Impartial Journalism For Dummies
Posted on
August 22, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The BBC’s most prominent politics presenter Andrew Neil, today:
There is, as there is so often, just one small problem.
Because GERS itself (on page 7 here) tells us very clearly whose figures they are:
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) and HM Treasury, which provide the data for both revenue and expenditure for Scotland, are both arms of the UK government, NOT the Scottish Government.
(The SNP has also never actually used the term “most authoritative” to refer to GERS, but we’ll let that one slide as a technicality.)
We look forward to Andrew’s fair, accurate and unbiased coverage, as usual.
Ha ha
Been at the Blue Nun again. Auld piss artists are a drag sometimes right enough. Here in his Scotland region, we’re plagued by tory buffoons that keep saying Scotland’s debt has “arisen.”
ROFL…
Andrew (Ex-pat Uncle Tam) Neil knows all about how to “rubbish”. He’s made an art form of it – every time he opens his mouth.
Someone should buy the lower half of a Dalek for him to sit in, then he’d look AND sound the part.
But they are coming out on Wednesday & we will rubbish them, so his tweet is 50% correct. That’s better than his usual rate.
As bitter Yoons gear up to rubbish Scotland more like.
You are not credible Andrew.
Why would a man whose career is predicated on upholding political orthodoxy, question what he reads?
For years Murdoch handed Neil the narrative he had to follow. He was allowed some leeway, some latitude, but not much. On your own fronting a political news programme requires serious analytical thinking.
If you can fill out a large seat in a studio, look intimidating, and deliver questions in a belligerent manner, there’s no need to do any homework.
How can these figures be anywhere near accurate. I did not think they were due until March next year.
Mr Neil is a deceiver .
What did Scotland do to Mr Neil, for him to so hate the country of his birth, what type of man takes succour from his country’s so called financial difficulties? The mans a blaggard! In my day we horse whipped scoundrels, at least a good tar and feather job, then ran the rogue out of town!
If anyone says they believe GERS tell them to give you back the £50 you lent them, and tell them it’s because they are obviously a financial idiot, and as such you demand to take full advantage from them!
Our Kevin has been working himself up to an orgasmic frothing, such is his hatred of Scotland, but unlike Mr Neil, he is now a laughingstock, as is anyone who would invest in a “Ratner” company.
Mr Neil pulling a Barney Bear on that. Oh Jeez! 😀 LOL
How long has that fella been covering politics?
Im sure Andrew will make a suitable retraction, or ask you on to his programe to explain your take on it!
Right enuff Andra.The SNP will be telling us next that they were not responsible for the financially disastrous PFI where schools ,hospitals and jails are going to cost more over 30 years than than it would take to run twenty countries the size of Scotland.
These contracts were signed ten to fifteen years ago when Labour and Libdem were in coalition but the SNP should still have done something or forced the BBC to expose the insanity. It is only bulling the media if it is well you know if we say it is bullying.
At seven tonight the BBC will explain and if you incline to blame the SNP Government well the BBC cannot be blamed for that. Can they?
Yes but we have to understand Andrew is looking out for numbering if Scotland does leave the UK will there still be a place at the BBC for a old Scottish political commentary war horse after the battle is lost or does the glue factory await.
I beleave John Mcternan may have bit part he could play as he appears to be looking for a horse head to deliver to Pete Wishart
Neil is employed [and overpaid] by the britnat bbc. Obviously he takes great pleasure in doing down Scotland – that is, after all, the rationale of the britnat bbc and britnat media. I was going to say he is the bloated face of the britnat media but the problem is that there seems to be an awful lot of fat bloated britnats in the media and in politics. Neil, like other London-based Scottish britnats, will say anything to please their britnat masters and to keep the money rolling into their bloated bank accounts. He is a disgrace to Scotland.
‘kinell. ‘sake. Grrrr.
Over 300 years of bad governance,mismanagement ,indifference ,,was how we began. Decades of Labour incompetence followed and continued after devolution.
Sending money back rather than investing it in Scottish infrastructure.
This country has been deliberately governed to fail, to keep it servile, compliant, and apparently dependant on the benificence of our larger neighbour. No more.
This country can stand alongside the best in the world. I know that now, and all the manipulation of figures by sharp practice accountants in Whitehall will not change that view. I am beyond caring or believing.
Westminster, Neil, et Al are all parasites living off the life blood of their countrymen.
Jobsworths all.
The discredited Andrew Neil exposed yet again on WOS as a liar.
The BBC has absolutely no credibility employing liars like Neil.
Neil probably believes what he says. He will have done very little personal research because doing so might expose him to reality.
It’s a parallel universe for those in Greater Englandshire. They have their own set of beliefs. Facts and truths are constructed without foundation. Always best just to stick to that establishment world view. That’s the safe option. His pay cheque proves this to be so.
In the real world, flawed GERS only proves how badly Scotland performs within the Union.
One thing that seriously pisses me off, is why haven’t the SNP employed forensic accountants to carry out an analysis and publish the findings?
There is so much evidence. The latest piece by Common Space on whisky. Turns out that exports have a stated sales price per bottle of £3.33. Valued at just under £4bn. If they used the correct sales price of circa £20, that would produce a value of £25bn.
From the Scottish Gvoernment White Paper on Independence “Scotland’s Future”, so often misquoted or quoted out of context out of misrepresentative people like Andrew Neil and others:
“The starting point for this analysis is the National Statistics publication, Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS). GERS is the authoritative publication on Scotland’s public finances.
GERS provides estimates of the tax revenue generated in Scotland and the public spending undertaken for Scotland within the current constitutional framework (23)
23
In estimating total public spending undertaken for Scotland, GERS includes all spending undertaken directly for Scottish residents and businesses by every tier of government, including the Westminster and Scottish Governments and Scottish Local Authorities. This includes a share of UK wide public spending which cannot be easily identified as benefiting any one specific part of the country. For example, Scotland is allocated a population share of UK defence expenditure, on the basis that all areas of the UK benefit equally from such spending. Further information is available from http://www.scotland.gov.uk/gers”
I’ve saved this bit so fed up am I of dwnloading the flaming paper, searching and cutting and pasting and often reformattive, there you go, saved for posterity – or the “posteriors” who like to lie and misrepresent.
What did Scotland do to Mr Neil, for him to so hate the country of his birth,
A Tory from Paisley? I think he had a disturbed childhood.
And not only that, they make my typing go beresk, bar stewards.
Taping the BBC Scotland documentary on the PFI schools debacle to watch later.
I wonder how far in before the SNP will get the blame?
galamcennalath at 7.13
Exactly. If the GERS figures are an accurate representation of the Scottish economy they are a compelling reason for independence.
I have no idea why we waste time arguing about them.
They just suggest that the union has reduced our economy to basket case.
How can the ebc justify the disgusting salary of a man who doesn’t know what he’s talking about?
Still, at least there’s no grey area where Oor Andra is concerned. When we’re independent, we’ll know whose side he’s on, and it’s not ours!
Anyone who’d lie to his own country for a shilling just isn’t Scottish, therefore better down there out of our gene pool!
Hey Brillo, you still sniffing the glue that keeps your rug in place.
How much does Cuprinol bunnet get paid for being useless?
Expect Dipity Deadwood to come out supporting him with big words like autonomous and progressive.(Broken record on Shortbread this morning)
I honestly find some of the financial stuff goes over my head, but then I do not get paid for allegedly knowing about it.
This is the “quality”!? your licence fee pays for.
Stu, your a very naughty cybernat. Love old brillo though, he has two weetabix everyday, eats one and puts the other one on his head. Sometimes the old wans are the best.
Andrew Neil
NEXT!
When Andrew was a lad in school and they asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up his answer was English but when that never materialised his hatred for his country grew and grew until it could be contained no longer and one night after too much Blue Nun had been consumed he fell into a deep torpor and when he awoke he had changed and become “Journo frizzman” Super Villain
scourge of all affairs Scottish
Unfortunately he had no alter ego to rely on thus was easily recognisable to all on sight and especially sound, for try as he might he had not the talent or ability to remove his hated Scottish accent which made him a pretty incompetent super villain really but he plowed on with his dastardly plan regardless, to ingratiate himself amongst the English and to bring misinformation and lies and place them before the people of Scotland in the hope of at least persuading them to be English but sadly for Andrew this has not had the effect he had hoped and has led to him being a subsequently diminished figure both in the land of his birth and his chosen country Great Englandshire
All of which points to the fact that he is pretty pish at being a supervillain and on behalf of his adopted country will they stiil need him, will they still feed him when he’s out the door
Ba boom boom ting!
@
HandandShrimp says:
22 August, 2016 at 7:18 pm
What did Scotland do to Mr Neil, for him to so hate the country of his birth,
Margaret Thatcher?
I wonder if that Neil fella still reckons Scotland has suffered no real terms cuts? 😉
Ah’ll get ma bunnet.
Something just occurred to me …
GERS would not be the starting position for iScotland. As oft discussed, there are assets to divide or be compensated for, there will be lower defence costs, and we probably will accept little or no debt. And, that’s just for starters.
HOWEVER, people should be aware that GERS is probably close to the starting position for FFA/DevoMax where we would still be expected take our population share of debt payments and defence costs.
Never forget, Oor Andra is a Paisley Buddie, who attended Paisley Grammar School.
When I worked in Paisley, great place, full of great people by the way, I was assured that Paisley was run by what is called: “The Camphill Mafia” – ie, former pupils of Camphill High School. The way they do this is, they have always allowed the Old Grammarians to THINK they are running Paisley, but have ignored everything the OGs have suggested or tried.
So, having spent his formative years thinking he was someone special, but being ignored, Andra has a huge chip on his shoulder. Add the fact, he is a Tory and, as you can see, he’s a puir wee soul.
The other well-known Old Grammarian I can think of is Fred Goodwin – “Fred the Shred”, a wee ned from Ferguslie Park. Goodwin and Neil, what a pair of pillocks that school has inflicted on us.
ronald alexander mcDonald
Agree with your post. The SNP should vigorously distance itself from the GERS figures citing their origins ie the Treasury [Westminster} and do it with some assertion and not in a dreary monotone way that they seem to favour.
I have also thought it strange that they are not engaging their own group of economists to counter said GERS.
Oh dear, the yesperado elite are out in force tonight.
@yesindyref2, @Dave McEwan Hill, no @heedtracker or @ken500 yet but I’m sure they’ll be along soon.
You have all absolutely convinced yourselves that these reports *must* be wrong, there is “hidden” revenue and “exagerated” expenditure.
So let’s see how many SNP politicians come out over the next few days and categorically make the same type of statements you lot love to make.
Let’s see George Kerevan, Pete Wishart et al come out and explain away the report.
(they won’t, they can’t)
Still, it makes for such intersting reading of how far-fetched you can try to spin this. All this report does if gives license to political reporters to ask awkward questions, that’s all.
If Scotland were to become independent it would start off with a very strong revenue, no doubts about that. All that would be required would be different spending choices initially for a few years, Ireland has had to do this over the past 7 years or so and they’ve came out the other end. Why can’t an iScotland?
Although a well known Tory since his Glasgow University days, Andrew Neil makes a considerable effort to appear impartial as between Labour & Tory.
When it comes to the SNP he shows no such constraint. He will happily treat the SNP with contempt and I believe we are correct to reciprocate that contempt, for he is certainly a lost cause when it comes to assisting Scotland.
Someone on Twitter has posted a picture of what is claimed to be the accidental release of treasury figures for 1999 which shows the following receipts for UK/Scotland (I will present the Main figures only)
Customs/Excise duties: UK £ 99.2bn Scotland £13.1bn (13.3%)
Inland Revenue (taxes): UK £138.1bn Scot £16.9bn (12.3%)
Other taxation: UK £119.5bn Scot £11.2bn (9.4%)
Grand Total: UK £356.8bn Scot £41.3bn (11.6%)
Scotland receives from Treasury £12.2bn (3.4%)
Full title of the picture is:
Appendix A
UK Treasury Taxation Figures 1999
I have no idea if this is accurate, but it seems to be representative of what other independent analysts have proposed. e.g. Fraser of Allandar Institute suggested an Indy Scotland would have been £64bn to the good in 2013.
