A nice easy one
Here’s the Scottish Labour finance spokesman Iain Gray on last night’s Newsnight Scotland, discussing Gordon Brown’s speech in Glasgow on pensions because Mr Brown himself refused to answer any questions about it.
As ever with Mr Gray, he packs a lot of entertainment into a short space of time.
The first interesting thing about the clip above is that Gray explicitly admits that pensions are paid from general taxation, rather than from a pensions pot. But it’s the next part that we thought merited checking.
“Quite simply, [the pension system] is more secure, and it works better, if it’s spread over a bigger pot – 60 million pounds rather than five million pounds.”
Bless him. Immediately after saying there’s no pension pot he starts talking about one, and we assume he meant “63 million people“ rather than “60 million pounds”, so we’ll let that one slide (along with his claim that “Gordon has brought forward the figures” – Brown produced none, just made assertions about secret UK government papers he claimed to have seen but didn’t show anyone).
Because what we’re concerned with today isn’t Iain Gray’s bumbling and inept media presence, but the truth or otherwise of what he’s claiming.
The above table (click to enlarge) comes from the misleadingly-named OECD report “Pensions at a glance 2013”, which comprises 364 pages of detailed analysis of state pension provision across the 34 nations of the organisation and eight others – between them making up most of what’s generally regarded as the developed world.
The figures represent pensions as a percentage of average earnings (full definition here), so they already take account of the cost of living in different countries.
Of the 42 countries represented, the UK comes fourth from bottom. Among the OECD nations only Mexico treats its pensioners worse than Britain does, along with only Indonesia and South Africa in the rest of the civilised world.
But that’s a broader point. What we’re concerned with here is Iain Gray and Gordon Brown’s claim of a correlation between a country’s size and its pensions. So let’s rank those countries by population, with each one’s place in the pension table in brackets.
1. China (5)
2. India (18)
3. USA (36)
4. Indonesia (41)
5. Brazil (16)
6. Russia (14)
7. Japan (38)
8. Mexico (40)
9. Germany (30)
10. Turkey (13)
11. France (15)
12. Italy (11)
13. United Kingdom (39)
14. South Africa (42)
15. South Korea (34)
16. Spain (7)
17. Argentina (3)
18. Poland (28)
19. Canada (29)
20. Saudi Arabia (1)
21. Australia (25)
22. Netherlands (2)
23. Chile (31)
24. Belgium (32)
25. Greece (23)
26. Czech Republic (27)
27. Portugal (22)
28. Hungary (8)
29. Sweden (19)
30. Austria (6)
31. Israel (9)
32. Switzerland (20)
33. Denmark (4)
34. Finland (21)
35. Slovakia (12)
36. Norway (24)
37. Ireland (37)
38. New Zealand (33)
39. Slovenia (35)
40. Estonia (26)
41. Luxembourg (17)
42. Iceland (10)
So, Brown’s claim seems to be absolutely clearly nonsense. There’s no discernible relationship between the size of a country and the strength of its pensions whatsoever.
The highest-ranked country for pensions is only 20th by population, and most of the top 10 are in the bottom half of the population table. Meanwhile, 70% of the WORST countries for pensions are in the top half by population.
We’ll add another flat-out lie to the No camp’s long and growing list.
FFS
I knew the Gordie’s figure were a load ordure but to hear Iain Grey talking I am even more confused.
Bring back Johann Lamont, aw naw.
Hmmmmm,
Anyone else notice that the country with the best pensions is the one with the most oil……?
I think they all need to visit the local Subway with immediate effect to pick up some basic numercy skills, counting whilst serving customers.
Labour just can’t help themselves, lies seem to be the order of the day.
That and confuse the hell out of the electorate!
I’m glad you can dissect this Stu. because I cannot hear Iain Gray without picturing Subway.
Johann Lamont, having been a teacher, has taught these guys all they need to know about sums! Thank you John B for pointing out the co-relation between pensions and oil – nice touch!
Talking the Brown stuff indeed!
Ho ho ho, well done Rev. Will share this one far and wide but the difficulty is reaching yer actual pensioners who don’t do this internet thingy.
Would be nice to see YES do a huge press conference on this issue, as its not just current pensioners who will be feart, we will all retire at some time, hopefully, and all voters will be concerned about Broons fearbomb.
How many more lies will they be caught out with before even the most hardened NO voter sees the light? It must be very tempting for YES to simply sit back and put their feet up as the NO camp are doing a very decent job for them.
My prediction for Sept is 63% yes, 35% no and 2% spoiled papers from the lip pouters.
