The roads to perdition
When even the deputy leader of the Scottish Tories complains that the fear-based arguments of the No campaign are getting “silly”, the more optimistic observer might be forgiven for hoping for at least a superficial temporary change in their tone, particularly in the light of the especially bad example which triggered the comments.
You’d think the more optimistic observer would have learned by now, eh?
Hot on the heels of the embarrassing mobile phone roaming fiasco, today’s Scotsman ably demonstrates that “Project Fear” continues unabated by anything so trivial as widespread mockery of stories which caused even Alan Cochrane of the Telegraph to wail that the No campaign “appear to have taken leave of their senses”.
The paper’s lead independence article shrieks “Scots face UK road levy“, and goes on to make the alarming-sounding claim that “Scottish hauliers will be hit by a £1,000 a year levy to use the rest of the UK’s road network and ordinary drivers left facing extra costs should voters back independence”.
As we noted yesterday, it’s possible for a skilled propagandist to lie using only true facts, and the piece by David Maddox is another instructive case study. Because it is indeed true that if Scotland votes for independence, Scottish hauliers will face charges of up to £1000 a year to use the UK’s roads. What Maddox chooses not to point out is that they’ll face the exact same charges if Scotland votes No.
The HGV Road User Levy Act became law in February 2013, takes effect next April and imposes fees on all heavy goods vehicles which use the UK’s roads. But as the UK government’s own press release on the Act notes:
“By law, the scheme cannot discriminate between UK-registered vehicles and vehicles from elsewhere in the EU so this charge will apply to all lorries.”
The release goes on to explain that “for the vast majority of UK hauliers, this will not mean an increase in costs as they will be compensated through a reduction in vehicle excise duty”. But as Vehicle Excise Duty (or its equivalent) will be a matter for an independent Scottish government to decide, it could easily choose to apply that reduction to Scottish HGVs required to use rUK roads in the course of their business, and pay for it by charging rUK lorries a similar levy (as currently happens in most EU countries, which was the reason for the Act in the first place).
Indeed, as receipts from the HGV Road User Levy currently go to the UK Treasury and it’s almost certainly the case that more foreign lorries would use Scottish roads than Scottish ones would use foreign roads (Scotland being a small country by EU standards), the net result would be an increase in revenue to the Scottish Government at no cost to Scotland’s haulage businesses – money which would then be available to reduce Scottish VED even further if the Scottish government desired.
It’s always wise, when reading the Scottish media, to look for what you’re NOT being told. To the experienced and professionally cynical reader, the careful, deliberate omissions in Maddox’s piece – and the UK government report it purports to be impartially covering – leap out and practically throttle you. We’ll be watching with interest to see if they’re repeated in the rest of the press.
I see the Herald has decided to give this story a ‘does what is says on the tin’ headline.
No campaign in bid to ‘scare’ Scots drivers
link to heraldscotland.com
Now that the project fear cat is out of the bag, best to just tell it how it is?
An interesting adjunct to the above is that ALL traffic from N Ireland shall travel through Scottish Roads. I can’t see the Orangemen sending their trucks South through ROI. Just back from there. More later.
Soar Alba
Isn’t there a truck ferry direct from Liverpool to Belfast?
We can just use hover trucks.
@ simon
Liverpool to Belfast link around 8hrs crossing
Stranraer to Belfast link around 2.5hrs crossing
Drive from Stranraer to Liverpool around 4.5 hours
About an hour Difference don’t know how that costs logistically but as they say time is money.
Do you think all this crap, fluster and bluster from the NO ists is a smoke screen for something special heading the don’t knows way?
It’s hard to believe the Uk power brokers would leave their future in these numpties hands.
@Robert Kerr:
Interesting point about NI. I presume a large percentage of NI hauliers go to Scotland and/or England at least once a year, so they would all have to pay both rUK and Scottish road levy. (I’m not sure what the proportions are for English and Welsh hauliers, so the problem might be less important there.) Will NI hauliers put pressure on the rUK government after Scottish independence to create a pan-British Isles road levy, I wonder?
Tattie bogle – don’t forget the drive from Liverpool to the M6 – Liverpool will not be the final destination for Irish lorries!
As someone says in the Scotsman comments… “what next, a jobby tax?”.
Perhaps we could do something radical in an independent Scotland and actually spend the money raised by “road tax” on the roads.
”
Perhaps we could do something radical in an independent Scotland and actually spend the money raised by “road tax” on the roads.”
your avin a giraffe mate
TMITJ
I was thinking just that. “Road tax” is a misnomer at present, so why would/should an Independent Scotland follow that same path. I make the mistake of looking at the Scotsman article, and a worse mistake in reading the comments. The same “happy unionist posters” are there, it seems day in, day out – is this their paid job, I wonder? Same on the herald, especially OBE and the Slovene Sage.
