We can't go on like this

Simon

I agree with this although as a taxpayer in Scotland it frightens me at the same time! The present situation is just not sustainable and will eventually lead to the break up of the Union. Salmond etc will argue that tax revenue raised in Scotland should include that raised from North Sea oil - so it would not be the end of the arguments. But Dave should grant fiscal autonomy for Scotland on day 1 of a Conservative Govt. It would wrong foot the Nats who will be hoping that the reality of a UK Conservative Govt will drive Scots to independence. Otherwise Dave will face continued pressure from English MPS to cut the subsidies and moans from Salmond & Labour that Scotland is being short changed. It might even help drag Scotland into the 21st century and stop the never ending growth of the public sector.

S Jamieson

Surely this cannot be true- Glasgow City Council has been lovingly ran by the Labour Party since 1971-they love the city and its people

fed up Scotsman in exile cos it's better

I am a Scot exiled in England. I'm not surprised of the low life expectancy: the diet of Scots when I left was abysmal, they are work and exercise shy and moan most of the time about other people. As for fiscal responsibility, It's about time they had some...

MTK

I am from Dollar, where Fraser was schooled. It's a fairly pretty place with relatively little of the grinding, awful urban poverty and crime which infests the schemes around Glasgow and Edinburgh. It's a nice place to live. Middle and high-income earners seek to live there. People are mostly happy. And yet in Dollar and in the surrounding towns there are families which do not know work - where the third or fourth generation leaves school to face, well, nothing. Little education, no work, no aspiration, no achievement. Frankly, forty years of that would be enough for me. Are we sure these people aren't just dying of boredom?

Max Kaye

How old is Brown? Have we long to wait?

James Forsyth

Max, Let's keep things civil. Best, James

Hoi Polloi

The centre of this argument always comes back to "Oor oil" as in "the English gie us back a fraction of what they steal from oor oil." However, I would love to see the result of some economic research which netted oil tax receipts off against excess per capita expenditure by the UK Government on Scots over English since, say, 1960. If the result showed Scotland owing England - fine, as an act of magnanimity the debt could be forgiven and justified as being well worthwhile to get shot of them, and equally if the debit was on the English side it would also be entirely justifiable to pay it over as the price of gaining relief from the constant whingeing. If only the English could vote for the SNP!

Max Kaye

It's a fair cop, Guv.

Craig Strachan

I'd just call time on to the devolution mess and return to the Union as it was!

Craig Strachan

MTK wrote "I am from Dollar, where Fraser was schooled." Oh, did he go to that place with the sh*te rugby team?

John Whitworth

I lived in Edinburgh for i5years of my childhood and youth, happy years on the whole. The Scots I knew were industrious, witty, hard-drinking and entirely free of snobbery (the curse of the English). Neverthless, about one subject they were quite mad. I mean the English. They were entirely without humour in this regard. A victory against the English was better than one against the whole world. And yet what had the English done for them, except make them richer? this was forty years ago but they haven't changed and I don't suppose they ever will. Not without independence. We should grant it to them immediately. Since my mother was Scots i suppose I am half Scotsd. No I'm not. I am entirely English.

carol42

As a Scot living in England I couldn't agree more. 50 years of the moronic Labour machine whose ambition was to have as many people dependent on the Council has destroyed much of once proud working class. They blame it on the demise of much of the heavy industries and in some areas that is true but it doesn't explain why for far too many a life on benefits is just what they do, the "only mugs work" attitude is pervasive in many areas. This now runs through generations and will never change until Scotland is forced to cut it's cloth to fit income raised by it's own people, may even restore some pride so good luck to Alec Salmond, he is a vast improvement on the jumped up ex councillors and Labour hacks who went before. An autonomous federal system would seem to be best if not then I think independence would be better than what we now have. I hear increasing resentment from English friends, especially against Gordon Brown's blind refusal to even face the problems his Party has created.

john Whitworth

There is some economic research. Look up Professor Iain MacLean of Nuffield College, a doughty labourite but also an honest man.