David Cameron will use his St George’s Day message to trumpet the benefits of Scotland staying in the UK. He will say: “I want us to reflect on one of England’s greatest achievements: its role in the world’s greatest family of nations – the United Kingdom. So let’s prove we can be proud of our individual nations and be committed to our union of nations. Because no matter how great we are alone, we will always be greater together.”
How much he is resembling the big Russian leaders from Stalin to Gorbachev and now Putin, each of them can to say:
“I want us to to reflect on one of Russia’s greatest achievements: its role in the world’s greatest family of nations – The Soviet Union. So let’s prove we can be proud of our individual nations and to be committed to our union of nations. Because no matter how great we are alone, we will always be greater together.”
Bunter
Don”t underestimate the silver surfers of which I am one. I even have a 93 year old friend who is on the internet daily.
We are not fooled by the pronouncements from the Labour party school of economics,especially when Stuart makes it so obvious that their arithmetic is deeply flawed.
And this is them rolling out their big hitters and big beasts !!!!!! A sandwich boy and a inumerate failure. Only Johann the tea lady was missing. Wonder where she will be on Friday? At Margo’s memorial service or serving tea to her masters from Westmonster?
Scottish taxpayers pay (UK) gov pensions/welfare £27Billion. No Trident and debt repayments = higher pensions.
Vote Yes for a higher pension.
BTW a few years ago the politicians in New Zealand finally got sustainable pensions sorted out. They’re a bit like the workplace pensions being introduced here. You put some in, your employer puts some in and the government puts some in. The difference is that your pot is saved and little NZ now has a Sovereign Wealth Fund off the back of it.
We could do that post Independence and roll pensions up into the oil based fund.
Our youngest at university in NZ has a pension pot as a result from part time work. You can take it early as a lump sum to use as a house deposit too (with mild penalties if memory serves).
O/T but this will not deflect the thread..
Boris is coming back to Westminster.
link to tinyurl.com
So if we vote NO and Boris stabs Dave in the back, we had better be prepared with KY as we will be royally reaped.
Another reason why we MUST vote YES.
It would be nice if we could get a similar chart as above based before Brown’s money grab.
What a shame yer average punter can’t get to see this analysis. I cringed while watching Iain but only hope there was a small audience since he came across as sincere ( maybe he really believes what he’s fed ).
Emphasises the urgent need to get out there. Judging by the canvassing in Selkirk on Saturday there’s still serious work to be done.
Genuine question re Gordon Brown –
How many times can you ‘enter a campaign’ for the first time ?
What were the other failed, ‘initiatives’ that Brown fronted ; United with Labour and his foray into securing the ‘longevity’ of Holyrood in stone ?
Why is he allowed to let his minions represent him. He wont answer questions from reporters on TV himself.
He wont discuss face to face, so why the adulation and assertion of being a so called big hitter.
Would Alex Salmond be allowed to act this way without sever condemnation from the Scottish fronted UK Media ?
Or would he be called out by Marr, Neil, Wark, etc, etc.
BBC Jackie Bird show about Women voters. Total waste of time and money. We need more information, tell us the truth, its really scary … Arrrgghhh
She managed to find 3 NO voting young ladies at a wedding show. So bet my wife what clip they would highlight on Newsnight … and guess what; bingo !
Clever editing that, but in no way a surprise.
Lies, damn lies, statistics, statistics quoted by a politician in the defence of a corrupt establishment.
Seriously, pensions are a growing problem for all nations because politicians the world over have been lying for 50 years and instead of investing the money from NI contributions like they were supposed to, they spent it on whatever they wanted and trusted to the next generations’s contributions to foot the bill. In other words, it’s a giant Ponzi scheme.
Until we get a government the tackles that problem, pensions will be at risk. At least if we get independence, we’ll buy Scots another 5-10 years of relatively safe pensions and time to sort the problem out. But vote No, and there simply won’t be a state pension in 10 years time.
Sorry Rev for going O/T I put a post at the tail end of the last story.
I wanted to watch Holyrood TV im getting the message
Cannot load M3U8 No levels to play.
I dont want to watch Democrecy live Bbc ,they can & do
interfear with the sound & vision as & when important
are raised, could some of you,s try Holyrood TV & see what
happens, any Techie dept on at the moment can explain it.
Excellent data Rev, and will be very useful whilst out canvassing.
Sorry folks
real link to Boris
link to tinyurl.com
Why was he winking at me all the way through his interview?
Mr Brown didn’t answer any questions when he was a lecturer at Glasgow College of Technology either. Nothing changes.
http://www.scottishparliament.tv Morning Ronnie, try this link.
