How numbers work
The very few readers who don’t immediately just snort and turn the page when they see the words “George Foulkes” may have noticed in yesterday’s Herald that the thirsty peer could be found gloating gleefully that had Scotland voted for independence last September it would now be “bankrupt” due to the decline in oil prices.
We can’t be bothered pointing out for the 500th time that a Yes vote wouldn’t have seen Scotland actually independent until March 2016, and that the oil price NOW is therefore about as relevant to anything as, well, Baron Foulkes himself.
But we couldn’t help noticing a couple of small arithmetical details.
Now, the latest available figures for Scotland’s GDP put it at around £150bn, so a £6bn deficit would in fact be 4% of it, not 6%. To bring it up to the higher figure we’re bizarrely left to assume that an independent Scotland would otherwise have the exact same debt as it does in the UK, an assumption almost as facile as pretending that we know what the oil price will be 14 months from now.
But somewhat more to the point, an alert reader helpfully pointed us to a page in the OECD Library, which details historic deficit levels for all of the world’s “developed” countries, including the UK.
What its records show is that when Baron Foulkes’ party left government in 2010, the UK’s deficit finished the year at a breathtaking 10% of GDP, and during Labour’s last full year of power it was even higher, at a dizzying 11.2%.
But what about now, with Scotland so fortunately still protected by the security of the Union and after five brutal years of Tory austerity aimed solely at reducing the deficit at the expense of any other priorities (a policy Ed Miliband has promised to maintain)?
The UK’s current deficit is 4.1% of GDP – a figure which apparently we should be offering prayers of thanks to the mighty broad shoulders of Britain for, even though it’s still one of the worst on the chart (only one country in the entire Euro area, Spain, has a slightly bigger proportional deficit than the UK’s).
So 4.1% is fine, but 6% would be “bankrupt”, but 11.2% is a mere blip from which you can recover in the space of one Parliament? We think they might have changed the order of numbers since we left school or something.
No fair Stu, you can’t use facts and logic to argue with these people.
There are some days when you feel like painting your arse red and asking folks to call you a baboon.
How on earth are these folks allowed to get power, influence and expense for having half an intellect?
You’re doing it deliberately.
Ah’ll get ma coat.
You’re doing the kind of work that the MSM and the opposition political parties should be doing. I’m glad you’re on the ball. Keep it up. Thank you.
But none of that matters. The feeble-minded have been given their dose of propaganda once more. They have nodded in agreement and slide comfortably into the reality they know and love.
So yet again MSM fail to do their job by having the facts and calling out the fibs.
It’s all so tedious – thanks for taking the strain Stu
Is it just that the brain is pickled by booze, or maybe he is just a stupit auld fool.
This is what is supposed to govern us. God help us all.
Damn you and your pesky fact!
The Big Lie…if you say it often enough and loud enough then the people will believe it.
I don’t think numbers have ever been a strong point for Foulkes. He has always gone in for impressionistic politics with a bit of trolling thrown in for good measure.
That said I can’t take him desperately seriously and I am not sure many in the world of politics do either. He is probably a good laugh in the pub though 🙂
Point very well made Stu.
Who knows what the future oil price will be?
It might even reach the $200 a barrel as forecast by OPEC.
http://www.usatoday.com/…/opec-sees-oil-prices-ex…/22800331/
“So if we’d have been “bankrupt”, what does that make the UK now?”
Foulked?
And the show goes on and on.
I know deep down it’s bad to laugh at the unfortunate but i canny help myself. And this drivel from lord Snooty not even being checked by the MSM is a disgrace.
May cannot come quick enough.
Superb work again Stu.
BTW. Love the hidden pic caption of the Baron!
There are some days when it is hard to do anything but swear. Seriously. I can’t hardly construct a sentence about these people without doing it. Well done Rev S for actually, you know, getting past that. Again.
Thank you Rev for pointing this out in a much more eloquent way than I’ve been doing since seeing the meme doing the rounds on social networks stating we’d be much better off than what Foulkes is saying, neglecting the fact that it would be next year, at the earliest before we saw any real oil revenues.
More power to your elbow!
Scotland would not be in deficit. It gets the deficit from Westminster.
