Might I make a plea to those who usually ignore what I write about Scotland, and suggest what follows is of universal UK appeal, and maybe of relevance far beyond it? Please don't skip this one.
I wrote a piece for The National newspaper in Scotland yesterday that featured heavily in its newsletters last night, with the first paragraph being given prominence. This said:
THE SNP's budget for Scotland is a mess. And let me be clear about it, that is the Tories' fault. What is more, there is not a snowball in hell's chance that voting in a Labour government would make any difference to that situation.
In the article I made three points. The first was that however keen the SNP might be to protect the people of Scotland from the impact of Tory austerity, the point was always going to be reached where this was not possible. That time has arrived.
Second,to demonstrate that this is not the SNP's fault (although, I stress, I am not saying they have a perfect budget record) I drew attention to the estimated one in five English councils of multiple political complexions that expect to declare bankruptcy in England in the next year as they too face the impossibility of setting a legal budget that lets them deliver the services that the law demands of them. Austerity is now breaking our systems of democratic government, and our public services.
Third, I then noted that Labour's commitment to let the Bank of England create recessions if it so wishes, and to live within the dismal forecasts of the Office for Budget Responsibility, and to balance the government's books (wholly unnecessarily) means that it might be even worse than the Tories in imposing austerity and that they certainly have no chance of improving the situation.
As a result, the right response to the messy, difficult and in some senses, clearly inappropriate budget the SNP has set is to be angry, but not necessarily with the SNP. Like councils, it has been given tasks to do that are simply impossible within the budget, taxation and borrowing constraints imposed upon it. The appropriate anger of people should, in that case, be directed against those imposing the constraints, and not those trying to work within them.
In Scotland this problem is especially severe, although it is very largely replicated in Wales. The supposed devolution of taxing powers only lets Scotland change tax rates on income from work. Tax rates on unearned income, as well as on capital gains, inheritances and companies are all set in Westminster. So, the opportunity for the Scottish government to use almost any of the measures I explain to be possible UK wide in the Taxing Wealth Report are not available. Nor can it change ISA and pension rules. It was as if the devolution settlement was created to protect the wealth of a few in Scotland whilst imposing maximum pain on those who both work for a living and who, in a great many cases, need the support of the state.
If the people of Scotland cannot both see this and be intensely angry about it, I admit to disappointment. As is true UK wide, it is the fact that the whole economy is deliberately rigged against the interests of the majority of people in the country that is causing the stress. And it is politicians from both Labour and the Tories who are actively engaged in delivering this conspiracy.
I stress, the members of these parties are not necessarily complicit in this action. The Labour membership does, by and large, loathe what Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are doing.
Tories cannot recruit new members because anyone can see that the Tory leadership is profoundly toxic, and utterly non-Conservative.
Both leaderships have been captured by the neoliberal forces that are destroying our society, democracy and people's lives.
In the case of the Tories I think the motive is personal gain. That may not be immediate gain, but it is hard to see how long term benefit does not motivate these toxic politicians.
In Labour's case that may also be true. It may also be a total absence of political conviction associated with a lust for power that drives these people. It could also be stupidity. They have been persuaded that there is no alternative.
Except there is an alternative if we want a society where there are public services that work for the benefit of all, living wages, decent housing, a rich and diverse private sector that is not made up of a few massive companies that suck the lifeblood from the economy whilst smaller enterprises are left to sink, and we want the chance of future human life on earth. We can have all that. But we can't if our current leading UK politicians continue to behave in the way that they are at present.
What needs to change? In a relatively few words these things have to happen:
- We need to take back control of finance. The era of central bank control has been utterly destructive and will destroy society and democracy as we know it. The economy cannot be run by an unelected agency intent on destroying collective wellbeing in the dogmatic interests of an elite.
- We need to control the rentiers. These are the companies that exploit us all for the benefit of their managements and those with significant wealth. They are:
- Bankers
- Financial managers, including of pension funds
- Institutional landlords who suck profit from entrepreneurial business and households.
- Large retailers, especially in the food sector who are destroying agriculture.
- On line companies that increasingly control access to services we rely on, from Amazon to the tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple.
- Big oil, who want to burn the planet.
- Big pharma, who control access to medicines.