Now I understand
Gord an Iain
‘Took the five loaves of bread and two fishes and fed 5000
Another incisive piece of analysis Rev. It’s like this – a well-funded pension scheme for one person will pay a good pension. A poorly-funded scheme for a billion people will pay a paltry pension. Number of people is irrelevant – the larger number of people contributing is cancelled out by the larger number of people taking benefits. Of course, Gordon Brown and Iain Gray are well aware of this and this shows yet again the contempt in which they hold the Scottish people. No wonder GB does not want to answer questions – he knows that it would not be too hard to expose his disingenuous pronouncements. Strike that last bit – insert lies.
@johnb:
There’s no correlation with oil. At least 7 of the top 10 have no significant oil industry.
I’m mor bothered by the idea of describing Saudi Arabia as part of the developed world…
Good analysis with just one minor quibble: “Meanwhile, 70% of the WORST countries for pensions are in the top half by population.” 70% in the top 50%? I don’t get this point.
In general though keep up hte good work.
“Good analysis with just one minor quibble: “Meanwhile, 70% of the WORST countries for pensions are in the top half by population.” 70% in the top 50%? I don’t get this point.”
Two different tables. 70% of the worst pensions are found in the more populated countries.
I saw that last night on tv,shades of soviet style loyalty in the Labour Party. We could always trust rich voters in the south east to vote Labour and keep us in the EU,or we can free ourselves from Westminster.
Tories are always talking about personal responsibility,but when we want to take said responsibility they bleat about how “you canny dae it”. Make up your minds please (and send more tories
)
The reason why UK state pensions are insecure is because there is no pot, there is only year by year general taxation. About half of all tax collected is income tax and National Insurance. NI has long ceased to be any kind of insurance, it’s just part of general taxation. So if you don’t have enough people working and being taxed, the ‘house of cards’ could collapse.
What would be really interesting is to see how other nations arrange things. Are their higher pensions simply financed by higher year on year tax? Or, have some of them actually accumulated pots?
Jimsie Naw same message I was watching the Rural affairs for all of 3mins then it starts loading M3U8 appears, somthing interups this service every week.
@ronnie anderson
GCHQ
they are on to you
Excellent stuff Rev but it won’t be any use to the undecided women voters. Just reaching for the off button on this morning’s radio phone-in when I heard a woman say she did not have enough information – she wanted facts, but not statistics!
Didn’t watch the Bird’s programme last night as the trailers were so patronising I coild not bear it.
Does anyone have any background on this? Its a comment from @Scotlandsvote on the Hootsmon.
“Does Scotland want to be responsible for paying more than it’s fair share for this:
Commons officials believe moving the House of Commons and House of Lords to a different location is the most cost effective option, at an estimated £3 bn cost to the taxpayer.
“We either move out or spend £10bn over 20 or 30 years trying to do the work during the summer recess,” a commons official told the Sunday Times.
In January the Commons Commission agreed a year long study should be conducted into renovating the Grade I listed building.
£3 billion, which will no doubt become £5 billion. Scotland’s population of 8.4% of UK pays 9.1% of UK tax receipts.
So based on a total cost of £5 billion, Scotland per capita share is £420 million but Scotland will actually pay £455 million.
How much is HS2 costing? How much is Trident costing? How much is the UK pension black hole?
Where does all this money come from? The UK cannot sustain itself, Scotland can support public services and must become independent of London to ensure their long term viability.”
I’d like to know more about it. Is it true?
@ prj.
Can you explain what you mean by “money grab” because I do not see how that, even if it were true, could have any relation to this. Unless I am misunderstanding the discussion this is about the state pension.
I have watched this 2 min clip of Gordon Brown’s pension speech a few times now and I still don’t know what the guy was trying to say.
link to bbc.co.uk
Good stuff.
There’s obviously truth in the idea that spreading costs over a large number of people makes it easier to afford things. But it’s also true that once you reach a certain point, it makes no difference if you’re spreading those costs over a few hundred thousand or a few million. In fact, you eventually reach a point where the costs involved in trying to accommodate a large, sprawling mass of people end up outweighing the benefits of pooling those costs.
The large countries in the EU have been amongst the worst affected since 2008: the UK, Spain, Italy, arguably France, too. The only one which bucks the trend – Germany – also happens to be the only one which is a fully-blown federal country, meaning it’s more like 16 wee countries. It seems pretty obvious that there’s a lesson in there for those who think big, centralised states are something to be revered.
Once you’re talking about a population of millions, affordability is no different if it’s 5 million or 65 million – both are magnitudes in the order of millions. The costs associated with trying to accommodate all those people, however, are markedly different.
@ galamcennalath
This is not correct. There is a national insurance fund and it is not based on a tax: the money is held separately from the consolidated fund and is not available for general government expenditure. The NIF is in surplus, and for that reason it lends to the government at interest.