Scottish Conservative

What an inane article - it is eejits like u that make me wonder why i bother voting Conservative. This drivel about how Scotland's economy has been flooded with English money is just that - drivel. Yes at present there is a small, yes small, fiscal transfer from Engalnd to Scotland after oil revenues are factored in. However, during the 1980s with the oil money coming in the money flowerd in the opposite direction. This 'article' says more abou the intense desire of Anglo-Scots like this bloke to ingratiate themselves with the Scotophobic English Tory Party than it does about any rational analysis of Scotlands financial position. As for doing away with the barnett formula strengthening the Union - I mean that is patently absurd. The notion that u withdraw several billion pounds instantly from the part of the union with the strongest nationalist movement as a means of streghtnening the Union? i mean its pure madness. and your figures at the bottom are real sham journalism. you seem to be suggesting that these figures are somehow representative of scotland which is ludicrous. all of the areas selected are in the east end of glasgow and i belive that there are well over 1200 of these districts throughout the country. you seem to have merely picked the very bottom ones in order to support ur anti-scottish 'analysis'. calton and easterhouse are no more representative of scotland than jarrow is a perfect picyure of england. as for kelvin mackenzie not being anti-scotish i really feel this reveals the extent of self-contempt you have for your country and i as a genuinely patriotic scot feel your inane article is beneath contempt. i assume u didnt see mackenzie on reporting scotland telling us we were a third world country. and finally stop using ur scottishness as a defence to allow u to make these puerile arguments - its all about ingratiatingyourself with the anti-scottish bigots on the english right and dont prtend its about 'streghtening the union'. its quite patently about no such thing.

Fraser Nelson

Dear Scottish Conservative, to answer your points... 1) Drivel? In 2004/05, the last year where figures are available, Scotland generated £36.4bn in tax and state spending was £47.7bn. The subsidy was £11.3bn. Total North Sea oil revenue was £5.2bn. So every drop of the black gold would not fill the hole. 2) My piece will ingratiate me with no one. The Tories remain (absurdly) wedded to the status quo. 3) I'd advocate a phased transition, not an immediate jump. And if Scotland becomes independent, heaven forbid, it will be through English indifference or annoyance rather than Scottish fervour. 4) Of course my figures are the worst in Scotland. Does that make them invalid? Sometimes, you have to acknowledge these people. Writing them a welfare cheque will not make them go away. 5) Yes, Jarrow is poor. But life expectancy there is 72.5 years. If you trawl the worst slims in England, you you find nowhere with life expectancy at birth lower than 64. So let's not pretend we're in the same league. No one in Europe does poverty better than Scotland - and anyone who considers themself a patriot should ask why this is so. 6) As for the third world, I wrote a piece last year for that well-known anti-Scottish newspaper "The Scotsman" where I identified "Third Scotland" - the parts of the country where life expectancy was closer to the third world than to the best bits, which I called Prime Scotland, which is where the commentariat live and is all they know. http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=11972006 Kelvin's point about the third world had more truth than his critics care to realise. And that is to Scotland's shame. Sorry for the lengthy reply, but these issues are too important to be left undiscussed.

salieri

Once again demonstrating the advantages of reason and civility over illiterate and ill-informed rant. 200 years ago the Scots had that advantage over the English.

Scottish Conservative

I agree these are important matters so have responded at even greater length. I was a little harsh in my tone last time so ill be nicer this time :-) 1. Fiscal autonomy will not reduce welfare dependency as you claim. You make a false connection between; a) welfare dependency due to Social Security payments, and b) higher relative levels of public expenditure in Scotland due to the Barnett formula Thus you have conflated two separate issues; the level of an item of reserved expenditure on one hand (Social Security) and the means by which you raise revenue to pay for devolved expenditure on the other (fiscal autonomy v Barnett). You seem to suggest that by altering the way you raise devolved revenue this will lower the devolved budget and thus force down the social security payments which create welfare dependency. But social security payments will be altered not one jot by changing the devolved revenue system because Social Security is not devolved. There is no separate “Scottish” social security budget paid for by the block grant as there is with say health or education and so ditching Barnett will not reduce Social Security spending one jot.

