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Friday 2 March 2012

‘We’re all doomed!’

Gerald Warner

23 April 2011

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Scotland is staring into a £4.5 billion black hole

‘Their form of rule is democratic for the most part, and they are very fond of plundering…’ That description of the Scots by Cassius Dio, the Roman historian, in the early 3rd century testifies to the consistency of the Scottish character over 1,800 years. Today the Scots are so democratic they have saddled themselves with three tiers of government, while their enduring taste for plunder has progressed from the crudity of border reiving to the sophistication of the Barnett Formula. Scotland has successfully reversed the fiscal arrangements that would have been familiar to Cassius Dio in the days when outlying nations paid taxes to Rome: contemporary Caledonia is a dependency that exacts tribute from Westminster.

That relationship is about to change. The campaign for the Scottish elections is being conducted in the context of the most radical fiscal revolution since the Treaty of Union in 1707. The Barnett Formula currently awards £1,600 more per capita public expenditure in Scotland than in England. There is universal recognition, however, that English taxpayers will no longer submit to Danegeld on so outrageous a scale. The Office for Budget Responsibility will start work next year on devising a substitute for Barnett which is expected to be predicated on a needs-based formula. That will, at a stroke, leave a £4.5 billion black hole in Scottish funding. Cue Corporal Fraser: ‘We’re a’ doomed!’

The election campaign began with Labour well in the lead. Now the SNP has overtaken them; the latest YouGov poll shows the nationalists projected to win 55 seats, six ahead of Labour, with the Tories trailing on 14 and the Lib Dems with six, just one ahead of the Greens. Since the party manifestos are pie in the sky, the SNP lead is attributable to Alex Salmond’s performance on television, far superior to Labour leader Iain Gray and any other opponents. Gray is gossamer lightweight; any serious politician would have taken Salmond apart on his record and undeliverable promises, but there are no big hitters in Scotland. The collapse of the Conservative vote has been a work in progress for years for the Scottish party’s leader, Annabel Goldie, and her extravagantly inept team. The Holyrood Conservative coterie — the Vichy Tories — has betrayed every Conservative principle since 1997 in a pathetic attempt to disown its anti-devolutionist past. Now its core vote has abandoned the Scottish Conservative party for the SNP or the statistically insignificant Ukip, or simply staying at home. It is such émigration intérieure that will relegate Scottish Toryism to the dustbin of history.

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Mark McCann

April 23rd, 2011 12:44pm Report this comment

Doomed? Scotland or England? http://scotlandfreepress.wordpress.com/

Mark MacLachlan

April 25th, 2011 10:17pm Report this comment

Good old Cassius Deo, amidst the gossip and hearsay he also reported Severus' take on the Scots thus, “Let no-one escape utter destruction at our hands;
Let not the infant still carried in its mothers womb,
If it be male, escape from its fate.”

JohnMcDonald

April 25th, 2011 10:39pm Report this comment

God strewth! Gerald you are so right. Why would a Scot ever think that we should give up England's largess. No, not me. I know on which side my bread is buttered. No standing on my own feet for me, hell no.

But hold on a minute. You're being a bit silly Gerald. Perhaps the 300 year old treaty isn't too good for your England Gerald.

You have been just too good to us Scots. Perhaps it's just as well we do leave the Union. Wouldn't be fair or equitable to stay really.

Bye!

E Justice

April 28th, 2011 12:46pm Report this comment

Goodbye John Mcdonald,I can't say it has been nice having you.
Freeeeeedom for England!!!!!!!

John Bailey

April 28th, 2011 3:34pm Report this comment

The only thing England gets from the laughably titled "United Kingdom" is the BILL!.

No more money for the non-English fringe EU Regions of the British Isles, English Parliament and Government NOW!

Helen

April 28th, 2011 8:56pm Report this comment

It's England that be pushing for Independence - from all 3 of those pains in the backside.

Longshanks knew how to phrase it, on his way out of Scotland - "It does a man good to leave to turd behind."

Steve Elliott

April 28th, 2011 11:11pm Report this comment

im an English nationlist and a founder of the English democrats party if u r English and vote for anyone other than us you are stupid and will continue to be ruled by scots camaron, brown ,Blair wake up they are stealing ur money

David Nicholson

May 23rd, 2011 2:55pm Report this comment

By heritge i'm an Anglo-Scot, but nothing flicks my switch more than injustice. The benefits of living in these islands should be shared equally. There is no doubt that the English have cause to feel agrieved as they look at the other nations within the Union who are more comfortable than they, paid for by English taxpyers money.

In addition, when Alex Salmond levies his 4.5 billion taxes, do you think he will scruple to consider who will get him oput of his mess when it all goes horribly wong? As it must. Scottish Taxpayers, despite their huge harts and abiliies, will be unable to keep up.

He has the UK donation to the Portugese and the offer to the Irish to guide him.

It is shurely a mess, we re all up to our necks on it and no mistake.

mark

June 2nd, 2011 8:01pm Report this comment

Gerald - I live in England and I would be happy for us to separate off from it where we to put up a border and have some kind of sensible policy of citizenship.

England is now a total mess, with so much "diversity" and free-loading it's bound to implode.

If we had a sensible conservative ethos in Scotland we couldn't leave quickly enough, but unfortunately we've got the fat idiot.

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