It is quite important to separate private pensions and how they are funded from state pensions and how they are funded, and then to consider what the best way to approach these issues is for different elements
For example the right wing tend to promote the idea that an unfunded pension (which applied to things like the civil service schemes – not the state pension) is a bad thing is part of the privatisation agenda. Many here do not trust what the MSM tell us about Scotland: apply the same caution to what you think you know about pensions, because they have a very clear agenda there too.
If having got the facts you still think there was a raid on private pensions by the government, you will be in a better position to support your case while separating it from the position wrt state pensions and public service pensions. It is in the interest of the plutocrats to ensure you are confused about these matters: it is in your own interest to learn the differences and think about the implications
Tamson is right. There is no correlation of oil with pensions, never mind causation. For example, Norway comes 24th in the list, USA 36th. It’s not possession of resources that determines pensions. In the new edition of Gavin McCrone’s Scottish independence: weighing up the economics, he points out that since 2007-08 public spending per head has been 10 per cent above the British average. It has been above since at least the 1960s, 20 per cent above in the 1990s and 15 per cent above in the 2000s. It was £1,197 per head higher in 2011-12. The Scottish government’s figure is 14 per cent more for identifiable spending only (that is, excluding defence, national debt interest and international services). All this produces a Scottish deficit of 5 per cent in 2011-12, which is unsustainable. So don’t think that breaking away from Britain will improve any public services!
@ronnie anderson
Only Committee rooms 1 & 6 seem to be live at the moment
Also having problems with the streams buffering a lot, and often.
Thought about this long and hard Ian. Have you thought about taking over the leadership of Better Together?
It’s all about competent management and what Broon et al have proved time and time again, against world league table comparisons for the betterment of a nation (on whatever subject you choose), is they are incompetent managers that rely more and more on spin, lies and obfuscation to keep themselves in a job.
Soda says:
23 April, 2014 at 10:52 am
How many more lies will they be caught out with before even the most hardened NO voter sees the light?
The two front pages of the Express yesterday had one of my previously hard ‘no’ friends admit he was closer to ‘yes’ than he’d ever been.
Okay, why aren’t my posts showing?
@Fiona
Gordon’s pal Ed Balls was also in on the budget change. Here he is telling those lies. He’s coming up to see us this week to probably tell us some more.
link to youtube.com
Iain Gray is not a TV natural, he always seems to be looking nervously from side to side lest giant space caterpillars are about to attack or something.
The argument that pensions are better if you live in a big country (there is a song in there somewhere) is clearly nonsense. A big country has more pensioners. Any administration economies of scale are marginal in relation to the amount actually spent on the pensions themselves.
Rev, would be great to see (if poss) a presentation/ poster of the tables of state pension spend compared with the spend on Arms/Weapons
UK 4th top of spend Weapons
UK 4th bottom spend on Pensions
“Rev, would be great to see (if poss) a presentation/ poster of the tables of state pension spend compared with the spend on Arms/Weapons”
Make one, then. You know we accept submissions, right?
Crash Gordon also vote no fear bombs us with Scotland pension set up admin system DWP costs of £1 billion! Where Brown gets this incredible sum of money from, nobody knows and nobody in the teamGB media asks him this one either.
Lying fearmongers like Brown must just grab at any amount knowing full well the chancers at Pacific Quay wont say a word. Fear is the key and even this key costs one thousand gazillion Gordon Brown pounds in Scotland. In teamGB its pooled/shared/free/paid for by the happygolucky, uncomplaining and ever generous English tax payer, so vote no ingrates.
@ Will Podmore
You are correct, there is no necessary correlation between resources and any particular spending decision. That is because the generation of wealth is completely separate from how you choose to distribute that wealth.
You are also correct that public spending per head in Scotland is often higher than spending per head in the UK as a whole. But your conclusion from that is not correct.
It is inevitably true that a country with higher unemployment and greater ill health etc will require greater public spending per head than one which is running the same social security system but has lower unemployment etc. That is because of the automatic stabilisers and it is the reason why austerity is self defeating. It is no accident that the marginal difference decreased in the 2000’s because Scotland’s economy was doing better in real terms: that is the rate of unemployment converged with that of the rest of the UK, for example. As is to be expected growth was better vis a vis the UK average in the same period, very broadly, as well.
You say that a 5% deficit is “unsustainable”. Care to say why you think that? What is the rationale and when does it apply? Bearing in mind that the 3% figure widely adopted in europe is acknowledged to have no logical or theoretical underpinnings whatsoever
link to thosebigwords.forumcommunity.net
@ Will Podmore ” All this produces a Scottish deficit of 5 per cent in 2011-12, which is unsustainable. So don’t think that breaking away from Britain will improve any public services!”
