Alex Salmond urges English voters to support Liberal Democrats | Politics | The Guardian .

Alex Salmond of the Scottish National Party:

unveiled an election manifesto calling for the immediate scrapping of the Trident nuclear weapons system and its replacement, abolishing the House of Lords, better state pensions, abandoning ID cards and increased state spending on big projects to boost the economy.

Plaid Cymru agree, of course.

So do the Greens.

But why can’t we have a mainstream party saying this in England when it makes so much sense?

  15 Responses to “Why not in England?”

  1. What is the point of abandoning ID cards and risking an increase in fraud?

  2. @Fred Fry

    The risk is identity cards will be used to validate fraud as no one can work out how to stop fraudulent cards being issued

  3. That is why the cards are being issued with biometric identifiers. I have had meetings with UK and EU officials concerning fraud and they have managed to identify fraud through the use of biometrics. This is especially useful in the case of migrants entering a country with no identification. So if they identify themselves as Donald Duck, they cannot later claim to be someone else. This has been especially useful for migrants making claims in multiple EU countries after being rejected in one. (The biometrics are passed through EURODOC, oddly enough in violation of EU privacy rules.)

  4. I thought this website was about taxation matters. It now becomes apparent it’s rather political.

  5. @Greg

    Tax is political

    It cannot be anything else

  6. Richard, I thought the aim of your website was to campaign for what you believe to be tax justice? What has abandoning the house of lords really go to do with that?

  7. @Greg

    Tax is law

    Securing an appropriate legislature is pretty key to getting good law then, wouldn’t you agree?

  8. No, I wouldn’t agree. In practical terms, the House of Lords does nothing!

    So how does Trident fit with your campaign against offshore financial centres?

  9. @Greg

    Misspent revenue that could be better used in closing the fiscal gap

    Tax and spending are related issues

  10. Yes they are related issues. But you could claim just about anything is related to tax in that case.

  11. @Greg

    It’ my blog

    That’s my right

    Up to you whether you want to agree or not

    Up to me whether I allow your comment if I disagree

    That’s the rules

  12. I hope there are some Guernsey Arnald abusers reading this, and so disable my ‘acolyte’ status.

    I am far more leftist than these comments.

    All nuclear weapons shouold be abolished. Unilaterally. I think we agree there. There is need to propogate mass destruction of innocents. The idea of Cold War logic is nonsense, then and now.

    But I do think that a multilatral biometric ID system has merit. However it cannot work when the implementation would need first world tech when the majotity of criminality is channeled through third world corruption aided by first world collusion.

    Before we get to a stage where we are recognised as true individuals we have to eliminate the ease of corruptive practices by those that claim they know better.

    That’s us, guys.

    Deal with our dirt, and we can introduce indivudualism. I trust the State more than I trust the geeezers that want to fleece us. We should strive to ensure our indicidual privacy without compromising our humanism.

  13. Richard, the Greens are a mainstream party. They regularly poll 8-10% in proportional representation elections, including getting more votes than Labour in South East England at the Euro elections last year. The fact that they are victims of a rigged polling system for Westminster elections is not their fault.

  14. Yep, Alex Salmond has been impressively consistent on the macro side over the course of the recession. Unfortunately SNP policies on taxation are all over the place…our First MInister once claimed to have been ‘a long time advocate of supply side economics’. Oh dear.
    http://www.stuc.org.uk/files/Forum%20papers/Supply%20Side%20Scotland.pdf

  15. @Stephen Boyd

    Agreed

    There was also crass stuff on emulating Ireland’s tax strategy at one time

    He’s not a paragon of virtue!

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