FREEDOM!!!! [3]

well at least he is hot.

We are talking about Jim Murphy here arent we? - the man whose voice could bore the dead?

The Church of Scotland has finally voted to allow Gay Ministers.
Though some presbyteries are still staunchly opposed- most notably the one on Lewis where all 19 members voted against- but then Lewis is like the dark ages where thats concerned- its like walking into a Christian version of the Wickerman.

you mean openly gay ministers. that horse has bolted.

Well yeah- though I suspect on Lewis they still burn them.

At PMQ's yesterday Cameron was under attack for the risis in the English NHS- part of his response included this-

“The NHS in England, which I am responsible for, is performing better than the NHS in Wales, the NHS in Scotland and the NHS in Northern Ireland.”

Except in England right now 14 Health Boards have declared states of emergency- meaning having to cancel minor operations (usually not minor to those needing them mind you) in order to cover extra demand on A&E units.
In Scotland three have had do so.

But a Downing Street spokesman later clarified Cameron's comment by saying - 'the comments referred to the A&E records in different parts of the UK.'

Problem is if you look at the figures for A&E the are-

'performance against the four-hour treatment target was 92.7 per cent in Scotland, 92 per cent in England, 83.1 per cent in Wales, and 75.7 per cent in Northern Ireland.'

The Scottish NHS also outperforms the rest of the UK on a range of other waiting times targets too.
Not that there aren't lots of issues- its the NHS it can always be better, it always needs more money, more staff more facilities and winter always puts extra burdens on the services. And the UK governments 'austerity' measures aren't helping either.

But for the PM to bad mouth another part of the UK on a false premise, well no, a lie, well, so much for the Union he was so keen on protecting o a personal level because he loves the UK and Scotland!
Then the Tories wonder why they only have 1 MP here.

The BBC are aso reporting that the English NHS is doing better than the Scottish NHS on waiting times- yet here are the figures from the same BBC article-

England  

Target- 95% of patients in four hours
Actual- 86.7% in the past week

Northern Ireland

Target- 95% of patients in four hours
Actual- 80.5% in November

Scotland

Target-98% of patients in four hours
Actual- 93.5% of patients in September

Wales

Target- 95% of patients in four hours
Actual- 83.8% of patients in November

What am I missing? As far as I can see Scotland is doing the best out of all the regions

Things that can only happen with enough buckie -

'POLICE were forced to pull over a man on a busy main road - for drunkenly riding a space hopper through a tunnel.
Officers were patrolling on Dundee’s Marketgait on Hogmanay when they spotted the man on the air filled toy going down the dual carriageway towards the tunnel on the northern part of the Dundee city centre ring road.
“He looked very drunk and police had blocked the left-hand lane because he was on the road." an eyewitness said. - Daily Mail

Things are looking desperate at Scottish Labour- having in many eyes swayed the indi referendum vote in favour of the union with his 'vow' of home rule Gordon Brown has returned to making promises alongside new Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy.

Problem is they are now saying the Smith Commission which oversaw what new powers were to be devolved to Scotland, is not going far enough and they are promising further powers.
But Labour were a central partner in that Commision, and according to other members of that Commission -

'"In the Smith Commission they (Labour) were the most cautious on transferring welfare powers to the Scottish Parliament.
We had to work hard to convince them of the merit of creating a £3bn Scottish welfare system.
Within weeks of agreeing this radical package they now claim it's not enough."

So why are Scottish Labour now arguing Smith is not far enough, even though they agreed to it only a matter of weeks ago?
Well it might have something to do with the polls, which for the first time in 50 years of Scottish politics shows they are on course for a wipeout at the next general election, with the SNP taking some 40 seats of them on current projections, which would leave Labour with only a handful of MP's in Scotland.

Mind you as a supporter of Independence I have to say its all good- if the only way other parties can win votes is by giving further powers to the Scottish Parliament we will get there eventually by default!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:

Mind you as a supporter of Independence I have to say its all good- if the only way other parties can win votes is by giving further powers to the Scottish Parliament we will get there eventually by default!

Well you Scots did have a big hand in crafting democracy over the last several centuries. It seems only right that you should play the game now for all it's worth.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Things that can only happen with enough buckie -

'POLICE were forced to pull over a man on a busy main road - for drunkenly riding a space hopper through a tunnel.
Officers were patrolling on Dundee’s Marketgait on Hogmanay when they spotted the man on the air filled toy going down the dual carriageway towards the tunnel on the northern part of the Dundee city centre ring road.
“He looked very drunk and police had blocked the left-hand lane because he was on the road." an eyewitness said. - Daily Mail

can you get arrested for drunken bouncing now?

Bouncing. It's the new fad. The admin better not be outlawing it, drunken or not.

You can never tell with Admin- but if he does am sure the NotP will have a thing or two to say about freedoms versus totalitarian regimes and the right to drunken bouncing of all sorts

In this me and the NotP are on exactly the same page.

Well if he bans drunken bouncing it'll be Hobbit Lass of the Day Next!

Martin Freeman, you mean? Now, what would the Sherlock fans say to that.

(I would have said Hobbit fans, but... yeah.)

Martin Freeman, you mean? - Blue

The NotP are nothing if not equal in their exploitation.