- Big sugar, which is poisoning us with the fructose that causes obesity and so much of diabetes, as well as depression, anxiety and so much more, which they exploit by selling sugar spikes. - All these companies need to be vastly better regulated and taxed to stop exploitation and to provide smaller businesses with the chance to compete on a level playing field, which is the last thing these companies want.
- We need to tax wealth more, starting by transforming the ways we tax income from wealth and by removing the subsidies to wealth that massively boost inequality in the UK in ways I demonstrate in the Taxing Wealth Report.
- We need to put wealth to work by using it for investment and not speculation aimed solely at increasing the well-being of so-called wealth managers, which is what happens at present. I explain how in the proposals I have made for ISA and pension reform.
- And we need to collect tax owing, which our government has consistently refused to do by underfunding HM Revenue & Customs in ways that have fuelled inequality and undermined effective markets as a result.
- Finally, the monopoly power of two political parties and one toxic political creed needs to be broken by transforming our electoral systems.
All that could be done. It could be done by politicians of conviction who believe in the need for a mixed economy run for the benefit of all in society, with a safety net for those in need. It could be done without reference to left, right or centrism because all those imply tribalism when what is required is inclusion. It could be done now.
But the Labour leadership wants this no more than the Tories do. Scotland and Wales will suffer as a result. So will those living with failing English councils. And so, ultimately, do we all because of the knock on effects of this structure that exists to exploit most people in the interests of a few.
The question is, when will we be angry enough to demand the change our society really needs that right now the neoliberal conspiracy within the two-party system in the UK seeks to deny us?
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My reaction to reading that was – wow. Thank you for such a clear and powerful exposition.
Thanks
I could not sleep at 3am
So I wrote that
Wow, Richard. When I can’t sleep at 3.am I get up and make myself a marmite sandwich. I must up my game!
I say this only half in jest – upping the game is what is required. Chapeau.
I would rather have been asleep
But it was time well used
Like many others here, I appreciate what you wrote today.
A phrase went through my mind .
Keynes’ remarks on interest rates and the return to capital: low rates of interest, he suggested,:
would mean the euthanasia of the rentier, and, consequently, the euthanasia of the cumulative oppressive power of the capitalist to exploit the scarcity-value of capital.
This country and much of the West turned away from him some forty years ago. It was a major mistake.
Agreed
And thanks
Yes , Wow , well said , you give me hope that some have the vision , the simple vision of how all our futures could be so much better , so simply.
Thank you
It seems I should write more posts at 3am
Agreed.
On the topic of toxicity, one of my works supervisors was doing some work at a well known hotel over the weekend that was being used to house asylum seekers.
He spoke of the fact that the asylum seekers were getting three meals a day, had £10 a day to spend and even had bikes to ride into town etc., and the hotel was a great building and well maintained (it had closed during Covid), it was warm and clean.
It seemed to me that the asylum seekers were being treated decently when we know that the British citizens in the care of this Tory government are going cold, hungry and uncared for.
However, it also occurred to me why Braverman and others are so insistent in getting out of any international treaties over human rights for asylum seekers – simply put, it will enable them to give the British government the sovereignty to treat such people as badly as they already treat their own people without any sanction whatsoever.
My informant did not seem to get this. He just thought it was unfair as we doing extra work at the weekend on top of his regular job just to keep up. And in a way, he is right.
‘Toxic’ does not even begin to describe how matters like this unfold and can be exploited.
This is a really sick society – and it all comes from the top.
I am wondering where your colleague got his information about the support offered to refugees? ‘the majority of people seeking asylum in the UK end up living on £5.66 per day to cover almost all their needs, including food, clothing, transport and medicine. This places them more than 70% below the poverty line. Many are forced to make impossible decisions between feeding themselves or buying medicine for their families.’ https://www.refugee-action.org.uk/facts-about-asylum/
The Guardian also reports today that asylum seekers living in hotels are to have their allowance cut from £1.38 to £1.25 a day in the new year https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/19/asylum-seekers-uk-hotels-allowance-cut
This is a long way from the conditions according to your colleague. It has also been widely reported that many asylum seekers are housed in slum conditions. These particular asylum seekers seem to be very privileged.
https://northeastbylines.co.uk/protest-at-derwentside-immigration-removal-centre/
Perhaps you should show this to your friend, PSR, to show him how asylum seekers are treated in this country.