Anyone else seen this paper?
Did anyone else have the misfortune to watch the BBC “report” on PPI contracts for Scottish schools which was just broadcast on BBC Scotland? I think it has just set a new high water mark for blatant bias.
Barely a mention (if any mention at all) that these contracts were entered into by a Labour government, but many mentions of “the government” doing this, or “the government” not doing things in the best interests of the people – the obvious insinuation (for those who are not inclined to follow the history of these things) that its the current SNP government who are at fault for this mess.
Outstanding PPI contracts are being bought and sold by private companies as investment commodities, a disgraceful set of affairs to say the least, and yet the BBC still refuses to call out those who actually authorised these contracts in the first place. Biased in the extreme.
Aye – we remember Neil’s porkies for Auntie very well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzaheMHW8fs
Just can’t get away with your utter pish in the digital age, eh Mr Neil?
Wonder if you’ll storm off social media just like the other yoon big lassie’s blouses?
A Cybernat and PROUD.
It’s a great pity, that the dummies don’t do impartiality.
Macbeda says:
22 August, 2016 at 7:23 pm
“Taping the BBC Scotland documentary on the PFI schools debacle to watch later.
I wonder how far in before the SNP will get the blame?”
Hey Macbeda ,
Watch the last five minutes re ambiguous comments from female structural engineer re ‘government’ ( question being which government is she referring to, Labour/LibDem coalition, UK or current SNP one….you decide however bet BBC hope viewers decide must be current one). Also just after her comment at end there is a comment from Edinburgh couple about ‘Scottish ‘ people…..not Edinburgh people so Scottish problem equals Scottish government.My perception may be wrong but came just after structural engineer’s government comment.Then it ended.
Other than that no Jack McConnell mentioned or specific political parties just Head of Edinburgh council etc etc .Political elephant in programme…..lets not mention political parties by name….no one wants to know that now do they.
Stitch up…..no answers……….. Quelle Surprise…..investigation failed as to who is really to blame as no names mentioned other than construction company’s and offshore funds but they kinda really omitted the who.. what… why….. where and when…bit of a smokescreen really.
However very sad moment in programme re the young girl who was killed by wall falling in Edinburgh school and they spoke to her very brave mother….such a waste of a young life.I felt really sorry for her mother who was obviously still suffering from the tragic loss of her daughter.
As mr Neil and by association the BBC are the subject here try finding any reference to the labour lib dem administration who instigated PFI contracts for Schools on the BBC website, nope read it twice not a jot .
Conclusion the BBC guilty by omission yet again who would have thought it
I won’t bother wasting time watching the forthcoming white wash to be aired tonight sorry auntie we don’t f/n believe anything you broadcast.
@Colin Rippey
Hey Kevin, how’s the fiscal transfers going? Sussed it out yet?
Colin Rippey says:
22 August, 2016 at 8:15 pm
Oh dear, the yesperado elite are out in force tonight.
Hi Kevin. How’s dog food sales going? Now you’re here Kevin, you and your fellow yoonsters keep saying Scotland cant be independent with our £15-17bn deficit, that’s “arisen” but can you say why Scotland running Scotland isn’t the solution please?
And you cant say your usual, its much safer and secure in the teamGB family of nations stuff, and biggest importer of Scots goods service England wont trade with Scotland, if only because The Vow did promise devo-max. So you tories know Scotland wants it, we’re just not getting it, in this farce union where England decides for Scotland.
Mr Rippey – for your reading pleasure:
http://imgur.com/a/tNgxA
That tweet just oozes partiality and disadane for half of the Scots electorate. It also indicates how they are going to “play it”
HandandShrimp
Let me tell you, there were plenty of them at Paisley Grammar
@McDuff
What the SNP are doing is getting GERS more and more accurate years by year, breaking down the “non-attributable expenditure on behalf of Scotland by the benevolent UK Government”, and getting revenues more attributed and dis-aggregated. They are hamstrung by the Treasury’s CRA database, but are moving away from it bit by bit to make GERS more accurate and representative.
http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0050/00503375.pdf
This, incidentally, does refute the likes of Neil and Mr Average who say that GERS is authoratitive therefore accurate. It is authoratative and as accurate as possible, but is inaccurate as that consultation reply makes obvious to anyone with half a brain. Year by year it does get more accurate, and hence more a reflection of Scotland’s “Illustrative” fiscal poistion. But it’s still got a long way to go.
Die-hard Unionist agitators do have half a brain, but we don’t know who’s got it this week. Probably Brain Spinner.
Looks like BBC vote SLab Scotland’s thing on SLabour’s PFI catastrofuck is definitely not going to mention the SLab clown show.
BBC r4 teatime news tonight had a long detailed sombre thing on PFI schools falling down in their Scotland region but they also never said the sentence, “PFI schools that are now falling down in Scotland, were built by Scottish Labour, using PFI.”
Its that simple too. Another day of lying fraud, skitters out of the BBC.
I really have no time for anyone who lies about and talks down Scotland, but when they are actually born in Scotland, there is nothing more sickening.
People like Andrew Neil are a disgrace.
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/new-zealand-fears-british-invasion-as-visa-applications-spike-in-the-wake-of-brexit/ar-BBvUAZh?li=AAdeCd7&ocid=spartandhp
Thinking that with the twat Neil, NZ may still be to close to him?
Andrew Neil.
I commented on the last thread that my favourite moment from IndyRef1 was when Jeane Freeman tore him a second and third arsehole. Still great to watch …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKFjHrBa54w
… sometimes better people get the better of the wee naff!
Fun begins at 1:15
So last week we had LK on BBC about Brexit and Scotland not mentioned, this week a BBC investigation into PFI and the Labour/Lib dem coalition and labour councils not named and shamed. Oh the wonderful unbiased BBC. Information you can rely on – its not only the huffing journalists we don’t trust and can laugh at but also our ‘unbiased’ bbc.
Watched the BBC “investigation” tonight into the PFI schools contract fairly confident that there would be no serious attempt at fingering the Labour Government at Holyrood or the Labour administration in Edinburgh and so it proved.
Anytime I see Andrew Neil I think of the James Boswell protest to his mentor, “Mr Johnson, I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.”
When I was with the army, briefly, we all had to have Union Jack boxer shorts, and when we went for our army swimming test, we all had to jump off the top board in a stick as if we were exiting the plane on a jump. You had to swim like feck to get out of the way or be clobbered by the next guy jumping in. Can’t lie, it was a bloody good laugh, and good team building. It’s was 100% British is best, and you never stopped to question it. You weren’t a robot, just conditioned, and it felt rather good to be honest.
But on one occasion, after I had been away for a period of about 5 or 6 weeks beyond the reach of TV or newspapers, I didn’t even know where I was, but I came home to discover that the Bradford Football stadium fire, and also the Heysel wall collapsing had happened weeks before, and yet news of such big events hadn’t percolated down to any of us. I could strip a GPMG and put it back together blindfolded, but I never knew a thing about Bradford. This was 1985, and I was young and daft, daft enough to throw myself out a moving aeroplane, but it really hit home to me how much the army really didn’t want you thinking for yourself. None of us ever felt we were out the loop, but there was just no up to date information. We’d be told all we needed to know.
I don’t mean it in a critical way, because as soldiers, you can’t afford the niceties of non-British Brits questioning who’s orders they were following. The British Army had to be British or it couldn’t function… If that makes sense. Don’t think, just do.
What I’m trying to get at, and not very well, is that a lot of what you think, the opinions you form, are to great extent merely reflecting the company that you keep and the circumstances you find yourself to be in.
I very doubt that Mr Neil spends very much time at all in Scotland, speaking to the common man in the street and getting a handle on what they’re actually thinking. His perceptions come from researchers, spokespersons, and people lobbying some angle. That’s why he is a mile off the mark so often.
I think Neil Oliver is the same. He moves in BBC circles, and it’s reflected in the fears he sees, but fears which don’t make any sense to the rest of us. Hate fest? Where on earth does that idea have its origins? Come to my house Mr Oliver. We’ll have a wee stroll here and there, a wee chat, and you’ll see I’ve no hate for anybody. You’re wrong Mr Oliver, very wrong indeed, but it’s as simple as that. There’s no hate involved.
You can probably add Mr Torrance onto the list. He only hears what he wants to hear. Snap, crackle, pop obviously, but so much of it comes from the cosseted environment these folks are routinely exposed to.
The BBC and the like knows very well that we Independentists are a lost cause for them. For us, the spell is broken. The propaganda matters, not for us, but for those Unionist believers who only want, and need, the reassurance of hearing exactly what they want to hear.
I bet virtually every one of them, caught off guard and speaking candidly, would express the desire for the issue of Scottish Independence to simply go away. For them, it’s the dandelion in their lawn. It’s the chip in their windscreen. It’s a nuisance they don’t want to deal with. Why do we keep dragging it up?
The awkward bit, is we are just the same. It’s very difficult to gauge how objective we remain if there is no ongoing constructive dialogue with unionists, especially convertible unionists.
We shouldn’t call them Yoons. We shouldn’t ridicule them at all. We should be positive, patient, and constructive, however difficult that might be. Perhaps our best ally in all of this is the quiet drip, drip, drip of logic at work in their heads. Time is on our side.
Colin Rippey at 8.15
No, Colin Rippey. You obviously don’t actually get it.
If Scotland is an economic basket case it illustrates very clearly indeed that the union is very bad for us.
Any deficit (and deficits are entirely notional) is the result of the Scottish economy being trapped inside a failing and contracting UK economy which is bust and struggling to operate with a debt that is all but unsustainable.
And your suggestion is? Let’s just have more of the same. Hip hip
“Paisley for great musicians & fannies!”
Hear this guy talk about Kezia. I just love this guy, absolute class. The artist taxi driver strikes back LOL. Good on you mate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMr-HsiAYJ0
Salmond on RT NOW
brillo pad, wheatabix, trump without volume or merely andrew neil, brit nat hack, never lets the truth get in the way of a good story.
His and his employer’s behaviour says all you need to know of the people in charge at the bbc.
Dan Hull ‘He is a disgrace to Scotland.’ He is all a disgrace to my old school (he was the year ahead of me) but so was Fred ‘the Shred’.
Re;Breeks@9.19pm
I would be a bit less inclined to excuse those who do down Scotland, who do down Scotland’s democratically elected government at every opportunity, and who do down and ridicule much of Scotland’s population on a daily basis. This is all to pander to the well established, but mythical idea that Scotland is a basket case without UKOK.
We have the measure of things now, we are not stupid and not willing to put up with the day in day out pap from these state sponsored, biased to the core media.
There is no lack of independence supporters who would only be too willing to engage in ‘constructive dialogue’ if only the unionists would reciprocate.
There is a reason, or rather many reasons why they do not. They attack, ridicule, undermine, lie by ommission even, and we are sick of it. That is why we come to WoS. It’s a sort of, debriefing, so that we can stay sane in all this unionist madness, with their constant barrage of attacks on Scotland and the chosen government by a majority of the people.
Unionists do not do ‘constructive dialogue’ in general, that is up to us to get the facts out there to the ‘convertible’ unionists.
How anyone can support a destructive, backward looking government, ie UKgov, who siphon off Scotland’s riches however, is a tad difficult to understand.
i regard Andra Neil as no more than a time-serving old buffer – Yes Boss, no Boss obedience to the agenda of bright young thingys at BBC London.
Now think, when did he ever come out with a thought-provoking question? He ain’t no political/economic analyst. He is no more than a frontman for a pseudo current affairs stall/show. And of course there has to be a po-faced, no-cleavage female companion on the stall/show too, for gravitas. It really is so corny.
And finally. Paisley Grammar, Camphill, why no mention of my school,The John Neilson Institute? You can still see it on the Paisley skyline, a pineapple with a saucer on top. I hated my time there, bullying dictatorial teachers.
