SO WHAT ARE YOU HIDING DOMINIC?

Clearly there is something calamitous in the Cabinet Papers. We need to know what it is, before we make the biggest decision of our lives

What is it that we are too stupid, poor or wee to understand that our employees discussed in 1997 and 1998 and that is as potentially damaging as illegal warmongering in Iraq?

"Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, has blocked therelease of Cabinet committee papers relating to devolution under the Freedom ofInformation Act.

Grieve confirmed today his belief that their release would not be in the public interest.

A request had been made for publication of the minutes of the Cabinet Ministerial Committee of Devolution to Scotland and Wales and the English Regions, dating from 1997 and 1998.

Such a veto has only been used twice in the past, once relating to further devolution papers and once over a request for Cabinet minutes relating to Iraq.

Now we know Westminster have something to hide from Scotland!! The people of Scotland should be disgusted at this, especially the claim this is not in the public interest. 
**********

GRACIOUS AND COURTEOUS AS EVER...

It is amazing that not one of them knew it was going on. Not Balls, not Miliband, not Brown. There was no control over what their staff were doing.

I never occurred to them to investigate when bad stories about Blair's people got into the press?

Tight and effective management style then, huh?

Mr Brown's attitude reminds me of when he was asked what he thought of the 2007 SNP victory, and he walked away without giving an answer.

Plus ca change...

Cruel, arbitrary and ridiculous reasons why people have their benefits stopped

It's not my fault. I'm too dim to do this job properly

Your gran dies during the night. The next morning your partner calls the jobcentre and asks if you can come in the following day instead. The centre agrees, and you sign in the next day. Then you get a letter stating that you failed to sign in and would be sanctioned if you don’t reply within seven days. You reply, explaining the situation. The job centre gives you a six-week sanction for not replying.

Source: Mari-claire M at Netmums

You get a job interview. It’s at the same time as your jobcentre appointment, so you reschedule the job centre. You attend your rearranged appointment and then get a letter saying your benefits will be stopped because going to a job interview isn't a good enough reason to miss an appointment.

Source: Daily Mail

You've signed in on time, been to interviews and applied for work. Your job centre advisor suggests you make a two-line change to your CV, which you do, but fail to give the updated CV to the job centre (you weren’t told you had to). You are sanctioned for four weeks.

Source: nciaw36 at MoneySavingExpert

You work for 20 years and then miss a jobcentre appointment because you haven't had the process clearly explained. You are sanctioned for 3 weeks. Source: Councillor John O’Shea

That's where you belong, you scroungers,
and that's where you are going

You get a job that starts in two weeks time. You don’t look for work while you are waiting for the job to start. You're sanctioned.

Source: The Guardian

You are forced to retire due to a heart condition, and you claim Employment and Support Allowance. During your assessment you have a heart attack. You are sanctioned for not completing your assessment.

Source: Debbie Abrahams MP

It’s Christmas Day and you don’t fill in your job search evidence form to show that you've looked for all the new jobs that are advertised on Christmas Day. You are sanctioned. Merry Christmas. 

Source: Poverty Alliance

And that's how much I care...on a good day

You are given a training appointment that clashes with your job centre appointment. The jobcentre is unwilling to rearrange its appointment and tells you to get a letter from the training organisation. The training organisation says it does not provide letters.

Source: Russell Brown MP

You apply for three jobs one week and three jobs the following Sunday and Monday. Because the jobcentre week starts on a Tuesday it treats this as applying for six jobs in one week and none the following week. You are sanctioned for 13 weeks for failing to apply for three jobs each week.

Source: Pontefract and Castleford Express (via Benefit Tales)

You miss your job centre appointment due to the funeral of a close family relative. You are sanctioned.

Source: Derek Twigg MP

You've been unemployed for seven months and are forced onto a workfare scheme in a shop miles away, but can't afford to travel. You offer to work in a nearby branch but are refused and get sanctioned for not attending your placement.

Source: Caroline Lucas MP

You have a job interview which overruns so you arrive at your job centre appointment 9 minutes late. You get sanctioned for a month.