Every woman in this detention centre is terrified of being sent back to where she came from or to Rwanda. She has been split from her family, cannot contact anyone to help her legally, has no freedom to go anywhere.
He wouldn’t listen JenW.
It’s about the ‘cunning of unreason’ and it goes something like this:
Step 1 : Make life harder for working people by cutting budgets and wages.
Step 2 : Start stirring up enmities and jealousies between different groups of society centred on those you don’t like.
Step 3 : Sit back and enjoy the show, make yourself popular and go and reek havoc whilst people are arguing with each other.
It’s called Fascism and its a major part of our daily lives in England courtesy of the Establishment and its hacks in the MSM.
I’ve just read that the murderers of Brianna Ghey are to be named after an application from the media.
So, we are to name two young people in a simply awful case in order to boost media profits? Sell more newspapers? Public interest my arse.
I don’t know if that is right. Let’s have an enquiry instead for God’s sake.
I can only hope that something good comes of it, but all I suspect is that social media and the web will go on polluting the minds of people of all ages and not be held accountable.
Exactly. There is a reason the headbangers are all calling for the annihilation of human rights law from the UK’s legal framework. This isn’t about saving money to spend on the domestic population, they have no plans to do that; evident since the brexit bus. This is about sacrificing the social fabric at the alter of capitalism.
I agree with every word. Do I think it will happen? Of course not. It lies, if anywhere. On the other side of something very bad I fear. Something that will renew society. Something that comes after so much pain that finally even the bought politicians & client journalists dare not say a word in defence of their masters.
We are on a sunlit shelf just below the surface. It’s colder but we can still SEE the sun at least. But we can also see a deep, dark, expanse of black water below us. And things, giant things, swim there that we can only catch a glimpse of, now and then. They frighten us & they should. Because our little shelve is being undermined day by day. & the beasts wait in the darkness to show us THEIR world. It is not a place you would want to see my friends.
But it is where we are headed bar for a miracle.
It’s very hard to come back from this deep dark place. The evil & desperation there will crush many of us. And change the rest. If we ever come back we will be different. Decency & open handed generosity will have been lost. I don’t wish this for the U.K. or for anyone.
We can climb out of this water we have been dragged into, before the shelf of remembered decency & human affection collapses. & we are pulled in the darkness. Where only vicious self interest will save some of us. But change Britain’s fabric forever.
Act now. While we still have a country that humans can live in.
Titus.
Thank you Richard for setting down, so clearly, what needs to be done to avoid catastrophic economic and social meltdown. I wonder if it would help if big swathes of the electorate voted Green in the GE.
It could do no harm. Labour need to know they cannot take people for granted.
Yes. Clear and powerful. Thank you. What you’ve described is a true social democratic programme. Is there any chance that in government the centrist right Starmer clique will eventually understand the need for a different approach ? Polly Toynbee for instance who has been an advocate for many of your proposals still keeps faith with the Starmer approach, assuming that somewhere along the line there will be a left turn. I’m less sanguine.
I live in hope.
Rarely have you written such a powerful blog and I have been reading them daily for ten years. You have been able to encapsulate and express so succinctly a whole range of responses to our decaying country. I long for your ideas to be deployed by some brave politician. Thee days of depression are only relieved by your insights into an alternative economics. You give us hope. Thankyou
Thank you
I guess it was written in memory of my friend, Pat whose funeral is this morning.
Thank you, Richard. As an independinista with no ties, loyalty and only grudging electoral compliance with the SNP, your voice is an essential one.
Thanks
Well said. It is clear that there is intention in what appears to be “incompetence” by this government and those likely to replace them. As you rightly say it is the neoliberal game plan. The engineering of the collapse of the state to be replaced by corporate privatisation. The NHS, local authorities, public services, all are being, and will be, swept away unless we stop it. But how?
Vote Green.
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2023/12/19/labour-support-green-party/
Thank you, Richard: much to chew on.
I have a slightly different take on the political situation. As I see it, Thatcher managed to reset the rules of the economic game in the early 80s, and all the parties are still playing to those rules. But that doesn’t mean that they are stupid, venal or identical: they can still have different views of the route to a just society.
The rules themselves are collapsing under their own contradictions, as all rules do after a few decades. As you have often pointed out. The question of what comes next is important, and your thoughts are certainly valuable.
