The First Minister and the Secretary of State have agreed to meet again once the respective consultations have been completed. Scotland has already had thousands of responses to its consultation. I image that the SoS has to his.
It's not often, away from election time, that people in government are much interested in anything we think. If these two are seriously going to listen to what we have to say, then I think it is even more important to get something in to them as quickly as we can.
If they do not know how the people feel they are won't be able to respond to it.
It's up to us to play our part.
One question: yes or no to separatism.
ReplyDeleteAfter the Unionists win, we can begin the more sensible talk of instituting full fiscal autonomy.
I for one have completed both and would urge everybody to do likewise!
ReplyDeleteI want to see the results too. I trust Alex to do the right thing but that idiot Moore is another kettle of fish.
The English Government has a proven track record of trying to cheat, not just the Scots, but everybody to get maximum advantage for the British state. To that end I think if the Scotland Office does not publish full results we should all submit FOI requests.
On another subject I see that the ratings agency Moody's has changed Britains status to "negative outlook" don't suppose it will be long before the AAA rating goes by the board and all that suffering by the sick and poor will have been for nothing!
sensible talk
ReplyDeleteWhen are you going to start Dean?
Alec Douglas-Home
In the Scottish devolution referendum, 1979, Douglas-Home made a high profile statement arguing that an incoming Conservative Government would introduce a better Scottish Assembly. Douglas-Home had no authority to give such an assurance, and in fact, Margaret Thatcher's government introduced no Assembly at all for Scotland, instead repealing the legislation that resulted from the referendum.
Dean: Cameron said that there will be no more powers for Scotland. You can only imagine that a No vote in the referendum will result in him completely closing down any discussion.
ReplyDelete"The Scots know what is best for them", he would intone gravely: adding to try to make a victory reflect well on him, "As I always said they did",
... Except of course that we shall win our Independence, which will not mean separation. We will still be attached to England. We will still trade; we may share many things with them, but now will will be free to share with Norway, Iceland, Denmark.
Most of all we will be free to tax and spend as we see fit, which you might argue we cold do under devo max.
But the disadvantage of devo max is that we would still be required to pay whatever they demanded for the renewal and upkeep of Trident. Billions and billions of our money going to keep the prime minister who would absolutely be an English prime minister, at the top table and for nothing else.
We would also be required to get involved in all the wars that America wanted London to get involved in.
Even under an unwar-like Obama administration, this has so far involved one war with a huge expenditure which we could not afford. Can you imagine what that might be like under a neo-con president?
Oh, wait, you don't have to. We are still fighting a pointless war in Afghanistan, which cost us ridiculous amounts of money in order to keep in with the Americans.
As Alex has already shown in his dealings with America, they will not be able to snap their fingers and find him going running.... and paying.
I agree, Munguin. We need to see the results of both consultations.
ReplyDeleteThey must be published on-line.
I saw that Moody's thing. To be fair, these companies don't have a great record on getting these predictions right.
I've been amazed that the UK hasn't been down graded before, particularly after the English riots of last year.
I can only think that Moody's and the others base their predictions on the notion that the UK will eventually pay off its debt, unlike say Italy, Spain and other Latin countries.
This is because the supine Brits will sit back and let the likes of Osborne trample all over them. Especially the poor, who will tip their caps to the gentleman wot done it, and say: 'Thank you very kindly, squire, what as you didn't do it even worse, sir'.
Whereas of course the likes of the French will burn Paris before they let little Napoleon interfere with their way of life.
The spirit of revolution shown briefly last August must have made the credit agencies wonder if they had got it wrong.
However, the fact that tents were folded after a few days, and the completely, totally and utterly independent judiciary did exactly what Cameron had told them to do, and threw away the rule book and the key, must have reassured them.
The trouble I find, CH, with Eton and Oxford men, is that you can't really trust what they say.
ReplyDeleteNot necessarily because they are liars, although some undoubtedly are.
More because they have a tendency to say that something will happen, because of their complete and utter self confidence that if they say it will, it will. It always has before.
I doubt Home lied about that. He just thought that if he said it Thatcher would make it so. He underestimated the bossy English woman who had little time for old fashioned Conservatives like Home.
(Possibly because they had made it clear that the looked down on her and thought that she should be making the teas and smoked salmon sandwiches.... ahhhhh, if only. We'd probably still be making steel!)
A reformed devolution settlement, with maximum devolution is preferable to separatism.
ReplyDeleteit's a step in the right direction, Dean, but leaves us paying for trident and English war games at America's behest and all to aggrandise the English Prime minister.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather spend my money building things than killing people, and paying for bombs, dean
But nuclear deterrence saves lives, by making total war unthinkable, due to the sound logic of mutually assured destruction.
ReplyDeleteBut we don't have to be the ones to have it. Germany doesn't, Norway doesn't, Denmark doesn't. They spend money on roads.
ReplyDeleteWe don't actually have it either. We are obliged to buy it from America and we aren't allowed to use it without their permission.
All it is is a way of remaining on the Security Council, which is nice for the PM, I suppose as it makes him seem important, but even there he more or less has to do what the Americans want.
It's a bit pathetic.