Source: jsdk at Consumer Action

Ah darling, did you get your salary for not doing my diary?
Any news of your dear rich papa? Quite well I trust?

You can’t afford to travel to look for work so you get sanctioned.

Source: Citizens Advice Bureau

Your job centre advisor suggests a job. When you go online to apply it says the job has “expired” so you don’t apply. You are sanctioned for 13 weeks.

Source: Penny at Yahoo! Answers

You miss your jobcentre appointment as it clashes with your work programme interview. You get sanctioned.

Source: Citizens Advice Bureau

WHAT ARE THESE PEOPLE LIKE?

Baker, whose wealth is estimated at £3.9m

MPs have been labelled hypocritical for using £64,000 of taxpayers’ money to subsidise their children’s visits to their second homes after voting for the bedroom tax.

Under the bedroom tax more than 600,000 social tenants with one or more spare rooms must either move or pay an average £14-a-week penalty.

A single parent who is not a child’s main carer will not receive extra housing benefit to cover the cost of a spare bedroom to allow the child to stay overnight.

But MPs who want their children to visit their London residence can claim extra money from their accommodation allowance to cover the costs of accommodating them, providing the child ‘routinely resides’ with them.

What qualifies as ‘routinely residing’ is up to the MP’s discretion, so they will still be eligible for the extra money if their children visit just once a month, under rules laid down by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.

The scheme was branded as the ‘ultimate hypocrisy’ by Lucy Ferman, project manager for Placeshapers - an alliance of 100 housing associations.

In the 2011/12 financial year, 29 MPs who voted for the bedroom tax claimed additional expenses for the cost of dependants over and above the standard £20,100 accommodation allowance they were entitled to, costing the taxpayer £63,819.

In the same period, a further 20 who did not vote for the legislation claimed £36,864.

Nigel Adams

Conservative MP Nigel Adams, who accused the BBC of having a ‘preconceived agenda’ over its bedroom tax coverage, claimed £6,735 for costs related to dependants. He did not comment.

Climate change minister Greg Barker claimed an extra £3,313 for costs related to his dependants. His office said the claims were ‘fully compliant with IPSA rules’.

But the Northern Housing Consortium said MPs should consider whether the guidelines were still ‘right and proper’ in light of the bedroom tax policy - adding tenants would be ‘upset and angry’ that MPs did not face the same restrictions as them.

Crossbench peer Lord Richard Best said it was important that MPs had the space for their children to visit. ‘What we object to is that other people don’t. They have a penalty for having space.’

So, what we are saying is that the housing allowance for ordinary people, be they elderly, sick, disabled, or whatever, does not allow for part time usage by children, but housing allowance for the special kind of people that make up Westminster representatives does?  

Well, that's fair!

WELL, HOW DID THAT WORK OUT?

• Glasgow businessman Brian Dempsey has been a lifelong supporter and substantial donor to Scottish Labour. He wrote this piece for the Scotsman back in 2011, after the SNP's record breaking win. I have not provided a link because I've no wish to add to their traffic. I assure you it is there.

I found it in my bookmarks, and I thought it was an appropriate time to examine what he said, and how much of it was taken on board by Labour. It's a decent piece from a guy who was not afraid to admit that Labour was in a mess and that their opponent was formidable. A man who faces facts rather than saying what people want to hear. I don't agree with some of what he says (as noted), but I'd welcome your opinions. 

It's probably worth noting that Mr Dempsey now lives in the Caymen Islands, having gone bankrupt in 2011 with debts of over £10 million, but I doubt that fact affects his analysis of the Labour Party's problems.

Sorry it is a bit long, but it's worth a read. The illustrations are mine and I have corrected some typo errors in the Scotsman's original.

**********

If the party in Scotland is to recover, it needs to split from London and select a new leader - preferably Douglas Alexander or Jim Murphy.