Part of the problem with the market is that it very efficiently gives us what we want in the short term rather than what we need in the long term. There’s no point in getting angry with Big Sugar for the fact that we evolved with a need to seek out rare, high energy foods. The controls you advocate are simply a matter of making the system work better.
Similarly, the increasing gamification and lack of seriousness of politics seems to me to be a symptom, not a root cause. Since most families got a house, a car, a holiday, a TV, decent food and accommodation, the struggles of their union reps have seemed less relevant. We have lost our connection to politics. I’m not sure that anger alone will be enough to restore it.
The structures are there. Our local Labour CLPs will always welcome activists and will be working up policy proposals all the time.
But perhaps the Labour/ Tory struggle also belongs to a different age, and it’s time for new parties with new agendas.
Thanks
Labour CLPs are not getting activists. Activists are leaving or being expelled in droves. The only ones acceptable are right wing starmerites.
Thanks, jenw.
That is certainly the impression you get from social media, but it is not my experience in a Tory safe seat.
Not just on social media, Will. This is what is happening all over the country but you won’t find it on the official labour party hub.
https://labourhub.org.uk/category/labour/internal-labour-party/
In understanding the changes we need to make, it is always useful to see how the Thatcherite vocabulary has changed over the years.
As you note the idea of competition that was so important to the Thatcherite concept of how to run a better world appears to have completely disappeared from the right-wing ecosphere.
Similarly, we used to hear much about the fundamental importance of choice, not only in the economic sense but in the way we live our lives. Now important choices are taken away from us without even the pretence of the necessity of choice, consultation or democratic involvement
To take but one example, by either explicit or implicit force the Government and Business are increasingly removing the option of living a life where everything is not entirely dependent on doing everything online. Not only is this happening but also there is no debate about whether this is either a good or healthy thing to happen.
The utter hypocrisy of people making vast profits from this massive change to society without any genuine concern about what this is doing to the mental and physical development of the young is sickening.
I was reading this when I heard something come through the front door letterbox. I went to have a look and it was a leaflet from the Conservative candidate for the next General Election. A few things stood out.
1) The Tories have a new candidate in my area. The old MP is obviously standing down.
2) Boundary changes suggest that Lab will win the new seat according to the “vote the Tories out” website that I checked on. The old constituency was a Tory stronghold. That seems to have changed, but I doubt the Tories will understand why. That may well be the reason why the old Tory MP is standing down. His gravy train seat may well have just pulled into the station.
3) In my area you never usually get anything from the Tories. They are clearly worried.
4) On the reverse of the leaflet is a survey asking various questions like “what is the most important question for you and your family right now” and “who, on a scale of 1-10 are you most likely to vote for?” I would actually reply, but typical of the Tories they make it difficult to do so. You can only do it online by “scanning in a code” Not everyone will have the tech, or knowledge to do that. It seems that gone are the days of the “freepost” return a survey leaflet. Surely the Tories are not having funding problems!
5) The fact that I have received this today suggests to me the election will be May at the latest. The Tories are clearly on a war footing.
6) As I won’t be replying to their survey, I will file this in the recycling bin (but not in one of the seven Tory fiction bins).
Good post by the way.
Thanks
The tories have also increased the amount of money that can be spent on elections by 80%. Not even Johnson did that.
“The new rules were pushed through via a statutory instrument on Monday and mean the national election spending cap on political parties will rise by 80%, to about £35m.”
MPs have also been awarded a £6000 payrise next April, inflation busting, of course. Well, who cares about ordinary people.
Just to be clear I’m not a big SNP fan and think if they focused on and delivered on what they can in Scotland instead if continually pushing the independence line and internal power struggles, that would have a better chance of actually getting independence
However that being the case I think they have made a good move – by saying we are being under funded by Westminster and the only took tool we have to raise extra cash is income tax modifications, that is what we have to do to try and maintain a proper level of public services
Much like the BoE using interest rates for controlling inflation
It also brings out the discussion of wealth inequality to fore
Thanks
“The supposed devolution of taxing powers only lets Scotland change tax rates on income from work. Tax rates on unearned income, as well as on capital gains, inheritances and companies are all set in Westminster. So, the opportunity for the Scottish government to use almost any of the measures I explain to be possible UK wide in the Taxing Wealth Report are not available. Nor can it change ISA and pension rules. It was as if the devolution settlement was created to protect the wealth of a few in Scotland whilst imposing maximum pain on those who both work for a living and who, in a great many cases, need the support of the state.”