Scotland raises £53Billion in tax revenues, plus taxes for economic activity going through UK HQ’s. It get back £53Billion. £35Billion + £15Billion pension/benefits and £3Billion Defence. It is £2Billion in deficit under Westminster governance. It could adjust it’s budget. A tax on ‘loss leading’ drink, cut Trident etc.
The rest of the UK raises £437Billion and borrows and spends £90Billion. Then puts £9Billion as a percentage on Scotland’s account. Scotland should be £5Billion+ better off (pro rata) but ends up £10Billion worse off, (pro rata) under Westminster fraudulent accounting system.
Scotland should have a £220Billion Oil Fund. Westminster secrecy and lies. There are Oil reserves on the West coast.
Foulkes would be bankrupt without the Union.
And we wanted to be wedded to the more than bankrupt UK courtesy of a currency union….then if no cu, pegged to their £…..crazy stuff really.
I see wee Dode has the classic alcoholics schonk in the above pic. Drunken eejit.
They’ve actually gone to the trouble of drying out Baron ‘Blootered’ for the umpteenth time and sent him to the studios.
All that just to make the confused old dodderer spout the same old tired idiotic pish.
Labour must be getting very desperate.
But remember everyone: unionists absolutely never, ever say Scotland is “too wee, too poor, too stupid” to be independent. They just say they would be bankrupt within months of asserting their democratic right to self-determination. That’s completely different.
Gordon Brown is reputed to have said to Tony Blair that he could not believe anything he said.
It seems that particular virus has spread completely and taken control of the body politic of Labour.
I do not believe ANYTHING said by any Labour (S)MP, aspirant(S)MP, Councillor, aspirant Councillor, or activist (do they have any left?).
A Party of institutionalised lying and liars.
I see some folk still think the MSM, and especially the BBC, aren’t doing their job.
They are absolutely doing their job. The job of protecting the British State. Folk in the west used to laugh at Pravda, but seem unable to see the same thing happening here.
@Donald Kerr 1.13
I agree. And it beggars belief that the MSM do not challenge this kind of tosh. I know it isn’t practical but if only MP’s as part of their oath of office (is there one?) should sign a declaration that they will make all reasonable efforts to establish the key facts around the statements they make before making them. Similarly, is it too much to ask that newspapers request such evidence as a pre-requisite of publication?
The Rev. is playing a blinder in revealing not only that modern two-party democracy is a cesspit, but regularly proves just how deep it is. In fact both my brother and me (I’m 61 and he is 57) have become staunch SNP supporters because of the referendum and in equal measure because of the sterling service which Wings in particular offers daily.
I think without the oil it shows very much where rUK would be.
Foulked 🙂
Give Lord Foulkes a break! I had a good few glasses of wine last week and found it affected, not only my speech, but also my artithmatical ability.
His noble Lordship will probably sober up and issue an apology any day now.
The problem is that disingenuous politicians only have to get their claims heard, doesn’t matter if they are right or wrong as long as they slur the opposition. By the time they are corrected it is too late, the damage has been done. Lord Foulkes is a master at distributing misinformation as is the whole Scottish Labour machine. We’ve already witnessed Jim Murphy disassociate himself from the truth on many occasions.
Anyone feeling envious when looking at Norway’s
Man!
The bonus money being pished away over the years by the likes of Lord Foulkes’s cronies.
Oh, you and you correct arithmetic, logical reasoning and facts!
sotto voce “the UK IS bankrupt”
Shhhh! Don’t tell anyone!
you put the stinkin rotten media to shame, you really do.
it’s like arguing with a drunk … oh
Drunken auld fool..
I remember him a few years ago blasting the SSP(who had six msp’s at the time) correct me if i am wrong ian B.
Anyway he accused them of using Rose Gentle to score political points when she had approched them after her 19 yr old son had been blown to bits in IRAQ.
Instead of showing a bit of compassion or some remorse for helping to send the boy there he stood and defended Tony Blair, i never forgot that.
The sooner these parasites are history the better.
Of course, for the first time , drugs and prostitution have been included in the UK figures. Also not factored in is the manner of the uk growth – which I was very happy Nicola Sturgeon touched on yesterday.
UK is growing by an increase in private indebtedness using schemes such as help to buy to drive people into even more debt and maximise profit for banks, pumping up another housing bubble.