AMBITION is the fuel that drives any successful politician. But there comes a time when personal ambition must be set aside for a greater good. As regards the leadership of the Scottish Labour Party, that time is now. For the facts are simple: the party is in crisis and faces the prospect of electoral extinction at the local government elections next May.

Labour's victory at Inverclyde raises false hope. The Scottish electorate may have demonstrated that, on a national level, they still favour Labour in what was once their party's heartland. But on a Scottish level they voted SNP. And what are the local government elections but Scotland in micro-miniature?

In the wake of Labour's crushing election defeat in Scotland, the worst in its long and illustrious history, I listened with incredulity to party spin doctors insisting that Labour's core vote had held up. I had knocked on enough doors during the campaign to realise that this was not true: too many Labour voters told me they had turned yellow, so to be speak.

So it was fascinating to read the results of the Scottish Election Study which showed how deeply the SNP had penetrated into Labour's traditional core vote, for they won the majority of Catholic voters, winning over both working and middle class voters.

We once had a lead amongst women and young people. You only had to look around the Glasgow SECC on election night to see how that has changed. Youth was on the SNP side, leaving Labour appearing to be the party of old men, and, according to the judgment of the electorate, Scotland is now no country for old men. Change must come. The question is how?

Labour is currently undertaking an internal review to which I would like to contribute my own thoughts.

The first is that the Scottish Labour Party must unchain itself from the anchor of London, and set sail as an independent party. At the moment all this debate over who should take over as leader of the Scottish Labour Party is academic, for the Scottish Labour Party already has a leader, Ed Miliband.

The fact remains that Iain Gray is leader only of Labour's MSPs. The best case scenario would be to have a new leader of Scottish Labour who would command the respect and loyalty of both MPs and MSPs, but who was not tied to the coattails of Millbank Towers.

Policies would be focused on how they could achieve the best results for Scotland, not on how they would impact on Ed Miliband's general election prospects.By creating an independent Scottish Labour Party, any new leader would be able to take a fresh look at the structure of the party. The Scottish Executive of the Labour Party is too unwieldy and requires pruning; it needs to be smaller, more disciplined and single-minded. It may seem strange to say, but it needs to be less democratic. Once the leader is in place, it will require a benign dictatorship to reinvigorate this movement.

The second point is that Scottish Labour needs to start thinking and planning for independence. In the past, to do so was viewed as somehow admitting defeat. We are way beyond that point now. We may not wish for the union to be split up, but we frequently make plans for things we do not wish to happen in our private lives, so why not do so politically?

For a long time, all we have done is repackage the clichés - and shout them out loud - about independence. Now someone is going to have to do the serious thinking, as a precautionary measure, about how to make it work.

I do not make the serious suggestion that the Scottish Labour Party should become independent from London and prepare rigorously for independence because I believe that the SNP will win the majority backing of the Scottish people or that an independent Scotland is inevitable, because I do not hold such a belief.

I do, however, think that it is prudent and sensible to prepare for the possibility of things not going according to plan. It is also, to my mind, the best way in which Scottish Labour will be able to re-build, and better galvanise its existing supporters and reach out to many more.

Alex Salmond is an impressive First Minister and an exceptional politician. His success at the Scottish elections was, I believe, partly because of the positive campaign run by the SNP.

The Scottish people will always favour the positive over the negative, preferring hope over fear. So what the Labour Party in Scotland needs to do is, on the one hand, dissect the SNP's failures in office and, with the other hand, show what they would do differently and better.

The Scottish Labour Party is in a difficult position, but it has been in difficult positions in the past and has always managed to rise above circumstance through tenacity, intelligence and hard graft.

These are the qualities that are required now. The irony is that now is the time for young people to get involved with Scottish Labour, for there is a great opportunity to help shape the party.

But I do believe that no one should underestimate the peril that the party could be in if it fails to grasp the nettle and reorganise and restructure.It is crucial that it develops a better, sharper and more focused intelligence unit, one that would have picked up the warning signs of the political tsunami that all but washed it away in May.

