Priti Patel has said that Cameron should demand that Scotland start to “pay for itself”. Pfffff. As if we didn't already AND more!
Patel,who clearly has as much of an idea about the Barnet Formula as the average English Tory MP, said Scots get a better deal than the rest of the UK due to policies like free prescriptions and tuition fees.
She said the independence debate provided a “good opportunity” to slash spending.
Great idea Priti... Well except that all the beggars you see on the streets are evidence that spending has already been cut....(Of course some people never see that kind of thing!)
So what I suppose she means is that Scotland's share of the pot should be cut.
Fair enough. Although it will cause some hardship in the interim, I suggest that it will do us a lot of good in the end.
Patel has called for reform of the Barnett Formula, in a speech made to Thatcher's favourite think tank, the Institute for Economic Affairs...so you can imagine how well that went down!
The Daily Record says that her outburst will embarrass Ruth Davidson and undermine the NO campaign. Awww, what a shame.
Patel said: “There are many areas such as elderly care, tuition fees and prescriptions where Scots are basically getting a better deal than the rest of the country.
“Failure to reform the Barnett Formula has effectively meant that Scotland receives £1600 per person more than the English average which inevitably puts a greater strain on public finances.
“These are considerable sums of money which should be reduced as part of deficit reduction plans, but the point I am making is in the light of the wider politics of Scotland right now. Scotland is talking about independence. I would rather they remain in the UK, but we have a funding imbalance that has to be addressed.
“When you think about the prevailing doctrine in all the parties in Scotland, everyone is talking about more devolution.
“So there is a good opportunity now for the UK Government to actually start having discussions to make sure that Scotland actually pays for itself.”
Actually is there actually?
Jamie Hepburn, SNP, said: “What unbelievable claptrap from this top (sic) Tory.
“Once again the mask has slipped and we see the true attitude of the UK Government towards Scotland.
“Scotland more than pays its way – generating 9.6% of UK tax revenue in return for just 9.3% of expenditure.
“But who can doubt that the Tories would cut Scotland’s budget even further if the referendum result was No?”
A Scottish Tory spokesman (who clearly wanted to keep their name secret) said that Patel obviously didn't understand that while Scotland benefits from free prescriptions and free personal care there are 2000 less (sic) nurses – and patients with rare cancers go without life-saving drugs, unlike in England, (where of course the health service is perfect, except where it is in such a bad way that a recent report by Dr Foster has warned that there are times when it is dangerously overstretched... and where patients are left in soiled beds, or die of malnutrition or dehydration, and where the head of nursing has decided that it is time that nurses be taught about compassion.
Oh what a good service they have. Aren't you jealous?
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No wonder, after talking that load of crap, that the Tory spokesman wished to be anonymous.
Patel has also demanded Cameron cut funding for trade unions and foreign aid to cut the deficit. Not a word about Amazon, Starbucks or Google then Ms Patel?
Thought not.
Still keep at it Tories. Every time an English Tory lectures us, or puts us down the independence campaign gets another few votes.
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This is an illustration of where various politicians stand on the left-right and authoritarian-libertarian graph. As you can see Miliband and Cameron are both right-wing authoritarians. (Click for a larger illustration.)
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I'd like them to abolish the Barnett formula too. Let Scotland have all its revenue clearly attributed (none of your ex-regio nonsense) and a clear representation on what costs are attributed to us. Then we'll see if Scotland pays for itself and that's before we get a choice on HOW we spend it. "Actually we'd rather not invade a country and instead use the money for the benefit of our citzens thanks."
ReplyDeleteShe sounds simply ghastly. If the Tories are so keen for us to pay our way why don’t they lets us go and get on with it? Then they would not have the Scots as the burden they so hate to support all the time.
ReplyDeleteLet’s be realistic it is not a dewy eyed sentimental regard for the Scots that keeps Ms Patel supporting Scotland’s inclusion in their ghastly union. They don’t like us and we know it...we don’t like them it’s reciprocal. If all that oil (that we can’t include in our GDP like it was a natural resources or anything) had been off the coast of Kent and Essex instead of Scotland we would have been punted in 1979! Mrs Thatcher was hardly known for her weepy regard for anything that was remotely loss making no matter how much of a vital service it might have been. Even she could not privatise Scotland, nor farm it off to friends and business associates or ex ministers all on the make.
Panda Paws. Welcome to the blog:)
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. All our income comes to us, which would have to include taxation from stores and shops which now declare their profits and pay tax in London.
All the oil money, set on a border marked by international agreement, not by Tony B£air, who appears to think that England starts in Edinburgh!
Of course that's not going to happen, because we'd be richer (even paying our share of their WMDs); England would be poorer, and the Tories and Labour depend on the English to be elected.
The only way we get to spend our money and set our priorities without England handing us pocket money is going to be independence.
