More Powers

[Ex-Whitfield]

The so called more powers from the front page of the record:

Promises

Guarantee One

❱❱ New powers for the Scottish Parliament.

Well, what are they?? Where are they written down. Where is the press release on the UK Govt web site. A picture of a scroll in the Daily Record. That's it??

❱❱ Holyrood will be strengthened with extensive new powers, on a timetable beginning on September 19, with legislation in 2015.

WHAT ARE THESE POWERS?? See above

❱❱ The Scottish Parliament will be a permanent and irreversible part of the British constitution.

Westminster Parliament is sovereign. They can repeal anything they want.

Guarantee Two

❱❱ The guarantee of fairness to Scotland.

Whit. Shouldn't that have been the case for the last 300 years. A clear admission that it hasn't been fair to Scotland.

❱❱ The guarantee that the modern purpose of the Union is to ensure opportunity and security by pooling and sharing our resources equitably for our defence, prosperity and the social and economic welfare of every citizen, including through UK pensions and UK funding of healthcare.

Means absolutely fukkall

Guarantee Three

❱❱ The power to spend more on the NHS if that is Scottish people’s will.

We can do that now if we want, out of our real terms DECREASING block grant

❱❱ The guarantee that with the continued Barnett allocation, based on need and with the power to raise its own funds, the final decisions on spending on public services in Scotland, including on the NHS, will be made by the Scottish Parliament.

1. Our share is determined on what public spending is in england. If it goes up, our share goes up. If it goes down, our share goes down.

2 Why would be want to invoke the special tax raising powers? Why would anyone want to be taxed twice? We gain nothing from that.

3. Of course final spending decisions will be made by us, out of our block grant so nicely provided to us.

❱❱ The Scottish Parliament will have the last word on how much is spent on health. It will have the power to keep the NHS in public hands and the capacity to protect it.

Obviously we will decide how much is spent on the NHS but we don't control how much money we have in the first place to spend on it. We won't have the power to keep it in public hands because uk have signed up to TTIP without exempting the NHS.

What private company is going to subsidise services to the remotest parts of Scotland? Private companies don't generally run a business at a loss.

Let me ask you this: How much does it cost to have an eye test in Scotland? Nothing

In England it's anywhere from £15 - £30 That £15 - £30 doesn't go back to the NHS, it goes to specsavers or boots or whoever. So the NHS doesn't have to fund it. Which bit will be next? A fee to see your GP?

This is the crux of the privatisation matter, paying twice for basic health care.

[giblet]

Animal Farm.

[fringo]

Animal Farm.

So true of many so called Labour politicians. Forgotten their roots and values.

As you say, "Animal Farm"

[exile]

Party leaders face fury of MPs over pledge to keep extra funding for Scotland

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/scotland-independence-vote-cameron-miliband-clegg-face-anger-over-taxpayers-cash-9735431.html

[Guest flumax]

Party leaders face fury of MPs over pledge to keep extra funding for Scotland

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/scotland-independence-vote-cameron-miliband-clegg-face-anger-over-taxpayers-cash-9735431.html

And that's why after the dust has settled, nothing will be given

[thplinth]

Yep Devo Fukk All

David Cameron faces Tory 'bloodbath' over 'unfair' cash for Scotland Tory backbenchers vow to block 'on the hoof' promise to sustain higher Scottish funding

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11098825/David-Cameron-faces-Tory-bloodbath-over-unfair-cash-for-Scotland.html

[fringo]

Yep Devo Fukk All

David Cameron faces Tory 'bloodbath' over 'unfair' cash for Scotland Tory backbenchers vow to block 'on the hoof' promise to sustain higher Scottish funding

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11098825/David-Cameron-faces-Tory-bloodbath-over-unfair-cash-for-Scotland.html

That logo should really read "Let's Stick It Up 'Em".

[thplinth]

Is the red of 'Let's Stick" and the blue of 'Together' supposed to represent the red of St G's Cross and the Blue of the Saltire?

[Orraloon]

That logo should really read "Let's Stick It Up 'Em".

That's what the face says. He is a lying bawbag.

[Jie Bie]

Dimbleby just said Gordon Brown is offering home rule!

He's a backbench MP FFS...

[exile]

Independence = Home Rule for Grown-Ups

[King Of Paisley]

Had to laugh at 'The Vow' on the front page of the Record today.

How can Cameron 'vow' to give more powers when his Tory backbenchers are in open revolt about this. If, as expected, a Tory government is elected next year then you can bet your bottom dollar Cameron, Johnson et all will tear up this so called pledge at the drop of a hat.

This half baked measure is not worth the paper it is written on. I hope the Scottish electorate see this for what it is. A lie and a bribe.