The problem was created in 1999 with the Devolution settlement (by a Labour Government nodding and winking to the other Unionist Parties); and in trying desperately to show the very cautious Scottish electorate they were competent managers from the beginning, the SNP Government immediately and euphorically fell headlong into the well baited trap.
Income tax rates alone were devolved, but not income tax allowance, NI, Corporation Tax, Oil taxation, VAT and on and on with most of what really matters; because Devolution was set up by the Westminster Unionist Parties not to serve Scotland, or ever give Scotland any chance of any real success; or any chance whatsoever of fulfilling its potential for renewal, or still less of outperforming the dismal, declining performance of the rest of Britain; for the wellbeing or prosperity of its people. Devolution was devised and enacted solely to ‘Dish the Nats’. Devolution was designed to ensure no other purpose.
Income Tax rates were specifically selected for Scottish devolution, because they are headline, political party reputation breakers; raise them at your peril. Everything else of real money raising substance in the armoury of government taxation is reserved to Westminster. The Scottish Budget (currently around 6% of UK Government Revenue, and with the UK retaining virtually all the ‘borrowing’ power in Westminster) is fixed by Westminster. GERS is an open journal entry for central transfers at the prerogative of Westminster alone. Checkmate.
And if all else fails, and the SNP still keep winning elections, and try anything at all to go beyond what Westminster requires? There is always Section 35. There is no way out, because there were no exits designed into the devolution maze.
Devolution was a plan to place Scotland in a straightjacket of guaranteed economic conformity with exactly where Scotland’s relative position was ex-ante Devolution. A worse performance was and indeed is acceptable to Unionists. After all, how else are Conservative or Labour going to win an election in Scotland? That is how politics actually works in Britain; and if need be in Scotland’s case, the politics is soon enough – realpolitik.
Name one country that has actually departed the embrace of the UK, only to live to regret the decision. Every country that has embraced integration into the British State has, sooner or later, been utterly wrecked by the experience.
Thanks John
The main problem is that which you term tribalism. Most of those labelled ‘left’ or possibly centre would see your post as a path to follow. Unfortunately, egos, far more than ideologies, fragment the chances of a political federation to challenge the big two parties.
Labour currently is a lost cause since the power lies with the former Blair machine at regional level and the ‘democratic centralism’ of Starmer’s reign. The plethora of tiny left-ish groups who generally hate each other is a cause for despair. The Greens have neither moved on and up from Lucas, nor been able to gain a platform in the media – unlike Reform plc, the Faragists, the US-sponsored ‘think-tanks’ and quasi-fascist like the ‘New Conservatives’, all given a platform across the mainstream media.
Thank you for articulating a democratic social/ist programme. As to who is listening…….
The Green party got 12% of the vote at the 2019 election, but still only one MP.
If all those who don’t want to vote for tory or labour voted green this time round it would give a big shock to tories and labour. Or they could vote for an independent, of which there are going to be many. Just make sure you don’t vote for independent tory.
There is an independent labour party.
I’d like to see the coop party disaffiliate from labour. Failing that,
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2023/12/19/labour-support-green-party/
In the 2019 GE the Greens got 2.7%, not 12%.
I agree with you, but the question is, how does the country achieve change within the FPtP electoral system? The population is being strangled and seems compliant and acquiescent in its own death. I have caring responsibilities and am physically and emotionally exhausted, but am lucky enough to have a home and an income. I cannot imagine how it feels for those who have been buffeted by the increases in interest rates without anything like a similar increase in their salaries. That’s without considering impact of the destruction of public services. The country is crying out for leadership, someone to rally around, but I can’t see anyone who could fulfill this role on the horizon.
I share your sense that there is no obvious leadership
All sound stuff, Richard – but I do wish you had also published the whole of your National Article which nails the Labour Party really clearly. It would also perhpas have been helpful, in the current environment of unrelieved gloom, if you could have given a bit of credit – the bit the Grauniad persistently fails to give – to the Scottish Government for at least reaching for their – albeit severely limited – powers to raise the tax on higher earned incomes.