As NS mentioned yesterday, private debt levels are back to pre-recession figures. This is what cause the recession in the first place and many believe the next one will make 2008 appear mild.
The Herald is part of the UK establishment in terms of principled reporting of current affairs, with some occasional ‘other’ points of view for balance.
Any material which M Gardham oversees is obiously UK OK thats a given ; but surely the point is anyone who reports utterances from the good Lord Bufty I Drunksalot, is really scraping the proverbial barrel with vigour.
Doh ! Sorry Rev 🙂
The oil price has bounced back somewhat. There has been an increase of over 20% in the last month, so trying to make any predictions 6 months in advance, never mind 2 or three years in advance is neigh on impossible.
Anyhoo, the £6bn ‘deficit’ in oil revenue seems a bit strange, considering the *average* price over the year to date is just shy of $100/barrel.
However the £6bn ‘deficit’ they are talking about is an additional oil ‘deficit’ and comes on top of a share of the bigger overall deficit they have created for us.
In short, until we get our independence, or at least get a proper look at the books, we’ll never know the true figures.
Baron Foulkes of Cumnock!!! You forget your promises made to the people of East Ayrshire all those years ago. What happened to you?
Funnily enough, I don’t know if the noble Lord is sober today, but a retweet just appeared in my timeline (from STV journo) showing the noble lord leaping with glee onto a school closure announcement by Western Isles Council.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the council is run by Independents – but Foulkes seems to think it’s the SNP’s fault somehow. Make your own minds up.
https://twitter.com/TheScotsman/status/565846565420826624
ps I did not read the article
Folk like Foulkes just make me angry.
I think that`s the point.
Obelix puts his drunken foot in it again. He is the Prince Philip of the Labour party. The more he speaks, the less he understands what his frontal lobe is telling cerebtral cortex.
It makes sense somewhere in that numbskull pickled brain of his. The words keep flowing but unfortunately so does the drink!
In general the prospect of the SNP supporting a minority Labour government does not bother me.
When I put possible names and faces to the idea it becomes less attractive as there will probably be some SLAB survivors come may 8th.
As a peer Baron Foulkes is all right thank you very much but the headline “SNP props up Jim Murphy, Margar…”
Sorry, forgive me, the thought of it makes me quite tired and emotional.
Thanks Stu. As you say, saw the name, snorted, moved on!
Baron Foulke’ comments are complete BS’ and I’m sure he knows it whether he was sober or not. It had its intended effect though as it was broadcast to its intended audience who would once again hear their source for trustwothy news tell them that they were right to vote no.
The truth doesn’t make any difference at all to these guys who only care about ensuring their lifestyles and revenue streams are not threatened. With just over two months to go you can be sure that this type of thing will get worse the more desperate they become.
MochaChoca @2.12 and others
I refer you to Dinnatouch @ 1.04.
That said keep up with the facts, a couple of hundred folk comment on here regularly but 300,000 people visit per month.
The more we and they learn the better for all.
OT
Hmmmm, It seems like the American Elite, want Mr Blair to show a little more commitment.
Now Tony Blair is yesterdays man, but do we have any Blairite,s in Scotland who also seem to be very supportive of the American right wing?
Someone who would perhaps be invited on to the advisory board of the Henri Jackson society!
http://rt.com/usa/bohemian-blair-powell-guccifer-811/
What other country would allow it’s Mp’s and ex Mp’s, to trash their countries ability and still be in a job. Welcome to the crazy world of the Stockholm Syndrome Scots!
One of these days, a Labour politician from the North British branch is going to really really surprise us all. Someone is going to state something, quoted by the MSM, which is the TRUTH!
Never was the corny old joke more appropriately applied …
Q How do you know is a Labour politician is lying?
A Their lips are moving.
I voted for this balloon in 1992, may I take this opportunity to humbly apologise.
The good people of Cumnock must sleep more soundly knowing they have their Lord looking after them.
It is quite tragic they are still trying to convince themselves that they won the indyref !!
That picture is not Lord Foulkes it’s the new spitting image puppet.Oh wait yes it is.