@yesindyref2
Hey Kevin, how’s the fiscal transfers going? Sussed it out yet?
No idea what you’re going on about, is this one of your wee boy attempts at semantic deflection like the time you pasted in the definition of the word if?
@heedtracker
Greetings heedtracker, apologies for earlier I had missed your first post. See you’ve still got your keverage fetish going on, and it looks like @yesindyref2 has become your partner in calamity commenting. Nice to see you’re getting into the Olympic spirit with teamGB instead of UKOK but I suspect it won’t last.
@Dave McEwan Hill
Scotland an economic basket case? That’s what you think? Why? Scotland has a tremendous revenue compared to other nations. It’s only expenditure that has to be looked at, that’s all.
OT “A Love letter to Scotland from an EU immigrant”
Worth a read.
With everything I hear about Brexit, it only gets more and more complex.
None of this is of our making. It is nothing more than a power struggle within the Tory party gone completely and totally and utterly out of control. People say Labour’s power struggles are causing harm …. they will never ever cause as big a mess as the Tory fiasco.
http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2016/08/22/a-love-letter-to-scotland-from-an-eu-immigrant/
@Proud Cybernat
Nice meme, but what do you think is in the mythical hidden accounts that the Scottish Government statisticians don’t know?
What revenue do you think is hidden?
What expenditure do you think is exaggerated?
At least with expenditure we can all agree there’s a few £billiion of apportioned defence spending to come off as an iScotland would not be spending 2% of GDP on defence.
What else? Give me plain, simple examples. It does amaze me that for what will be the fourth year on the trot the GERS report will report a perceived defecit if circa 7-9% GDP that there are still some believers on here who just “know” it’s all fake and bogus. And yet there’s no SNP MSP or MP who’s willing to publicly state the GERS report is wrong, why is that?
No excuse for BBC not to mention this which is in public record.
The idea of private finance initiatives – in which public sector bodies pay private companies or consortiums to build and manage new facilities – was introduced by John Major’s Tory government but massively expanded by New Labour in the decade from 1997, and championed by Gordon Brown and embraced by former First Minister Jack McConnell in Scotland.
There were 80 projects completed in Scotland between 1993 and 2006 which still have contracts being paid for by the taxpayer, according to statistics published by the Treasury last month.
The estimated annual unitary charges – which are repaid by the public sector to cover the cost of everything from maintenance of buildings to payment of interest – adds up to a staggering £30.2 billion with contracts which extend for as long as 35 years.
The figure is more than five times the £5.6 billion initial costs associated with constructing and opening the buildings.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14432710.__30_billion__The_cost_of_Labour_s_toxic_PFI_legacy_to_Scotland/?ref=twtrec
Remind Yoons of this the next they want more money sopent on education or health as PFI repayments are a drain on our local councils and health boards.
Help a poor ignorant Scot living elsewhere, please!
What does “GERS” stand for? Up until today, I fancied it might be a contraction of the name of the Rev’s favourite football club. 🙂
How, if at all, is it pronounced? “Jerrs”? “Gurrs”? Someway else?
Thanks!
@ Alan Mackenzie
Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland
(By the time this post appears, 20 other people will have told you the same thing, but if I don’t post it, no-one will.)
I try to give our team at Holyrood as much room as possible to act on our behalf. They have demonstrated great skill and competency….BUT why do they permit this gross distortion of data to be used to attack the Indepence cause? The fact that they do not issue a clear rejection of the lies enables the unionist media to imply acceptance and therefore validity.
I am at a loss to understand the meek approach which enables this club to be used so frequently by Neil and others…WHY the silence?
O/T but stunning
In response to the UEFA charge against Celtic because of their supporters flying the Palestinian flag supporters opened a crowdfunder to raise money for Palestinian charities.They set a target of £20,000 this morning . It’s now at £65,000 and rising by the minute. Stan Collymore has just dropped £100 in. They have amended it to target £75,000. I think it will pass the £100,000 mark.
Here is part of the statement
At the Champions League match with Hapoel Beer Sheva on 17 August 2016, the Green Brigade and fans throughout Celtic Park flew the flag for Palestine. This act of solidarity has earned our club respect and acclaim throughout the world. It has also attracted a disciplinary charge from UEFA, which deems the Palestinian flag to be an ‘illicit banner’
In response to this petty and politically partisan act by European football’s governing body, we are determined to make a positive contribution to the game and today launch a campaign to #matchthefineforpalestine. We aim to raise £75,000 which will be split equally between Medical Aid Palestine (MAP) and the Lajee Centre, a Palestinian cultural centre in Aida Refugee Camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem. From our members’ experiences as volunteers in Palestine we know the huge importance of both organisations’ work and have developed close contacts with them.
MAP is a UK-based charity which delivers health and medical care to Palestinians worst affected by conflict, occupation and displacement. Working in partnership with local health care providers and hospitals, MAP provides vital public health and emergency response services. This includes training and funding a team of Palestinian surgeons and medics to treat and operate on those affected by the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip.
The BBC. What more need I say? Within a minute or two of talking about BA2016 with its gold nose, they’re going on again about how shit Brazil is, Rio, gangs, violence, poverty, councils and towns with no money, the Olymics have done nothing for a country that is no good for anything. They should see how much the Olymics did for London and shut the f up. The BBC are so stuck on themselves they never need superglue.
@Colin Rippey
Mum’s the word, if you don’t want to reveal your secret it’s safe with me Kevin.
Oops.
@Colin Rippey says: 22 August, 2016 at 8:15 pm:
” … You have all absolutely convinced yourselves that these reports *must* be wrong, . is “hidden” revenue and “exagerated” expenditure.”
Utter Pish! Colin. What’s more you know it full well.
The claim is NOT about hidden revenue or exaggerated expenditure and it never has been. There is nothing hidden whatsoever.
It is all there for anyone who cares to check on it to see. That is anyone but total idiots like yourself, Colin.
For example are you really attempting to say all Scottish produced goods that leave the United Kingdom via English ports, the Chunnel or via English airports are not classified as Exports from England? It is all there, black upon white, in ONS figures.
Tell me, Colin, where does Diagio export Scotch Whisky from? Not to mention Gin and other Scottish booze that Diagio deals in.
Then we have oil & Gas revenues – are you really attempting to deny that between 95$ and 98% of oil & gas revenues is gained from Scottish territorial waters?
Then there is the Scottish Crown Estate profits – these are quite obviously Scottish but were taken away from Scotland in the 1800s and rolled into the English Crown Estates.
Like much else that is common United Kingdom property, (and the United Kingdom is a bipartite union of only the kingdoms of Scotland and England), idiots, and you Colin are one such, along with the ONS who account them as such, assume that common UK assets are England only assets but they legally are not.
Another such is the assets of the Bank of England, a company that has never, in its entire existence, ever belonged to England, (either country or kingdom). It remained an independent company until 1946 when it was nationalised by the UK government. Now excuse me if I’m wrong but is not 1946 rather a long time after the signing of the bipartite Treaty of Union?
Then again, Colin, are you really so much of a numptie that you do not know the UK charges the Scottish generators of electric power a premium on every kilowatt of power they add to the national Grid while at the same time subsidises the south of England generators.
Colin, you are worse than a fool for a fool simply does not know but you, Colin do know, don’t you? Or are you going to tell us you are just a fool and don’t know the facts?
So which is it, Colin. Are you just an ignorant fool who simply doesn’t know – or are you worse than a fool and do know but will not ever admit it?
Why do you waste our time, and yours, by posting utter pish on WoS? You achieve nothing as you cannot actually convince yourself you are right so what chance do you have of convincing WoS commenters?
@crazycat
Beat me to it. There’s a surprise 🙂
@Colin Ripley –
And yet there’s no SNP MSP or MP who’s willing to publicly state the GERS report is wrong, why is that?
It’s one thing to think your neighbours wife is ugly Colin but quite another thing to come out and say it 🙂
“It’s only expenditure that has to be looked at, that’s all.”
Exactly. Let’s start with infrastructure projects of national importance around London.
Colin Rippoff: “There’s no SNP MSP or MP who’s willing to publicly state the GERS report is wrong, why is that?”
That is a lie. Nevertheless…
We don’t have access to the source material. It’s kept locked away in the UK Treasury.
That’s how you keep a colonised nation dumb. You don’t let them see what’s in your bank account – Scotland’s earnings in full included – so when Scots suggest their allowance is mean spirited, you can claim times are hard.
And if they complain you can accuse them of a breakdown of trust, and looking to pick a fight with Westminster.
But its author, Ian Lang, seller of a nation, admitted it was deliberately concocted as obfuscation, so that Scots could not verify its accuracy.
Next dumb question, Bozzo.
@crazycat
Now I know.
Thanks!
Colin Rippey
You’re not really Mr. H @ the BBC, are you? Doesn’t really matter as mince is mince. While you’re here though, gonna share your insight into the semiotic theory of space and place, please?
Glenn 8:29pm
“many mentions of “the government” doing this, or “the government” not doing things in the best interests of the people – the obvious insinuation (for those who are not inclined to follow the history of these things) that its the current SNP government who are at fault for this mess.”
I would say this is reinforced by the fact that the Lab/Lib coalition did not refer to itself ever as “Government”- they were always the “Scottish Executive”. There has obviously been much discussion before the programme on how to avoid slab getting the blame and to leave viewers to draw their own conclusions.
By not making the link and inviting comment from politicians involved in pursing this private finance method of building and refurbishing schools the BBC have failed in its duty. But then that depends what you consider the BBC’s duty to be of course.
We have a media that whitewashes not just the extortionate, incompetent and unsafe PFI schools programme but grand tory election fraud, paedophilia, war crimes and the vast transferal of public funds into private hands, the power to oppose almost single handed our country’s aspiration to stay in the EU and become an independent country. We have a big fucking problem.
And these bastards think Daisley getting his knuckles wrapped is a scandal….
Dave MH@10.29
Thanks for that info, a friend told me earlier today about the fund raiser.
He also said Ajax fly the Star o Dave and never seem to get any bother.(it high time the World stood up to the aggressors, Israel has played the poor innocent suffering Jew card too many times). NO MORE
Anyone in the Inverness area, there are 2 more films still to be shown in the Highland Palestine Film Festival.
Thursday 25th August@8.15 Eden Court, and Sunday28th@7.15 again at Eden Court.
The ones shown so far have given a real insight to life for a Nation that has been refugee status since 1940s.
Israel should hang its head in shame along with America and the Empire.
@heedtracker
Greetings heedtracker, apologies for earlier I had missed your first post. See you’ve still got your keverage fetish going on
Its one of my many Kevin. Once again though, you’ve dodged very simple questions about the Scottish economic future in and out of this union. But that’s ok Kevin, online yoon culture doesn’t do debate.
Anyway Kevin, as you know, whole point of this one WoS post seems to be about what a liar the Ligger is, on the public purse, not whether GERS is factual or not. All the figures are made up by Office for National Statistics (ONS) and HM Treasury Kevin, not your fabled Scottish government statisticians.
But we all have to vent a bit dont we Kevin. Its just, you’re strange, sometimes creepy desperation to seek out and ridicule YES voters who might not know all the GERS details what you understand, turn into daft graphs, and that will save the UK, is rather silly.
We get it Kevin, you think that GERS is accurate, and you’re the cleverest tory unionist in the whole wide UKOK world.
Well, one of the things the Scottish Government could do is add some explanatory notes to GERS, as to whether or not the methodology could make a difference to end totals.
For instance from http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0049/00495355.pdf: “Alcohol excise duty is a flat-rate duty on alcoholic beverages. Duty on spirits is calculated per litre of pure alcohol; cider, perry, wine and made wine are dutied in bands of alcoholic strength and calculated by volume”
but from https://www.gov.uk/guidance/spirits-duty: “Spirits Duty is payable on any spirits, or any mixture or combination of spirits with anything else, at a strength of more than 1.2% alcohol by volume (ABV).
Spirits are liable for Spirits Duty as soon as they have been manufactured. . . .