The real differences he SNP government have made over the years of Tory mayhem in public services, not least the Scottish NHS, so lately under Humza himself, is huge – both in terms of policy structures but also in funding. I know only too well. My late partener died from cancer in the care of the stretched to breaking point English NHS last year. They did all that they could and were personally splendid…. but the delays were undoubtedly unhelpful I have survived a cancer diagnosis and op in the care of the Scottish NHS this past year. They were also personally splendid….. and the speed and prompt reliability of the service of the Scottish NHS most certainly aided my recovery – with not a strike in sight. The SNP Scottish Government, and now its Green partnered form, have been doing all that actual polticians – even though wickedly placed in potentially impossible circumstances – can and should do.
However dare the wretched Labour Party issue their ranting attack on the Scottish Budget – and how can the Grauniad’s scribblers face their mirrors and puff them along?!
Of course it is inadequate – but in the Scottish Government’s position what sign is there that the pseudo-Scottish Labour party would even dream of raising the higher rates of income tax and ease the lower tax thresholds. Their hypocrisy is nauseating
I am paid by The National and they own the copyright of the article. Sorry
No apology required, Richard. It was a good article/enry here and a very well pitched one in the National too. Let us lay the blame, as you do, on the truly terrible Westminster ‘establishment’ – perfidious blue or perfidious red – heirs to a murky purple !
Thanks
You’re right in every regard in this article and the one in the National.
I agree that the Scottish Government has no further mitigations to employ against the most evil and incompetent UK government I have ever had the misfortune to live under. That’s a really sad situation we here in Scotland find ourselves in. Our Government tries to help our people and Westminster obstructs it. Nice, eh?
Independence is the only hope for Scotland but democracy is denied us time and time again. We aren’t even allowed to ask questions as to what our population wants. It’s sickening and mustn’t continue.
Unfortunately, life under a Labour Government looks to be little different to what we are experiencing under the Tories. Witness Streeting’s recent moronic attack against the NHS, for God’s sake. Who ARE these people?
The people are powerless in the face of the nasties currently heading up both Labour and the Tories.
Hello Richard, thanks for this article, much work was envolved to produce.
On a diffeerent note, I see you mentioned Pat an old friend of yours. Pat and I have known each other for over 25 yrs, and we Skyped each other once a week for a chat. I shall miss her greatly. Again, thanks for all your hard work. Mel
Mel
I spoke at her funeral this morning
Like you, I wlll much miss her
This article could have been desiccated to her
Richard
Thank you Richard! By chance, this morning I was visiting the Great Tapestry of Scotland, which covers all of Scotland’s history, including the periods after each World War.
After WW1, conventional economics ruled. The onerous reparations required of Germany eventually destroyed its democratic government and led to the rise of Hitler. House building was left to the “efficient” private sector and and any standards were abandoned. The economy did not flourish. In the mini-crash of 1923, my grandfather’s business failed and my father had to give up his dream of university. In 1926 there was the general strike against the relentless cutting of wages, then there was the Wall Street crash and years of relentless austerity.
After WW2, we had the National Health Service, a massive house building programme to proper standards, and much else besides. All, of course, any “expert” would tell you was impossible.
Today, plump grey men in suits tell us that the post-WW1 strategy is the only possible way, and the post-WW2 appoach would be completely irresponsible.
PS My father became a civil servant and this describes a talk he gave on housing in 1945. http://www.progressivepulse.org/ireland/post-war-housing-in-northern-ireland-a-guest-post-by-michael-green
Thanks
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
Agreed with your crie de coeur. Left me unutterably depressed, again. No matter how erudite the critique of our current system is (and that was an erudite critique) I see little chance whatsoever of anything changing. Just look at the way Covid was handled. Disgraceful! Look at the appalling injustice done to the post office corner shops and how long it will take for our system to compensate them. Look at the astounding injustice done to Andrew Malkinson (unjustly imprisoned for 17 years) and how long it is estimated it will take him to get compensation. And these are issues reflecting the endemic corruption within the whole of the UK system, not any one political party. No wonder Malkinson says he cannot continue to live in the UK. I suggest we consider which countries might be worth emigrating to! And damn Brexit…
While I agree with the general thrust of your argument, the reality is that in the past the SNP government failed to use the tax raising powers it had, and has spent most of its energy campaigning for independence, as though this were a silver bullet to address Scotland’s problems, instead of campaigning for greater and wider tax raising powers. Moreover it should not be forgotten that just under half the SNP membership voted for Kate Forbes, a fiscal and monetary conservative, to become leader and First Minister.
