Friday 23 October 2015

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE LAST FEW DAYS: CHINA, NORTHERN POWERHOUSE AND EVEL

The last day of the charade that is the Golden Era celebration will be over today. After Mr Xi takes a trip to what the English call "The North", he will escape back to China.

In OUR United Kingdom though, "The North" isn't Shetland or Orkney, nor is it the Hebrides, Highlands, Central Belt, nor even the Southern Uplands. 

Nope, it is far south of all of these things. 

It's almost like the Brits drew a map and replaced the word Scotland with "Here be Dragons". Or Haggis!
This is where I left the kid.
The North is Manchester, some 200 kms south of Scotland, from where the Brits are going to build a Northern Powerhouse, presumably with Chinese money, becasue they have none themselves.

The cornerstone of this powerhouse will be, if they ever get it started, the High Speed Train from the centre of the universe that is London, to "The North". HS2.

The costs of the line are difficult to pin down. Having started off at a reasonable price of around £16 billion, the building of the line is now estimated by the English Transport Department to have risen to £43 billion. But we all know thay can;t count much after 20, so it is wise to look at other estimates. Boris Johnson, the London Mayor and MP, has it at £70 billion, and the Institute of Economic Affairs at £80 billion.  Bit of a difference there...
TGV Network running into Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland

A House of Lords Committee has suggested that the cost of building the line will be nine times more expensive than the French equivalent. The French of course had the foresight to build high speed trains (TGV) across the country decades ago when Mitterrand was president and Thatcher was favouring roads and private transport.

You might rub your hands together with glee, thinking that if Mr Osborne was pouring all this money into "The North" then there would be benefits for Scotland in the form of Barnett consequentials. But I fear you would be wrong.

There will be no consequentials, just as there were not for Crossrail or the Olympics.

This despite the fact that the negative impact of the line on certain areas outside of England (particularly including Eastern Scotland and South Wales) will be severe.

And now that we have EVEL, Scottish MPs won't even be allowed to vote on this railway which will have such a negative effect on our country. 

It's not just English foxes that will rue the passing of the EVEL bill last night and the second class status now accorded to our MPs.

(I wonder if that means that Muddle will be excluded from Cabinet when English matters are being discussed, or if the English Members of the Scottish Affairs Committee will now be excluded from the Scottish Affairs Committee... and, given that Scotland was excluded from this state visit, did Muddle have a meeting with President Xi... OK, silly question.)

The last few days have shown where the London government (which we can now reasonably call the English Government) places the Scots in OUR United Kingdom, the one that Cameron goes on and on about ad nauseam.

Roll on the next opportunity to, like Mr Xi, escape from this ridiculous and pathetic little third rate union.

28 comments:

  1. All they have done is to formalise Westminster as England's parliament which it always has been in effect anyway.
    At least it's out in the open for all to see now.
    When they want Scots to have no say in legislation,they will designate it an English matter and when they want us to pay our share e.g. HS2,they will designate the expenditure as British.
    Heads we lose,tails...
    Maybe the majority of Scots will realise that there is no "union" and never was,it was simply England taking over Scotland and has remained that way for the last 300 years.
    The supporters of British political parties are now going to have to decide whether they are Scottish or English....Britain as a political "union" is no more.

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    1. It's another nail in the coffin.

      By and large the SNP never voted on English matters unless there was a financial impact on Scotland, which I thought right. Much though I love foxes and detest the killing of them by bloody-thirsty Tory weirdos, I thought the SNP had crossed a line voting this down. A hard decision, I'll grant you, but it was constitutionally wrong, if morally right.

      Labour frequently did vote of English matters...and that was wrong. But Labour needed Scottish votes to to get it's policies through on occasions. Blair even had a Scot as Home Secretary, a post with almost no duties in Scotland. He proposed laws that had no impact at all on Scotland and came home on a Friday to face constituents who had no interest in what he was doing. That was wrong.

      But there are bigger consequences than mr Speaker deciding whether Scotland can have a say in a particular bill.

      Could we have a Scottish Prime Minister, who wouldn't be allowed to vote on his own legislation? Could we have a Scottish Chancellor, or Home Secretary?

      And what of Scottish peers?

      They have changed the constitution overnight. I don't know if UK Labour will ever recover from Brown, Miliband and Corbyn, but I'm pretty sure that they are not gone forever from Scotland.

      If they shape up, get rid of their poor leadership and eventually manage to form another government, sometime in the future and rely on Scottish or Welsh MPs for their majority, what will happen when they come to an English only bill, when the Tories have a majority in England? The opposition will become the government.

      The Tories have just stuffed Gordon Brown and Labour for saving the face of Mr Cameron when he thought he was going to lose Scotland. And as Brown siad, the vow he guaranteed hasn't been delivered.