Duty doesn’t have to be paid to HMRC immediately. If you move the spirits directly to an excise warehouse that’s approved to hold spirits in duty suspension, you can suspend payment of Spirits Duty.
Duty becomes payable when the spirits pass a duty point. This is generally when they leave duty suspension for release onto the UK market or when they’re consumed.
. . . The current rate of Spirits Duty is £27.66 per litre of pure alcohol.”
So if the distillery is in Scotland, but the bonded warehouse is in England, perhaps at a bottlers, that duty isn’t attributed to Scotland, but the attribution for it is on the 9.7% consumption basis estimated for Scotland.
What I want is a note on this, along with an estimate of the duty that WOULD be attributed to Scotland if paid in Scotland, and a reconciliation between this figure and the 9.7% household consumption estimate.
It’s very annoying.
Its obvious that the SNP control STV output.
Just watched “I’m Team GB aren’t you”? advert
O/T
Link to Celtic-Palestine fundraiser for anyone interested
https://www.gofundme.com/matchfinepalestine
@Robert Peffers
Oh forgot about you, and I was watching a clip from The Life of Brian earlier too.
So, you believe that GERS does not correctly attribute corporation tax from Diageo? That’s what you believe? GERS reports REVENUE not EXPORTS, it attributes corporation tax based on the economic activity that generated it – but let’s not let the yesperado meme of “exports from English ports” get in the way of a good old fashioned deflection.
Oil & Gas, I suppose you being “some guy on the Internet” makes you more of an authority than the GERS methodology used to apportion aporox 83% of all UK Oil & Gas revenue (but quick, trot out the “Tony Blair stole our territorial waters” meme).
As for the crown estate and the bank of England, pray tell how much revenue is hidden here.
You’re a meme machine, I’m surprised you’ve not trotted out your Roman Rhapsody yet.
Oh dear,
Colin, errr, PhilKevin Average does leave himself open. With a comment “the SNP’s fiscal commission working group clearly thought GERS figure were pretty useful” he shows an image of the FCWG macroeconomic report, with 8.17 and the full section on Tax Revenue and Public Spending.The 8.17 gives a clue: “8.17
It does however provide a useful indication of the relative strength of the public finances under the current framework and a starting point for discussions of Scotland’s fiscal position. ”
But for some odd misrepresentative reason he omits to include:
“8.16
As GERS takes the current constitutional framework as given, it is limited in what it can and cannot say about independence. Post-independence, not only will the fundamental structures of the Scottish economy (such as economic incentives and expectations) be subject to change, but the basic tax and spending choices of an independent nation may also differ. In addition, particular expenditure commitments – such as debt interest payments – may be subject to negotiation.”
I’m sure young Master Average isn’t trying to deceive by selective quoting as just about every Unionist activist on the planet does, so perhaps it’s just because he doesn’t, indeed, have the half a brain this week.
@Croompenstein
It’s one thing to think your neighbours wife is ugly Colin but quite another thing to come out and say it ?
Well…I guess I’m now telt lol.
Kirsty Wark just describe Dugdale as a “big hitter,” for gawds sake, on her BBC we hate JC dont we show just there. Kirsty’s got a lot more big hitterising in the BBC than poor old Kez.
I keep a beady glaring eye open, by the way, on Unionist ramblings and mutterings, and their latest fantasy is what they call “GERS denial”. Supposedly this is “Nats” claiming that GERS is rubbish, that it isn’t accurate, that it was originated by Ian Lang when Devolution reared its ugly head in the 90s again after having been put down in the late 70s, to show how dependent Scotland was on the UK, and a lot of other things.
The thing is firstly that GERS is supposed to be an illustrative balance sheet of Scotland if we were Independent, but is nowhere near even in its year by year depictions, for all the reasons of accuracy of estimates, and even the methodology which changes (improves) year by year.
Secondly the rest is true, except that it isn’t rubbish, it is very useful, indeed as a “starting point”.
“GERS denial” indeed!
Colin Rippey says:
22 August, 2016 at 11:13 pm
@Robert Peffers
Oh forgot about you, and I was watching a clip from The Life of Brian earlier too
You forgot me too Kevin. Kevin why do you think that England wont give Scotland devo-max?
As a tory unionist, do you think Scotland should have devo-max?
Or, ff NOT Scots oil and gas industry is actually worthless now, why wont England give up control of it to Scotland and Holyrood?
Cant make it much simpler Kevin.
@yesindyref2
What I want is a note on this, along with an estimate of the duty that WOULD be attributed to Scotland if paid in Scotland, and a reconciliation between this figure and the 9.7% household consumption estimate.
Here we go again, another post of yours that COMPLETELY obsfucates the revenue generated by alcohol duty. GERS is supposed to present revenue were Scotland independent from the rUK.
What on earth has alcohol duty levied in England got to do with a perceived revenue an iScotland would receive? An iScotland would receive ZERO revenue from alcohol duty levied in England and yet here you go again trying to feed the masses more memes.
This is the same round the houses rubbish you spouted about a year ago, you had no answer then either.
People on here go on about Billboards to get the message out. Well here is a perfect time to do it. Get the Billboards up now to show that Andrew Neil is a Liar. Before he gets the Chance to Rubbish Scotland on Wednesday. Billboards with Neils Face And his Tweet. Then the Data Source. Strike before the Iron gets hot.
With regard to GERS it seems as if no real economist will even bother with the ridiculous KH interpretations. He is like those people who become self taught ‘experts’ on vaccination or climate change – no real expert will even bother to expend the energy debunking them because they have got it so hopelessly out of context. They then believe they are right.
Listening to Kezia Dugdale it is clear she has been told to constantly refer to her own personal journey from Loserville to How To Win. She has been groomed and coached to string the same wheezy sound bites over and over again.
Would be handy to have a modern ragmans roll of those who are no friend to Scotland. Maybe a wee clicky icon on the web site.
@Albert Herring
Exactly. Let’s start with infrastructure projects of national importance around London
It’s a memetastic night in WoS, we might get through all the yesperado memes in one post.
What expenditure in GERS is for infrastructure projects around London? There’s plenty to choose from, what do you want to offer up? Tell us the figures apportioned in GERS for what projects? Is it in the £billions?
@ heedtracker says
Aye Newsnight also had online editor of The Canary on for her bit on MSM treatment of Jeremy Corbyn.
I look forward to Rev Stu appearing on BBC Scotland politics programme on MSM treatment of Indy / SNP / Sturgeon.
Oh wait in this One Party State the BBC don’t have any Scottish political debate .. just read out Labour / Tory Press releases “SNP accused…..”
I’d rather be a Cyber Nat than a Brillo Nut.
Brillo Heid was of course the chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students way back in 1971, and he has gained great wealth by waving the blue Tory flag for the best part of 50 years.
Sod the land of his birth when it comes to him pocketing £Millions from BBC Bias contracts.
Might even squeeze him in the House of Lords befor he turns 70?
How nice for us to have another Brit Nut parasite to support for corruption and distortion above and beyond the call of booty.
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/independent-enquiry-into-bbc-bias-regards-scottish-independence-referendum
@heedtracker
Or, ff NOT Scots oil and gas industry is actually worthless now, why wont England give up control of it to Scotland and Holyrood
The answer is simple, the people of Scotland did not vote for that. That’s the answer, plain and simple. Why can’t you accept that?
The political season’s starting to get into full swing now we’ve got the GERS nonsense coming, Kezia’s back so that’ll be 24 hour Labour party in the media from now on,and that old movie “Return of the Trolls” will be appearing on every website
Funny isn’t it though the party with one MP with no leader that any of them wants that came third in the Scottish elections will get more airtime than all the rest of the political parties put together and it’s only because the Greens didn’t have enough candidates or Labour might have even come fourth but still in the Scottish media Labour are the most important party in the known universe
Particularly when you’re STV and John McKay who says to Kezia Dugdale things like “with respect” when the stupid woman clearly deserves no respect whatsoever, politeness OK but respect, for what? being a total and complete wrong person on everything that dribbles out of her mouth followed by a reversal shortly afterwords qualified by a “That’s what I’ve always believed” the next day
This constant bombardment of Labour on our screens and in the newspapers is now set to continue until the media hope we all give up the will to live or take our own lives in frustration
Is this what Scottish politics is now a constant tirade of SNP Baad and we want them dead with no reason no rationale no balance just them and us in the last round of the big fight with both combatants slugging it out throwing bombs at each other hoping for the knockout
Labour party policy: We don’t care about the electorate, we don’t care what you vote, we don’t care what you want, we don’t care about anything except what WE want and if we can’t get it one way or the other we’ll change the rules and keep changing the rules until we do
Another Union Dividend says:
22 August, 2016 at 11:39 pm
@ heedtracker says
BBC’s definitely getting worse by the day. It’s probably Brexit and Get Corbyn fever setting in, with their ongoing SNP bad/dont exist dragged alongside. That Yelland o the Sun git was left to waffle away by Wark in the worst BBC tory way possible and their whole Rio 2016 thing on how teamGB shows how Brexit will be a fantastic British triumph was a very UKOK tory mental. How much money have they thrown at English football, to see them losing to Iceland. All of its Liggeresque BBC tory propaganda though. It’s us or them now.
@Colin Rippey
Thanks for the laughs. You and I know that the people of Scotland voted No eh! What won’t the bastard 45% just accept that and get back in their box? After all we won didn’t we?
Beats me so it does. Those nasty Nats just won’t lie down. Infuriating so it is hahahaha.
Can I repeat. Let’s waste little time arguing about a fantasy deficit that would be the result of a Scottish economy trapped in bust UK economic model.
What we have to do is to establish with the man in the street that a deficit is not a debt. He thinks it is and that’s why they are rabbiting on about it.
FFS its over £71,000 now for Palestine and lots of bears have been chipping in
@Dave McEwan Hill
I agree. There should be complete and utter silence over the GERS figures on Wednesday. No reaction, no rising to the bait. Nothing. They are meaningless.
Ripey’s Believe It or Not. For me, it’s not.
If anyone is still up a very good and well observed point made by someone earlier on forgive me for not mentioning your name but many so many posts to read through it would take ages , anyway it was regarding the PFI schools whitewash on the BBC propaganda show , namely the Name of our administration i believe i am right in thinking Lab/Libdem never refered to themselves anything other than the scottish executive and never as now the Scottish Government a small insight to the way the BBC subtly twists opinion and as usual tries to implicate the present scottish government , with no mention of Labour Tory or Lib dem involvement in any bad news
@ Colin Rippey
It has been explained to you that the Gers figures derive from the UK financial state apparatus ONS and HM Treasury.
This you can’t dispute.
Whether they truly reflect Scotland’s finances is another matter.You I or the SNP can’t know that.
One thing I do know.
The UK Gov are not honest brokers in any of their business.Ireland,India,Kenya,Iraq,Dolphin Square,BBC Jimmy Saville etc etc.Untrustworthy would be an understatement.
The day they,their media acolytes and opportunistic social climbers start agitating for Scottish Independence saying we are worthy of self determination,then I might take notice of what they are saying.
Regarding ‘Its only expenditure that has to be looked at’.
That’s not true either.
Ireland’s economy has grown exponentially as well as cutting public spending in the last 7 years.
Ever heard of growing the cake.
As an Independent country we can increase revenues as well as tweak expenditure.
The big news in Scotland this week is that there has been a shortage of butterflies this summer, probably because of the damp weather, and a penguin in Edinburgh Zoo has been honoured by the Norwegian Army. These are the Big Stories covered by BBC News Where We are.
Kaye Adams cooed about the ‘Fabulousness’ of Team GB 4 times in as many minutes, and reminded us that ‘all eyes’ were on Tokyo in four years time, and that it has been a ‘fabulous Team GB Britain, being hailed as a Superpower.’
And that’s just the bit I listened to like a startled headlight coming across a frightened Unionist rabbit in the night.Let’s say that BBC averaged 10 million a show at Rio over the past 2 weeks. That means 55 million like me did not tune in at all. ‘All eyes’? Aye, right.