I am not sure why you see the first two issues as problematic in the ciontext ikf the time.
You do knwo that the SNP does not want devolution, don’t ypu?
Given the fact that Scexit isn’t going to happen anytime soon, one might have thought that providing competent governance of Scotland in the meantime was important to the SNP, but evidently not. Moreover when the party is totally split on what the fiscal and monetary policy of an independent Scotland should be, why should Scottish voters opt to jump from the frying pan into the fire?
Of course it matters
No one says otherwise
Why make up false claims?
But now tlell me what the SNP could have done more abvout in reality? Details, please, not nonsense
Of what I recall of Kate Forbes’ campaign, she initially pitched herself as a candidate who was interested in improving living standards and increasing investment.
Then her campaign got derailed by her getting outed as a massive homophobe.
In short, I’d say she sort of pulled a Boris, no?
Mr Evans, I have no particular confidence in the SNP, but I struggle to understand why you believe asking for more tax powers may be pushing against an open door. The door is closed and locked tight, because devolution was designed solely to ‘Dish the Nats’. The SNP wins elections. Why would Conservative or Labour award more tax or borrowing powers, when they are both incapable of winning an election in Scotland, and struggle to return any MPs at all? I think the appropriate metapher is to suggest you are inviting the turkeys to vote for an early Christmas.
I would therefore invite you to rebut my case here, that you are effectively wasting our time; as set out more fully in my comment above on this thread, if you wish to prove your case.
You are right John
“metaphor”.
Haste, haste too much haste (too much weary exasperation).
Nowhere did I suggest that there should be a push for more tax raising powers. Yours is a totally straw man argument. My accusation is that at the start of devolution Scottish governments were unwilling to use the tax powers they had for fear of the ire of voters, while more recently the SNP accepted the increased tax raising powers they were granted but failed to spell out to voters the risks involved.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-923X.13174#:~:text=In%201999%2C%20the%20new%20Scottish,the%20'tartan%20tax‘).
This is toally bizarre.
You don’t want the SNP to argue for more tax raising powers.
Your criticise them for not using the powers they had.
And now you criticise them for doing so.
You are:
a) Totally inconsistent
b) An incompetent presenter of an argument, and
c) No doubt a unionist troll.
To describe you as the weakest link would be too kind.
“Nowhere did I suggest that there should be a push for more tax raising powers.” (Evans, 12.32pm)
“the SNP government failed to use the tax raising powers it had ….. instead of campaigning for greater and wider tax raising powers.” (Evans, 8.16am).
Explain.
I certainly see no hope with Labour’s Shadow Chancellor who according to her previous statements doesn’t even believe in her present policies. I don’t see Green Party as the answer because even if they get enough seats to be a coalition partner their thinking is still stuck in present broken system. Besides changes in tax system to get change rolling there requires a decentralisation of power to bring back local democracy and funding in local hands. It became obvious to many when Covid restrictions hit that help from govt was non-existent and Council poor. It was the communities that mobilised quickly and efficiently. Many places that had been labelled as helpless and in constant need of help found they weren’t helpless and were capable of organising themselves. I think this was probably why the Unions and local community organisations saw such a rush in membership.
So, Joy Bullivant, who are you going to vote for at the next election?
You’ve just dismissed every group. The Green Party do at least want PR, so are not stuck in the present failed system.
I’ve been a labour member for years, only having left because of Blair and Iraq, then coming back when he went.
Like many other people in this group, I can’t vote for Starmer who has broken every pledge he ever made to get elected.
I also know I have to vote for someone. So who do you suggest? Your post is full of who not to vote for.
A local independent could just as easily be a tory unless stating they are socialist or independent labour.
In the past SNP was as bad as the Labour and Tory parties in being honest with voters regarding taxation, and the cost of providing public services. The opportunity to increase income tax has been available to Scottish governments since 1999 but the SNP never called for it be be exercised, or was it. Moreover even after the changes introduced in 2016, the SNP has pushed the same narrative as Labour, namely that governments only need to tax the so-called rich more in order to finance better public services.