Vote yes.
Saor Alba.
I agree with most of that, Munguin, although I certainly don't hate the English. I just object to dancing to their tunes.
ReplyDeleteThey aren't our tunes and they don't suit us or our way of life.
I dislike Britain as an entity, but I like England and the English in general terms (in as much as one can ever say that one likes a whole nation!)
(I have to say that London is NOT a favourite place compared with any other European capital I've ever been to. it's a rather dirty place, very run down.)
I had hoped the debate would be about the concepts of Scotlands future place in the world. But all Ms Patel views have done is convince me that this is going to become tit-for-tat between the separatists and the Tory led regime.
ReplyDeleteThank God for Labour, offering a practical middle way between both polar opposites ...
http://www.clker.com/cliparts/s/a/m/j/Y/6/face-devil-hi.png
Her wiki is the usual stuff. Political placement to political placement after Uni before finally getting elected in a safe tory seat.
ReplyDeleteDaughter of Ugandan immigrants who were offered a safe haven in the UK from Idi Amin she thanks us by saying "the British are among the worst idlers in the world" in a book wot she rote.
Labour are happier to be run by these folks than by Scots in Scotland which is sad.
@ Dean
ReplyDeleteIf not labour then who do you consider to be the polar opposites of the tories?
Monty,
ReplyDelete"Scots in Scotland"
That demonstrates why I'll never be a separatist. Nationalism makes an issue out of national identity, borders, flags - when all that should matter is humanity.
Human solidarity, not adherence to ancient bits of cloth or medieval notions of 'us' and 'them' when we're all humans together.
@Boorach
ReplyDeletePolar opposites of the Tories? Hard to say, I don't buy into conventional 'political right' and 'political 'left' spectrum analysis.
I would say 'look to the philosophy', in which case you don't have a single 'Tory' party, you have Burkeans (polar opposites of Labours Thomas Painite leftwing) ... you have Thatcherites (polar opposites of ... the Green Party Keynesianism)
I'm not trying to be wormy here, but things are a tad more complicated than 'the tories' and 'the opposition'. People vote on, are influenced by more than one shortlist of 'voters concerns' (however much pollsters would like us to believe otherwise)
Dean, do you object to Australians running Australia or US citizens running the US etc ?
ReplyDeletetris
ReplyDeletepriti is a victim of Stockholm syndrome her being a paki a woman and from Uganda her family being booted out by idi amin.
I mean everything hated and despised by white tory voting middle class south eastern English.So she trys make herself one of them(not knowing it can never happen due to what she is)
By being more rabid right wing English bigot then them...So attacking the Scottish is about par for the course.Hang people keep the pound stuff the eu and bloody foreigners etc etc usual Tory shite..
The problem is even then to The English Torys she is still a Paki and will never ever ever be considered as one of them ever.
monty
ReplyDeleteAustralia has more immigrants than well anywhere so who are the Australians.
And as the last presidential election showed its the Hispanics who rule the USA
And as the last presidential election showed its the Hispanics who rule the USA
ReplyDeleteHow do you work that out Niko as voters are just voting fodder to put the next puppet on stage to do corporate bidding.
Niko, yes but they're all equal citizens of the country. Irrespective of where they came from originally. If they have passports with US /Oz whatever on it then they're allowed to help run their adopted country. Citizens of a country are the best people to run the country. It should be the same for Scotland but not according to Dean apparently.
ReplyDeleteI think it's very dangerous to dismiss what Priti Patel said because her speech is a straw in the wind which gives us insight into what will happen in 2014 if Scotland votes no.
ReplyDeleteThe Barnett formula does give Scotland a financial advantage compared to some areas of the UK and even the Lib-Dems talk about a, "needs based", funding system to replace Barnett in their Ming the Merciless Commission report. If the Lib-Dems want to change it then the Tories certainly do and Labour won't be far behind. Labour in Wales have already complained that the Barnett formula is unfair to Wales and should be changed and the Holtham Commission agrees with them.
The question is why haven't the Tories done it already as they only have one MP to lose in Scotland and he's not up to much. The reason is simple. It's because the SNP are holding a loaded independence referendum to their head.
If that referendum is only firing blanks then after 2014 it's going to be open season on Scotland's public finances. Without that threat the Tories and Labour will have no compunction about changing the Barnett formula.
Priti's only mistake was to say out loud before the referendum what the majority of English based MP's in Westminster want to say after a no vote.
As you can see from the diagram, Dean, Miliband isn't so different in his political aspirations from Cameron, Merkel and Obama.
ReplyDeleteMonty: they are virtually all like that these days. They've been born relatively to very lucky, sent to university, gone into research and then got a seat. They haven't the foggiest idea of what the world or the country is about.
ReplyDeleteAnd boy does it show.
