BENEFIT TOURISTS? MUST HAVE BOUGHT THE WRONG TICKETS!

We are forever hearing about how generous the UK is when it comes to benefits. Why, apparently according to the Sun and the Mail, and of course the London Government, the world and its dog, cat and tadpole, are turning up in good old Blighty just to rip off hardworking taxpaying families of strivers not skivers, up and down the country...

Which would be worrying, if it weren't a load of utter garbage.

IMF research has shown that the UK is towards the bottom of the list of generous countries when it comes to the value of their benefits. In fact it is downright grippy. Unless of course you are talking about the benefits paid to members of the royal family or the House of Aristocrats.

Here is the truth.

Country		Gross Replacement Rate year 1		Ranking
Netherlands		0.7		1
Switzerland		0.687		2
Sweden		0.685		3
Portugal		0.65		4
Spain		0.635		5
Norway		0.624		6
Algeria		0.612		7
Taiwan		0.6		8
Ukraine		0.56		9
Italy		0.527		10
Denmark		0.521		11
Russia		0.505		12
Tunisia		0.5		13
Finland		0.494		14
France		0.479		15
Bulgaria		0.473		16
Canada		0.459		17
Romania		0.45		18
Hong Kong		0.41		19
Austria		0.398		20
Belgium		0.373		21
Argentina		0.354		22
Germany		0.353		23
Greece		0.346		24
Azerbaijan		0.338		25
Egypt		0.329		26
Venezuela		0.325		27
Belarus		0.313		28
Israel		0.307		29
Japan		0.289		30
United States		0.275		31
Kyrgyzstan		0.255		32
New Zealand		0.254		33
Latvia		0.253		34
India		0.25		38
Korea, South		0.25		37
Uruguay		0.25		36
Uzbekistan		0.25		35
Ireland		0.238		39
Hungary		0.235		40
Poland		0.226		41
Czech Republic		0.225		42
Australia		0.21		43
Turkey		0.206		44
Albania		0.202		45
United Kingdom		0.189		46
Brazil		0.152		47
Estonia		0.132		48
Lithuania		0.117		49
Chile		0.115		50
Georgia		0.09		51

Look, there is the good old UK, just under Albania. Didn't someone once say that Scotland without England to look after it would be just like Albania? So, if they were right, we can look forward to a little step up.

Data taken from: Mariya Aleksynska and Martin Schindler (2011) Labor Market Regulations in Low-, Middle- and High-Income Countries: A New Panel Database. IMF Working Paper.

Iain Duncan Smith is bent out of shape about it. He looked positively ill as he decried the Council of Europe (not the EU: this has 47 members) for criticising the UK for its niggardliness. 

Nothing serious I trust.. It doesn't pay to be sick here. Better off in Uzbekistan.

Update: Niko drew my attention to this story about the way Finland deals with redundancies and unemployment. Oh to live in a country like that.

WEE JOHANN AND HER SLIPPERY TONGUE WENT WEE WEE WEE ALL THE WAY HOME

The right to set the minimum wage may be a wee thing to her, but for folk that can’t keep warm in the winter, don't eat for the last week of the month, or whose kids can't access a computer and go to school in rags it's a BIG thing. It's the wage itself that is a wee thing.

The Bedroom tax seems only to be a wee thing when she isn't making political capital out of it. But for folk worried about whether there will be an eviction letter in the morning mail, wee it is not.

Child care and making sure that kids get a hot meal at lunchtime is not a priority to ex teacher Lamont; she’s already made that clear. Just a wee matter of kids eating without the embarrassment of being labeled "poor" or "tinky" because their parents haven't the money to feed them, pffff! Wee indeed.

And nuclear weapons less than 40 miles away from the centre of Glasgow may be a wee thing to her, but most folk think it's a great big fat scary bugger of a thing, and so will she if there’s an accident. 

Her officials said it was a slip of the tongue... Nah, it wasn't. She looked pleased with it. Clever Johann.

She’s an embarrassment to Labour. No wonder they don’t let her out during the week. 

Still one day she'll probably be Baroness Lamont, then she can have the last laugh at all us detractors from the vantage point of her £300 a day tax free old aristocrats' home.

You rang, my lady?