(OT But that Jezerna woman/man does bewilder me. I spend some time in Slovenia in the late 1990s and have remained working in the Balkans ever since. NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE I ever met has anything other that full support for what Scotland will decide next year. Despite all the problems that will have to be faced they understand what Independence means for a country and its people. But all J has to say is reams of “argument” that is too specific to come from a casual observation of the issue – particularly that as presented in the MSM. So, he/she must be getting this from somewhere else. What is his/her day job? OK, rev I will quickly move on 😉 )
Hail Alba
How about
Scotsman Newspaper to close if Scots vote yes –
Experts have suggested that The Johnstone press title established in 1817 looks likely to close it’s doors for the last time due to falling sales if Scottish voters back Independence in 2014.
Re Transport fears…When are we going to have Consumer Minister(sigh) Jo Swinson on TV complaining that the UK consumer could soon see a serious reduction in the number of Scots MPs on the Gravy Train?
Perhaps we could do something radical in an independent Scotland and actually spend the money raised by “road tax” on the roads.
Good idea. And we could spend income tax on incomes.
How about and independent Scottish Treasury will not be charging it’s citizens/hauliers 80p (VAT & Duty) on EVERY litre of fuel they consume.
Tom Hogg – “As someone says in the Scotsman comments… “what next, a jobby tax?”.”
Even I’ll vote No if that turns out to be true.
The opportunity to implement has been lost due to the current RFL banding system introduced a few years ago, but I used to advocate scraping road tax altogether and putting it on the price of fuel. It then becomes unavoidable and everyone that uses the road pays for it. The more you use the more you pay simple!
Westminster shot itself in the foot by “banding” vehicles with regard to carbon emissions. I am replacing my car this month and because I can only afford an older model (2008) I will pay £140.00 pa. for my road tax. A friend with a very similar model all be it three years newer (2011 less polluting) pays £30.00 pa. I understand that Westminster underestimated the car industry and its reaction to the low emissions tax breaks. Some now are paying £0.00 per year. This is causing a deficit in RFL collected by the treasury. No doubt they will compensate somehow.
I’m sure my hen’s are laying smaller eggs now they’ve heard I support independence.
More keech from the Westminster keech-meisters.
Things have gotten so bad that even the loyal keech shovellers in the media are embarrassed to shift this big pile of pure keech.
@Max;
Especially now they will be charged to shift it.
@Max
I agree.
If Cochrane is complaining it must be getting bad. I do hope that BT carries on with project fear though. As the lies pile up and are seen for what they are then eventually no one will believe a single word that they say.
Why adopt a change in tone when you know that every scare story, no matter how ludicrous, will be dutifully picked up by a compliant media and treated with the utmost seriousness? The BBC on GMS this morning are still reporting the mobile phone scare story, unaccountably omitting to mention one small part of the context – the fact the story’s already been comprehensively trashed.
Incidentally, another subtle lie was woven in to that same discussion this morning. Gary Robertson said that ‘the SNP have branded Better Together as ‘Project Fear’. As we know, the term originated from within Better Together itself. But no lie too small, eh, Mr Boothman?
The BBC on GMS this morning are still reporting the mobile phone scare story.
And in so doing are trashing their own credibility.
Norwegian Pop band AHA has disappointed the Better Together Campaign by refusing them permission to adopt the Bands hit single “Cry Wolf” as the official Campaign song. “Bugger” muttered Jings McCrivvens, official spokesman for the BT team.
@Training Day
I know a couple of die hard unionists and even they thought the mobile phone story was laughable. They even acknowledge now that I am correct when I tell them that the BBC & MSM are acting as propaganda merchants for BT. “Never interrupt you enemy when they are making a mistake.”
I think we are getting to a critical mass of keech. Whilst Scottish keech is manageable and smells of roses the Westminster and Whitehall variety is so prodigious and smelly that there is a real danger of spontaneous combustion.
So I think it is time we took some action. Scottish patriots at the ready to defend this nation from cross-border English keech. We also need to set up Keech-Watch, local action groups to ensure that Scottish streets are safe from Little Britishers fouling our roads and pavements.
Say NO to keech, and send them home to stink again.
@Max
Reminds me of a time when I was younger and dafter and skint, but not wanting to go home one long hot summer in Greece.
The deal, before we set off, was for a Swedish friend and I to empty this guy’s ‘small’ truck that was loaded with cow shite for the reward of a bottle of whisky each. The cow shite had been acquired in Yugoslavia. Under the shite were four crates of smuggled Scottish whisky. “Easy job. No problem!” We okayed the ‘deal’.
We were driven to a field miles from nowhere to find a truck filled with cow shite – an articulated truck! We were then given a spade each…and nothing else! The bastard then left us there to get on with it! To further his bastard-credentials he had put the crates right at the front of the truck’s shite-pile.