We now come to the question of who should lead. For too long the Scottish Labour Party has been like a tilted billiard table, with much of the talent rolling south. This is not to say that there are not talented men and women serving their communities well as MSPs. But it is fair to say that the Scottish Parliament has not seen politicians of the stature of Gordon Brown, John Reid or Alastair Darling.

Westminster has been the draw, the place for an ambitious politician to make his or her mark, with the prospect of the ministerial car and sprawling department. Yet the hour has come for senior Labour figures in Westminster to set aside their own personal ambitions and do the right thing by the party in its hour of need.

The irony is that the biggest battle that the United Kingdom will face will be fought north of the border. The very future of the United Kingdom depends on the results of a referendum that will take place north of the border.

If you believe in Scotland's place as a crucial part of the union, then surely there can be no better personal and political ambition than seeking to save our country in the manner in which a Labour politician thinks it needs to be saved. This is why I believe it is imperative that either Jim Murphy or Douglas Alexander set aside whatever personal ambitions they may have about serving in high office in the next Labour Government and take up the challenge of revitalising the Scottish Labour Party.

There is currently talk of having the incumbent Ian Gray remain in place until January. This is a bad idea. Labour needs a new leader in place by early autumn, one who will focus his attentions immediately on the local government elections next May and ensure that the SNP do no achieve their goal of seizing control of Glasgow City Council.

He must do more. He must find a way to roll back the SNP's recent victories and return Labour to its former position as Scotland's largest party. It will be a difficult task, but it can be achieved.

Now is the time for Scottish Labour to be bold and decisive. Tomorrow, I'm afraid, may be too late.

WELL, WE FILLED THE HILL

Munguin and Humza Yousaf, Minister for
 External Affairs and International Development

WOW. JUST WOW!

I don't think any of us expected it to be that amazing. Well, I didn't anyway.  I've never been on a march before. I'm more a 'write about it' kind of person than a 'go on a march' kind of person. 

But I'd wanted to go last year, and couldn't because I'd previously arranged to take an old lady out for a run in the country that day! So I swore I would go this time, come hell or high water.

So in some convivial and comfortable company, Munguin and I set on in the car yesterday. And we hadn't a clue what to expect. Our companions hadn't been before either.

What we found though was better that we had dared hope for.

I don't know about numbers. At one stage the BBC said 8,000. Then they said "more than 8000". A police inspector there on crown control (not that control was needed from what I could see) suggested 30,000*. I'm useless at judging numbers so I don't have a clue how many there were. But there were a lot.

We were among the first to arrive
so Munguin got a badge

The atmosphere was amazing. People just seemed to like one another, maybe because there was a common goal. But all marches are, I suppose, have common golals, and it doesn't seem to me that they are as warm as this one was. People were talking to people they'd never met before, sharing stories, sharing biscuits and snacks. I saw no evidence of any trouble, nor of any drinking, nor indeed much litter (although with all the leaflets that were being handed out, I imagine that the hill will need a bit of a clean today). There were people of all ages. Kids I suppose who didn't have much choice, but teens, through to people who were clearly in their 80s or even 90s. The place was a sea of kilts. 

There were people of various ethnic backgrounds (lovely to see Asian Scots in kilts), and I was blessed by God and by Allah within a few minutes... not bad going for an atheist!

We marched (well OK, dandered) next to a group from Orkney, under their flag, and one of the ladies was telling me that there was a contingent from YES PAPA STOUR!. Among the more surprising banners we noticed one from Free Venice! 

Il y avait partout des affiches avec le mot "OUI", and I had the chance to say a brief "Bonjour" to Christian Allard, our first French-born MSP. 

Munguin holds top level talks with
Stewart Hosie and Shona Robison
respectively SNP Finance Spokesman
 and Minister of Sport 

It took a long time to get  everyone to Calton Hill. We sat three quarters of the way up where we could see the screens and hear the contributions and people kept on coming and coming and coming. The sound system was excellent and the speeches were inspiring, funny and kinda homely. Margo was brilliant. Elaine C Smith was awesome. The music was bang on. Just enough, not too much.