Of course they are complex Dean. By the same token you have right wing labour people who are FAR to the right of some of the Tories (Clarke), and you have people like Denis Skinner, who are real old Labour blokes (who have actually had a proper job).
ReplyDeleteIt's not that easy I know, but broadly the parties policies are at a rough area in the graph of let and right.
Clearly the SNP is even more prone to this, as there are members who are pretty hard right wingers, and those who are hard left, and all those in between. What they have is a common desire to have their own country run by their own country.
Well, I'd have been a bit more circumspect with my language Niko, ( and you might well have been too) but broadly speaking you are right.
ReplyDeleteDespite their dire need to have all of the minorities represented, and as Munguin points out, she ticks 3 or 4 boxes, Warsi was the one who copped for it and was demoted. She reported only got to stay in the cabinet with some sort of roving commission and speaking for the FO in the lords, because she cried...
Hunt who was in the soup the same week for cheating with Murdoch... was promoted. But he went to the right school, is male, speaks posh and is white.
Actually, just thinking O/T that that Davidson woman didn't mention either that Leveson had commended the reasoning behind the FMs contact with the BSkyB contract, or that hunt was up to his oxters in the doodah for all the buddy texting with the boy Murdoch...
Im not sure why the Hispanics shouldn't be involved in running the USA, Niko. Your assertion that they rule it is a long way wide of the mark. But let's be honest, the whole bloody lot of them are immigrants...
ReplyDeleteAnd you will remember that the USA bought large tracts of land from France and for the Mexican Empire... where the population was Hispanic...New Mexico, Arizona... Hispanic people have as much right to be there are the northern Europeans...
In fact though Niko, the head ruler there is a half Black African American surrounded largely by rich middle class white males,... and, by Michael Moore's judgement, probably stupid.
ReplyDeleteDoug... that's a great summation.
ReplyDeletePatel is, like all of the inexperienced MPs (and that's most) essentially not too bright.
She has let the cat out of the bag... well, we all knew it, I guess, but she has confirmed that that is the way that her wing of the party feels.
As you say, the Tories only have Muddle to lose, and that's no loss at all.
The lIberals want less money for Scotland too.
The trouble is that Scotland is lumped together as one, and so is England for these purposes, but there are parts of England (in particular NE, where more money is spent per head than in Scotland. it's about poverty, it's about geography'; it's about population.
You still need drains, roads and hospitals, schools, teachers, doctors, libraries, etc etc in Cumbria where there are very few people, as you do in Birmingham where there are a few million.
Likewise, if they split Scotland up they would find that the the central lowlands, have far less spent on them, and the Highlands where there are only a few thousand people, have far more money spent there.
We must get it across that if we vote no... we can look forward to being POOOOOOR.
We can't have another referendum for a while. In the meantime they can punish us for causing them harm, and for not voting Tory.
Like you say Milipede ain't gonna do anything against that. He couldn't oppose a sneeze.
Dean,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how you can equate two of your sentences. On the one hand you say "Thank God for Labour" and then on the other hand you claim "...when all that matters is humanity".
There are hundreds of thousands displaced, disabled, distressed and mourning in Iraq and elsewhere who would not associate the Labour party with any semblance of "humanity".
You also claim that there this is somehow between what you unionists choose to call "separatists" and the Tory-led regime as if Labour were some sort of middle ground between the two. I suggest you open your eyes and ears and listen carefully to such as Lamont, Davidson, Darling etc and tell us what middle ground they occupy.
thahks for the welcome. I've actually been posting as anon for a wee while. Then I noticed the bit I could use my nomme be plume!
ReplyDeleteBrownlie,
ReplyDeleteThat Iraq liberation should be welcomed, as us fulfilling our leftist obligations to our brothers in Kurdistan. They were gassed, murdered, by Saddam. Yet the Kurdistan national party is a fellow member of the international secular social democratic left.
I am proud, PROUD to say Labour fought against totalitarianism, fascism and dictatorship with freedom fighting Kurds to rid their country of the Baathists.
Liberty, democracy and secularism is alive and well in todays Iraq.
Two words Dean "Mental garbage"
ReplyDeleteHey John.
ReplyDeleteDid you like the publicity for yer wee shop?
How is it going now that it is opened?
Come to think of it, Wee Munguin would have been prepared to do the official opening for a very modest fee, and over night accommodation, restauration and libation ... He's good that way. (The libation might have been a little expensive, right enough. For a very little animal he can consume an entirely disproportionate amount, particularly when the deity involved is himself.)
It looks great..well, the shop doesn't. It looks like a shop and looking great isn't what they do best, but the views... Oh boy...
Tesco was never like this.
Excellent points about Labour and their humanitarian reputation.
