FREEDOM!!!!

I reckon Ratzinger leaked those papers himself before he decided to go. He is a very astute man, no idiot. My personal theory is He got his faithful majordomo to take the flack, he was told he would be pardoned and given a large pension, also how could he say no to the Pope, being a good Catholic? There are some serious financial and sexual scandals brewing, and he got out before it blows. Links to the mafia and underhand banking. That Vatican banker found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in the 80s was all part of the Mafia link I reckon. One of the Canadian Cardinals who is in the Conclave has a brother who is a convicted pedo, Its all surrounded by sleazy goings on.things have got to change or the Church is going to implode like the Italian government.

Maybe they could elect Berlusconi as the next Pope. I'm sure he'd get things in order.

well it would be like having the Borgia Pope back I guess.

The date for the vote on Scottish Independence was announced the other day in the Scottish Parliament followed by questions and debate on the statement- here's the full thing.



An interesting tactic has emerged which has had some success for the Unionists- but I supsect everyone will see through it once more people start to really focus on the issues.
The tactic goes like this- the Unionists ask the SNP a lot of tricky questions- can they say with certainty we will keep sterling? How much of the UK debt do we have to take on? Exactly how much of the oil is ours ect.
Thing is all these things can only be found out through the SNP negotating with the UK government.
But the UK government says it will not enter any negotations with SNP until the result of the vote is known- making it impossible for the SNP to answer the questions. Then the Unionists in debates ask all those questions- trying to give the impression Salmond doesnt know what the result would mean and isnt being straight with the people.

More and more people are twigging on however to the fact the reason we dont have the answers is the UK governments fault and they are just paying stupid political games over someting very, very important and people want the info, and are starting to get annoyed they are not getting it.
And its worse- the UK government say if we vote no they will give our parliament more devolved powers- but they wont tell us what those might be or when we might get them unitl after we have voted.
So at the moment we dont know the consequences of voting yes, and we dont know the consequences of voting no either! And in both cases the reason why is the UK government.

The so called 'bedroom' tax is due to start soon- in which anyone on benefit who lives in a council house and has a spare room will lose benifit in an attempt to price them out of their home and make it available for others. (its official name is- Community Charge and Under Occupancy benefit penalty)
Problem is its unfair, it counts the handicapped who use a spare room to store necessary equipment or for when their illness is worse and they need someone to stay over with them- it effects older people whose chldren have moved out the house they grew up in and the parents keep a room for them when they viisit with the grandkids. And in Scotland w dont tend to build one bedroom houses but family houses wih at leas 2 bedrooms- so there are nowhere near enough one bedroomed council houses to move the evicted people into it.

Anyway the SNP have now announced that in their council areas they will defy the UK law if necessary and will refuse to evict anyone who falls into rent arrears because of this tax.

And today COSLA (the body representing Scotlands local councils) released this statement-

"Make no mistake here - no blame whatsoever can be put at the door of Scotland's councils for either introducing these measures or for the devastating impact that this legislation is about to have on our communities."
Cosla could "not stand idly by and allow local government's reputation and the credibility of individual councils to take the hit for this because these welfare changes are not of our doing".
He added: "I am simply pointing out to those who will be hardest hit by these changes that it is not their local council to blame. Indeed, councils are going to be hit themselves with the double whammy of the massive increase in people seeking our help at a time of diminishing resources. The huge damage it will do to our communities is not something that Cosla can support, and nor should others. The UK Government is transferring cost and responsibility for the needs of people on benefit on to local government.
It is impossible for councils to subsidise the levels of cuts people will experience but we will do everything within our power to support the most vulnerable in our communities."


This tax is the worse thought out bit of legisaltion I have seen in my life time- and I saw the poll tax.

Salmond keynote speech from the SNP conference given a few days ago- might be of particular interest to the English members too as I doubt the english media gave it much, if any coverage- and if the SNP win independence it will effect England just as much as us.

One in ten Scots men descended from Picts

http://www.scotsman.com/the-scotsman/scotland/one-in-ten-scots-men-descended-from-picts-1-2855561

I always supsected they had never been wiped out, was always more likely given a combination of buckie and the Scotss mentality we just shagged 'em.

I suspect my family might be in that line- picts were known for having short legs- a trait in my family (my brother is tall however at 6.3, I'm 5.8 and the difference is all in the legs- from the waist up we are about the same height!)- supposedly shorter legs means less energy needed to travers our very hilly landscape- has other benefits too do like putting certain things in a better persepctive!

shorter legs means a more forceful kick up the arse !!

Is that giving or receiving!

In independence news the Scottish Tory party, who only a year ago elected Ruth Gordon as their leader on a platform of the devolution Scotland had was as far as it was going- she even called it a lineinthe sand.
Well guess what the tide has come in! And she has now u-turned her entire position and is talking aboutmore powers, especially fiscal powers.
Rumours abound Cameron pushed her into the U-turn.
She had a car crash tv interview last nigth on Newsnight Scotland in which she couldnt say if anything she proposed ould actually be in the UK conservative manifesto, she couldnt say what any of these powers might actually be, nnor when thmight be offered except that it was conditional on a no vote in the referendum.

Well worth a watch if you like to see a poltician grilled, lightly fried and well cooked.

I just read a bit more about this and holy crap, I thought our politicians were bad when it came to flip-flopping!

Yeah, I mean the Scottish Tories have been in decline for half a century- but even by their standards this is an embarrasing shambles- cant wait till Salmond gets a go at her during First Ministers Questions- should be funny.

Do the Tories not even have people to proofread their leader's speeches?