SNP taxation policy has been purely opportunist, demonstrating an unwillingness to recognise the risk-reward ratio when it comes to greater fiscal and monetary autonomy and then blaming Westminster when things don’t work out.
You are obviously clueless as to the taxing owers availahle to tbe Scottish government
For example, the SNP has very limited control over income tax
Why do you not want to tell the truth?
You might want to look in the mirror when it comes to accusing others of not telling the truth. Your sycophantic support of the SNP and Scexit rather undermines the extent to which anyone should trust your judgement on other issues.
I am not a supprter of the SNP.
And I have never used the term Scexit.
I supprt the indepdnence of a country long overdue to leave an empire.
I have not criticised the SNP for wanting more tax raising powers. I criticised them for not advocating or using the simple mechanism of increasing income tax by up to 3p to finance improvements in public services. And I criticised them for advocating increased tax raising powers without spelling out to voters the potential downsides, and for now blaming Westminster when these downsides have materialised.
Answer John Warren’s comment just posted.
If you don’t, you’re banned.
Mr Evans (at 7.30pm),
You have had enough time to reply. You may of course also reply, to this:
“I have not criticised the SNP for wanting more tax raising powers. I criticised them for not advocating or using the simple mechanism of increasing income tax by up to 3p to finance improvements in public services. And I criticised them for advocating increased tax raising powers without spelling out to voters the potential downsides, and for now blaming Westminster when these downsides have materialised” (Evans, 2.03pm).
You opened commenting on this thread with a resort to the logical fallacy of petitito principii, or ‘begging the question’. Your criticism of the SNP wanting more tax raising powers was not the issue you set at stake, indeed you did not even raise it; your issues, precisely were the SNP not using its existing tax powers, and failing to campaign “for greater and wider tax raising powers” (Evans, 1st comment 8.16am). You now cannot either admit, or remember your own line of argument. Clearly you cannot even construct a basic, coherent, still less rigorous argument in logic.
Let me turn now to your general method, because it is more typical of the problem of spurious and disruptive social media activity. You begin with this opening phrase, in your first comment: “While I agree with the general thrust of your [Richard’s] argument,”; suggesting a common understanding (setting out your stall as both reasonable and in broad harmony), but beyond the shallow opening thereafter you do not offer any sense of of common thought whatsoever. You are obviously sailing under a false flag.
Your open mind quickly descends from there into reference to “Scexit”, and disparaging remarks about the poor “governance” of Scotland under the SNP follow, in the following comment. These are not just the commonplaces of Unionist intolerance of opposing views, but more typically, in the sweeping generality of the observations, resonant rather of a more intolerant form of Unionism, which disparages devolution itself (Evans, 2nd comment, 10.09am).
Then the slipping mask falls off completely. The next foray uses the terms to describe the Scottish Government as; “bad”, “opportunist”, with an “unwillingness to recognise the risk-reward ratio”; and “blaming Westminster when things don’t work out” (Evans, 11.45am)” Followed, after my first intervention by references to yourself as an ‘accuser’, and also referencing the “ire of voters” (Evans, 12.32pm). Again, it is classic Unionist presumption to speak for “the voter” of Scotland, when the Unionists haven’t won any election in Scotland for decades; by a large margin. After that flatulent hubris, you are reduced to petulant ad hominem attacks on Richard, because he is tired of reading your shoddy line of attack.
We are now a long, long way from, “While I agree with the general thrust of your [Richard’s] argument,” but i thought, when first I read it, that there was a lot more suppressed meaning in the “While” than the rest of the amiably disarming opening.
The only interesting thing about your intervention here is the useful example it provides of the standard method used and self-revealed by the thinly disguised, over-confident, ill equipped Unionist troll.
Thanks John
You have more patience than me
True, Richard true. Trolls of this type have nothing notable or interesting to say; but waste a great deal of your time and mine; painstakingly replying to remarks that are nothing more than patent rubbish. I confess I hazard, that is the nature of the success they seek. It isn’t much, but of course that is exactly what they have in store for Scotland: nothing much.
Unionists, eh!
Indeed
I find them (trolls and unionists) deeply annoying.