WE PAY FOR ACTING LESSONS FOR THE WESTMINSTER GOVERNMENT

I wasn't particularly surprised to hear that the UK government spends vast amounts of our taxes on media training for their hapless and not immediately appealing ministers. More than any in my lifetime these people don';t appear to belong to the same race as the rest of us. The probably had to earn how to speak to people who weren't born with silver spoons somewhere  about their persons.

One of those who has been in receipt of our largess is the unelected, thrust-upon-us-whether-we- like-it-or- not, blue blood the Noble Lord Fraud who works for the DWP. It’s a pity that money was spent on him, because he seems not to have profited from the training. (Or maybe it’s because frankly he doesn’t give a stuff whom he insults in the lower orders.) 

I was, however, a bit more surprised that the bunch of hooray henrys that comprise the present London government seemed to think that the taxpayers should be prepared to stump up for acting lessons from RADA.

The way I understand “acting” is that it is the art of convincing an audience of the authenticity of something which is not true. Now, I realise that the government spends its life trying to do this, and that clearly its ministers would like us, or at least some of us, to believe at least a little of what they tell us, but seriously it's not the work of the government to do this.

Would it not be more appropriate for political parties to pay for acting lessons? Is it not their raison d’être to spin a good yarn?

Nonetheless, according to Government credit card records, the Treasury last year paid for two sets of courses from RADA, a highly respected English acting school. They actually spent £1,541 in October and £1,500 in February, just days after the Osborne told us that there would have to be more cuts. (It's sometimes difficult to believe that we REALLY are all in this together, don't you think?)

The Department of Health in England spent just over £3,500 for three courses in 2012, the Cabinet Office spent a meagre £612, presumable trying to teach Maude Francis how to act like a human being (note to Cabinet Office: you'll need a great deal more than that and a 4 year course to make that happen) and the Department for International Development also spent £2,370.

 

Believe it or not a London government spokesman actually had the nerve to respond to inquiries about this waste of money by saying: "Civil servants need the right skills to perform at the highest level and deliver better, more efficient services for the public."

He definitely must have been on an RADA course. Probably the one entitled: “How to act your way through a badly written farce”.

Just one question. I thought that before you could get training from RADA you had to show some talent... so what happened to that rule?

TO KILL THE TRUTH - A NOVEL BY DUNDEE AUTHOR, CALLUM DUFFY

I just came across this book on Amazon. It was written by Dundee author Callum Duffy, who amazingly, is only 15 years old. It gets good reviews on Amazon, and I'm very happy to encourage local talent...

The independence referendum is only weeks away. The people of Scotland are being deliberately misled. Three unlikely heroes set out to discover the truth, but the power of the state seeks to silence them. So begins a desperate chase across the Scottish countryside to discover and reveal the truth. The very future of Scotland is at stake ...

Synopsis

During the run up to the Scottish independence referendum, the Yes campaign are leading. This drives the opposing No campaign to desperate measures, and they have to start inventing false truths in order to get their favoured result. When the political lies and spin reach an unbearable level, it falls to a retired MI5 agent, a jailed computer hacker and a schoolboy genius to expose the truth.

The truth is out there somewhere ...

Main Characters

David Chisholm - Former MI5 operative 

Nigel Braithwaite - British Prime Minister

Penny Carson - Adviser to the Prime Minister

Shona Murray - Computer hacker and whistleblower

Rory Lawson - Schoolboy maths prodigy with a flare for code breaking

Norman Williams - MI5 Operative

Callum is a 4th year pupil at Grove Academy in Dundee. He is also an NCO in the 44th Dundee Company the Boys' Brigade. A keen violinist, Callum is a member of the Dundee Schools' Symphony Orchestra.

He has long been interested in creative writing and had the idea for this full length novel two years ago. 

During this time he has been researching relevant subjects and taking expert advice on constructing and editing the book.

Callum really enjoyed the process of researching and writing the book, and he very much hopes that you will enjoy reading it.

The book is available as a paperback or an eBook from all good bookshops and Amazon.

The eBook can also be downloaded from this website.

I understand that authors make considerably less money through Amazon, so if you have compatible software, I'd suggest the website.

RANDOM PICS...TODAY'S BRITAIN

EVERY HALFPENNY

OH LOOK, HE'S SMILING

TRICKLE DOWN

OUR BRAVE BOYS, CAMERON CALLS THEM

THEM

US

WHAT CAN THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT AND LABOUR DO ABOUT THE BEDROOM TAX?