The whole of Britain is unsustainable Will. That’s the whole point of voting YES. Brown and co have bankrupted teamGB and Scotland has to find a way of coping with giant Westminster debt, let alone social security costs completely out of control. Westminster can only keep on borrowing on Scotland’s collateral, leave the rich untaxed and pump hundreds of billions into crap like Trident nukes.
Another excellent article as Usual. Rev, you are doing a great job to debunk them as they arrive.
O/T here is “Border TV” being unbiased.
link to itv.com
Setting up costs of the pension scheme-I heard your pension will still be administered from Motherwell and Dundee as it is now. It was some guy called john ? Swinney ?
@ call me dave
I do not see what you see with that presentation. What is the source of it? It does not seem to me to be a true reflection of what happened
@Fiona
I was referring only to state pensions.
I see you are correct ….
link to en.wikipedia.org
… there is a pot.
Having had a quick look at figures for the pot size and the annual costs of state pensions, the pot doesn’t seem very big. Looks more like a buffer than a pot? It wouldn’t last long without the annual input from current working NI payers.
Perhaps my point might therefore be …. how big are other countries pots compared to the UK’s (per capita)? How many years’ pension payments does each country hold in their pots?
@Jim T 11.50,Complaint sent via Alex Neil, it seens sombody wants us dependent on Bbc democrecy live stream
( nae Feking chance ) we need to keep our eyes on this people,Use Holyrood TV stream if it does’nt work Email your complaint to your MSP/Media Centre.
Bannockburn debate at the moment good debate.
How much pension does the average dead 57 year old male get in a Labour run Shettleston again Iain?
Little O/T and apols if already covered elsewhere:
The Last rivet in the silly Death of the Clyde Shipyard Rumour?
Bottom right of Page 8 in the latest edition of Private Eye contains the following
SCOTLAND AHOY?
The question of where to dry-dock two new aircraft carriers (cost: £6.2bn) continues to trouble the Commons public accounts committee.
As the last Eye reported, the MoD and BAE Systems released a ludicrous computer-generated image of one of the two Queen Elizabeth class carriers next to HMS Illustrious, the last of our previous aircraft carriers in dry dock at Portsmouth. It was part of a PR stunt to divert attention from a scathing defence select committee report about the UK’s lack of carrier capability, and an earlier comment from former US defence secretay Robert Gates that cuts in the the MoD budget would limit Britains ability to be a world player.
HMS Illustrious, known as “Rusty Lusty” because of her state of repair, barely fits the dry dock. The computer-generated QE next to her is at least 3 times the size. At 70 metres beam and 65’000 tonnes displacement, there is no way these ships will fit the docks available, meaning they will have to be repaired and maintained in the yards where they were built – in Scotland.
Could that be a Problem?
by ‘Squarebasher’
O/T one for the Dairy Wingers.
Carluke BT Public meeting Sat 10th May at 11.00am,at Carluke primary School Belstane Rd ML8 4BG,some of use will be otherwise elsewhere, so I hope that some Yesers nearby will be able to attend,mind take photo,s / vid.
Here in Aberdeen, vote NO Press and Journal have hardly reported game changer Brown intervention which is a bit weird, even for those weirdos. They do have massive headlines like England must now “cherish” Scottish types sayeth the blessed and cherished Cameron, any future Scots oil expro development will NEVER happen out with UKOK, the head of RGU is a modern day hero for backing vote NO CBI, the queen is a goddess and page 19 is a so so vote YES full page ad.
Waste of money paying Press and Journal hard earned considering how they daily try to out do the BBC in Scotland in their mission to annihilate Scottish democracy but what do I know.
@ galamcennalath
As the wiki link confirms the NIF is in surplus: that means that it pays out less than it takes in each year. It is not clear to me what more you want: for retained surplus should not be higher than can be helped. It is not for profit: it is for paying pensions
Wisdom often comes from the mouths of bairns. My grandson was watching the telly (BBC) and then looked at me and asked, “Papa, don’t they have old people in England?”
With all the gnashing of teeth and BT claims that we are better in a larger pot for our pensions, people need to remember that for ever Scottish pensioner, there are twelve other pensioners in rUK wanting to take from that pot.
If my wee bairn can see it, how can it be missed by so many?
@heedtracker.
Go to the Daily Record’s online Opinion about Brown’s visit. Not only kissing his feet but cleaning his shoes after it.I can’t believe I actually used to spend money to buy this dross.
Excellent analysis by WOS yet again.
Iain Gray is not a TV natural, he always seems to be looking nervously from side to side lest giant space caterpillars are about to attack
He’s every right to feel nervous if Darling’s eyebrows are nearby.
Correlation coefficient between the two series is -12% i.e. weakly NEGATIVELY correlated.
