Well, no, actually, as the IFS the Tory think tank pointed out, it doesn't. Scotland would be broke after a few weeks, because you are too wee, too poor, and far too stupid.
We were lying and being patronising, because both of these things are what we do best.
Well, except in the case of Cameron (who does a splendid impression of Flashman), it's more or less the only two things we do.
Still, at the end of the day we'll all be sitting in the House of Peers on £300+ tax free a day, with lovely money earning titles, so why would we actually give a toss?
And if you want Devo more well see these two fingers.
ReplyDeleteOh... that to add to the lies that Thatcher and Home told in the 80s.
DeleteFlash man... lol
ReplyDeleteHe does have a little bit of an ill judged sense of humour. Heaven help you if your an MP and disagree with Dave. 'Calm down dear' if your a female, accusations your on chemicals if your a male.
And the odd patronising guff if you are Scottish.
At least Ed Miliband was asking pretty important questions about this coalition dismantling surestart centres. This is a big and bad thing, and it never gets the coverage it deserves.
Labour raised over a million kids out of grinding poverty since 1997, and the numbers are heading up again, as this coalition does its utmost to punish the poorest. More kids living in poverty, with fewer means of supporting them as the coalition strips away EMA, Surestart et cetera.
Only with a strong Labour government can we save our vital social security services.
And as you say, we really do need to get rid of these bunch of old etonian toffs!
I have just been explaining Guy Fawkes to a french friend of mine.
DeleteShe has suggested that from what she reads of life in the UK perhaps it is time for a second attempt.
I think we must do things for children and for young people to get them into work.and started on life
I'm not going to argue about the poverty figures under Labour; they did some good things, as I've said before. But the overall gap between rich and poor grew under Labour.
However, Surestart sounded a good idea. It shouldn't have been scrapped. For all the money that it saves, when doesn't he just try asking his friends nicely if they wouldn't mind paying just a little of the tax that they are avoiding. Say 1% of it would do, and we would be able to keep schemes running. it wouldn't make much of a difference to them... it's not like they are counting the £100 notes, and it would make all the difference to the future of these kids.
I'm disappointed that the Scottish government hasn't gone ahead with the free school dinners that they promised, because they are waiting to find out how much money they are going to get from London.
Demand an answer from Osborne and get the children fed. More and more it is difficult to feed your kids and a decent lunch would be money well invested against poor learning, and future illnesses.
This surely is the wickedest of governments.
They intend to change the whole culture of the country. Get rich or die; adopt sharp elbows and tred on the next person, or starve.
That's how they got rich; they seem to be unaware that some people just cannot do that. It requires a ruthlessness and a lack of compassion of which surely only a few people can boast. And most of them went to Eton and Oxford.
But he didn't answer why an ex Labour councilor sacked for having porn on his work computer was elevated to running the Co-op which got into severe financial difficulties. It seems that Labour are incapable of being trusted with other peoples money.
Deleteyes, that is true.
DeleteGiven the guy's position at the top of a bank though, I bet that there is dirty work involving both sides.
As a person who was hoping that the local TSB would become a Co-op bank, because I liked the idea of their ethical banking and I would happily transfer from the ghastly RBS, I can only say that whoever is at fault in this story of total farce, I'm disgusted with them.
The good reverend, the people who set him on, the people who didn't say he was sacked for looking at porn on his work computer, the FSA, the Labour leadership for cosying up to him, and whichever Tory has his nasty little fingers in teh pie, because almost invariably there will be one.
Miliband needs to lance this boil, and throwing all the malfeasance of the Tory party at Flashman may distract people for a while, but it's not going to go away. Just like the rotten mess that is Falkirk.
Better to have it out, apologise and get it over and done, than it be a running sore.
Dean, if by a 'strong' Labour party you mean one which has the strength to stand up for social justice, then I think that such a thing did once exist, before you were born. As Tris has said, when Labour were last in power they did some good things, but they also did many bad things (apart from the evil of an illegal war of aggression), including starting the privatisation and dismemberment of the NHS in England by requiring some services to be put out to competitive tender.
DeleteI see no sign of the Labour party going back to any of its original principles, but if it did, it would alienate so many voters in England (particularly in the south) that it would have no chance of winning a general election, even if Scotland continued to send mostly Labour MPs to Westminster.
Even if a miracle happened, and a Labour government did push through the reforms that I am sure you would love to see, how long would they last before the pendulum swung the other way and a Tory government swept them away?
Scaraben
I think you have hit the nail on the head there Scaraben.
DeleteEven if Labour wanted to, there is a limit to what it can get away with.
The public in many parts of England, particularly the south east, are overwhelmingly Tory in their attitudes. They don;t want socialist government looking after what they think of (backed up by the Mail and the Express) as feckless wastral scrounges..
Many of them are reasonably well off, and they see their taxes "wasted" on looking after the poor, often described by the likes of the Sun or the Mail as the lazy, the feckless, single parents, scroungers.
The problem is that in the richer parts of the UK, a party that advocates help, rather than disdain for these people has no chance of being elected.
In Scotland visceral hatred of the Tories since the days of Thatcher sealed the deal for Labour. The party of the working man, which it once was, and may even to an extent may still be and although the SNP now gets the vote when it comes to Edinburgh, people still believe that the only way of keeping the Tories out is to vote Labour.
But people in the south of England will only vote Labour when they espouse policies which meet the needs of the relatively well off.
Handing out tax pounds of the banking classes to the lower orders won't cut it.
It's really a tale of two countries, to borrow from Dickens.
People who don't make use of public services rarely want to pay for them for others.
That is why means testing is so dangerous.
And, as you say, even if Labour can persuade the south east to vote for them on the bases of bankster friendly policies, they won't last long igf they start handing out Mr Hertfordshire's hard earned taxes to the scrounging classes.
Next election we'll have Michael Gove, Tessy May or Boris Johnson as PM.
Someone said the other day that they were not a unionist, even though they were voting no.
ReplyDeleteFrom now on I will refer to them as Loyalists, as this makes more sense.
I've never really understood he difference Jutie...
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