I welcomed, a couple of days ago, the news that the Scottish government was working with Labour to see if they could find ways to help people affected, through no fault of their own, by the bedroom tax.

DougtheDug replied to my post with information (as usual in his posts) based on his knowledge of the regulations. I was concerned that (as the original article was a few days ago) people would miss Doug's piece, so I have repeated it here.

Doug wrote:

Not just a spare bedroom, but a spare HOUSE

Hi Tris, a bit of background on why we can't mitigate the effects of the Bedroom Tax in Scotland.

Under Schedule 5, Section F1 of the 1998 Scotland Act the Scottish Government is not allowed to get involved in benefits as that is a reserved power. Housing benefit is actually named specifically as a reserved benefit.

How then, you ask, did John Swinney give £20 Million to the councils to help mitigate the bedroom tax. I'll come to that.

Housing benefit is distributed by the local authorities in Scotland as the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) which is the benefit the Bedroom Tax affects. The rules on how much LHA the councils can pay each claimant are set by strict guidelines from Westminster as benefits are a reserved power.

The councils have another fund called Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) which they can use as they wish to help those in need of housing assistance and this is the fund they are using to help those affected by the Bedroom Tax. The councils can decided who gets help and how much. This is also funded from Westminster by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and they gave £13.5 Million in total across all Scottish local authorities this year. Under the DWP rules the councils can add another 150% to the DHP from their own funds. Can you start to see where the £20 Million figure came from?

So how did John Swinney give the councils £20 Million for DHP if the Scottish Parliament is not allowed to get involved in benefits? The way round it was to give it to the councils as part of their general grant with no ring fencing. It's not defined as for benefits and the councils have no legal obligation to hand it out as DHP so it's "nod and a wink" stuff between the Scottish Parliament and the Councils.

So here's the two problems that Labour are unable to suggest a way round even though they bang on and on an on about how the SNP could help more.

The Scottish Government is forbidden from getting involved in benefits. It cannot hand out money directly to benefit claimants.

Ah, you think, but John Swinney has already handed out £20 Million to the councils as part of their general grant why can't he hand out another £30 million to the councils (assuming of course that he can find the money from his limited Westminster block grant) and they can distribute it for him.

Well he could but there would be no point. Remember the councils got £13.5 Million from the DWP and they can add another 150% to that which they got from John Swinney. That means they are at the limit of the £33.5 Million total that the DWP allows them to hand out as DHP's.

The councils are at the limit of what they are allowed to hand out and it doesn't matter how much more money John Swinney gives them they can't pass it on to those affected by the Bedroom Tax.

So now you see the problem. Unless the Labour party can find a legal way round Schedule 5 in the 1998 Scotland Act or the £33.5 Million limit the Department of Work and Pensions has placed on the Discretionary Housing Payments from the councils they are just blowing hot air from their nether regions when they bang on about how the Scottish Parliament has the power to alleviate the Bedroom Tax.

**********

Douglas Alexander

I was wondering if there is anything more hilarious than an middle aged politician writing in a newspaper about what teenage kids think, and getting most of it horribly and hilariously wrong. Then I remembered that there's always a pantomime act talking about "nostalgia and nonsense", wearing a tartan jacket (has anyone seen anyone wear a tartan jacket in the last 20 years?) and cracking pantomime jokes about the first minister being either a chieftain of the pudding race or a pudding of the chieftain race. Laugh? I nearly did. Well, no, I didn't, really.

Then, of course, I remembered that the politician has a vested interest in persuading people to vote for the continuance of his well-paid safe-seat-for-life job in London, and his almost-undoubted future as an aristocrat in the British political equivalent of an old people's home (but where they pay you, rather than you pay them).

John Barrowman

The Brit-American pantomime dame may well feel, as a relatively highly-paid tv, broadway and recording star, that life under the Tories' low-tax-for-rich-people regime is a desirable political outcome, and hell mend the poor and the sick. I wonder though, why he feels that it is reasonable for him to have the nationality rights in two separate states which he would deny to Scottish people! I'm alright, Jack?
**********

WHY DOES ANYONE BELIEVE ANYTHING THAT COMES FROM THE DWP?

Cameron has been making much of the dramatic fall in unemployment, bragging about it like he has brought it about. 

But if one jobcentre can take 2,700 off its books in one month by sanctioning for minor misdemeanors, and get away with it, then surely we can wipe out unemployment, if not overnight, then at least within a couple of months. 