Her show on BBC Radio News Where You Are was so well researched that she could not say how much of the hundreds of millions of Olympic money was donated by the Lottery, and how much of my money by HMG; nor wha the financial subsidy cut off point was to millionaire Sooperstars.
The hour long documentary on Gordon Brown’s PFI scandal (he’s been well rewarded by the Money Men now) would of course not cover the corruption of New Labour at local, and UK level.
The Winston Smith school of airbrushing.
The BBC makes no bones now about being the Propaganda Wing of a Totalitarian State. Dave Davis, Liam Fox, Hilary Benn, Owen Smith, are interchangeable Neo liberal warmongering Right Wing conservatives. They are carpetbaggers, the political wing of Big Business and hedge fund money.
Andrew Neil is merely mouthing his Masters’ words.
Fuck you, Scotland.
Hatred of one’s country must be a terrible thing.
The GERS Report in acknowledged biased fiction.
Another Urban myth is the nonsense that 63% of out trade is with England, and that if we ‘leave’, England will cease to trade with us.
I ask, from where does this mystical 63% figure come?
If Scottish Farmers, distillers, fisher folk, and so on sell produce to Asda, Tesco, or Morrisons, and Scottish customers buy Scottish eggs, beef, whisky, and cheese, do profits from such internal trading and selling count as exports to England, since the supermarkets hang out their shingles in London Town? Is this us ‘trading with England’?
It is a fact that UK companies based in England do not even bother attempting to separate the Scottish revenue of their business from their UK Take, and are therefore omitted from GERS, ONS, IFS, and so on, figures, forecasts etc.
Andrew Neil earns his millions slagging off Scotland. He is an Uncle Tom. He is a Southernised Anglican Gentleman: a SAG.
His tweet is a pathetic attempt to shit stir.
I cannot stand A.Neil, watched him babbling on for years, now he looks like a real aristocrat,polluted almost to bursting point.
He is also a bully, who drives whichever agenda his bosses expect of him, he truly is an ass hole of the first order, and one who thinks he is intellectual simply because he can get away with things he never should.I doubt he understands Gers,his knowledge will come from a EBC spin doctor.
I remember a real gringe moment for me, was when he came to Edinburgh just before the Indy ref, I thought I was seeing things when he was compare to a party of sorts ( do not know what to call it really). He was babbling and telling “jokes” abysmal too. All televised on EBC.
He was so out of place and was soo ludicrous, I had to turn it off, he made me feel sick, pompous prick. I hope he is reading this, and also gringes when he remembers what a twat he made of himself, he would certainly deserve to feel like that, he might want to forget but Scots who watched certainly won’t.
Since then he is looking even more polluted,great lifestyle down yonder you see.
Breeks
Your right about “yoon” not being inclusive language but I think it’s going to be tough to find a replacement that expresses the same sense of lack-of-sense inherent in hard-core British nationalists in Scotland.
Are we perhaps creating an aesthetics of language of resistance that is particular to Scotland? If so, I would suggest we look at historical examples for guidance, from all liberation movements. I would also suggest yoon is frivolously dehumanising, where as “virus” is frankly the language of supremacist intolerance.
As I keep saying though, it all boils down to semiotics, worms, ethics, habitus….. and defamiliarisation (e.g culture jaming).
Ahhh – the 1980s. Loved them years, so ah did. Watching the ‘lympic games when the communist USSR and the Eastern Block countries would pump state millions into winning a big tally of gold medals at the ‘lympic games to show the world just how great they were–even though their economies were basket cases or heading in that direction.
A bit like GBOK now, eh folks? BREXIT has fucked us good and proper but OOOOHHHHH!!!! – look at all those fucking UKOKgasmick medals.
Aren’t we just effing GREAT!!
Aye right!
Breeks
Your right about “yoon” not being inclusive language but I think it’s going to be tough to find a replacement that expresses the same sense of lack-of-sense inherent in hard-core British nationalists in Scotland.
Are we perhaps creating an aesthetics of language of resistance that is particular to Scotland? If so, I would also suggest yoon is frivolously dehumanising, where as “virus” is frankly the language of supremacist intolerance.
As I keep saying though, it all boils down to semiotics, worms, ethics, habitus….. and defamiliarisation (e.g culture jaming).
P.S.
A lack of self-awareness there perhaps?
Oops, short-term memory is a tad ropy sometimes. Soz.
@Fred
Do you mean like Neil. Or some thing usefull.
Perhaps we could replace yoon with “pimps of British nationalist ideology? 🙂
It should then be clear to No voters that we don’t lump them all together.
Perhaps we could replace yoon with “pimps of British nationalist ideology? 🙂
It should then be clear to No voters that we don’t lump them all together. Well, I’m sure most No voters would not conciously seek to suppress Scotland’s historic and cultured identity within an artificially constructed UKOK ‘meta-nationality’ and culture. One that does not respect the human rights of Scots (e.g. our rights to self-determination and development).
Perhaps we could replace yoon with “pimps of British nationalist ideology? 🙂
It should then be clear to No voters that we don’t lump them all together. Well, I’m sure most No voters would not consciously seek to suppress Scotland’s historic and cultured identity within an artificially constructed UKOK ‘meta-nationality’ and culture. One that does not respect the human rights of Scots (e.g. our rights to self-determination and development).
Very sorry, I thought I’d caught them before they had been transmitted.
Sometimes I wonder why more English folk aren’t equally pissed off with these pimps of British nationalist ideology, then I remember how colonial domination works, where real power resides in UKOK plc. and which end of the stick Scotland has been left holding.
I suppose the Edinburgh Tattoo makes up for it all though, eh Better Together?
Has anyone seen the front page of the National?
Scientists warn of Bagpipe Lung!!
Two things , one my piping dad told about this forty years ago it’s not fecking news and second , is this headline for real or is this a total piss take? .
Seriously! This is OUR national paper that supports independence ? This isn’t a mock up made by American students who think this is satirical comedy or rejects from the BBC comedy department? (Albeit early 70’s era).
Sorry guys that front page is a total insult to your intelligence if you are a free thinking independence minded Scot. It’s purpose is to ridicule and reinforce national stereotyping of the most base kind, solicit vile out pourings from ‘cybernats’ and to destroy the credibility of what I thought was a generally supportive publication.
Someone has taken leave of their senses for there is no justification for the lead story. Foul stuff indeed
I can hear the torrences and Neil’s of the world tittering into their cornflakes .
@Colin Rippey
You don’t get it, do you Kevin? Let me try in words of not too far off one symbol.
The bottle of whisky you buy from a shop has VAT, but also alcohol duty included. You, the consumer, pay for both as part of the price of the bottle of whisky, plus the cost of making, maturing and bottling it, plus a little profit for the supply chain including the shop you bought it from.
But Alcohol Duty is NOT EQUAL to VAT. VAT is charged on a bottle of whisky by the shop where the bottle of whisky is sold, and paid to the HMRC by the shop. The shop could be in Scotland of, for simplicity, in England, The VAT is charged on the nett retail price of a bottle of whisky, and is attributed to either Scotland or England, depending on where the shop atually is. The shop gets the bottle, through a supply chain, from the distiller.
Alcohol duty is payable to the HMRC (“R” is the “Revenue” and “C” is for “Customs” you see) by the distiller in ordinary circumstances. So if the whisky is distilled and bottled at the distillery (rare these days), then the distiller pays the HMRC the alcohol duty. If the distillery is in Scotland, then the duty is attributable to Scotland as revenue – customs duty on the distiller.
But if the distiller sends the whisky by tanker e.g. carried by Mundell (not that one) to a bonded warehouse (usual), then the alcohol duty is deferred, until the whisky is in a saleable form – e.g. bottled, or in a cask. The bonded warehouse could be in Scotland, in which case when the bond releases the whisky for sale after maturation, the alcohol duty of £27.66 per litre of pure alcohol – whisky say 40% by volume = £11.06 per litre of whisky is payable.
So if the bonded warehouse is in Scotland, that £11.06 per litre is attributed to Scotland, but if the bonded warehouse is in England it is attributed to England. A lot of bottlers and hence bonds are in England, for Scotch Whisky – and gin.
What needs to be confirmed is whether that alcohol duty is re-attributed to Scotland by the HMRC and / or Treasury – or not. Because if not, then it is indeed a “hidden” revenue, as GERS calculates alchohol duty on the figures for alcohol consumption in Scotland (9.7%), rather than from data about the distiller that made the whisky or gin.
Now, did you manage to borrow that half a brain and get a clue, or do you need a two by four??
Roddy nicoll
Might it be lampooning the more risible, Scottish themed publications?
Another interesting paper is this one, on the methodology involved by the HMRC in disaggreating tax receipts to Scotland:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/464199/HMRC_disaggregated_receipts_-_Methodology_Note.pdf
For instance (Coporation Tax):
“Category (ii) principally contains trading profit which makes up the vast majority of taxable profits.
. . .
Category (ii) profits are allocated to countries according to the sub-national split of enterprises’ employment totals, or to the registered office if no employment data is available.”
whereas GERS which refers to the HMRC disaggregations states: “GERS apportions a share of UK corporation tax revenues based on the economic activity undertaken in Scotland and not the location of companies’ headquarters.”
which disagrees with another point from HMRC, that cateorgy (i) profits (overseas income, interest income, income from land and property, capital gains and gains on intangible assets) are allocated to the HQ address.
It’s uncertainties like this that the Unionist activists are relying on, and interpreting completely (and dishonestly) in favour of whatever argument they want to make, rather than establishing accurately the correct position. Things like this, the Scottish Government should tackle, as it doesn’t make our job any easier.
The most credible comment I’ve seen about GERS is that it’s a pointless argument since you can use the figures to back up whatever you want to say.
For Nationalists, if GERS shows Scotland couldn’t pay its way, its an indictment of how the UK mismanages Scotlands econonmy. If GERS shows Scotland doing well, then it follows we can pay our way when independent.
For Unionists, poor GERS figures confirm how much Scotland depends on the UK for hand outs, and healthy GERS confirms how Scotland is flourishing inside the Union.
GERS says whatever you want it to say.
My problem with just accepting GERS at face value is its source. It comes from a cheating, lying, despicable thieving Westminster government which kept the McCrone report secret for decades, and is quite relaxed to sit back and watch Scotland floundering and gasping for breath in a flood of unionist propaganda while it busies itself concentrating all the UK’s wealth in the South where the richer get richer and the poor get hungry.
GERS thus stands condemned by its lack of integrity, just like the multiple right wing Tory Boy think tanks who trot out any old crap just to give the papers their daily ammunition to rubbish Scotland with a headline from some “respected” independent source.
But for me personally, GERS just doesn’t matter. Not withstanding what I’ve said above, GERS, if it reflects anything at all worthwhile, reflects Scotland being run by Westminster. For better or worse, richer or poorer, my faith lies in Scotland running her own affairs, where Scotlands interests be they greater or lesser interests, are never again compromised for the sake of this rotten, asymmetrical, dysfunctional Union.
And yes, I know some unionists are cretins who deserve to be called things a lot worse than Yoons, but adopting that kind of language is seen and read by “lesser” Yoons who might be tempted by independence but find the antipathy threatening, and their mild case of unionism becomes their settled comfort zone.
Why call somebody a wanker then ask them to listen to your opinion? Why call them a Yoon for the very same reason? These “Yoons” we disparage are the converts we are going to need for victory. We won’t get them all, but unless we stop slagging them off, we risk getting none of them.
In the land of make believe Andrew Neil has a seat at the top of the table, fables are easy to produce, facts on the other hand have no place in his domain as high and mighty executioner, cybernat or petulant brat, you chose what you would prefer, me, I will stick to reality while the gers figures can continue with lies and damned lies.
Andrew Neil is practicing exactly what many other Scots do when they find themselves settled in London: they have to put Scotland down. Otherwise their whole life story/feel good about yourself doesn’t work. They feel superior and successful for managing to get away from the northern waste land. Now if Scotland became independent, modern, fashionable and an economic success their move to London ain’t so amazing. Heard it a million times ” oh your in London now” then the Scottish-Scotland hater talks about themselves for an hour. The instant they start to slag Scotland I tell them that it is weird to hear someone talk down their own country.