Bought the Daily Record again for my housebound Dad (he likes it for the fitba) and noticed they had virtually a full page devoted to an anti-nationalism article by Edinburgh born writer Christopher John Sansom. I’ve never heard of him but the Record helpfully gives us a brief resume.
“…whose books include… and his latest, Dominion, which depicts a Britain under Nazi rule. Sansom lives in Sussex and has donated £294,000 to the Better Together campaign. Here, in a highly provocative piece, he sets out his view that an independent Scotland would be bad for social justice”
Hmmm, is it just me that wonders about their motives in mentioning Nazi Britain? Anyway, what follows is too depressing for me to go into, I’m already in wrist slashing mood after last night’s Bird show and this morning’s Morning Call. One thing I’ll share though, he states that it’s odds on that the current British Government will lose the 2015 election. What he doesn’t share is that currently it is 11/8 favourite that there will be no overall majority. His expected Labour Govt is behind at 13/8. A Labour Government is about as likely as Gordon Brown giving an interview to a Scottish reporter.
@ Arel, it is weird though that very vote NO or else P&J has almost completely ignored Crash Gordon, considering how hard they fawn over Flipper Darling. Its probably the fiefdom of a lunatic that hates Holyrood, wind farms, Alex Salmond etc or just one a unionjock Tory boy?
P&J letter pages are stuffed with vote No Tories though and always good fun or scary weird. Today someone in Strathdon says that we all must vote no because “a friend” pays 90% Scots pensions, NHS, education, army and guess who that friend is?
@ Harry.
Are we supposed to think that a new labour government would be a good thing? I think most Scots have got over that particular fantasy, judging from the current composition of Holyrood
O/T A quick question…
Is this referendum essentially a class war?
Just tuned into GB’s speech – god, he looks awful and the wobble in his voice sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. Must be ’cause he knows he’s talking total mince,
And then with a final ‘we’re better together pooling and sharing resources’ the interview stops. No idea if he was interviewed or not but deffo didn’t seem to be taking any questions. What a waste of space this man is. Wonder if he’ll be doing public signings for his new book. Hmmm.
@Fiona
“It is not clear to me what more you want: for retained surplus should not be higher than can be helped. It is not for profit: it is for paying pensions”
Yes to your final point, but the UK government pension ‘pot’ has enough surplus to pay outgoings for a very short period. Months perhaps? This is a very unpredictable world.
The only example I could spot easily was the Norwegian Government Pension Fund which appears to be a National Insurance system. It has a surplus of about £10 billion while the UK’s is about £40 billion. [This has absolutely nothing to do with their much discussed Oil Fund.]
Given the relative populations, that means the Norwegian state pension ‘pot’ is about four times the size of the UK’s per capita.
So that appears to be one example of a government holding a much bigger buffer with money in/out for stable state pensions in difficult times.
Broon also referenced Richard Nixon – Why? A Freudian slip as he subconsciously identifies with another dastardly politician who lied through his teeth?
Time for Gordon to be a man HANG yourself before we get you for your treasonist drivel.
oops, at 2.01 it should say the ‘speech’ stopped.
Sorry I’m O’T here but just wanted to add my congratulations to to 10,000 flags campaign on reaching their target with 66 hours to go.
Anyone wanting a flag can still make their donations if you desire to do so.
link to tinyurl.com
I can’t wait till the end of May now to get my hands on our 60 flags, man it’s going to be a long wait!
I used to enjoy Samsons books but made up my mind when he last had an anti independence rant that I wouldn’t be buying another.
No moaning bras , no Tunnocks T cakes or caramel wafers , no Baxters goodies , no Mackies ice cream and no more of Mr Samsons books.
If Peter May comes out against independence I’ll be very upset indeed.
fairiefromtheearth – steady on, let’s leave the hated-filled vitriol to the unionist trolls, please.
So, deep breath and ………breathe out slowly. There, bet you feel calmer already.
@TJenny 2:07pm
delete “speech” insert “mad, raving, rant”
Sorted
re Rev’s ongoing Broon-speech tweets:
So, Brown is back to doing that jaw-thing again? He stopped it for a while when he was PM.
Not many people know this, but the Broons lived in a leaky house, so his maw used to sit him in the corner and he quickly learned to catch drips with his gob.
Gordon Brown
Saturday 14 June
Homecoming Scotland Marquee
7.30PM / £14, £12(C)
With only three months to go before the independence referendum, the former Prime Minister will talk about his vision of Scottishness, Britishness, the unique nature of the union, how it might change and how Scotland might lead Britain, not leave it. This will be a landmark moment in the independence debate.
£14 may be worth it to ask a couple of questions..
Jim T – thanks as that’s what I was thinking but didn’t want to appear ‘ranty’ myself.
