now Cameron has promised us more powers, undefined (against the ruling of the Electoral Commission which he insisted the Scottish Government MUST obey), but will he keep his promise?

    On his past record, probably not.

    If perchance he does what will he offer? Control over speed limits? The rights to make laws about jaywalking?

    We need the economic powers to take our potentially rich nation away from the starvation of the poor and into making sure people have homes.

    If it all sounds too idealistic, isn't THAT what government should be doing?

    People should have a job; they should have a home; they should have enough money to keep that home warm in a country where it is cold a lot of the year, and they should be able to feed themselves.

    After that, they need decent communications... The best motorway we have is the one north from Edinburgh. It is two lanes, it has no hard shoulder for most of its route.

    We need internet at the same speed as Germany, not Cameroon. Some of Scotland doesn't even have broadband. G4? They can't get G3. High speed trains... they still have dangerous, old fashioned, dirty, smelly diesel north of Edinburgh.

    We really don't need the poor to be put out of their homes because they have a 2-bedroomed house... only because there are no 1-bedroomed houses, because we didn't bother building them, because we had to follow the English example of everyone having to buy their own house, or be thought of as lower class.

    You see, for most of us it isn't starry eyed heather and bagpipes nationalism; it's pure practicality. We get a rotten deal, and they are trying to tell us we are better together...

    Folk may believe that, and it may be that some of them would be right. The Earl of Caithness will find his life rather less enjoyable, if he can't pick up his £300 a day tax free! He may be obliged to sell some pictures.

    The rest of us are probably better apart.

    Incidentally, Mallock-Browne, an FCO Labour minister in Brown's government, has said that the scaremongering over Europe is utter rubbish.

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  6. Yes PP. All good points.

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  7. Niko... Are you going to move away?

    ReplyDelete