Unionists got very excited last week when the Office for Budget Responsibility once again downgraded its long-term North Sea oil revenue forecasts (which in 2011 it was predicting at £131bn) to just £2.1bn over 20 years. The new figure was as usual treated as a gospel fact and deployed to attack both independence and full fiscal autonomy by proving that Scotland couldn’t afford to run its own affairs.
We and others pointed out the numerous flaws in that argument, but of course those are just points of view. We could all debate it all day and all night and never achieve a consensus. There is, however, an easy way to settle the matter, by which supporters and opponents of independence and FFA alike can both put their money where their mouths are and everyone will be happy.
The first five words of “The Vow” – the solemn pledge made by all three UK party leaders on the eve of the independence referendum – are “The Scottish Parliament is permanent”. This is what happened in the House of Commons this evening when the UK government was asked to make good on that pledge.
For the last month or so, the Unionist parties have briefly enjoyed the opportunity to taunt the SNP in the Commons over Full Fiscal Autonomy, challenging the party to bring forward proposals and accusing it of being afraid of the policy it campaigned and won on in the election. The Nats called the bluff, and today got the unsurprising result.
The reason given by Secretary of State David Mundell – who declined to appear on today’s edition of “Good Morning Scotland” to defend or explain the decision – was that FFA “would cost every family in Scotland £5,000”.
And we thought that figure had a rather familiar ring to it.
With scarcely a moment’s pause for breath or reflection, the Unionist polity and media has seamlessly switched its focus to the elusive beast that is “Full Fiscal Autonomy”.
(The SNP thankfully seems to have swiftly dumped the silly and short-lived attempt to rebrand it “Full Fiscal Responsibility”.)
Having deemed the anti-independence “Project Fear” strategy a success because it won the referendum – seemingly oblivious to the fact that what it actually achieved was to turn a 30-point lead into a 10-point victory, at the cost of the annihilation of Unionist MPs in Scotland – the exact same tactics have been deployed against FFA.
And the main problem with that is that there are in fact two FFAs. And the Unionist side is fighting against the wrong one.
On the day Jim Murphy stands down as leader of the Labour Party North Britain branch office, we’d like to take this opportunity to offer our humble, heartfelt tribute to both him and the insightful political commentariat of Scotland.
Let’s start with a nice simple flat-out lie, from the Daily Record:
The imaginary figures for future UK oil revenues released yesterday by the Office for Budget Responsibility (which is amusingly pretending it has some sort of idea what the proceeds from the world’s most infamously volatile industry will be 25 years from now when it can’t get anywhere close to accurate three-MONTH predictions) saw the OBR downgrade its OWN previous figure of £37bn – not the SNP’s – to just £2bn.
Let’s just say that again – despite the lie in the Record’s headline that the SNP had been predicting a figure of £37bn, that number was actually a projection by the OBR.
A reasonable person might at this point wonder why anyone would still bother listening to a body that had just slashed its own previous guess by an eye-watering 94% in the space of a year, when you could simply buy a dartboard and a blindfold, get drunk and produce your own “projections” that were every bit as likely to be accurate, but that’s not even the half of it.
We’ve already noted that today is a confusing news day. But when we were listening to the radio this morning we thought we maybe hadn’t woken up properly.
The segment concerned a report by the Tory-leaning think tank Reform Scotland, and saw both the organisation and Labour MSP Hugh Henry trying doggedly to find a bad spin on the news in the fact that crime in Scotland is at a 40-year low. So desperate were they to do so that they ended up denying the existence of arithmetic.
So first of all there’s this (click pic for full story):
…in which the figures appear to show that Iceland’s policy of imposing justice and imprisoning the greedy bankers who caused the world financial crash – rather than just shovelling money at them and letting them carry on robbing everyone – actually saw its economy recover at least as well as anywhere else’s.