O/T
Does anybody here follow the referendum coverage in the Scottish Sun? How un/balanced are they compared to the other tabloids?
In the last few days we’ve had Guido Fawkes (a Murdoch columnist) describing those Daily Express covers as “The campaign of misinformation attempting to deny freedom for Scotland laid bare”. Then we have Andrew Neil in Oz, talking about Alex Salmond’s ‘secret meeting’ with Murdoch, first published (I think) in the Sunday Post.
This got me thinking. Has the Super Soaraway Sun left itself enough wriggle room to come out for YES over the summer?
After all, they turned on the Conservatives with only six weeks to go until the 1997 general election…
@
TJenny 1:53
That’s funny, my wife looked at him and said, “that man”s lying, and he knows it too”
I think she’s right too.
The NI fund has £94bn going out £84bn coming in and a balance of £21bn, which the Office of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt have lent to the Treasury on a promise of fair treatment.
The balance is 10 weeks outgoings and given the £10bn negative difference between the incoming and outgoing means that in March 2015 it will be down to 5 weeks and in 2016 nil. What a lovely Independence Day present for the Scots!
I have no doubt that pensions are more affordable in Scotland. We could all produce the data to prove it thanks to individuals who have did much digging.
The unknown is which government would be inclined to ensure pensioners are looked after. Look at the record of Westminster and the position of the UK on league tables. Now compare that to the SG’s record for that which they control – free bus pass /free prescriptions / NHS investment / social protection policies – bedroom tax mitigation /etc.
The statement on triple lock for pensions in the white paper is clear intent.
I have no doubt who I would prefer to trust.
@galamcennalath: “About half of all tax collected is income tax and National Insurance”.
Income tax, (direct Taxation), provides only 26.2% of the total tax revenues for the UK.
National Insurance & VAT alone of indirect taxation raise 17.9% & 17.2% respectively.
You can find a paper on the UK tax system at this link : –
link to ifs.org.uk
O/T:
I promised to upload a new, “Better Together Lies”, YouTube video but got delayed by an invasion from England.
An older distant cousin and some of her family turned up at my house on their Easter Break. Would you believe the family were talking down to me? I eventually got annoyed at their partonising and opened up at them with real facts. The old Lady was actually o.k. but at her age well past it. They were left in no doubt whatsoever that the facts and figures told the real truth. Don’t think I’ll see them again. Anyway the new video, a debate at Abertay Uni between : –
“Lord Robertson and Stuart Hosie” : –
youtu.be/timfCOa3hnw
The others are, “FM vs Andrew Neil”, : –
youtu.be/W-XzG9yGaV0
and “Brainwashing” :-
youtu.be/ojV703nwM28
Or search YouTube for, Better Together Lies
Can anyone help? I’m trying to get a download of a little clip from the Bill Murray movie ‘The Man Who Knew Too Little’.
It’s the bit where Bill Murray’s screen brother is shouting in exasperation down the phone at an English civil servant and he comes out with the great line: ‘No wonder you English lost your empire…AND SCOTLAND’S NEXT’.
I would just love to have that clip so that I could forward it to as many people as possible. Anyone out there who can post that clip the comments section?
@galamcennalath
I replied to your points but unfortunately the site will not let me post: and tells me when I try to resubmit that it is a duplicate. This is not the first time this has happened and I have no idea how to deal with it. I have pm’d the site for help and I am just telling you here for I do not want you to think I am ignoring you
I used to enjoy Samsons books but made up my mind when he last had an anti independence rant that I wouldn’t be reading another ,the last one i got free on amazon but i still felt i, d paid too much for it
Fiona – I got a ‘503’ error message and a ‘duplicate posting’ message too, but clicking back arrow seemed to rectify. The ongoing DOS attacks at play perhaps?
Hello TJenny
Tried back button but it didn’t work for me. Could be DOS: I am not very techy so I couldn’t say
@theroughbounds
best I can do:
link to alluc.to
link to telegraph.co.uk Massive booster for Brown here from the Daily Telegraph. When Torygraph UKOK far right supports Gordon Brown like this, it really is the end of bettertogether satire.
With my first post I fear I may lower the tone of the site, but here goes: do all the Unionist No monger mob ( & Brown especially) suffer from pathological penis envy? I say this as they’re always banging on about the ‘superiority’ of the “bigger size”…Darling & Brown defo suffer from locker room syndrome- Brown’s next speech will headline with: GIANT SIZED X_MEN ARE BETTER THAN ORDINARY MEN
Ok, not the right sort of question then i guess…
heedtracker
Oh no, you didn’t warn me it was a Cockers diatribe! That’s 10 seconds of my life wasted, clicking on and then off again when I saw it was the bearded one.
