BETTER TOGETHER LAUNCH THEIR (QUITE LITERALLY) WHITE PAPER

If Alistair the Comatose read the YES campaign's white paper in less than an hour (all 600+ pages of it), how long do you think it will take him to plough through his own effort.

I see though that they have missed the word "clout".

Tut tut.

And while we're here it might be worth pointing out that the latest scare story (that we won't be able to afford to eat in Scotland after independence) has  bitten BT on the bum within 24 hours. Morrison's appear to suggest that they might reduce prices in an independent Scotland. 

Deary deary tut.

FOOD PRICE STORY PROVES TO BE YET MORE FEARMONGERING

Dear Old Niko reminded me last night in his post of the scare stories about food becoming more expensive in an independent Scotland. 

And I don't blame him for believing it, because it wasn't one of the Daily Mail howler headlines warning that Christmas celebrations will be banned in Scotland after independence (although there are some that wouldn't have a big issue with that!) or moronic MPs warning that all young people studying at English universities will become foreigners in 2026 (gotta admit Maggie will go down in history for that one...).

No. This came from no less an organ than the Financial Times.

It seemed to me from minute one that the story was ridiculous.

Because, while many things in this country do not operate in a free market… electricity, gas, telecoms, etc all seemed to be fixed… in general, the retail industry does seem to be pretty cut throat  and if you have the time, energy and transport, you can go round all four getting the cheapest deal on everything. Why would that change?

Of course getting past the ‘Sunesque’ opening paragraph in the FT: “Scottish consumers will pay more for food if they vote for independence in next year’s referendum because Britain’s big supermarket chains plan to raise their prices north of the border, senior executives have warned”, you find that senior executives did nothing of the sort.

The UBC masquerading as BBC, reported in a rare moment of honesty: “Neither Asda nor Morrison’s said they had any plans to raise prices in an independent Scotland”.  Meantime, Tesco and Sainsbury’s have distanced themselves from the report.”

The executives of the four large supermarkets reportedly told the FT that they currently absorbed the extra cost of doing business in Scotland into their overall costs.  I’m assuming they mean that they accept that trailing everything from their head office to Scotland costs them more distribution, but then that is true of the whole group of islands.

ASDA is based in Leeds; Morrison’s in Bradford. So presumably it costs it very little to distribute food in the North of England, but much more to Shetland or the Scilly Isles, Cornwall. Sainsbury in based in London and Tesco in the home counties of England, so different story there.

The truth is that the supermarkets have warned that if an independent Scottish government increased the cost of doing business, then they would have to look at the prices. However, as the only two parties that might form a government in Scotland are committed to lowering the cost of doing business (the SNP have indicated that they would lower corporation tax, and Labour while in power in the UK did so, with Gordon Brown promising to do it again as soon as he could), that is unlikely to happen. 

Business for Independent Scotland has an excellent article here for much more detail.

And what we have learned is that the once reputable Financial Times has sunk to the level of bending the news to suit its agenda. Fortunately their Scottish sales figures are laughably low (35% of the Paisley Daily Express and 20% of the Greenock Telegraph), not a lot of people will have been glued to the story.

If BT quoted it as fact, it says as much about them as it does about the FT?

HASTE YE BACK, IAIN

Mr Iain Duncan Smith deigned to come all they way from London to explain his new welfare system which will cut billions off the welfare budget, throw hundreds of thousands of people out on to the street and generally make Britain a much better place for...erm..well nobody.

(I say this because I've been to countries where there is inadequate welfare protection, and everyone, even the rich, suffer as they pick their way to the shops, theatres and night clubs, through the poor who have nowhere else but the streets to live.)

Anyway while he was here in Scotland he couldn't help but put his ill-informed two penny worth in to the independence debate.

An independent Scotland won't be able to afford to pay benefits, he informed us. North Sea Oil won't cover the cost, said the failed Tory leader.

In reply the First Minister pointed out that Scotland contributes 9.6% of the UK's taxation in return for 9.3% of the spending, on 8% of the population. That in fact was a surplus of £2.7 billion, or £500 for every man woman and child in Scotland.

I thought that Mr Duncan Smith might like to consider that without the need to pay from nuclear weapons and the "punching above our weight" that David Cameron is so pleased about, in terms of military strength and foreign aid,  we would have considerably less in the way of expenses.

Also welfare is not paid out of North Sea Revenue. Rather it is paid for from general taxation, which would be likely to rise in terms of the fact that much money currently spent in Scotland is taxed as English (because it is spent in organisations with their head office England ...supermarkets, for example. I buy stuff in Morrison's. Morrison's head office is in Bradford, to which comes all the money spent in Morrison's in the UK and from whence Mr Osborne takes his share in corporation tax: English corporation tax!).

These organisations operating in Scotland, would pay tax to Edinburgh, not London.

The First Minister's rebuttal was backed up by the Centre for Public Policy for Regions.

Mind you, as we have already seen the UK itself is unable to afford the welfare budget it currently has, which is why 88% of people who are sick are now going to have to find work, no matter how ill they are; why the Cameron government removed the right to 6 months on 'contribution based' benefits for people out of work, why they are now proposing to freeze benefits for 2 years and increase them thereafter at a lower rate...

And they say WE can't afford welfare... Oh physician heal thyself.

But please feel free to come back to Scotland and make an idiot of yourself by telling porkies again Mr Duncan Smith. You know you are always more than welcome!

*****

Bravo of the week goes to privately-educated Oxford man, Damian Collins, Conservative, Folkestone, who has said that young unemployed people should busk for money if they can't get a job. Does he, I wonder, have any suggestions for those who are tone deaf?

Aren't you glad we will be shot of cretins like this in the near future? 

PS: Yes, he spells his name with an "a". Must be the posh way.