      Suckers, the lot of them.

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    2. I am getting fed up with arrogant English MPs and their press pack portraying us Scots as whingers with a grievance.
      Grievance comes from injustice or perceived injustice and what they have just done is the mother of all injustices.
      Had there been something in there that allowed us Scots to decide what was a Scottish only matter and thereby excluding English MPs and likewise with expenditure,I might not have been so aggrieved but as things stand,those decisions are entirely in the hands of England's government.
      Their view is that we Scots are only useful for funding their policies whether we like it or not.but must not have a say in how those policies are formed.

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    3. I agree. As I say, I have no interest in voting for English laws. That's wrong. But if these laws have financial implications for us, we need a say.

      It was Blair's stupid devolution, that was half arsed... like his reform of the Lords.

      If they wanted devolution, they should have had it throughout the UK. England should have had devolved government too. Time and again he was warned it would turn out badly. Of course he knew better.

      In a way this is all good for us. It must have turned and be turning more people against their Westminster rule. Scottish, Welsh and I presume Irish MPs are now second grade at Westminster.

      Next they will be proposing to pay them less.

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  2. And yet their official title remains the "Conservative and Unionist Party". What sort of a union is this ?

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  3. The count down clock, ticking away the days of union, must be nearing midnight. The end is nigh, though the Westmonster vampires will attempt to suck Scotland dry; before we can say adiu.

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    1. I wonder if Brown is proud of his contribution to ensuring that he will be the last Scottish MP to hold high office in the UK.

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  4. Good article here: http://peter-arnott.blogspot.co.uk/

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  5. Tris, your reply to Bringiton @12.31 pm.
    The SNP MPs did not "vote down" this legistlation, it was withdrawn by the Tories before a vote could take place, at the mere threat that the SNP might vote against.

    As have commented elsewhere, the entirety of the nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been disenfranchised by yesterday's EVEL vote. Our elected MPs no longer have the right to vote on matters which might directly impact on the citizens of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, while continuing to pay for them.

    Time to take our future into our own hands, and stop guddling in the midden heap of Westminster.

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    1. Sorry, yes indeed it was, HV.

      I misled with what I wrote there.

      The Tories withdrew it when the knew the SNP would vote against. It's good that the legislation was rejected at the time, although it will be introduced now and will pass so that strange people who get off on seeing animals ripped to pieces will; be able to enjoy life again.

      I'm sure you can guess what I wish for them.

      I agree with you. Cameron has just ended the UK.

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  6. I take exception to being called a whinger by anyone English. There is a small joke which has been around for ages that you would tell when the plane from London had arrived in Edinburgh, it was still whining when the engines were switched off.
    I do hope that the SNP will take this matter seriously, that all Scots, Welsh and Irish should be completely angry. If they want English only matters to be dealt with then remove them from the Palace of Westminster and take them to another Place.I see no English person saying that it was wrong for English MP's to vote down the Scotland Bill, when that happens I will no this is not petty spite.

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    1. Good one Helena.

      The English could move into the House of Lords and have their parliament there.

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  7. If only someone would place a very very large sign at the Scottish border. Welcome to England subsidised by Scotland for three hundred years. Or words to that effect.
    wullie

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    1. I've got an old sign... if you got the paint... :)

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  8. Tris

    I agree with Jim, the clock is now ticking. Scottish MPs not voting on English only matters but now that they can't on them even when there are Barnett implications will start to the melt down. The Tories can say all they want about Barnett being treated separately in any vote but Barnett is effectively on the way out now as it is unworkable.

    The Scottish Affairs Committee will be an interesting one now as English MPs have even less of a mandate than they had before. I think they just gave the SNP, and the wider YES movement, a new starting gun. This will go bad and will go bad quickly, they are lucky that too many Scots are not only ignorant about politics but ignorant about how it all works and EVEL.

    Of course there will those Scots by birth only but Brits (Labour/Tory and too many Liberals) who will shine in their ignorance and scream that it's all fair even when they attend the food bank to pick up their weekly anti starvation pack. It's all so very depressing, Cameron is really making a huge mess but If it leads to independence then it will be worth it in the end.

    Bruce

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    1. If you have English votes for English matters then you can;t have English MPs on the Scottish Affairs Committee.

      I doubt Muddle can be on it because he is SoS; I'm not sure about Murray or Carmichael, because they are shadow ministers... does anyone know?

      I imagine that they would have to put Lords in to represent the other parties, which to be fair, have to be represented.

      There are bound to be Scottish matters which are reserved to Westminster, but which have to be enacted under Scots Law. Who can vote on them?

      Questions to Muddle? Should the English be allowed to take part in that?