It is also worth reminding Dean that parts of Greater Glasgow, in the hands of Labour councils for 70 odd years have average life expectancies of 57 years. Now I grant you that the Tories must take a sizeable chunk of the responsibility for this, but Labour has guilt all over its face.
During 13 years of so-called Labour, huh, under Blair and Brown, the gap between rich and poor increased. That's a proud boast for a party set up to defend the interests of the poor.
And Mrs Lamont's recent pronouncements on welfare are, as some Tories have said, completely in line with Conservative thinking. is he proud of this?
Oh dear, Dean.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure whether I should leave you to the tender mercies of John...
We could talk for a long time about the inadequacies of what the British Empire left in Mesopotamia, and how it needed to be managed.
We would certainly say that life under Saddam was not what we would have chosen for ourselves or our children.
But then we would have to accept that he started off with a crock of crap. Three countries really at odds with each other. Different customs, different needs... (is this ringing bells?)
We could discuss the fact that maybe Saddam needed to rule with a firm hand, otherwise the whole thing would have got out of control.
We could talk about the fact that under Saddam, you were allowed to be Christian or indeed any kind of Muslim you wanted to be. You were allowed to take a drink (very important to you judging by some of your comments in the past). We could also say that you were safe to walk the streets; women were allowed to wear western clothes, work, run businesses, mix freely with men. Girls were allowed to be schooled. There was no trace of terrorism in the country. Al Qaeda was kept at the borders.
In return for this relatively decent life, you couldn't openly say that Saddam was a ..... You couldn't express an opinion contrary to that of Saddam... Yes there were many restrictions and people who got in the way of what the dictator wanted often found themselves in prison, tortured, or even probably lying in the country, in some woods, with their wrists slashed, or on the top of mountains having had heart attacks.
So understand this, I'm not standing up for the man. I'm not defending the way that he marginalised the Marsh Arabs or the Kurds on the fact that he killed then, tortured them. Not at all.
And, of course, in a world where countries like Britain feel it is incumbent upon them, while their own people are hungry and cold, to go around poking their completely ignorant noses into other people's ways of lives and cultures, I expect that he might have been some place on the list of people that we wanted to teach the error of their ways. Quite far down that list though, under Mugabe, The Generals in Burma, whichever Kim is the King of N. Korea, etc.
All I'm saying was that he was not, by a long way, the worst of these.
It's also a thought, isn't it, that if you are going to interfere in someone else's way of life, you should be very careful to ensure that what you leave behind you is actually BETTER that what you found? otherwise you look REALLY stupid when you withdraw, leaving chaos.
I'm certain that no one in their right minds would consider the utter chaos that is today's Iraq, better than what was there before.
There is so much more that we could say about the reasons for going in there; the lies that were told to us about weapons of mass destruction, and 45 minutes to kill British troops in Cyrus?
That has contributed in no small way to the utter distaste in which politicians are held today (because it wasn't just Labour that couldn't wait to get in there and show Britain's might. The Tories were salivating at the thought of war, every bit as much as Blair was.
If you are proud of all that... What can I say?
Incidentally, the Kurds are not without blame. Not that anyone deserves gassing, but your socialist brothers aren't meek little souls that sit at home printing off posters, or indulging in 'Cyberkurdery'.
Why is it you feel such an affinity with their rights to their own state, but have no such feelings for the leftist brothers in Scotland.
PP... That's great Panda. It's always better if you have a name, otherwise sometimes (and this has happened to me in the past) you have two different Anons, posting in the same place, with opposing views, and it all becomes very confused! !!
ReplyDeleteWish I'd thought of that CH. I typed for 10 minutes and said not a lot more!
ReplyDeleteThe reason that Dean no longer buys into the conventional wisdom of left and right will be because he has tried that particular cherry and found it had a great big stone in it that was not to his liking. The rag-bag of New Labour and New-Dean sits kinda hard with any notion of leftist brotherhoods! The Labour party have gone from having Keir Hardie as a political hero to Margaret Thatcher while Dean has gone from Harold MacMillan to a cross between Johann Lamont and Jonathan Meades. Ah for the fond old five minutes of one nation Toryism it always brings a smile to my face!
ReplyDeleteAnd what is wrong with Jonathan Meades? I liked his stuff on surrealist fashion...
ReplyDeleteYou must have the patience of a saint tris as reviewing the latest condition of some rich person's condition seemed a more enlightening revelation than what I responded to.
ReplyDeleteShould of added this.
ReplyDeleteHa ha... yeah, I rather think there are a lot of things we should stop celebrating, and start thinking, why!?!
ReplyDeleteWhy on earth do we think this is right?
Why on earth are we in awe of this or that ghastly person who absolutely no attributes worth celebrating?
Why do we put up with all the utter rubbish that we put up with, for absolutely nothing in return?
Nah, I don't have a lot of patience Cynical. I let it wash over me...
:)