Has any clever economist (or accountant) thought of doing some of what Stu has done on a more systematic basis? For example, we know that historically Scotland has a lower deficit than rUK. We also know that that means we overpay for the debt the UK has run up in our name. We also know that we overspend on defence. We also know that we contribute pretty substantially to “national” infrastructure that never benefits us. We know that we pay for Westminster politicians. We know that we pay for civil servants in London (and across England, Wales and the north of Ireland) who, in an independent Scotland, would all be working here. Is there someone out there who’d be willing and able to produce accurate accounts to show just how much better off we’d be in an independent country?
Further to that, Rev – how would you feel about a wee bit of the next fundraiser going to pay for such a piece of research? I think it would be immensely valuable and if it were done every year around UK budget time, it would give the pro-indy parties some really strong material to work with. It would also be funny to watch the establishment parties trying to pick it all apart.
Any size of deficit is too much for Scotlands wee diddy narrow shoulders, they need real broad shoulders, like those of the glorious united Kingdom!
I’d rather have a humph!
What baffles me is the Unionist glee at the recent collapse of oil prices, which they then compare with the ‘Yes’ camps ‘$100 dollar’s a barrel’ theory.
In one sense, it’s almost as if they perceive that ‘$100 dollars a barrel’ is an unrealistic value on oil, even though a year ago, it was more than that! Basic economics seem to elude them when looking at not only the ‘$100 dollars a barrel’ theory, but also the present price of oil.
Gleefully pointing out the supposed ‘failure’ that would descend upon on an independent Scotland should the oil dip in price, they seem to fail to realise that the current problem is a UK one, and not only that, but it does George Osborne no favours. Seeing oil drop to around $50 a barrel means less revenues for George, and it doesn’t help in any way in tackling the monstrous £1.5 Trillion debt!
So, when the day comes, and oil creeps back up to S100 a barrel, and then slowly ever creeps upwards …even to the lauded $200 a barrel …would that $200 a barrel still be disastrous for Scotland?
In Unionist eyes …yes! The new arguments that would erupt from them would be on the lines that we couldn’t afford to run our cars, hauliers and the transport industry would be howling, and what other nations could afford to buy it off us! We would probably become a pariah in the world’s eyes if the Unionists were to be believed.
Simply put, the Unionists will never agree with the Nationalists over oil. They will bicker, argue and just be in plain old denial when it comes to Scotland’s oil. No price will ever be suitable whether it was too high or too low. The Goldilocks zone for oil prices simply does not exist if Unionists were to be believed, but if we simply get to the heart of the Unionist argument, then oil is just simply bad for Scotland …period! It will NEVER be good for us.
And what leaps out at you from that table almost as much as the UK’s high deficit level is of course the gigantic surplus boasted by a small, northern European country, only capable of reaching that highly enviable position thanks to that terribly volatile and bankruptcy-inducing commodity, oil.
David it appears that your link is goosed.
Is this the one you meant.
So this is part of the grand plan between now and May. To use TV to spout blatant lies which seek to defame and ridicule the SNP and make people fearful in order to try an quell the uprising? Oh my, I’m so surprised, I really didn’t see this coming.
So why didn’t Foulkes just go on and tell the truth. Something like, “I’ve looked over the numbers, and, based on my own unique logic, I’ve came to the conclusion that the UK is technically bankrupt. We’re all snookered. Get out while you can.”
@Kenny try this
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/38001783/data/England%20and%20Scotland%20revenue%20and%20expenditure%20summary.pdf
though it does not show what you want.
Cuilean:
Be warned ranting in capitals will incur the wrath of the Rev.
amie Arriere @2:22
Those councillors who claim to be independents always seem to follow the leaders, who are labour.
Anything suggested by the SNP councillors is usually blocked.
Great stuff Rev, keep up the good work, we need you.
O/T ref the National, while they still aim at Independence I feel that there is a slow, less critical assessment of labour cock ups. Also too much exposure when Slab are critical of the SNP.
I do not if others are noticing that, as I do.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock. How the fuck does somebody born in Shrewsbury Shropshire become the Baron of Cumnock . O.K. he was MP for Cumnock and Doon valley but what the fuck did this idiot ever do for his constituents? His former seat has one of the highest registration figures for drug abuse in the U.K.
O/T
Labour double standards
http://order-order.com/2015/02/12/flashback-when-the-milibands-avoided-tax/
Cuilean please don’t shout it disnae help. Anyway the Rev will put you on the naughty step for shouty rants. Wheest.
Sir David Garrad knows how numbers work under Labour, from 2006.