Scottish Conservative

2. As to your first point yes as I said there is a small fiscal transfer from England to Scotland under the current figures. However, your broader point seems to be that this fiscal transfer is: a) the cause of poverty in Scotland, and b) unfair to England I do not accept that the fiscal transfers are unfair to England or the simple reason that they used to operate in the very opposite direction. Take for instance the relative surplus/deficit of the UK as a whole vis-a-vis Scotland during the early Thatcher years. 79-80 -13.84bn +0.61bn 80-81 -18.35bn +1.90bn 81-82 -14.16bn +10.22bn 83-84 -16.68bn +10.06bn 84-85 -20.77bn +10.90bn 85-86 -24.44bn +15.69bn 86-87 -21.92bn +13.67bn 87-88 -14.79bn +3.61bn I would also suggest to you that these figures tend to suggest that the fiscal transfer from England to Scotland is not the cause of poverty in Scotland since it is clear that poverty in Scotland and especillay in Glasgow is not a product of the post-1990 switch in fiscal transfres from North to South to South to North.

Scottish Conservative

3. If you are arguing for a phased transition with the objective of moving towards a fiscal equillibrium I fail to see what is wrong with the status quo? Afterall the Barnett formula is a convergence formula and the primary source of higher spending per head in Scotland with the formula is the fact that the Scotlands population figure wasnt updated for years which meant as our population share fell we still got the money for our higher previous population share. As this figure has been updated there has been a Barnett squeeze in operation with Scotland receiving lower increases in public spending than the rest of the UK. Thus Scotland is already moving, albeit slowly, towards fiscal equillibrium.

Scottish Conservative

4. You suggest that the greatest threat to the Union comes from an English desire to remove Scotland rather than a Scottish desire to remove herself. How is English indifference going to cause Scottish independence in the absence of Scottish fervour? By exactly what means could England indifferently remove Scotland from the Union? As for English annoyance leading to independence I am similarly unconvinced. Here I think you are mistaking Scottish grievances for English ones. Scotland is a small stateless nation in a Union with a bigger one which dominates that Union. This leads to the Scottish greivance being centred around these issues and its identity crafted in a manner which differentiates it from its bigger neighbour. England’s greivances relate more to funding arrangements and the WLQ. If the level of English ire towards the Scots was at anything like the levels that would lead to them want to kick us out the Union then as the dominant partner in the Union they would I assume simply remedy the injustices to which they felt England was subject. The endless soul-searching on the constitutional Union is a Scottish thing – the English could just use their majority to fix their greivance if it was so keenly felt.

Scottish Conservative

5. You are of course correct that it is official Tory policy to maintain the status quo. However, there can be no doubt that within the broader English Conservative Party there is a very widespread anti-Scottish sentiment as any glance at the telegraph or ConHome blog would tell you. You might think the remarks of Alan Duncan, Boris Johnston, Nick Herbert “funny a Scottish PM wanting to talk about being British” etc etc are not indicative of an anti-Scottish sentiment in the English Tory Party but I disagree and I imagine as a Scot on the right in London this must have been something you have encountered. So I am not so sure that these remarks will ingratiate you with noone – perhaps not the Party leadership, but with the broader Party in England I should imagine they would.

Scottish Conservative

4. You suggest that the greatest threat to the Union comes from an English desire to remove Scotland rather than a Scottish desire to remove herself. How is English indifference going to cause Scottish independence in the absence of Scottish fervour? By exactly what means could England indifferently remove Scotland from the Union? As for English annoyance leading to independence I am similarly unconvinced. Here I think you are mistaking Scottish grievances for English ones. Scotland is a small stateless nation in a Union with a bigger one which dominates that Union. This leads to the Scottish greivance being centred around these issues and its identity crafted in a manner which differentiates it from its bigger neighbour. England’s greivances relate more to funding arrangements and the WLQ. If the level of English ire towards the Scots was at anything like the levels that would lead to them want to kick us out the Union then as the dominant partner in the Union they would I assume simply remedy the injustices to which they felt England was subject. The endless soul-searching on the constitutional Union is a Scottish thing – the English could just use their majority to fix their greivance if it was so keenly felt.