Well this is a farce and no mistake! A bit of background to the topic-
Scotland used to have loads of police forces,now it has one. Now I happen to think thats a good idea, its not a huge place and we had a costly repetition of jobs going on.
But I did have one large reservation- the biggest police force basically consumed all the others into itself- that police force was Strathclyde, which has places like Glasgow to deal with.
They got a grip on Glasgow by basically being bigger bastards than anyone else there (and this is Glasgow we are talking about!).

Now there has been a lot of controversy over stop and search.
In Scotland the police can stop you and search you if they have reasonable grounds to suspect you are up to something and if it ends up in court they have to give what those reasonable grounds were.
But they can also ask to search you if they don't have suspicion and that is consensual.
Problem is they were also stopping and searching minors in this way.
A year ago the Scottish Parliament told them to stop the consensual searching of minors as they were not old enough to give consent or to know what they were agreeing to or its possible ramifications.
Police Scotland said they would stop the practise immediately.

Fast forward a year and a freedom of information demand by a newspaper uncovered that since they said they would stop they had stopped over 300 minors and that 91% had done nothing wrong.
So the Police Commissioner was brought before the MP's and said he didn't want to release the figures in te first place, they were inaccurate and the real number was actually sub-50 anyway not over 300. He went on to claim that despite his misgivings they had been forced into releasing figures he knew were inaccurate by the Freedom of Information people.

But then emails turned up between the two showing that the police rather than being forced into releasing the figures, released the figures voluntarily, without pressure and without mention they thought they were completely wrong.

So today the Police are back in the dock at the Scottish Parliament to explain why they lied last time and to find out what the hell is going on.
It might be quite entertaining- not sure if this works outside the UK but you can see it here now-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/scotland/

One police force for the whole country? I see both good and bad there. Good in that information sharing is improved, and a uniform policy; bad in that innovation is suppressed and a uniform policy may not match a diverse population.

I think New York City has proved the importance of a strong police force. The place was a war zone in the 1970's, and sure there were economic factors at work, but recovery happens faster when there's order, and Mayor Guiliani cracked the whip. People eventually got sick of overbearing authority, but most of the policies are still in place.

Stop and frisk is hard: there's no doubt it targets parts of the population more than others, but there's also no doubt police develop good intuition. I like Scotland's rule of evidence of suspicion that must be given in court, or the alternative consensual search. But would the way somebody acts when asked to be searched be valid grounds for suspicion?

'But would the way somebody acts when asked to be searched be valid grounds for suspicion?'- Halfwise

Yes and no. The person when asked to be searched would have to act in way that a court would accept as suspicious enough to warrant the forced search. If you just say "no, sorry Im on my way somewhere" and act normal then no. But if you act in a hugely suspicious manner or try to run away then they could in theory decide they were onto something.
In a country with few available guns the most likely weapon related violence is knife crime, and its most prevalent among the young, usually teenagers and into the early twenties. Which is why the police are so keen on stop and search.


Regards a single police force we had 9. For a population smaller than London (which has 1 the MET) so there was a hell of a lot of duplication and noticeable lack of joined up thinking and shared information. Of course Scotlands geography is a bit trickier than Londons and people are spread out more, so local policing is still very important.

When it comes to policing at a local level from a single central force, well this explains it easier than I could-

'Scotland is divided geographically into 3 regions - North, East and West, each headed by an Assistant Chief Constable. Under these are 14 Divisions, each covering one or a few local authority areas and headed by a Chief Superintendent. All divisional commanders are "people who came up through the ranks in that part of the country". Divisions are further split into Areas under Chief Inspectors, and then into Wards under Inspectors. These are the same 353 wards used in local authority elections; every ward in Scotland has its own neighbourhood team and local policing plan.'

I was so weirded out when I first learned about the way UK police are structured.  Here in America we have multiple police departments in nearly every county (of which there are more than 3000 in the country).  At the minimum you usually have county police and a county sheriff (which are not the same thing), but many local municipalities also have their own separate police departments.  Then you have the state police/highway patrol, and sometimes also separate agencies for transit police, campus police, etc. at that level. Then there are numerous law enforcement agencies at the federal level: FBI, US Marshals, national park police, etc.  The UK system seems more streamlined but it feels strange to me because it's so different and I do wonder if smaller departments with more specific mandates aren't sometimes more efficient.

I have never known increasing bureaucracy to be a good thing.

At a local level the police liaison with the local council and other bodies to determine what type of policing is best for the area and what types of crimes people are most reporting and needs tackled.
Far and away the most common sort of crimes people complain about are 'anti-social behaviour crimes' which is pretty much anything from petty vandalism to intimidation. And again its most commonly carried out by people between the ages of 12 and 30. Which is another reason the police like stop and search so much.

The unelected House of Lords are trying to put a block on the transfer of powers on voting age to the Scottish Parliament.

In the referendum the voting age was lowered form 18 to 16. It was a huge success with thousands of young people engaging in politics for the first time, taking part in debates and of course voting.
It was such an obvious success that every single Scottish party signed up to having the power transferred to lower the voting age to 16 at all Scottish elections. And it was included in the Smith Report- which was set up after the referendum to carry out the many promises on increased powers the Unionists made in the last days of the campaigning.

But the way the power works is that Westminster has to first legally transfer the power to do so to the Scottish Parliament- and that highlights a major democratic problem with the set up as it stands on all sorts of powers- even if everyone in Scotland were in favour we are not allowed to act without our Westminster masters say so.
And even if the House of Commons approves it and includes it in something like the Smith Report the unelected representatives of the Lords can still block it.

If they do, as is seeming more more possible, I foresee trouble ahead.