One of the millionaire businessmen nominated for a peerage last night revealed the role the prime minister and Cherie Blair played in securing a loan for the Labour party from him.
Sir David Garrard, a property developer, said Labour’s chief fundraiser Lord Levy introduced him to the couple at a party at his north London home in 2002.
Garrard said each of the dinner guests had been given 10 minutes to speak about their favourite subjects. He talked about an idea for providing housing for low paid public sector workers.
“Blair listened but asked me how I knew it could work,” he said. “I said he ran the country — he could surely get this to work as well.”
Garrard, who was already a sponsor of a city academy in Bexley, south London, was recognised for his services to charity with a knighthood in the 2003 new year honours.
Later that year the self-confessed Thatcherite made his first formal donation to Labour of £200,000. In 2004 he received another invitation from Levy to meet the Blairs for dinner.
In April 2005, after retiring as chairman of his property company Minerva and cashing in £40m worth of shares, Garrard met Levy again and agreed to lend the party £2.3m.
Last night Garrard said: “It was Tony Blair I was supporting. I always expected it to be paid back with interest, I had absolutely nothing to hide. I resent the suggestion they were ‘secret’ loans.
“It was just something I wanted to do. When Tony Blair determined to join America in the second Gulf war he was doing absolutely the right thing. I was thrilled they got rid of Saddam.”
Last October Garrard received a phone call from Downing Street informing him he had been nominated for a peerage. He then filled in a form for the Appointments Commission, which vets potential peers. It only asked about donations and membership of political parties but not loans.
Garrard said when he read in a newspaper that he had been rejected for a peerage his delight turned to frustration. He said he had still not received official confirmation of the decision.
The millionaire, who earlier in 2005 had moved to Switzerland to become a tax exile, said yesterday: “If I had any idea I would be getting a peerage, I would hardly have become non-resident, just months earlier. Surely this shows I had no expectation of receiving a peerage.”
Garrard was interviewed by police under caution on May 11 at his lawyer’s office during the course of which he declined to answer questions, instead submitting a six-page written statement.
He says in an interview with today’s Mail on Sunday that he could not have envisaged he would now be facing allegations of political corruption.
“I can hardly believe it, let alone understand it — I bailed the Labour party out and now I am in the worst position I have ever been in my life,” he said.
“I am not a political animal. I never have been. But I did support the Conservatives because I thought Margaret Thatcher was fantastic and wonderful.”
It is understood Garrard has not called the £2.3m loan in yet.
So why is Jim Murphy accepting donations from a Thatcherite, a former Tory donor, a confessed tax exile and someone embroiled in the Cash for Honours scandal?
I have been supporting The National despite it’s not being perfect.
However in today’s paper there was a one sided article criticising A&E’s in Scotland with a direct quote and big pic of Jenny Marra, ‘A&E crisis’.
The article was quite poor as it didn’t really counteract the comments with the other info we know to be around; satisfaction levels etc.
There was a small contribution from Nicola about sending in support teams and the quote that Tayside had 98% of patients treated within 4 hours.
It seems that the RA in Paisley was one of the worst and JM saying , the SG can’t get away with saying this is a localised Paisley problem only.
It read like a BBC Scotland report, SG under fire etc.
The article was by Janice Burns – anyone know her connections?
Ok,O/T
But i was reading yesterday about a £40 million shortfall in the Falkirk council budget and was incensed at some of the suggestions to make up the shortfall ie 4wk bin collections,so i e-mailed Falkirk council.
I e-mailed them because they’ve recently had a website overhaul and the information i was looking for was near impossible to find and was probably buried somewhere in a huge financial statement report i couldnt be bothered trawling through for hours.
Previously when i had accessed the website years ago looking for the same bit of information it was simple to find and easily understandable.
I was looking for the total budget and the portion of the budget that goes towards servicing PFI.
I remember years ago being disgusted at the amount but couldnt remember the figure.
Anyway,i got the reply to my e-mail.
Dear Mark,
Thank you for your recent email.
In order to process your enquiry could you please provide more details on the information you are requesting, ie what is PFI?
Am i going mental,i thought PFI was in the common lexicon?
BTW can anyone explain simply the difference between debt and deficit?