[exile]

Barnett calls for Barnett formula to be scrapped

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11100400/My-funding-formula-for-Scotland-is-a-terrible-mistake-Lord-Barnett-admits.html

"My funding formula for Scotland is a 'terrible mistake', Lord Barnett admits"

and

Christopher Chope, a Tory MP, warned that Parliament has stopped similar deals before. He told BBC Radio 4's the World At One: "I certainly think that the people in Scotland should recognise that this is a pledge, in inverted commas, by party leaders, but that is not a guarantee that that would be implemented in the United Kingdom parliament.

Edited September 16, 2014 by exile

[Rossy]

I'm astonished that one of the main stories in all the English papers....that Labour and Tory backbenchers will block any more extra powers for Scotland.....is being ignored by the Scottish papers.

[kumnio]

Are you really?

[mariokempes56]

No, he's not.

[King Of Paisley]

Kumnio - I'm sure dear old Torcuil Crichton is sticking his fingers in his ears and going 'la la la'.......................

[exile]

On Newsnight Alastair Campbell let slip that the different parties had different plans for more devo = i.e. no agreed plan

[AlfieMoon]

Are we not missing the elephant in the room being UKIP?

Surely a Tory / UKIP coalition is the perfect get-out for any further powers? Tories just point the finger at UKIP and neither of them have anything to lose in Scotland anyway.

[exile]

Are we not missing the elephant in the room being UKIP?

Surely a Tory / UKIP coalition is the perfect get-out for any further powers? Tories just point the finger at UKIP and neither of them have anything to lose in Scotland anyway.

Good point - the old "Clegg Pledge Opt-Out"

[George Saint]

Supposing there was a No vote and then the promises now being made by Cameron and Brown weren't fully implemented, would that not legitimise calls for another referendum? The pro-UK folk have done an absolutely shocking job of trying to maintain the union. The amount of complacency shown in the months and years leading up to this referendum is beyond belief. Or maybe they privately accept that the union is beyond repair, so they're just relying on hope and a miracle to save it.

[DonnyTJS]

❱❱ The Scottish Parliament will be a permanent and irreversible part of the British constitution.

Westminster Parliament is sovereign. They can repeal anything they want.

It would mean a written constitution, and all the in-built guarantees and inflexibility that comes with it.

The British (English - Scotland adopted it through the Act of Union) constitution as it stands evolved to function in a single polity in which each constituency within that polity is equal to all the others. Devolution as brought in by the Scotland Act of 1998 undermined that basic premiss. Hence where we are now.

A written UK constitution would have to be accepted by the British electorate through a UK-wide referendum. I trust that it would be thrown out.

The little I can gather about the desperate promises now being made by Westminster party leaders is cringeworthy. Scotland needs to get out and the rUK needs to ditch these clowns.

Edited September 17, 2014 by DonnyTJS

[DonnyTJS]

Independence = Home Rule for Grown-Ups

Actually, independence with a currency over which you have full control of all monetary and fiscal instruments is independence for grown-ups, but various versions of indie-lite seem to be all that's on offer.

[exile]

Actually, independence with a currency over which you have full control of all monetary and fiscal instruments is independence for grown-ups, but various versions of indie-lite seem to be all that's on offer.

In last weekend's Scotland on Sunday it spelt out the choice was (in effect) between voting no and then negotiating a set of extra powers for Holyrood, or voting yes, and then negotiating a set of powers that would be in effect shared with others.

The question becomes whether you'd rather trust Cameron and Clegg to deliver extra devolved powers to Holyrood, or trust a Team Scotland to agree which powers would be (for the time being) shared with others.

[DonnyTJS]

In last weekend's Scotland on Sunday it spelt out the choice was (in effect) between voting no and then negotiating a set of extra powers for Holyrood, or voting yes, and then negotiating a set of powers that would be in effect shared with others.

The question becomes whether you'd rather trust Cameron and Clegg to deliver extra devolved powers to Holyrood, or trust a Team Scotland to agree which powers would be (for the time being) shared with others.

As the economies diverge (which they soon will because the fundamentals are so different) the need for those 'shared powers' to be used to restrict the use of policy that would benefit those in each state would increase.

And "for the time being" is the crux. Temporary currency unions/agreements without full political will to back them up are inherently unstable and a lure for financial speculators. It happened in post-independence Czechoslovakia - the Koruna union collapsed in a matter of weeks due to capital flight. It happened when Lamont took sterling into the ERM.

Anyway, it's all a moot point. The Yes campaign knew it wouldn't get a majority without the 'reassurance' of some kind of 'sterling union' - we'll see what sort of damaging compromise and potential utter mess results ...