Just read a tweet saying that Tesco have stopped putting the Scotland flag on their strawberries packaging due to people in England complaining. Raging. Just sent Tescos an email enquiring if this is the case.
roddy nicol
Quite agree. The National is playing soft ball with the Herald playing hard ball.
The National is NOT an independence newspaper its a cynical ploy to reap revenue from indy supporters,a read at most of its front page stories confirms this.
Get in there One Scot. As all berry pickers know there was baskets and there was buckets. That lot, Tesco are buckets. Hit them where it hurts. Remember the “dreel” chase them up it LOL.
roddy nicol, McDuff
re National
Totally agree, I will cease buying until I find genuine ‘independence’ reports and not garbage like today.
I have been somewhat sceptical lately about The National’s motives and today says enough is enough, I’m afraid.
@Alex Clark.
Nah, it wiz luggys an punnets, nay baskets. 🙂
thanks for update, tesco boycotted.
Bagpipe lung is covered in the Independent too – at least on line.
So much shite – so little bog roll.
@Juteman
I stand corrected. Shouldn’t have cracked that can earlier 😉
@Juteman
Oh and a by the way. It was luggies not luggys.
Vambomarbeleye says:
22 August, 2016 at 11:36 pm
Would be handy to have a modern ragmans roll of those who are no friend to Scotland. Maybe a wee clicky icon on the web site.”
Good idea: maybe a wee Massey Ferguson tractor with lots of black smoke going up from the exhaust?
What a GERStastic night! I think someone’s put new Duracells in Colin’s backpack. Even I understood Yesindyref2 @4.09. And doesn’t Scotland produce over 70% of gin distilled in the UK?
I hear Kezia is back to give the Kiss of Death to Owen Smith’s campaign.
“Kezia?” (inhales deeply from Passing Cloud cigarette, assumes Noel Coward voice): “Dear boy, how terribly, terribly boring….”
What a load of shite about the National front page, somebody has died from pipers lung, it is a problem & always has been. Playing the national instrument shouldn’t shorten anybody’s life. Glasgow has just hosted the World Pipe Band Championships, it’s not some minority interest, this shouldn’t be happening in this day & age. Get a life, it’s a newspaper not a party organ. Buy the fuckin Sun!
Ah Paisley! I can remember when the name was a euphemism for the withdrawal method of contraception. 🙂 Pity it wasn’t used in Andrew Neil’s case.
Wrong kind of bagpipes you see
Yet again damn it Scotland !
O/T
Lovely inspirational letter on Bella Caledonia
From a new Scot fearful of
Brexit crap
Breeks: “Why call somebody a wanker then ask them to listen to your opinion?”
It’s not the description I’d use when dismissing fools, but in any case, it depends who you’re talking to.
If they have no vote, and are resident in England yet attacking the integrity of Scotland’s right to better itself, they most definitely are bastards.
As for your incessant self-righteous, pious quibbling, go take a walk you …………….. [fill in blank].
@Breeks at 5:55 and 6:17
Enjoyed both of your posts above, especially the point about not alienating unionists.
Aggressiveness is never going to win anyone over to the YES side, and it’s time everyone campaigning for independence started viewing everyone who has a vote as a potential YES-voter.
The colonial media like to talk anout GERS rather a lot (anything to try to get Scotland back in its box–how we laughed). But they seem to be overlooking the bigger picture somewhat:
http://imgur.com/a/zfR1F
@yesindyref2
What needs to be confirmed is whether that alcohol duty is re-attributed to Scotland by the HMRC and / or Treasury – or not. Because if not, then it is indeed a “hidden” revenue, as GERS calculates alchohol duty on the figures for alcohol consumption in Scotland (9.7%), rather than from data about the distiller that made the whisky or gin.
GERS attempts to present the revenue and expenditure of an independent Scotland.
In the event of Scotland being independent from rUK any whisky would be EXPORTED from Scotland to rUK – at that point there would be NO revenue generated from alcohol duty when the whisky was sold to a customer in rUK.
So you are inventing another meme all to yourself here, a meme whereby (somehow) the alcohol duty levied by an rUK government would end up being revenue for an iScotland.
And yet you *still* believe that an iScotland would receive the alcohol duty don’t you?
Explain the following breakdown of how alcohol duties would be generated.
In a parallel universe Scotland voted Yes in Sep 2014 and today I am in England and I walk into a shop and buy a bottle of Champagne, a bottle of Polish Vodka, a bottle of Irish Whiskey, and a bottle of Glenmorangie.
So I made a purchase of around £100, and there’s been four separate bits of alcohol duty levied against the price I’ve paid at the till (let’s say for simplicity’s sake it’s £10 each bottle).
Does the French government receive any of the revenue from the alcohol duty on the Champagne?
Does the Polish government receive any of the revenue from the alcohol duty on the Polish Vodka?
Does the Irish government receive any of the revenue from the alcohol duty on the Irish Whiskey?
Does the Scottish government receive any of the revenue from the alcohol duty on the Glenmorangie?
Your contention above is that the Scottish Government WOULD receive revenue from alcohol duty on the sale of Glenmorangie. Perhaps you can explain how this would occur, where would the alcohol duty kick in in terms of money changing hands between the whisky distillery and the end customer in a shop?
At the till?
When the shop purchased the whisky from a wholesaler?
When the wholesaler imported the whisky from an iScotland?
Where would this alcohol duty be levied so that an iScotland government would receive the revenue from it.
You cannot explain this because it does not exist,
@Dorothy Devine
Slow news day right enough.
Never mind, the usual suspects will roll out their disingenuous GERS pish this week and clain ‘wur awe doomed’, because OIL n’ black hole n’ borrowing n’ debt.
Its pish and we know its pish before it even leaves the starting gate. We know the historic and actual use of the GERS figures, where the figures originate from and what they actually constitute. The state of Scotland within the union under Westminster’s economic model and management. I reckon we could do better personally, because we certainly couldn’t fuck up an economy much worse than that system has. However, some fearful types out there can’t see past the cretins responsible for whatever reason. Maybe its the nice suits they wear, or the rounded vowels, but some folk just naturally fall for the well presented horror story. (So long as it comes from an ‘authoritative’ source) 😀 LOL
Smoke and mirrors to distract folk from the real source of economic failure past, present and future. Not to mention the constitutional balls up they created all by themselves. Oh and the small matter of failing to deliver on ANY pledges or assurances made during the last indyref.
Basically neither HMG or the media has a leg to stand on and they know it. Its going to continue to be utter spoon fed bollocks day in, day out until we fix the problem ourselves. The longer we wait to get started, the longer its going to take to fix the damage they’ve inflicted.
One_Scot says at 7:36 am
“Just read a tweet saying that Tesco have stopped putting the Scotland flag on their strawberries packaging due to people in England complaining.”
All supermarkets are the same now with massive Union Jacks on packaged fruit and veg. You don’t see this blatant jingoism in other countries.
If flags are to remain, its time for a high profile consumer campaign for all Scottish produce to only display the Saltire in Scottish stores.
O/T
The matchthefineforpalestine crowdfunder is now approaching £90,000. Well done Scotland
O/T Been on the very impartial bbc sites to find the forms required for telling them to jam their licence tax up their unbaised ring-piece and been met with a deluge of variants.
If any of you good people in the know could post the appropriate links for cancellation and/or right of access forms i’d be delighted.
P.s wonder if the ‘National’ has ever heard of ‘bbc Lung’ caused by sitting too near a telly inhaling the constant stream of unabated propaganda, lies and shite..maybe they could run with that.
This would be my recommended solution.
http://www.monbiot.com/2010/11/22/the-uks-odious-debts/
Does any one ever ask how england has been financed over past decades?
@ Cash_x (9:36am):
They don’t make it easy for people do they! This Youtube video footage should give you all the guidance you need. BTW, don’t waste your time with the ‘access rights’ myth, it has absolutely no standing with Scots Law. If you need further advice just shout.
How to cancel your TV Licence – ONLINE!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1E-_LzgFvI
@ripley
Is duty not paid when the spirit leaves the distillery or bond for export or ditribution?
Yourexamples appear to relate to a tax at point of sale to consumers, not a duty/tax levied by the country of production, on the producer, on export/ distribution. from their bonded warehouse. That duty/ tax would accrue to an iScot treasury.
Macart wrote:
“Smoke and mirrors to distract folk from the real source of economic failure past, present and future. Not to mention the constitutional balls up they created all by themselves. Oh and the small matter of failing to deliver on ANY pledges or assurances made during the last indyref.”
“Basically neither HMG or the media has a leg to stand on and they know it. Its going to continue to be utter spoon fed bollocks day in, day out until we fix the problem ourselves. The longer we wait to get started, the longer its going to take to fix the damage they’ve inflicted.”
Correct! I believe the American spin doctors have a phrase for it, they call it knocking us off message and it’s practiced 24/7.
Free Scotland: “Aggressiveness is never going to win anyone over to the YES side, and it’s time everyone campaigning for independence started viewing everyone who has a vote as a potential YES-voter.
Take a hike.
@ Another Union
Just don’t buy it.
I noticed the Tesco false flag on the strawberries and found saltires at Sainsbury instead. Sainso also has cooked meats – I have their Scottish roast pork on my Scottish rolls today – where my co-op and Morrisons have lost my custom. I liked English Country Life butter, but stopped buying it when it wrapped itself in the flag.
It is very clearly a campaign. Resist it by refusing to buy it. They will notice the fall in sales.
I whinged at one of the staff in my Coop about it a few months back, and was told I was not alone. So remember to tell the checkout staff. Sometimes the management pay attention.
Aldis keeps a lot of Scottish produce.
OT Just read the WoS Twitter messages about Tesco putting Union flags on items which previously had Saltires. They had received complains asking why English products don’t have St Georges. So Tesco went for Union flag.
What they completely fail to understand is that in Scotland the Union flag is now a political statement, partisan, and divisive … it is not neutral.
The safe option, you would think, is to use national flags. I buy English cheese and beer, among other things. If they were marked with a St George’s flag, that would be perfectly appropriate and welcome.
The REAL problem is that in England national flags are associated with ethnic nationalism and even fascism. What a sad state to get themselves into.
@ Stoker(9:53am)
Cheers Stoker
The bbc site on the rules governing the tv tax are a perfect example of obfuscation in excelsis designed to strike fear intae the heart of the unwary, what’s the next step?..forget all the other bullshit criteria and just say “If you’re alive – YOU need a tv licence”
“Conservative MP praises ‘British empire’ for Rio 2016 medal tally
Heather Wheeler tweeted map of empire with total medals won by all former territories, claiming to have beaten ‘rest of the world’ and ‘EU post-Brexit’ totals”
Coffee time with The Graun and the English media, all hysterical British excited today. Another interesting fact is actually just how few newspapers and radio stations Scotland has, compared to Scandinavia countries. They all have double and triple the daily and weekly newspapers and tons more radio stations. UKOK planet toryboy does run these countries though and none have the greatest and most impartial broadcaster in the whole of the UKOK British Empire.
@Grouse Beater at 10:05
I hear Sean Clerkin is looking for a friend, just in case you’re interested.
Thankfully there isn’t a local Tesco store in my area.
Maybe if people don’t buy any of the products with a union Jack label they might get the message.
@Stoker @Macart
“they call it knocking us off message and it’s practiced 24/7”
BetterTogether, and the awful VoteNoB, were far from impressive political machines.
Yes groups were better, but not perfect. We need to improve.
However the Yoons will be better prepared next time and put more effort in. Last time they expected to just go through the motions, then win. They won, but only just. They know it will be much harder next time.
It has certainly started already, did it ever stop? As SNP support increased instead of dying off, Yoonery realised they had won a battle, but to the war.
A less aggressive tactic is to ignore some information. Like the EBC not mentioning Scotland on their Brexit programme, or Labour on their PFI one. Ignore their bad, and our good.
They need to go further, though.