Simply sanction everyone for some perceived fault. Then Iain Duncan Smith can add that to his list of lies.

Having worked at jobcentre, I know that sometimes sanctions have to be used, but, in the absence of enough suitable jobs, and with tight targets to meet, there are reports of people being sanctioned for being a few minutes late from an appointment, although they are clearly dependent on unreliable privately-owned public transport; people being sanctioned for not having enough money on their cell phones to phone for jobs; people losing money because they got two interviews on the same day, at the same time, and failed to turn up for one of them; people being sanctioned because they moved home and were transferred to another jobcentre, and their details got lost in the system. 

Is it too much to ask that the DWP treat people like human beings?

SNP AND LABOUR TO WORK TOGETHER TO RID SCOTLAND OF THE BEDROOM TAX

I was happy, no, I was delighted, to see that Iain Gray and John Swinney have pledged to work together to rid Scotland of the unfair bedroom tax.

I thought Iain Gray made a good speech in the chamber last night. He said:

“Mr Swinney was courteous enough to invite us to meet him to discuss the budget and we were clear that we want to see that change. He agreed to work with us to find a legal way to do it, and those meetings have started. I believe that they have been constructive and I hope that he does, too. I want them to bear fruit. We can set our differences aside and do this thing on which we agree.

“On that basis, we are willing to support the budget bill this evening, in spite of the weaknesses that we believe it embodies, so that it can come back at stage 3 enhanced by measures and funds that in effect consign the bedroom tax to history in Scotland right here and right now."

Mr Swinney replied:

“The crucial test is whether we can get the money to the individuals to remove the arrears that they face. The guidance from the DWP, which is consistent with the Discretionary Housing Payment (Grants) Order 2001, states that there is a limit on that.

  

 “I want to continue discussions with the Labour Party about the pursuit of the practical options…it is crucial that we find a way of tackling the hardship that individuals are experiencing, and doing so in a fair and effective way that meets their needs and helps us to deal with the iniquity that is a product of the bedroom tax in this country."

Until there is sufficient housing of the right size to go around, it is quite simply wicked to make people pay for an extra bedroom that they don't need, and in many cases do not want. 

Nor is it reasonable that people who have a medical or social need for a extra bedroom be penalised for their illness. The DWP has to understand that not everyone is capable of sleeping in a bedroom with someone else, in particular as they get older and sleep badly, or need to rise often in the night.

This is a stupid and cruel tax introduced by a stupid and cruel secretary of state. 

I think it unlikely that Iain Duncan Smith, buoyed by yesterdays remarkable, and welcome, announcement of a record reduction in unemployment [which is, in all likelihood, nothing to do with his department, and much more likely to be attributable to an improvement in the economy of the West], will ever agree to repeal the tax.

We, in Scotland, must then work together to do so.

The Scotsman jumped immediately on the SNP's assertions that the only way to bin this tax was independence.

It may be that they will turn out to be right about that, but I would have thought that they should remember that at this stage all that is happening is the two major parties are joining forces against the London government to see if they can find a LEGAL way around the problem (as opposed to Jackie Baillie's illegal solution, and John Swinney's use of the maximum amount of relief apparently allowed under UK law). It is yet to be proved that there actually is a solution within the UK.

Secondly, they should be aware that an independent Scotland would never have imposed a tax like this to begin with, as at least in the foreseeable future, there is little likelihood of there being a Tory government in Scotland.

Regular readers will know that I don't have a particularly high opinion of Iain Gray, but in this case I'm happy to congratulate him on a sensible move.

OH THE IRONY...

LET'S TAKE A BREAK FROM POLITICS...

 ...and have a laugh

Glass Igloos in Finland for tourists to watch Northern Lights

SO TELL ME AGAIN, WHY DID GORDON BROWN WAIT UNTIL HE HAD NO POWER TO GRANT MORE POWER TO SCOTLAND, BEFORE HE CALLED FOR MORE POWER TO BE GRANTED TO SCOTLAND?

Not desperately interested in what you're saying there, matey. You have even less power than Gordon Brown and are, by most people's standards, not very influential in the UK political hierarchy. In fact most of us've not even heard of you.

Do you actually know why your ex-leader wouldn't even congratulate Alex Salmond on becoming first minister of Scotland, never mind discuss some more powers for Scotland with him? 

If you really don't know, then here's a wee hint for you. 