I'd never heard Dennis Canavan speak before, but he was passionate and I found what he said chimed with the way I felt. A kind of modernised Old Labour.  

If there was a downside for me, it was that despite the Munguin T-shirts and Munguin looking around all the time, we didn't meet any of you lot. And that was a disappointment!

Brilliant banner on the North Bridge,
right outside RBS

As the photos show, Munguin himself, was rather busily occupied having top level meetings with government ministers from Holyrood, opposition spokesmen from Westminster and the Rev Stuart Campbell, who gave him a badge, of which he is more than a little proud, but I'd really hoped to have a blether. (Talking of that word, did anything ever come of "Blether Together"?) 

Thanks to Shona, Stewart and Humza for good naturedly humouring our proprietor. He's having the photographs framed expensively for the boardroom!

So sorry I missed you guys, but there's always next year.

I don't know where they will hold it though. Anyone up for the top of Arthur's Seat?

* Police have now confirmed that the number was around 30,000.

And the best response from the No Campaign, in the form of the Scotsman,  was to publish article on an 8 month old report, saying that if we vote for independence, the rest of the UK will try to redraw maritime borders and it could take up to ten years to sort it out. It seems that they want our oil. It suggests to me that that has been central to London's argument all along.

WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO TO GET AN ARTICLE OUT OF THE NO CAMPAIGN?

In this month's "Left Review", there appears the following editorial comment.

·     "The Scottish Left Review has made even-handed coverage of the independence debate a central aim. 

     "Where we have published issues on the constitutional debate we have allocated equal space to either side. 

    

    "We requested articles from both Yes Scotland and Better Together with a deadline of 23 August. 

     "It is never our aim to embarrass anyone and we recognise that for the two campaigns this is a very busy time. However, as by 12 September and after a number of extended deadlines we do not have an article to balance the one by Dennis Canavan for Yes Scotland we feel we need to explain the circumstance.

     "We include instead a recent blog written by Blair McDougall, Campaign Director for Better Together. This originally appeared on the Better Together website."

    So Cameron couldn't be bothered to write anything in defence of the union for The Herald, except a few worn out platitudes about how much history we have and how great we are together, despite the paper contacting Downing Street to encourage a more heartfelt (and larger) contribution, and now the Blair MacDougall team couldn't get anything together for the Left Review at all, despite extended deadlines. 

    If the nation is as unionist as they'd like us to believe, you'd think that it would be a bit easier to get someone in Downing Street or at Project Fear to pen a few words about how fabulous the union is.

    It seems that  no one on the negative side of this debate is really that interested.

   

    **********

I  

I'm told that the blogroll is a handy navigator for some people to other reading. I've tried to keep it reasonably balanced so we get Labour and Liberal views, although some of the blogs that were on became  so appalling that I had to take them off.

     If anyone has ideas about blogs that they think should be featured on the blog list, please feel free to suggest them and we look at adding them. I'm open to suggestions from any political viewpoint.

     We should really try to include some Tory blogs and some Green ones. So if anyone has suggestions along these lines for decent readable blogs, please do let me know.

    

    **********

    The above photograph is, as you will know, a portrait of our proprietor  Munguin, of Munguin's Republic, with his flag and rosette, and seated in his penthouse suite at the top of Munguin Towers.

    Munguin will be accompanying us on the march tomorrow. He also adorns our t-shirts, so if anyone sees him, or us, please come over and say hello.

Countdown to the referendum

A YEAR TO GO

With 365 days to go before the referendum, some of us gathered on the top of the Law in Dundee to hear a few words of encouragement (and they were encouraging) from our Westminster MP, SNP Shadow Finance, Stewart Hosie... of which more later. Click on photo to enlarge.

MAGGIE, MAGGIE, MAGGIE

'Angus' just posted this over on WoS (where Stuart unveils another series of out and out lies from Anas Sarwar, this time about the Joseph Rowantree Foundation's report into poverty. Labour and the No Campaign need to watch how many different people they slander. Ms Lamont may have protection if she lies in parliament, but Anas might find himself being sued for this kind of "misrepresentation").