Freedom Lover – welcome in, the water’s lovely.
And to answer your question; Yes, it’s all about willy waggling on the world stage. 
(now try to get that image out of your head.: D )
@ Freedom lover, Cmon noo theirs ladys present is it no bad
enough they’ve unziped their gobs.
onny how welcome to WoS & spread the Word.
eddie says:
23 April, 2014 at 11:13 am
Why was he winking at me all the way through his interview?
I caught that as well eddie – assumed he was just being a wee darling…
It should be noted that the Scottish Government will not have to pay a penny for public pensions until around 2031!!!
Remember the letter from the pensions dept, which confirmed that all current pensioners (That is from Independence day 2016) and those who have paid minimum of 35 years into the UK Ni will get their pensions paid by the UK Government.
This of course means that with the ongoing “Ni” contributions from March 2016 we can build up a sizeable pensions pot.
@ Soda
I think your question was too wide, in one sense, and too narrow in another.
Some people will probably see this as a class issue because that is the framework through which they see the world: core constructs, or whatever other term appeals to you to describe that phenomenon
Others will found on different analyses and come to their conclusions about how to vote in this referendum on very different grounds
Most here are agreed that the vote should be yes and that questions of what kind of society we wish to build are for after we get the power to make those decisions. At that point those differences will become important: but they are not central now.
First things first, eh?
What is wrong with Subways eye? he’s catching the Flipper twitch, where is Flipper?
Croompenstein: I think Flipper is with nurse.
Oddly,having read the Telegraph article by Codgers (is that what he’s called here?) referenced by heed tracker, it is just the word bunkum that left any impression.
@ Soda
It’s not a class war- it’s an escape attempt
@Chalks. 3.32pm
Thanks buddy. I’ll have a look at that and see if I can find that clip.
Yes it is rubbish but every pensioner I know is voting no so it is unfortunately effective rubbish for the no camp.
It is very hard to get across to people that state pensions are paid from taxation and that there is not a pile of cash with their name on it sitting in a bank.
We need more graphs/info graphics and less stats to show how normal sensible countries finance themselves and then project and indep Scotland
on top of it.
Chitterinlicht: To my fellow pensioners I describe how I pay tax on my private pension at one desk, and then move over to another desk where they hand me my state pension, which I’ve partly funded. And then there is the revolving tax door – income tax for all enters, and state pension for retirees exits.
And if the person is receptive I comment that in the event of a No vote, in about two years those who voted No will be very angry people whereas we Yessirs will just keep on campaigning.
@Fiona 11.49am and galamcennalath
“The NIF is in surplus, and for that reason it lends to the government at interest”
Interesting. I also thought that NI was now simply another tax because UK pensions were not fully funded. But, as you say, they are. However, NI was originally supposed to cover education, unemployment, poverty and health (Beveridge’s 5 Giant Evils – squalor, ignorance, want, idleness, and disease see link to en.wikipedia.org).
Now the NI scope is limited and the gap is filled through general taxation, which is flexible and can easily be diverted into other things such as wars. Plenty to discuss here!
Mogabee says
“I’m glad you can dissect this Stu. because I cannot hear Iain Gray without picturing Subway.
Thank God for that, I thought I was just imagining I was smelling meatballs marinara!
JohnB says
“Anyone else notice that the country with the best pensions is the one with the most oil……?”
Aye but just remember, when that oil runs out they’ll be queuing up at thje door to have the UK run their countries again , but then it’ll be too late ,an hell mend them ,thats what I say.
Fiona and heedtracker, a deficit of 5 per cent is unsustainable because ‘the markets’ say it is. So the markets (i.e. the unaccountable finance capitalists who we allow to run our country) insist that we cut their deficits by cutting our public services. The same applies to the finance capitalists who run the EU and their equally arbitrary 3 per cent figure.
heedtracker also writes, “Brown and co have bankrupted teamGB and Scotland has to find a way of coping with giant Westminster debt, let alone social security costs completely out of control.” This analysis unfortunately echoes the Coalition government’s false claims that the Labour government, not finance capital, caused the crash, and that the costs of looking after the elderly and the unemployed and the disabled are out of control.
@ Will Podmore
I agree. The problem is that they have convinced a great many people of a great many lies which serve their interests.
Not least, that it is possible to bankrupt a country with a sovereign currency which issues debt in that currency
Not least that there is no alternative to issuing debt anyway
It is clear in so many cases that the politicians have either swallowed this nonsense or pretended to swallow it and they think it is reasonable to tell us we cannot do x or y because the markets won’t allow it. When were they elected?
If this information was available to all those who don’t have access to the internet, a YES vote would be a foregone conclusion. How can I print out a copy for wider circulation?