The answer is..."I don't know!"

PS: If you do get round to asking him about it, could you ask why he thinks that granting powers that we already have, over health and training for example, is the right way to go? 

Ask him if he thinks his fellow North Britons really are thick enough to think that these things are not already devolved.

WHAT'S YOUR LINE?

The UK is a terrible condition, largely as a result of this and the preceding government’s duplicity, mismanagement and incompetence. I thought the following story most apt. 

A man in a hot air balloon realised he was lost and spotted a woman on the ground…

“Excuse me”, he shouted. “Can you help me? I promised to meet a friend an hour ago and I don’t know where I am”.

The woman replied: “You’re in a balloon, 30 ft in the air, between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and 50 and 60 degrees west longitude”.

The man replied: “You must be an engineer”.

“I am”, replied the woman, “How did you know?”

The balloonist said: “Everything you told me is factually correct. But I have no idea what to make of it and I’m still lost. Frankly you haven’t been of much help!”

The woman responded: “You must be a politician”.

“Yes, I am”, replied the man. “How did you know?”

Said the engineer, “You don’t know where you are or where you are going. You got where you are on a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you cannot keep, and you expect people below you to sort out your problems. You are in the same position you were in before you met me, but somehow now it’s all my fault!” 

Hague's view on EU ignores Scotland's unique situation

As Ian Bell points out in this Herald article, most of what the UK government paper says about Europe is conjecture. There is no certainty. The situation has never occurred before.

In fact countries have joined the EU from outside. They have had to comply (and in certain cases, not comply) with a list of requirements. Compliance has taken longer or shorter periods, dependant on the starting points on finance, legal matters, human rights, etc.

Two slightly different situations have occurred in the EU’s history:

After the Berlin Wall came down, East Germany, with its basket case economy and human rights from hell record was assimilated into West Germany to become jointly Germany. This was achieved in a remarkably short period of time, because West Germany, already a member as WEST Germany, undertook to ensure that EAST Germany would comply with all the EU requirements. In fact, a new state of Germany was allowed to enter the EU in short orders.

When Greenland became an autonomous country in the Danish kingdom, it decided to leave the EU. It was far away geographically; it had little farming at the time, and so benefited hardly at all from the CAP. It did however, have massive and very rich fishing grounds which were being depleted by EU fishing fleets. In the give and take of the EU, Greenland gave an awful lot more than it took.

The leaving was not easily achieved. The EU didn't want to lose this tiny nation of 55,000 people. It certainly didn't want to lose its mineral resources or its fish. It drew out the process of withdrawal, although there was never any chance of Greenland being refused.

Scotland, whilst perhaps not having the fishing resources of Greenland, has a lot of other things that the EU would be unlikely to want to lose. It is compliant in law, in human rights and with OECD estimating that it would be in the top ten per capita rich nations in the world, it would be a net contributor.  Its citizens are already European citizens; they hold EU passports and driving licences. They are resident in countries all over the union, and citizens from all over the union work and study in Scotland. Does anyone think it likely that the EU would go out of its way to create problems for Scotland by not agreeing accession by 2016? Not just for Scots, but for all the other countries who have people working and fishing and studying here, and who have Scottish residents. It just doesn't make sense. Not when we know it can be done.

Even the UK government appears to have given up on the original argument that we wouldn't be allowed to join. What they are now trying to tell us is that it would cost us more money and that it would take years.

Mrs Thatcher, trying to face down the right wing xenophobes in her party, went to Brussels in 1984 to negotiate a rebate. She felt Britain, based on its greatness, had agreed to pay too much into the EU purse when it was, in fact the second poorest of the then 10 members

At that time a huge amount of the budget was spent on the CAP (around 80%) and Britain did badly out of that as it had a small agricultural sector by comparison with the other countries (being a cold and wet country).

Mrs Thatcher got her rebate but Britain, but in a no free lunch world, lost out on fishing rights, which disproportionately hit areas in the north of England and Scotland, where the Tories were less popular.

The rebate was and is funded largely by France and Italy and is extremely unpopular in these countries, and of course with the newer eastern countries joining the EU Britain is no longer amongst the poorest countries (even though it is the most indebted).

Of course Scotland wouldn't get that rebate (worth €5 billion to the UK, €50 million to Scotland). I doubt anyone expects it to. I wonder for how much longer the UK will get it, especially with Osborne's belligerent... "our way or the highway" attitude.