Mark Beggan on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “I give Andy Cap twenty minutes on the seat of power before his biscuits start burning and his Marxist plot…” Jul 2, 13:23
Peter McAvoy on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “While quickly browsing the BBC Scotland today website some stories on the review of the papers front pages attracted my…” Jul 2, 13:22
Andy Wiltshire on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “Assistant Chief Constable Stuart Houston of Police Scotland and Crown Agent John Logue of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal…” Jul 2, 12:45
Hatey McHateface on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “Out in the real world, the UK is about to get a new Prime Minister who has already outlined his…” Jul 2, 11:19
Hatey McHateface on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “Aye, Northy, you must be ruing the day you all so right royally fucked up the 2014 referendum. It’s good…” Jul 2, 11:11
Hatey McHateface on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “I have to agree Homer. Asserting that anybody who disagrees with one is a “fucking moron” who “enjoys taking it…” Jul 2, 11:04
Hatey Mchateface on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “Aye, Confused, we’d be down the pits digging coal, or on the Clyde welding supertankers, and all whilst being paid…” Jul 2, 10:51
Northcode on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “Apples and pears; low hanging fruit… easy and obvious targets. The good stuff is far higher up the tree closer…” Jul 2, 10:49
Confused on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “dana garavelli doing her 10000 words in the LRB made me think of this – www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8F7iEyitGw – there used to…” Jul 2, 10:09
Confused on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “everything is connected – and you can always be relied upon to miss the point in some shallow manner; well,…” Jul 2, 10:01
Confused on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “I dined once at Somerville College (looked good but not up to much, must have been their set menu), around…” Jul 2, 09:59
James Che on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “So it correct to assume Scotland has two tier government, the UK one and the imaginary one under the devolved…” Jul 2, 09:48
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Aidan on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: ““Much of the comment here, on Wings serves merely as distraction from the issues relevant to Independence and wastes the…” Jul 2, 08:20
Jay on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “Are PlodScot and Crown Office conduct susceptible to Judicial review? If not, then why not? If not, then does that…” Jul 2, 08:15
Jay on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “What pears, Northcode? Arcane beyond my short-sightedness, maybe. Please focus your mental capacities (excellently demonstrated at credibility-cost of McHateful) on…” Jul 2, 08:06
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Young Lochinvar on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “C That’s a genuinely interesting post. Can you elaborate as it’s peeked my interest, particularly the Congo crisis stuff? Thanks…” Jul 2, 00:53
Alf Baird on The Fast Track: “The empire’s doublethink surely lives on, in colonial Scotland.” Jul 2, 00:35
Confused on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “these cunts in the vids, you can summarise it down to an old comedy phrase : “badges … badges! ……” Jul 1, 22:57
cirsium on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “thanks for providing a transcript of the interview Rev. It is easier to deal with the “repetitive evasiveness” (AlMac) by…” Jul 1, 22:02
Karen on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “Some possibilities: a) Ach, it’s just indy supporting folks’ money b) a top COPFS person dropped the Clerkin ball,so chuckled…” Jul 1, 21:48
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Fast Track: “GCSE SPANISH GUIDE FOISTS TRANS IDEOLOGY PROPAGANDA ON TEENS One of the largest exam boards in England and Wales has…” Jul 1, 21:34
McDuff on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “The thing is rev will the police and Crown Office ever be put in a position where they would be…” Jul 1, 21:20
Hatey McHateface on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “No Mexico, no party! MSM reporting 3, maybe 4, dead celebrating their win over Ecuador. With such dedication, they deserve…” Jul 1, 19:58
Hatey McHateface on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “Seth MacFarlane is superb training for identifying and puncturing pretentious old farts.” Jul 1, 19:34
Hatey McHateface on Strike A Pose, There’s Nothing To It: “Dunno Connie. I migrated to CD’s back in the day, and now even they are laughed to scorn. It’s all…” Jul 1, 19:27
Hatey McHateface on The Fast Track: “Thanks for clearing that up, Alf. “The root of colonialism is fascism” (Cesaire) “Helps us locate the origins of fascism…” Jul 1, 19:24