      The whole thing's a bloody mess.

      As i say, they have wiped out any Scottish MP ever being in powerful positions which cover England only, or Wales only or NI only. They would't be able to vote on much of their own legislation.

      They have more or less managed to get themselves a monpoly on power.

      Tory rule forever.

      Geeeeeez!

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  9. tris and the whingers ....sniggger !

    Cameron will never ever ever ever allow another referendum never he being
    true blue erse kissing royalist is not going to be the one who ALLOWED the
    Union to be torn asunder

    Nay he will prepare the groundwork and leave the coup de grâce to the next Tory prime minster
    all the time saying how he loves the United Kingdom and all its people and of course her majesty.
    All you nats keeping saying its tick tock on the Union well as ever your all totally wrong.
    its more like just a tick away.......

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    1. Oh well, I hope you're right.

      Labour, even English Labour, has to be with us on this.

      We are no longer in union in reality. We are a colony. So is Wales, and I imagine NI.

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    2. Niko, it's up to the Scottish people, if and when there is another referendum; not that slimey pig fucker or his successor.

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    3. Which, if I recall correctly was why we had the first referendum. Niko seems to think all power resides with Government. Power rests with the people.

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    4. Jimminy

      no no and no the law even uk law is the law and all Scots always obey the law
      (not mentioning the poll tax )....

      dougee

      in his wolfie smith coat...Power resides with those who have chutzpah to
      seize it. anyway using your logic ?? you lost massively a little while ago the
      people spoke clearly resolutely and loudly....NO NO NO
      So pipe down and keep yer PC zipped. ...

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    5. Hi Niko, heard this morning that Labour seem to be descending into a Party war, well according to the good old BBC. I do not believe a word of that, Labour are rock solid never fight among themselves.On the obedience to the law front here in Scotland I cannot argue with that, oh yes people did refuse to pay the poll tax but the riot happened in England. As for the resolute No Votes, seems it is unravelling as you and I converse. Spoke to a fellow Yesser yesterday who I have not seen since before the Referendum. She had several friends who were of the No Vote persuasion, guess what Niko, they are rabid Nationalists now. So it would be wise for England to have pussy footed about because all they have done is raised the anti.

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    6. They made promises to Gordon Brown and he passed them on in what could be described as good faith to us. The people's vote changed.

      The morning after the vote the Tories sprung EVEL on Brown. They hadn't mentioned it to him before, otherwise undoubtedly he would not have been their front man. Then bit by bit they let him, and us down.

      In the end we have voted to become second class citizens. Our MPs cannot aspire to high office in the UK any more. It won;t bother the SNP who, by virtue of their maximum possible representation, could never have had high office. It's probably sewn up Labour though.

      I too know quite a few who were No, even before the vow... who are yes. But the broken promises, and the assertions that only in the UK could jobs and pensions and social security be saved... and cyber security maintained (eh, Philip Hammond... what about Talk Talk) and subsequent moves by the UK government, have convinced so many people that they were really just talking rubbish.

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    7. @Niko a quote from elsewhere.

      "If you win something don't think shouting "You lost! You lost!" and berating your opponent for daring to train will mean there's no rematch."

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  10. Nikostratos October 24, 2015 7:53 a.m.

    Thanks for the Wolfie Smith tag.

    "Power to the people!"

    You are right to keep harping on about the fact I woke up with a hangover because less than 5% of the population thought that threats and danegeld were true.

    That told me how subjugated we are.

    That is not a happy place to be. For our fellow citizens - the no voters - and the victorous fools like your good self, it is, frankly, phyrric.

    You won a battle - and not as you claim:

    "You lost massively a little while ago..."

    We lost by a very slim margin sunny boy.

    It takes one in twenty Scots to be Scots and your current hubris will be dust.

    Thanks for sharing.

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  11. As it has unfolded, I think most people, throughout the UK, had to bend down to our imperial masters, unless, of course, they died in the UK Governments joke of a safety net. Or it's wars, of course.

    In this case a safety net is a synonym for a great big cliff that you fall off and die. Not a typical synonym, but there you go.

    That is how mangled the English Language has become.

    Thanks to politicos everywhere!

    Fat boy Cameron on the one hand, poverty stricken potentially dead on the other.

    Y'know what? Given a pig's head and starvation, the poor would probably boil it up and eat it. What did Cameron do?

    And they might survive a day or two longer in Cameron's joke of a society.

    Y'know what? I want a society where boiling a pig's brain is not a requirement for survival. I want us to tell them, is that not democracy<, and no more wars on the say-so of a ruler.

    Niko, cut the cynicism to 11. It is currently off the scale.

    Best wishes for you and yours, tho' it must be hard being such a cynic.

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