But already Scotland gets a bad deal from Europe, with 6 members of parliament (as opposed to Denmark’s 13), and our fishing, environment and farming business is carried out by and English minister with no knowledge of or responsibility for Scotland.

The other scare story is that we would be forced to join the Euro, but according to Osborne, so might the UK.

There are many reasons why that won't happen, of course, but as Mr Hague knows …or let’s say SHOULD know, whilst new members sign up to say that they will work towards Euro membership, there is no time frame for this. 

One of the prerequisites of being in the Euro is that the country must have spent two years in the ERM (remember Britain had to withdraw from it as the pound fell through the floor). But there is no obligation on any country to join the ERM. Ask Sweden.

It’s so insulting to be treated like this Mr Hague… and even more insulting when you don’t even keep to what the government paper says (there MAY be… there COULD be), but replace this in interviews with certainties (there WILL be).

You're driving wedges between us by lying, Willie. We are beginning to think you hate us.

Stop it.

WE'RE TOO POOR TO AFFORD TO BE IN THE EU

Try not to look too posh.
They don't like us Tories up here in the badlands

As well as implying that our independence would facilitate rape in war zones all over the world, Wee Willie Hague the UK's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary yesterday brought his friend, one time Liberal, one time democrat, Lord (to be) Danny Alexander of Noseat, Toryland, to tell us Scotch people that being member of the EU would cost them a whopping £750 per family.  

I'm always suspicious of taxation figures that relate to families, on the basis that families don't, as a rule, have tax accounts. Individuals do. Families pay taxes per member, according to their income and spending patterns (and in the case of some, doubtless the soon to be jobless Mr Alexander knows them better than i do, according to their ability to pay expensive accountants to dodge their tax for them).

Given Westminster's and Whitehall's joint inability to get anything to do with money right, except perhaps for their own expenses (and the word "right" may be considered to be used loosely here), I'm also dubious about the sum, no matter to whatever unit it pertains.

I mean only a few weeks ago members of Mr Hague-Alexander's coalition of Britnats was telling us that the EU wouldn't want us and that it would take years for them to allow us to join, if at all, given that Spain and Gibraltar and Russia would all vote against us. (We weren't supposed to give any thought to the fact that Russia and Gibraltar don't have any vote.)

Danny Proud of our Foodbanks Alexander in Scotland

Everyone knew that that the likelihood of this was around 0%, given that the EU is an expansionist organisation that wants, in principle, every European country to join it from Iceland to the Ukraine. It was hardly likely to reject a modern, rich, democratic state, which complied with all the necessary conditions of membership, and whose citizens already held European passports and driving licences, and where thousands of EU citizens work and study.

And no one ever managed to explain to me why, if they wouldn't let us join, they were at the same time, going to force us to join the Euro.

I can only suspect that it was a case of UKOK having absolutely no respect for their audience and inventing any scare story they thought might discourage change (and their seats in the House of Lords), regardless of whether or not it contradicted any other scare story.

The answer, of course, to the question of whether or not Scotland would be accepted into the EU is one to which the UK government (and only the UK government) could supply the definitive answer right now, if it wanted to. It has only to ask Brussels. They would be obliged to respond.

There must, one suspects, be some reason the UK government is unwilling to do that. The cost of a stamp hasn't risen THAT much! 

No particular reason for put her up here, except it's a while
since 'we in Scotland' have had a patronising look from her.

If one didn't know better, one would think that they were afraid of the answer.

Anyway, they seem to have given up on that scare story for now, along with the 'forced Euro' tale, and have replaced it with this family tax figure. Perhaps that's because the Yes side have claimed that everyone would be £600 better off. Everyone, not every family.

I'm sure that the future ex MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey knows that most of us run our own finances. It's not like the old days where the man of the household was responsible. 

We get individual salaries, we pay our taxes individually, and although our weekly shop may, in some cases, be a family affair, many of our purchases, and therefore our VAT and duty, are individual.

So, what I don't want to know, Dan the Toryman, is what is it going to cost some arbitrary family of indeterminate size, wealth and spending pattern. I might be more interested in what it would cost me, but then again with UKOK's record for telling the truth, I'm not altogether sure I'd believe you.

But while we're on it, would that £750 per family be balanced out by the billion or so pounds that the Uk government stole from the Scottish farming payment from the EU.