An alert reader sent us a piece of interesting follow-up info to yesterday’s piece on NHS Scotland costs. Because comparable figures for NHS England are available too, and they make for surprising reading.
These are the Scottish figures for medicine costs at list price, ie before any negotiated discounts that the health service is able to obtain:
The population of England, at 55 million, is just over 10 times that of Scotland (5.4m). So one would imagine that its like-for-like costs would come in at around £12 billion.
The BBC front page headline for this is actually just the alarming-sounding “Scottish prescription costs rise by 25%”, without even the qualifier about the timespan.
It’s probably overdue that we start collecting these together. So here’s Sir John Major on the Andrew Marr show yesterday, explaining why a “once in a lifetime” referendum should in fact be held again because its outcome was determined by something that turned out to be untrue.
Which is, of course, totally different to Scotland being told to vote No in 2014 in order to stay in the European Union, because [REASONS TO FOLLOW AT SOME POINT]
The entire Scottish media has today leapt like starving dogs at a tin of Chappie on a new “study” by right-wing flag-crazed imperialist nutjobs T***e I*****s, which claims to prove that an independent Scotland would have a BLACK HOLE!!! of infinity squillion pounds and all the crops would wither in the fields and stamps would be £5000 each and we’d be invaded by space monsters and all the usual stuff you’d expect.
(In all seriousness for a moment, it genuinely tries to flog the “fiscal transfer” myth and the “Scotland would have to join the Euro” myth and a bunch of other Better Together Greatest Hits that were utterly debunked old hat half a decade ago, and in order to make its economic case work it basically pretends that Brexit isn’t happening.)
But at the bottom of its article the New Statesman offers to link its readers to the full extent of the author’s professional economic expertise and well-argued case, and in fairness if you click the link they do exactly that.
Credit where due, it’s an uncanny likeness of the gloomy wee fella.
Labour MP Stella Creasy, explaining to Sarah Smith on today’s Sunday Politics why she backs a so-called “People’s Vote” on Brexit because voters should have the right to change their mind about a referendum if circumstances change.
The Daily Record’s politics lead story today is a slightly underwhelming poll that shows 41% of Scots believe the Tories are carrying out a power grab against the Scottish Parliament, against 34% who think they aren’t (and 25% who have no idea).
Which seems a good time to round up the last results of our own most recent poll, and some slightly disturbing revelations about the Scottish public’s grasp of devolution.
In the light of David Davis’ resignation last night and the continuing shambolic chaos that is UK politics, it seemed a pertinent time for these findings from our latest poll.
Alert readers may recall that a few weeks ago we revealed how an independent Scotland could reduce its budget deficit by billions of pounds a year – by renting out the Faslane naval base to the rest of the UK to keep their nuclear weapons in.
Voters in England, we learned, were more than happy to pay Scotland £5bn annually – and perhaps even more – for a Trident submarine park during the decades that it would take to build a replacement base south of the border.
Of course, that plan is only any good if the people of Scotland would accept it too.
Aidan on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Fuck me that’s some shame for the Alliance, having someone like “James” associated with them. Ouch – I’ve been critical…” Apr 24, 20:30
James on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Two clowns looking for a circus. That’s right, Scotch folk; vote English Nationalist! Numbskulls. Alliance to Liberate Scotland. Bring it…” Apr 24, 19:26
Insider on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “Phil, Seems an accurate summary of the situation ! The heart says YES !…why shouldn’t we be independent and run…” Apr 24, 18:03
agentx on How To Get Away With Crimes: ““together with a rising number of younger people attaining voting age, would have had a greater and fuller vision of…” Apr 24, 16:12
Phil on The Narcissism Of No Differences: “I think the Reform except on the independence question is reasonable. It doesn’t actually say Scotland can never be an…” Apr 24, 15:38
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on How To Get Away With Crimes: “UAIGNEAS Blas sméara dubh’ tréis báisteach ar bharr an tsléibhe. I dtost an phríosúin Feadaoil fhuar na traenach. Cogar gáire…” Apr 24, 14:57
lothianlad on The Pit Of Vipers: “Sturgeon and robison were along with others, corrupted, manipulated, controlled and blackmailed by the brit secret service. sturgeon drank from…” Apr 24, 14:52
TURABDIN on The Pit Of Vipers: “AN EXAMPLE OF HOW THE SOFT SELL IS DONE, https://www.facebook.com/aaciculturalinglesa/ I doubt in the texts used Scotland or Wales figure…” Apr 24, 13:52
Mark Beggan on How To Get Away With Crimes: “That’s a reality they don’t want to hear about. Flag waving and marching and blaming the English colonial fantasy. Is…” Apr 24, 13:35
Sven on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Northcode @ 12.31. “What is the true nature of the prison ?” Many factors are involved, I’d suggest, Northy. A…” Apr 24, 13:14
Lorncal on How To Get Away With Crimes: “H McH: when the time comes – and it will – there will be no choice. Either sink or swim…” Apr 24, 13:11
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lothianlad on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Stick with it Stu!! We need you! Thank you for all you do for whats right.” Apr 24, 12:22
John H. on The Pit Of Vipers: “But he was eliminated in the end. It just took a while.” Apr 24, 11:47
Alf Baird on The Pit Of Vipers: “@ TARABDIN “what then the fate of peoples without sovereignty?” Indeed, the people and nation will ultimately ‘perish’ unless they…” Apr 24, 10:13
Minceheid on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Hatey McHateface says: 23 April, 2026 at 7:15 pm Hmmm. Bananas don’t have cores. Plenty of people enjoy bananas so…” Apr 24, 09:55
TURABDIN on The Pit Of Vipers: “@ Alf Baird »COLONIALISM is always a co-operative venture» (Fanon). A truism, how did the Brits & French etc hold…” Apr 24, 09:51
Alf Baird on The Pit Of Vipers: ““our wee, pretendy parliament” Twas aye a fair description of a colonial administration, Hatey, also know as ‘indirect rule’ in…” Apr 24, 08:44
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Lorncal @ 23 April, 11.07 writes: « John Money was not “tragically misguided”, Fearghas. He was a PDfile » —————…” Apr 24, 00:23
Lorncal on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Confused: that pilot would have been female with XX chromosomes – therefore, intersex or DSD. DSD people are still either…” Apr 23, 23:22
Lorncal on How To Get Away With Crimes: “John Money was not “tragically misguided”, Fearghas. He was a PDfile and made those two boys (the twin brothers, both…” Apr 23, 23:07
Hatey McHateface on The Pit Of Vipers: “I swore a solemn oath to respond to you only once in any 24-hour period. But I don’t mind breaking…” Apr 23, 23:02
Hatey McHateface on The Pit Of Vipers: ““stop the Dog Whistle politics” What other politics would most of them have left if they stopped that? “we have…” Apr 23, 22:52
Hatey McHateface on The Pit Of Vipers: “Cheers, YL. It’s good to be back. Thought I’d drop in to see how close we are to Indy. Damned…” Apr 23, 22:43
Confused on How To Get Away With Crimes: “this is all a deep rabbit hole one thing we distinguished in the past was – transvestite – someone who…” Apr 23, 22:35
George Ferguson on The Pit Of Vipers: “A pit of vipers is the strapline for this article. I just watched Question Time from Aberdeen, so an appropriate…” Apr 23, 22:33
Confused on How To Get Away With Crimes: “psychopathy runs at 100% incidence in rabbis, imams, spooks, freemasons and city/wallst bankers.” Apr 23, 22:32