I was having an argument on twitter with some bloke who was quoting the 6% deficit and dismissed BfS and other articles from various newspapers showing the very high debt that the UK is running saying that wasn’t relevant.
Slightly o/t (but we are talking about peers here).
What happens when (not if) we get independence to all them lords? Do you expect WM to keep paying them?
Les Wilson- Re National I said early doors that I had my doubts about the way it allowed Labour so much space.I still buy it but I have great reservations about its authenticity regarding Independence.
There is also this link for the opec general secretary suggesting 200 a barrel.
(1)Under investment can lead to reduced supply
(2)Job’s lost leads to reduced supply.
(3)He’s also suggesting that the cuts that oil companies are making could have a dramatic impact on future oil prices as the under investment has the potential to cause oil prices to rocket higher if demand grows faster than future supplies.
As everyone knows a scarce resource commands the highest price and or value, be it a manufactured scarcity or a natural scarcity (the state of being scarce or in short supply; shortage)
To me it just say’s the fix is aready in progress but one thing i do know from the above is someone is going to make a sh£t load of cash but it will not be Scotland unless we get control of the fiscal leaver’s.
http://tinyurl.com/qadusgr
The MSM’s job is to maintain the status quo.
And the status quo is that the British Government spent £97.5 billion more that it received in 2013/2014 & expects to spend £91.3 billion more than it will receive this year & £75.9 more than it will receive next year.
At some point in time between now and next year, public sector net debt will exceed £1.5 trillion.
Autumn Statement 2014 here … http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/autumn-statement-documents
The numbers that matter are on page 97 onwards. I suggest you have a stiff drink before reading them because they are very, very grim.
I don’t mind anyone talking shite we all do it from time to time we’re human we make mistakes
What i do mind is people talking shite deliberately till it becomes lying shite to confuse the bewildered and uninformed and that takes me back to politicians being allowed to lie it’s offensive in the extreme and the first political party to outlaw such practices would probably get every vote in the country
So come on our team SNP what do you think?
Googled Janice Burns. Turns out she was a journalist with the Daily Record. I was also dismayed at the article this morning featuring Jenna (lying get) Marra.
I too have had reservations over the National, but have supported it since the start.
But I will say this I am keeping an eye on it and am having thoughts about ditching it.
It had better have something in it tomorrow that is extremely hard hitting to Labour.
@liz
debt is how big you overdraft is
deficit is how much it is increasing every year.
JB
Rev, when you have a few spare minutes (like when :)can you give us an update on your view on the National and it’s development over the last few weeks. I for one am certainly strongly in favour of it and haven’t missed an issue but I can understand some wingers feeling a bit frustrated with it. Ta.
@ liz
Deficit (or, occasionally, surplus) is the difference between the Government’s income and its outgoings.
If money is borrowed to balance the books, that is debt, owed to those from whom it was borrowed.
Successive years of deficit lead to an ever-growing debt, because that is cumulative.
People who talk about “paying down the deficit” are using incorrect terminology. The deficit can be reduced; but only the debt can be paid back/down, during years of surplus.
The defcit is the difference between expenditure and revenues, the annual deficit.
The debt us the accumulated deficits which have to be financed by long term borrowing.
Basically annual and long term accumulated.
A deficit is the negative difference between earnings (tax receipts) & expenses (e.g. public spending) which means all spending in one year exceeded all the money that was received within the same period.
Surplus or Debt is the sum of all the positive & negative differences between annual earnings & expenses.
Currently, when all those positive & negative differences are added up, it comes to more than £1.4 trillion. We don’t normally show the number as a negative but it is.
If the deficit this year is £100 billion, then the total debt next year will be £1.4 + £0.1 = $1.5 trillion.
@ G H Graham
Oh dear. I’m not sure that explanation is going to clear things up!
Thanks for all the replies.
Will read them all carefully.
O/T Same feelings about the National today & Marra’s usual mince.
they should have a web page for complaints – whens that going to happen ??
UK assets are £7.3trn. £120k per head of population.
Foulkes is a pish-head in an ill-fitting suit. Labour are welcome to him, an embarrassment to himself and his party.
It looks like Norway is doing tremendously well, and has been for quite some time. Wonder why that is…?!
The monetary based system.
(1)Money is created out of nothing.
(2)New money is created out of debt.
(3)All moneys will eventually return to it’s intrinsic value zero. 🙂
so wir skint.