I thought it was worth watching, just to remind ourselves of a couple of things:

Firstly, that this is the level of argument we can expect if we stay with the UK and in the decreasingly likely event that the UK elects Ed Miliband and his team to government. Curren was pathetic;

Secondly, that it looks to me that Labour isn't going to do anything much about the people at the poorer end of the scale. 

You can say that she argues that it's only the richer pensioners that will lose their heating allowance, but even Curren said that she believed that universal benefits should be universal. 

That's not because the poor pensioners need it the money; it's because once you means test, you make the benefit a handout to the poor. No one in power then has personal interest in it, except that they pay for it. It becomes as resented as benefits for the unemployed and the sick...and people who do need it, and are entitled to it, are made to feel like scroungers.

Once these changes are made, they will never be reversed. It's not "while we are in this terrible financial situation". It's forever. 

Click to enlarge

And what follows? If heating benefits are only for the poor, then why not other benefits? Most obviously the retirement pension itself. 

Already one of the most niggardly in Europe (as a percentage of average earnings), most well-off people don't desperately need it. So the next time the government needs to save money, why not cut the pension for the rich? Then the retirement pension becomes a hand out for the poor in which the rich have no stake and poor pensioners become scroungers.

Of course what Mrs Curren and Labour fail to consider in their quest for savings (£100 million in nothing in governmental terms) is the massive tax fraud that is allowed in the UK. 

Indeed the whole of the London economy appears to be based on the fact that tax fiddling here is like taking candy from a baby. It's hardly fashionable to be paying more tax than your servants, dear boy!

The figures show that even by HMRC's own figures there is a sum of £30 billion (approx Scottish government's running costs) of uncollected taxes annually.  According to the Tax Justice Network the figure is actually four times that size. 

We know that the Tories neither care that pensioners should be made to feel like paupers begging for their pension, nor do they wish to make any inroads into the excellent tax avoidance schemes that have been set up with government acquiescence over the years. But instead of making poorer pensioner feel like they are scroungers, why doesn't Labour (the party of the workers, remember) look to these tax evaders to lay their hands on the £100 million that Margaret needs for her houses. 

Incidentally, why does Labour let this woman anywhere near a tv or radio studio? She is a car crash every time she goes near a mic.

THE REAL ATLANTIC BRIDGE (not the one associated with Thatcher, Hague, Fox and Werrity)

The Atlantic Brige

Foxgloves

The Bridge over the Atlantic (as opposed to the Atlantic Bridge), as the humpbacked Clachan Bridge is known, joins tiny Seil Island with the Scottish mainland. Ten miles south of Oban, the bridge spans the tidal waters of the Atlantic at Clachan Sound. Although the bridge is part of a single track road, and with a sufficiently steep hump to obscure any view of oncoming traffic, both approach roads are clear and open, allowing ample opportunity to ensure clear passage.

The bridge was completed in 1793, at a cost of £450 (about $700). Combined with the considerably deeper channel that existed when it was built, the single high arch seen today was designed to allow ships to pass under the bridge. Today, 40 ton lorries cross the bridge, thanks to additional strengthening, while local legend tells of a fully laden cart of hay being used to test its safety once completed.

Next to the bridge is the Tigh an Truish Inn - the House of the Trousers, referred to locally as the T&T. Following the defeat of the Jacobite Army at Culloden after the 1745 Jacobite Risings, and Bonnie Prince Charlie's subsequent flight from Scotland, the Government banned the use of the Gaelic language, the kilt, and the wearing of tartan by proscription under the Dress Act of 1746. The inn earned its name after its use by islanders from Seil, and neighbouring Easdale Island, as a convenient location to change to and from their traditional garb and into trousers, or trews (obviously not Tartan Trews!), when travelling to the mainland.

Around May of each year, the bridge takes on a purple appearance, as the flower of the rare Fairy Foxglove (Erinus Alpinus) covers much of its surface.