With the benefit of hindsight, I believe that we found ourselves on the wrong side of history in 1997. We fought on against the idea of a Scottish Parliament long after it became clear it was the settled will of the Scottish people. It made us look as if we lacked ambition for Scotland. But the Scottish Conservatives are not and have never been a party which stands in the way of the ambitions of Scotland's people. On the contrary, we embrace and want to advance those ambitions.

L-O-fucking-L

I guess this is what happens when you pick a leader who has only held elected office for six months.

Yeah her inexperience shines through!

Still working my way through that video; it's embarrassing how many times she feels the need to repeat "I'm in charge!" and "I'm the leader of a political party!" Does she want a sticker?

Oh my god, she looks ready to cry.

I feel bad for finding this funny but it's so refreshing to see an interview where the reporter isn't sucking up.

Does she want a sticker?- Eldo

No one would believe her Eldo if she had it tatooed on hre forehead - we all know Cameron tells her to jump.

Thats one of the problems for the Scottish Conservatives they dont have any real power- every idea or proposal they come up with has to go through London where its usually vetoed- or in this case she has clearly been told to do a u-turn and get in line with the PM and offer some more powers, so long as she makes it so vague no one knows what they are or if we will ever get them.

It relies, at best, on first the referndum going for the Union- then the following year the Tories getting elected with a majority at Westminister- not looking hugely likely right now. Then it needs Cameron to still be in charge (which I doubt) and then it needs the Tories to stick to their word and deliver.
But we cant hold them to their word anyway cause they wont tell us what it is they are promising to deliver!

And we have been here before in the 1970's when the Tories secured a no vote by promising devolution- after the vote they changed their mind and we never got it for another two decades and several changes of government later.

I feel bad for finding this funny but it's so refreshing to see an interview where the reporter isn't sucking up.= Eldo

Our political interviewers dont do sucking up fortunately. Think thats a US thing.

I found the discussion of the future of the Scotish Tories towards the end of the video interesting. I'm sure a center-right party would exist in an independent Scotland but it will be interesting to see if the Conservatives reinvent themselves or if the SNP changes/splits. Perhaps both.

I find the whole prospect of independence to be fascinating so I'm really enjoying getting a firsthand perspective on the campaign.

Definitely better to do independence this way rather than a lot of shooting and noise!

The SNP are partly so succesful because they have socialist policies on universal health care and free transport for the elderly ect but their fiscal policies are right of centre- low taxation, business friendly rates, low regulation.
Its one of the rerason the Scottish Tory party hasnt been able to stem the drop off in their popularity- the SNP are already impimenting their fiscal policies, but the Tories still have the toxicity of not being in favour of the social policies and in favour of priviatisation. Which dont go down well here as we are quite a socialist leaning country on those matters.

I'm curious as to how long that policy will be sustainable. I've heard some of the SNP's opponents claim that taxes will have to go up if Scotland becomes independent. I'm not sure what the Scottish government's financial status is now though, or how it would change if Holyrood takes over all of Westminster's tax responsibilities for Scotland.

It all depends whose figures you take of course.
At one point the Tories claimed Scotland would be unable to pay its social benefits bill- then it turned out they had cooked the figures in such a way they werent counting tax revenue from 70% of the population or form oil and gas (let alone wave, wind hydro or our abaundant clean water suppplies)!
Most estimates say we would be no more or lss worse off than we are now- the difference is we would have the economic levers to do as we want and set social policies (no Berdroom tax to fix a southern London problem that doesnt exist up here!).
And it hard to see how when revenue from Scotland has funded so much in the UK as a whole, particularly oil revenue, that it couldnt help out in a country of only 5 million peple, less than the population of London by about 3 million people.

At the moment all tax, all revenue raised in Scotland goes to Westminister, and then something called the Barnett Formula comes into play which works out howm uch we get back of it.
Per head of popualtion Scotland gets more through the Barnett formula than England does- but less than we put in.


'The Barnett formula is said to have "no legal standing or democratic justification", and, being merely a convention, could be changed by the Treasury at will.
The Scottish National Party has called for full 'fiscal autonomy' or 'fiscal independence' for Scotland. Based on ONS regional accounts data, Scotland's GDP (gross domestic product) per capita was £25'600, or 96% of the UK average of £26,700 in 2005. This figure excludes oil and gas revenue and when adjusted Scotland's GDP per capita rises from £25,600 to between £30,000 and £31,000 (depending on the agreed division of oil and gas fields.)' - wiki

Pettytyrant101 wrote:And it hard to see how when revenue from Scotland has funded so much in the UK as a whole, particularly oil revenue, that it couldnt help out in a country of only 5 million peple, less than the population of London by about 3 million people.

At the moment all tax, all revenue raised in Scotland goes to Westminister, and then something called the Barnett Formula comes into play which works out howm uch we get back of it. Per head of popualtion Scotland gets more through the Barnett formula than England does- but less than we put in.

Yeah, these two points are why I'm skeptical of claims that an independent Scotland would be broke. Unless Scotland is broke now it makes no sense since the Scottish government would have more revenue even if the Scottish people paid the same amount in tax (every politician's wet dream, I'd imagine).

Yes, and even though like everyone else our banks have been disgraceful and taken a deserved kicking Edinburgh is still an important European financial centre and home to The Bank of Scotland and a few others HQ there rather than in London.
We also have the most abundant potential for wave and wind- and in fact we lead in Europe on those two things with 30% of all our energy now generated from those sources with a target, well on the way to being met, of 50% by 2015.
We also supply a large chunk of the UK national power grid through hydro-electric.