They are just embarrassing.
steveasaneilean @ 1:18 pm
‘So yet again MSM fail to do their job by having the facts and calling out the fibs.
It’s all so tedious – thanks for taking the strain Stu‘
Call me cynical but it seems to me that that is the MSM doing the job they’re paid to do.
This from the Barony A frame trust…..
George Foulkes came for a visitation to the pit. We took him….into the
section EO2 – a 3 and a half foot seam, very rich coal…it was a hands
and knees job. He’d never been in a pit in his life…the face-line had
stopped for whatever reason…and when the face chains started back
up, you wanted to have seen him; then the shearers started up. We
actually had to pull him out…he just hadn’t a clue.
Don’t you wish they’d just left him there 🙂
A good wee read…
http://www.baronyaframe.org/wp-content/uploads//2012/03/pitheid-topic-2.pdf
But they have cut the deficit at the expense of providing revenue for sustainable growth and social benefits which increase spending in the economy (which lowers the deficit if done sensibly) while the debt climbs at £12 million pounds per hour.
And of course if Scotland got all its oil revenues instead of the piddling 8% per UK capita share it would have a huge extra bonus (even at today’s low,but climbing prices)
M4rkyboy, PFI equates to Private Finance Initiative but it was spun into PPP, Public Private Partnership, around 2004/5 IIRC. However they should still be able to find the information as the schools contract was discussed as a PFI deal way back in 1996-97 and I’m pretty sure that was the title the contracts were issued under.
@Andrew Morton – cynical 😉
he is looking more and more like something from the Hobbit with every passing day !!!!!
@ colin mccartney –
Bilbo’s big toe?
@RMAC
Thanks for that.
I sent a wee addendum to my reply including this.
You wont be surprised that they’re attaching the blame to the SNP council tax freeze for the shortfall which iam sure is a load of mince.
I’ve been lead to believe that the Scottish Govt offers funds to make up the shortfall.
Am i right in this?
Another rather muted “reporting North Britain” again this evening, with
Sally in the chair ( no criticism here apparent from the red dress).No doubt “Jackie crisis Bird”
And Eleanor “accident and emergency ” Bradford will return to the “front line”
Shortly. Probably “recuperating” somewhere “down south” before
Returning in “good health” to ” pacific peerage”
In todays Herald ” sturgens 180 billion spending plans will bankrupt uk warn experts…..” hmmmmm so wtf is 1.4 trillion then? just a bad day at the bookies?
No context given on speech, just typical boring headline pish that really is starting to look like a feking scene from a Hitchcok film. Surreal!
I may just start up a guilotine business, for when thee camels back doth break, the need for said contraptions will be extreme me thinks.
Bassas!
The problem, one of the problems, one of the many, major problems with Foulkes’ comments, not picked up in the article or, surprise surprise, in the Herald, is that whatever the putative reduction in oil revenues might be, the share of those revenues currently received by Scotland is precisely zero. So if a notional reduction in those revenues could ”bankrupt’ us as he claims, what the hell is getting nothing at all doing to us right now?
r esquierdo,
“Re National —– I have great reservations about its authenticity regarding Independence.”
The National’s only purpose is to milk the pro-independence market in the safe knowledge that there is not going to be another independence referendum anytime soon.
It certainly doesn’t want an SNP landslide in May.
Pro-independence supporters who buy The National BECAUSE of its ‘pro-independence’ stand are more gullible than those who voted No BECAUSE of the “vow”.
Lord Pishypants.
We can’t be bothered pointing out for the 500th time that a Yes vote wouldn’t have seen Scotland actually independent until March 2016, and that the oil price NOW is therefore about as relevant to anything as, well, Baron Foulkes himself.
Hardly a ringing endorsement of independence. Your argument here is essentially that it’d fine because in the immediate term, we’d have the security of the union.
@Charlie
The article debunks Foulkes statement entirely and points out that even were Scotland to be independent now and oil prices were to stay at this low level,Scotland’s deficit would still be lower than the UK’s.
Therefore Scotland is perfectly viable relative to the UK which I assume Foulkes and your good self would still think capable of remaining an independent state.
Rock at 8.26
Taking more shite.
They open there mouths and let the nonsense spew forth. Ingnorance or out and out lies?