MORE PAIN FROM THE BEDROOM TAX

Does anyone know what Labour's position is when it comes to Bedroom Tax?

The Deputy Leader of the Scottish branch of Labour says they would get rid of it tomorrow if they were in power in London. And the Welfare spokesman in the Scottish Parliament says the same. But no-one from the London party has agreed. 

Liam Byrne said that although they were opposed to the tax, they would need to look at cost implications and, when asked direct by Cameron if he would remove the tax, Miliband declined to answer.

The Scottish branch has made a lot of noise about Holyrood finding £50 million to ensure that poor or disabled people don't suffer. I imagine that they understand, having once been in government, that that £50 million will have to come from somewhere else. 

Unlike the London government Edinburgh can't just add it to their borrowings or put up income tax rate to cover it. So they Rob Peter to pay Paul. John Swinney has found £20 million in the already tight budget to do that.

SNP and Labour councils have said that, whilst they will actively pursue people for the rent arrears accumulated because of the bedroom tax, as I understand it, they will not evict them, even if by law they have to send letters warning of eviction.

There aren't enough smaller houses in the housing stock for all the people who require them, but now some people who are trying to downsize are finding that another barrier has been put in their way.

Glasgow's Wellhouse housing association has said that tenants with rent arrears will not be allowed to move to smaller houses until their arrears are paid, and furthermore they will have only restricted access to repairs while they remain in debt. Further to that they have been told that they may face further associated costs.

One victim, who asked not to be named, was sent a letter demanding £106.96 – money owed for two months worth of “under-occupancy charge”.

The letter, on official Housing Association paper, told her: “You have been placed on a restricted repairs service and if you have an application for rehousing this will be suspended.”

The letter, signed by a “Rent Assistant” also warned: “I must advise you there are costs associated with this action which would be payable by you.”

It's a real problem. Councils or Housing Associations, with the best will in the world, can't say that they will ignore arrears. That is an invitation to people to not pay.

Lessons will, I'm certain, have been learned by political figures in the SNP, Scottish Socialist and Labour parties from back in the days of the poll tax, where leading politicians led campaigns against payment resulting in people building massive debts and councils going without money.

The law is the law. No matter that Scotland voted massively against this tax; we have it and until we get a Westminster government that will repeal it, or we get rid of Westminster governments which refuse to repeal it, then we are stuck with it.

The Scottish parties, or branches, should work together to have this tax repealed, and if the London Labour management don't care about old and disabled people who have very few choices about where they live, the Scottish Labour must force them to see sense.

Of course, one answer is for us to vote ourselves the power to deal with taxation and benefits in 2014.

Given the fact that both our major parties are against it, it would quickly disappear from the statute book of an independent Scotland.

Erm...I'VE NOTHING MUCH TO SAY...

David Cameron and Alex Salmond were both invited to write a piece for the Sunday Herald, explaining their views on independence. A page was left for each leader to fill. Both Downing Street adn Bute House got the same information.

Bute House filled a page with reasons to vote for independence. Downing Street managed 132 words. 

The Herald asked them for more, but Downing Street didn't bother to respond, so the herald printed empty space where the prime minister's argument might have been.

No wonder the man won't openly debate with the First Minister. 132 words doesn't go a long way in a debate.

Even then what he said, although thankfully without any sign of UN, EU, G8 references, was trite meaningless rubbish which wouldn't stand up to any analysis. See for yourself.

David Cameron: In a year from now, people living in Scotland will be making a choice which could radically change their country for ever. Scotland’s future will be in Scotland’s hands. 

Munguin's Republic: Which, with respect, is exactly where it should be. 

DC: I hope passionately that Scotland decides to remain within our United Kingdom. 

MR: Well, you are one man, but as you have pointed out when you have been trying to duck out of a face to face debate with the First Minister,  you are an Englishman and it isn't really anything to do with you. It's a decision for Scots to make. Your opinion is as important as anyone else's in the world, but not any more so. Of course, as the Prime Minister of the UK, you have a vested personal interest in not going down in history as the man who lost Scotland

DC: What we have works, and it works well. 