“Knocking us off message” is certainly part of it. I have heard similar described as “throw a dead cat into the middle of the table” …. at any meeting or negotiation there is always something which can be brought up which is then all that gets talked about. What was being discussed is forgotten.
Yoonery will try to set and maintain the agenda. They will try to drown out Yes messages with emotive sidetracking.
There is no positive argument for the Union. To win again, they need to divert attention away from positive arguments of Indy.
One_Scot says at 7:36 am
“Just read a tweet saying that Tesco have stopped putting the Scotland flag on their strawberries packaging due to people in England complaining.”
———–
So a few English bigots complain about a Scottish flag, and that is enough for Tesco to slap union jacks over everything instead.. even in Scotland..
The problem is that Britain and the UK are represented by the same symbol – when the union jack also represents the political union of the UK, not just the British Isles.
Even if they are genuinely trying to use ‘Britain’ just as geographical location for shopping ‘locally’, they are also forcing a POLITICAL IDENTITY on customers in Scotland.
It wouldn’t even be so bad if there was a different logo for British and Irish produce – maybe just a map of a the British Isles.
English people don’t complain about a union jack because it is effectively seen as the English flag anyway.
Free Scotland: “I hear Sean Clerkin…”
No idea who he is so your sarcasm is lost on me.
Please don’t come on here to patronise people as if we are unintelligent children – whoever you really are.
Grouse Beater says:
23 August, 2016 at 10:05 am
Take a hike.?
Why? Don’t you want to make converts, I count everyone as a potential convert, don’t you?
If we don’t we have stagnation, the poll will crystallise and then where will we be? Now I call them Yoons, because they are stupid, not due to any mental feebleness but because they have been lied to. But surely bringing light to the darkness is a good thing?
Gers
Scotland’s economy as with all countries is dictated by its geography and opportunity, Scotland with 8% of the population has 32% of the land area, 61% of the sea area, 90% of the fresh water, 95% of the natural gas production, 96.5% of the crude oil production, 47% of the open cast coal production 81% of the untapped coal reserves 62% of the timber production 46% of the total forest area 92% of the hydro electric production 40% of the wind wave and solar energy production 60% of the fish landings 30% of the beef herd 20% of the sheep herd 9% of the dairy herd 10% of the pig herd 15% of the cereal holdings 20% of the potato holdings…obviously 100% of the Scotch Whiskey industry.
On top of that we have a 7 billion pound construction industry 13 billion food and drink industry 9.3 billion chemical services industry 9.3 billion tourism industry 7 billion financial services industry 5 billion aero-service industry 4.5 billion pound whiskey exports industry 3.1 billion pound life sciences industry 350 million pounds worth of textile exports 25% of Europe’s wave and wind energy potential And finally we are blessed to have 1.5 trillion pound worth of oil and gas reserves so far discovered.
and all this means we have to stay tied with a country that has over 2 trillion in debt? I don’t think so, but I am not alone in that assumption,
Brian Taylor on the BBC website. “Today’s exercise, GERS, ostensibly deals with economic statistics: with facts or, at least, estimated facts. However, it might also be recognised that GERS has been a political initiative from the outset.
Formally introduced in 1992 by the then Scottish Secretary Ian Lang, it was designed – as the minister acknowledged in a leaked document – to “undermine” the UK government’s rivals.
It was intended, in part, to demonstrate to the public that devolved self-government was A Bad Thing”
Moneyweek Britain’s biggest selling financial magazine, talking of the stated deficit, “No economic figures are entirely accurate, but this is different: the basic revenue numbers are more or less guesswork, to which is added an so far entirely un-negotiated share of UK oil revenues. So there you go. I’m giving you one less thing to think about: you can now happily ignore all the financial arguments for a separate Scotland on the basis that no one knows what they actually are.”
The fact that is sticking in the craw of yoons that they know fine well Scotland would be vastly better off as an independent nation, but would lose the comfort of not being all they could be as individuals as they have the safety of believing themselves to be shite.
An African American comedian, after visiting Africa for the first time remarked he would never call another american a “Nixxxr”, as of all the thousands of Africans he saw, he didn’t believe there was a single one amongst the one billion in whole Continent.
Utterly sick of the sight of the Union Flag. Its everywhere! Part of the “Great British Wank Off” that is being pushed incessantly.
Do the folk behind this really think they will make me feel British and assimilate?
Its more like a colonial imposition for me.
I refuse to buy anything with one of these Colonial symbols on it.
scotspine says:
take comfort that a quarter is Scottish, that’s the best share you will ever get in this disunited kingdoms.
galamcennalath wrote @10:18am:
“Just read the WoS Twitter messages about Tesco putting Union flags on items which previously had Saltires.”
‘One Scot’ further up thread has sent them an email regarding this matter, can’t wait to see how they attempt to justify the move.
I have a feeling it will be something along the lines of Tesco is participating in the recent celebrations of “our” Olympic success.
Andrew McLean: “Don’t you want to make converts”
He made a wild generalisation, he didn’t define what he meant by ‘unionist’ – a fearful Scot, colonial English, an Ulster man screaming “Rule Britannia” in your face. And I do not like to be treated as a child.
There’s no obligation to suffer fools gladly – even those who claim to be on your side.
Don’t engage Andrew McLean.
It’s like a moth buzzing around bulb that keeps you awake. You can get up and kill it, or just switch off the bulb. First option produces one dead and one unhappy, the latter option gives you two happys.
@Bob W
@Ripley
Is duty not paid when the spirit leaves the distillery or bond for export or ditribution?
Yourexamples appear to relate to a tax at point of sale to consumers, not a duty/tax levied by the country of production, on the producer, on export/ distribution. from their bonded warehouse. That duty/ tax would accrue to an iScot treasury.
(it’s Rippey not Ripley but I digress)
At present there is no export duty on whisky, if Scotland became independent it would export whisky to rUK and there would still be no export duty on whisky*.
Alcohol duty would still be levied against the sale of any whisky in rUK, but it would be collected by HMRC in rUK, there would be no revenue from alcohol duty flowing back to an iScotland.
@yesindyref2 has implied above that there is hidden revenue being left out of GERS due to alcohol duty not being attributed to Scotland – this is wrong, it does not exist, it is made up.
*of course there’s nothing to stop an iScotland government from introducing a new export duty on whisky…but the political fallout from that would be enormous.
Aw Breeks play nice, ha ha!
I have noticed recently more and more union jacks appearing on the food packaging the wife buys. I have mentioned in the past to avoid products with the union flag, but unfortunately a few do slip through.
This is clearly a coordinated strategy by the Yoons, along with an increase in TV ads using the UK/Britishness theme. They clearly want to imprint their British Nationalist identity into everyones minds.
If we don’t get a date for IndyRef2 soon for us to have something to focus on, they may have us brainwashed by the time it comes.
And here’s Rippoff again, like Breeks, doing his best to keep us discussing minor issues, not concentrating on the major ones.
“At present there is no export duty on whisky…”
Cue Breeks, “And what do you think are the major ones, Grousey?”
Yet another ploy to have him control the discussion.
They are devious though, Morrisons sell their doughrings in union jack boxes, deep colours, patriotic boxes of five doughrings, with several delicious flavours, try the cappuccino, 50p union jack box. Nip in after 6 and they’re 25p a union jack box. No idea why Mr Morrison sells his dough rings in union jack boxes but obesity crisis all round, UKOK style.
For the future, is there a union jack flavour of doughring being developed by Mr Morrisons doughring scientists coming? Union jack flavour, tastes like, Britishness, tangy…
Re Scots whisky. A typical bottle costs around £10.50. The excise duty on this is around £6.50 of which Scotland receives an 8% share. However the whisky is also subject to VAT which is about £1.60 per bottle. This goes direct to the exchequer and is not attributed to Scotland at all. The actual distillery only receives just over £2.50 per bottle.
Whisky is also subject to export duty which also goes direct to the Exchequer, and again Scotland does not receive a share. It is a money maker for Westminster.
Currently there are around 20 million barrels awaiting bottling.
Grouse Beater says:
23 August, 2016 at 11:12 am
Cue Breeks, “And what do you think are the major ones, Grousey?”
Don’t be hard on Breeks, he is what is called in the army a “crap hat”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWdHOm256N4
@Colin Rippey says: 22 August, 2016 at 11:13 pm:
“Oh forgot about you, and I was watching a clip from The Life of Brian earlier too.”
I wonder why you forgot about me, Colin, Perhaps it is your selective memory yet again?
“So, you believe that GERS does not correctly attribute corporation tax from Diageo?”
Where exactly did I mention Corporation tax, Colin? As I didn’t do so, perhaps you might explain why you are now attempting to tell me what you think I think?
I stated the truth that all goods, of any kind, produced in Scotland that are exported outside the United Kingdom via English airports, English ports or via the Chunnel are wrongly accounted by the UK as English exports. This dramatically is the double whammy that reduces Scotland’s true export earnings but which also increases the figures for England. Note that I correctly identified, “The United Kingdom”, that while British, it is not actually Britain as you Britnats so often attempt to tell us it is. The UK is not Britain in any context. Yet the Westminster Establishment when, “Doing the books”, assumes, as you also seem to do, confuses the terms, “England”, “The United Kingdom”, Britain and, “Great Britain”.
” … That’s what you believe?” Err! No I don’t.
” … GERS reports REVENUE not EXPORTS, it attributes corporation tax based on the economic activity that generated it – but let’s not let the yesperado meme of “exports from English ports” get in the way of a good old fashioned deflection.”
More utter pish Colin. Whether GERS reports Revenue or Exports is neither here nor there as the value of those exports is being directly attributed to the country of England and GERS also confuses England, The United Kingdom and Britain as a matter of convenience to distort the figures.
By the way, can you desist from contorting the English language in order to confuse the entire point?
What idiot dreamt up the idiotic terms, “yesperado meme”?
You are either a dumb parrot or just utterly idiotic. Please speak English without the insulting innuendo.
” … I suppose you being “some guy on the Internet” makes you more of an authority than the GERS methodology used to apportion aporox 83% of all UK Oil & Gas revenue”
“Some guy on the Internet”, Ah! Yes! Colin, A guy on the Internet just like yourself would that be? In any case the point here is that the GERS Methodology is, like your own constant outpourings utter pish. And in both cases it always has been and demonstrably so.
Lets begin by stating the plain facts shall we?
First of all the United Kingdom is without doubt NOT a country. Neither is it a Union of countries. It is exactly what its title describes it as – A United Kingdom comprised of only the two, equally sovereign, kingdoms of Scotland and England. To thus do the accounts on a basis of country or region is less than honest. To interchange the methodology at will to distort the truth is downright dishonesty.
That is exactly what GERS does. In the first place it does NOT deal with as each partner KINGDOM as equal partners but treats England as the United Kingdom. That is the fact and the dishonesty used by Westminster.
Westminster runs as the Parliament of the Country of England and treats the rest of the United Kingdom as devolved countries with only the Country of England treated as the United Kingdom and funded directly as The United Kingdom with United Kingdom funding. This is not the true legal situation. What is more Westminster legislates for the Country of England and uses only English Law to do so. It then tags bits onto the English legislation to accommodate the other parts of the Kingdom.
As usual you are less than honest and yo attempt, none too expertly, to distort the entire debate. For example, where did I mention Tony Blair? Never mind him stealing Scottish territorial waters?
I’ve heard better cases in primary school debating societies than that idiotic introduction by you. You really are an infantile idiot, Colin. You have no case to make so you introduce anything whatsoever that has absolutely no bearing on the matters in hand.
I should know better than to attempt to debate anything with an idiot for the idiot will drag the debate down to their own idiotic level.
Either you know as well as I do that GERS was designed specifically to oppose the then perceived rise in Scottish feelings of independence or you actually believe that GERS is an honest accountancy of the United Kingdom.
All that is required to shoot down that latter theory is the salient fact that the Westminster Establishment has publically stated the lie that. (and I quote the then Scottish Secretary, David Mundell).