Roy Williamson

the English could just use their majority to fix their greivance (sic) if it was so keenly felt. ermm.... no, actually. If there was a forum in which English-elected representatives could voice their concerns as effectively as the SNP for Scotland, PC for Wales, or Sinn Fein for NI (and be tax-payer funded to the same extent) then they might. They might say,at least to Scotland, you signed on the dotted line, you're part of the UK, you stay. Or they might say, you want to go, go. While we don't have that forum we're stuck with your whinging and moaning and self-justification. Scotland's like the last dinner party guest who, at 3am, simply won't go home.

Robert Ryan

Fraser read again what you wrote (i.e. that you broadly agree with Kelvin McKenzie). If someone wishes to put the point that there are economic problems in Scotland that's fine. If they want to criticize the Prime Minister that's fine too. If they want to racially insult the whole Scottish population that's not fine at all and not something any educated person could 'broadly agree with' http://bigrab.vox.com/library/post/song-for-kelvin.html

Scottish Conservative

Roy; there are several hundred English MP's in the House of Commons - what is wrong with that as a forum?

Fraser Nelson

Scottish Conservative, we're getting a little technical here. I know all about Barnett and am the co-author of an academic paper on the subject. So I won't bore you with that. But my response in brief. a) It's not a "small fiscal transfer" - £11.3bn is 12% of GDP in 2004/05, and under the preceding nine years it averaged 10%. b) Under Basque-style fiscal autonomony, which I advocate, social security spending (and everything bar defence) wld be Scottish. c) Then Scotland wld have an incentive to get this spending down, not up. d) Then it starts to become a problem that 17% of the national working-age population (and a quarter of Glasgow, Inverclyde and N Ayrshire) is on benefits. Right now, it's not a problem. e) It is my position that this degree of welfare dependency (not the English subsidy per se) is fuelling poverty. For as long as people don't grasp what the perverse incentives of our welfare system is doing to these communities, Scotland will continue to be a socioeconomic freak show, where academics from world over come to study levels of poverty the rest if the developed world banished decades ago.

Fraser Nelson

Robert, I agree about anti-Scottish sentiment but I disagree that it counts as racism - we're not a race. As I said, I disagree with Kelvin in that I think it's Scotland's government, not it's people, that's the problem. My overall point was that it would be more patriotic to look at the problems Kelvin alluded to, in his own inimitable way, rather than denounce him as a racist.

Scottish Conservative

Anyway the main point of your article is indeed that the current funding arrangments have led to welfare dependency which is clearly not true as there is a UK social security system which is unaffected by Barnett. You can contend that the way to deal with welfare dependency is to go for fiscal autonomy but that is quite different to your original contention that peculiarly high levels of welfare dependency are caused by the funding arrangements which is, as I have already argued, highly questionable. Finally, I fail to why it matters whether anti-Scottish sentiment is racism or merely some other ism. What counts is that it is unpleasant, bigoted and a substitute for proper and robust argument.

Scottish Conservative

why has my previous comment not been published? the example i give is given as an example of an unacceptable thing to say and parallels exactly the kind of things kelvin mackenzie has been saying.

London liberal

Fraser, Your comment posted on 22 October at 11:32 referring to Scotland as a "socio-economic freakshow"where academics would come to study "Third World levels of poverty"is callous. Your comment on the damaging effects of dependence on state subsidy and welfare are intriguing,however.I wonder whether you would apply your principles to the heavily subsidised farming industry in Southern England?

Fraser Nelson

London liberal, last time I checked the farmers were not dying aged 54. And Im not sure how many of them do nothing for a living, as the UK government pays 17% of Scots to do at present. Academics do come to Scotland to study extreme poverty in a rich country: hence my prase "socioeconomic freak show". It's nothing to be proud of.

Michael Douglas

Thgis is all very technical and very interesting. It seems to prove that the Scottish Nationalits and their leadership are doing an excellent job of persuading the English to break up the Union.