MR: Does it? For whom does it work? Does it work well for people whose taxes go to pay for things that they may never see, and which don't do them any good? London Olympics, High Speed trains? Does it work for the average Scot paying more tax than people in other parts of the UK, and getting less back? Does it work for the people in certain parts of the central belt who have a lower life span than people living in the Gaza strip. No. It doesn't. It works nicely for you and your elite in Oxfordshire and the other home counties, who are being subsidised by us.

DC: Ours is a unique union of nations. It’s a union of people too. And together we've achieved so much. 

MR: Why is it unique as a union of nations? It was certainly contrived, but I'm sure many others were. It certainly wasn't democratically arrived at, but I am sure that that is hardly unique. There's nothing unique about two countries being in a union, and to a certain extent it is obvious that the peoples of the two nations will in some way be affected by that union. Again I fail to see any uniqueness. Of course, it has been long lived, but time alone doesn't actually bind people in any real sense of the word. And what did we achieve, and was it necessarily because we were together that we achieved i?. You chunter on regularly about us fighting Fascism together, but we did that with nations from all over the world, not least the USSR and USA, neither of which are in a union with us. Indeed the second one was and left!

DC: We are a family of nations within one United Kingdom. Now is not the time to reduce that relationship to one of second cousins, once removed. 

MR: Why? What are we at the moment? Don't tell me we are equal partners? Brothers? If so why is it that over and over again Scotland votes against your policies, but has them imposed. Royal Mail privatisation...Bedroom Tax. Scotland opposes and Westminster imposes. We have a Tory government with one Scottish Tory MP out of 59! The Scandinavian system is one of, call them 'sister' nations or 'cousin' nations, working together. But they aren't ruled by the same government. They don't even have the same systems of government.

DC: The 18th September, 2014 is Scotland’s date with destiny. It will be time for Scotland to decide.

MR: Yep, we know. It's in my diary. Thanks.

DC: The best of Scotland and the best of British, or a leap into the unknown?

MR: And is the future with the UK not unknown? Who would have predicted in 2007 the mess that 2008 would bring. Certainly not you or your party who were enjoying the loads of money culture that abandoning banking regulations allowed!

DC: Scotland’s future is in Scotland’s hands.

MR: Aye, you said. You'd think having only expended a few minutes to write a 100 or so words, that you might have taken the trouble to make sure you didn't repeat yourself.

THEN WHAT?

CHARLIE GETS GOLD...

For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

Must have been written specially for Charlie Windsor. 

They have found gold in them there mines in Kernow (Cornwall) of which,as we all know, Charlie is the duke.

And that has caused a bit of a disagreement in the royal family. 

Since 1568 permission has been required to remove gold from "Mines Royal", with the proceeds going to Crown Estates. But the Duchy of Cornwall, established as a form of income for the heir to the throne, has been around since 1337, and wanted to claim the gold for Charlie.

So, being as they are a close warm family firm they have decided to split the money 50-50. Charlie gets half and the crown estates get half. 

And the people of Kernow get nothing.

Great, isn't it? The broke UK finds gold and two of the richest people (who owe their wealth only to who they were born) split the divvy between them. 

UKOK?

FOTOS ON FRIDAY... 'PRIVATISATION OF POST' AND 'BEDROOM TAX'

SO FIRST THERE IS THIS ODIOUS ANNOUNCEMENT FROM SAINT VINCE...

...and Labour needn't get bent out of shape about it. Peter Mandelson did his damnedest to do exactly what Vince the Tory is doing.

http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-royal-mail-from-privatisation-1

So, it's all looking positive and popular there...

Scotland won't do it

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AND THEN THERE'S GRANT SCHWEPPES or something...

 ...who apparently intends writing to the Secretary General of the UN, demanding an apology from him about "some Brazilian" having the temerity to lecture British ministers, the insufferably pompous little arse. 

OK, I know it isn't directly to do with either of today's topics, but I thought it was hilarious

As ever, click on pics for a larger image...