That, Colin, is the untruth that is plainly shown in the compilation of the GERS figures. They attribute things to the Country of England that do not even belong to the Kingdom. Unless the United Kingdom is shown in the accounts as the a united kingdom of only two kingdoms and not as a union of either countries or regions then the accounts are bound to be wrong. When the accounts also confuse the issue by jumping around by country, kingdom and region in order to confuse then the GERS figures are absolute pish.
(but quick, trot out the “Tony Blair stole our territorial waters” meme).
As for the crown estate and the bank of England, pray tell how much revenue is hidden here.
You’re a meme machine, I’m surprised you’ve not trotted out your Roman Rhapsody yet.
Ate, breeks, get off that moral highground.
You sound like a Lib demo..
I refuse to be baited by comments on the internet. Apparently it makes you an unsuitable person to be left in charge of nuclear weapons.
I’m a positive kinda fella and like to keep my options open.
Breeks says:
23 August, 2016 at 12:51 pm
I refuse to be baited by comments on the internet.
but you’re a master bait’er? 🙂
Sorry off topic LOL.
A wee bit passion, a wee fire burning in yer belly. It’s all good.
Yes, Robert P..
Seems like, A FACT, if it comes to one’s attention, from the Internet, can be discounted as irrelevant.
While, OMMITTING A FACT from AN OFFICIAL REPORT, is honest governance.
This uj on packaging etc thing, think I’ll fire off a complaint myself if I can find Tesco’s online complaint form with relative ease, also think I’ll start rendering unsaleable meat, fruit frozen food items with uj’s on them if the vacpac or whatever can be pierced with a finger or small knife.
One thing about this flag/symbol thing though, now that I think about it I’m surprised I’ve never heard or seen anything about the uj flag being burnt and it being filmed and uploaded online. No idea if that would be good for indy, bad for indy or have absolutely no effect at all, just saying that you might expect to have seen or heard about something like that.
btw a good while ago I read somewhere about someone who’d complained to Tesco about something indy related and they’d signed it off with this cracker –
“Every Lidl helps,
Aldi best.”
McLean! How long since your last RESET? C’mon Bro..
@Bob Mack
Re Scots whisky. A typical bottle costs around £10.50. The excise duty on this is around £6.50 of which Scotland receives an 8% share. However the whisky is also subject to VAT which is about £1.60 per bottle. This goes direct to the exchequer and is not attributed to Scotland at all. The actual distillery only receives just over £2.50 per bottle.
VAT is one of the most difficult areas for the Scottish Government to allocate in GERS but your statement that no VAT is apportioned to Scotland in GERS is just wrong.
Whisky is also subject to export duty which also goes direct to the Exchequer, and again Scotland does not receive a share. It is a money maker for Westminster.
Currently there are around 20 million barrels awaiting bottling.
Why do you believe this? There is no export duty on whisky, surely you know this by now.
Noticed an article today about Tesco taking the Saltire off scottish strawberries this year but more worryingly came across this as well –
“China is taking over Scotland’s oil” !!!!!
Apparently they are buying into North Sea oil big-time and are now extracting about 200,000 barrels a day as a result of George Osbourne’s ( remember him – the Companion of Honour) tax cuts.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/chinas-cnooc-largest-oil-operator-in-scotlands-north-sea-2016-8.
Have we just been shafted?
@Robert Peffers
“Some guy on the Internet”, Ah! Yes! Colin, A guy on the Internet just like yourself would that be? In any case the point here is that the GERS Methodology is, like your own constant outpourings utter pish. And in both cases it always has been and demonstrably so.
Okay then, here is the GERS methodology summary on how Oil & Gas is apportioned:
An alternative approach is to apportion a geographical share of North Sea revenue to Scotland. In order to estimate this share, GERS draws upon academic research carried out by Professor Alex Kemp and Linda Stephen from the University of Aberdeen. Professor Kemp is Professor of Petroleum Economics and Director of Aberdeen Centre for Research in Energy Economics and Finance (ACREEF) at the University of Aberdeen. Professor Kemp and Linda Stephen have published extensively on licensing and taxation issues on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS). Professor Kemp is the author of “The Official History of North Sea Oil and Gas”, and is considered to be a leading expert in UK petroleum economics.
The model used by the researchers to estimate Scotland’s illustrative geographical share of North Sea activity was first detailed in a North Sea Study Occasional paper published by the University of Aberdeen in 1999.[14] The researchers base the Scottish boundary of the UKCS on the median line principle as employed in 1999 to determine the boundary between Scotland and the rest of the UK for fishery demarcation purposes. Other alternatives are possible. UKCS production, costs and revenue is allocated on a field by field basis to either the rest of the UK or Scotland using this boundary.
This is what you are describing as utter pish yes? You believe that your estimate of 98% is correct? You believe that the people cited by GERS are talking pish?
Colin do yourself a favour and stop talking pish. GERS is pish and so are those spouting it’s importance. Your one of them.
I see this one has got the Brit Nat trolls doing the five finger shuffle. Then again maybe it is the fact that the Olympics are over that has them crawling out from under mumzees blue red and white pinny.
They aren’t here to debate or to listen they are here to gloat and sneer at Scotland.
It is now safe for them to call A.Murray Scottish again as well as he lost in Cincinnati. He is for the moment no longer Engerlands super hero.
@Fred
Right said Fred and I totally agree.
People are “chuntering on” about boycotting The National as it isn’t a pro-indy paper because it has an article about bagpipe lung, in the season of pipe band competitions and games such as the Cowal Games coming up with a whole load of people who play the pipes in Scotland AND the rest of the world.
Sigh.
@Colin Rippey
Oh, you didn’t manage to borrow the brain this week, Right.
“In the event of Scotland being independent from rUK any whisky would be EXPORTED from Scotland to rUK – at that point there would be NO revenue generated from alcohol duty when the whisky was sold to a customer in rUK.”
But, but, colin, did you ever consider the possibility that whereas the UK charges alcohol duty and it goes into the UK coffers, iScotland could charge alcohol duty and it go into the Scotland coffers?
No, I didn’t think so.
Like, wow, man. Put your spade down and stop digging yourself a hole.
@Grouse Beater
yeah, but it’s kind of fun though.
KevinColin can only see things through the prism of his own invention, so goes on and on, totally ignoring any point anyone makes, thus revealing his ignorance and inability to read and understand.It’s a bit like having a hamster in a cage with one of those wheel things, holding a bit of food near the top of the cage. The hamster runs and runs, the wheel turns, the hamster runs faster and faster, the wheel runs faster and faster, but no matter how fast the hamster runs, it can never reach that bit of food and get nourishment.
I was never that cruel with real hamsters 🙂
The BBC at it yet again!
Ah! A light dawns! From the redoubtable Fraser Whyte:
https://whytepaper.wordpress.com/2015/08/25/meme-busting-whisky-and-the-non-existent-export-duty/
“This is a consumption tax and is charged at the point of sale.”
But from the UK Gov https://www.gov.uk/guidance/receiving-storing-and-moving-excise-goods
“When goods are released from an excise warehouse for consumption, you must ensure that the excise duty has been paid or accounted for prior to the removal of the goods.”
So, no, it’s not a consumption tax and paid at point of sale. It’s a duty, not a tax, and it’s payable at the point of release for sale.
——————
Also from Fraser Whyte: “The only problem, of course, is that there’s no such thing as export duty.”
But from UK Gov https://www.gov.uk/finding-commodity-codes
“Finding commodity codes for import and export duty”
Seems pretty clear to me, there’s a whole flaming secion on commodity codes for import and export – I’ve used it for both, and used the Customs and Excise as it was then, helpline.
The clowns don’t understand the principle of “Relief”. There is still export duty and VAT, but both can be zero-rated. I’ve done the “paperwork”. Ignorance and rhetoric is bliss for Unionist activists. I prefer accuracy and truth.
Interesting that although he rubbishes the ‘cybernats’ he obviously follows them online.
Grouse Beater @ 10:57
Rank hypocrite!
louis.b.argyll says:
23 August, 2016 at 1:51 pm
McLean! How long since your last RESET? C’mon Bro..
Sorry Louis, sorry Breeks,
Well I found it funny! 🙂
@yesindyref2
Adding more and more hyperbole to your comments won’t make them right.
But, but, colin, did you ever consider the possibility that whereas the UK charges alcohol duty and it goes into the UK coffers, iScotland could charge alcohol duty and it go into the Scotland coffers
No one has ever said anything different. An iScotland would collect the alcohol duty on alcohol sold in an iScotland, but it would NOT collect any alcohol duty from whisky sold in rUK. Neither would an iScotland INTRODUCE an export duty on whisky EXPORTED from iScotland to rUK.
You stated above that GERS is not fully reporting the alcohol duty an iScotland would receive in revenue, why don’t you explain *exactly* what you mean?
It’s you digging the hole here not me, a big semantic dodge just like you do everywhere else on the Internet (and yes I’ve found your amazing “takedown” of kevarage on his blog that you’ve been bragging about on this site, it was another of your pathetic attempts at defining the differences between words, what a lightweight you are).
Funny how disrespect in the ranks is spreading on wings of late, so most humble apologies if I have offended anyone, come back sensible Dave, at least he had a obvious agenda.
Grousey, you get “rank hypocrite” and all I get is a lousy moth!
What do you call troll envy? Though I do believe it’s a lovely cigar.
@Colin Rippey
1. You miss the point. Alcohol duty is not payable where it’s sold, it’s payable where it’s released to be sold. If 100,000 bottles of whisky are released for sale, alcohol duty of £1 million approximately will be paid at the point. If all 100,000 bottles crash and smash before being sold, the alcohol duty was still paid already, with not a consumer in sight.
2. I did explain it, and provided links for your education.
3. Yes I took down Mr Average in his own blog, and he then contradicted himself in his efforts to deny he had the definition and mechanism of “fiscal transfer” wrong. But for some reason he failed to publish my final reply, though if you search through wings for “yesindyref2” and “fiscal transfer”, I’m sure you’ll find it soon, real soon now, as I posted it here so it wouldn’t get wasted.
4. You’re funny 🙂
@yesindyref2
You miss the point. Alcohol duty is not payable where it’s sold, it’s payable where it’s released to be sold
But it would be exported from an iScotland to rUK, there is no export duty on whisky. There is nothing you’ve written or linked to that substantiates this.
Once again you totally dodge the issue. You claim that GERS does not apportion the correct revenue from alcohol duty to Scotland. You now desperately try to add links to HMRC pages that would not be relevant to an iScotland because HMRC would be in a foreign state. Even if an iScotland introduced a word for word copy of HMRC rules for a Scottish Revenue Service it *still* wouldn’t matter because there’s no export duty on whisky.
Whisky would be exported from an iScotland to rUK at which point it would be released for sale and be liable for duty to be paid to rUK. How do you suppose an iScotland would recover this duty?
A new Scottish Revenue Service would have to introduce an export duty on whisky, the Scotch Whisky industry would be *furious* if this were to happen.
You’ve run out wriggle room, your argument has collapsed on top of itself. I await your next attempt at deflection, wonder what semantics you’ll try to come up with.
@Colin Rippey
How many times? Alcohol duty Kevin, alcohol duty, ALCOHOL DUTY. So why are you wittering on about “export duty”?
Can you even read?
@yesindyref2
How many times? Alcohol duty Kevin, alcohol duty, ALCOHOL DUTY. So why are you wittering on about “export duty
As predicted you’ve sunk to semantics, you’re so predictable. As I said to you the last time we had the same argument the minute someone on the Internet retreats to using semantics in an attempt to deflect, it’s obvious to everyone else they’ve lost.
Listening not interacting,
Honestly the type of loon we get on wings these days quite frankly is a pale reflection of days gone by! Once we had the mighty David! An English man proud, some other fool and a hibachi, burning with the rest.,
Don’t worry tomorrow GERS and then the pet food salesman will shoot his load!
Funny what they call a white wash these days.
@Colin Rippey
Good grief, you seem to have as little understanding of the difference between various forms of duties and taxes, or how they work, as the author of a so-called “meme-busting” article. You and he should meet. Perhaps you have already …