We spent the whole day, in temperatures over 40C, stripped to the waist and up to our knees shovelling that stuff. If we hadn’t had water we’d have probably died!
Mr. Bastard returned just as we located the first of the crates of that liquid gold. He was very happy! We weren’t. We were exhausted, hungry and smelt…like shite.
We did though, get our ‘reward’ and that night was spent drinking most of it! We didn’t attract many of the opposite sex, right enough – it took about a week to finally get rid of the smell!
Oh, and ‘our friend’ had other “stuff” packed inside his truck’s tyres. He wouldn’t tell us what “it” actually was. We were glad to leave it at that.
Scottish Labour have their ‘truth team’, perhaps Yes Scotland should form a ‘Keech Corps’
I’m calling it that purely and only for the purpose of alliteration, feel free to change it.
extreme keech
link to thepoke.co.uk
Of course none of this will put off the BBC in Scotland from reporting this obvious pish as a catastrophic abomination on a gargantuan & unimaginable scale for Scotland if it votes yes.
Down with the jobby tax!
Actually, I don’t see a jobby tax making muster.
Most of the nay sayers will be bankrupt with the amount of shite they part with on a daily basis.
BBc Scotland have reported that there is a danger that the availability of scare stories on Independence may dramatically decrease if Scotland votes for Independence. “Its clear that should a Yes vote win then there will be a drastic reduction in scare stories available. Have the Scottish Government and people considered this?” said Ruan Thiday, BT spokesperson.
The War On Keech starts here.
I like Yes Scotland`s (kind of) new approach to all this scare story hysteria nonsense; it`s all Project Fear absolute rubbish. I like that. It`s good that people are aware of and are using the term ‘Project Fear’.
It self explains a lot of the things undecideds may have been worried by through the near constant fear-mongering from the No Campaign. It could well be a game changer, at least as regards how some people see these ‘concerns’ as actual attempts at bullying and threats. Not good, not good at all.
Desimond,
I hadn’t thought about this. What will we do in an independent Scotland with the obvious scare drought that we’re sleepwalking into?
Without the ability for the state to scare us into conformity Scotland will produce a horrid & grotesque population with no inherent fear of anything or anyone!
Confidence will extrude from every orifice of the population resulting in a spinechilling “can do” attitude where the only limits are our imaginations.
Is this a price worth paying for independence?
Fuck it folks. This indy lark is not for us. Vote No I tell you!
@MacPhee
theultimate scare story that the Scotsman will close unless we vote NO!
No!
I will be proud to vote YES.
Robert Bryce
Without the ability for the state to scare us into conformity Scotland will produce a horrid & grotesque population with no inherent fear of anything or anyone!
Confidence will extrude from every orifice of the population resulting in a spinechilling “can do” attitude where the only limits are our imaginations.
Is this a price worth paying for independence?
Spot on, Robert 🙂
It is good that the BBC hammered on about mobile phones. The story is laughable and, as mentioned, embarrassing to the more intelligent No to Scotland proponents. The public are beginning to see the daily scare stories for what they are and that the BBC is actively promoting them no matter how infantile helps incredibly in assisting us discredit the partisan numpties.
I am glad to see Abbie (or whatever) has moved from the Guardian to the Herald. The incredibly long winded, packed with irrelevant legalese and fundamently bitterly anti-Scottish diatribes were tiresome. I can only assume she or he was savagely bitten by a wild haggis on some trip to Scotland in their youth and has nursed a bitter hatred of God’s own sweet heather garden ever since.
@Tony Little
C’mon Tony? Jezerna from Sloverna (intentional error for rhyming) is a Labour troll plant OR a Herald plant to keep the thread going.
link to onlinemanure.co.uk
Guaranteed next day delivery of horse or cow manure to anywhere in the UK. No need to worry about road levies. I wonder how many bags BBC Scotland take delivery of?
O/T
Out of curiosity, I googled your picture.
link to izismile.com
It seems to be a delivery which went wrong in the town of Bruton, Somerset. But the surprising thing is that the last photograph appears to show the truck is delivering Irn Bru!
Is this a wind-up, or are the natives of South England really drinking Scotland’s other national drink? The last time I was in Holiday Express at Glasgow airport, I asked for the amber nectar, and was told that they did not stock it “because we are an English Company”!!
“Is this a wind-up, or are the natives of South England really drinking Scotland’s other national drink? The last time I was in Holiday Express at Glasgow airport, I asked for the amber nectar, and was told that they did not stock it “because we are an English Company”!!”
You can find the Bru pretty much everywhere in England I’ve ever been. Even the fancy limited editions like the “Fiery” one.
Croatia joined the EU today. A couple of interesting things about it:
1. They have not been “forced to join the Euro” (other than the same “obligation” bestowed upon permanent procrastinators Sweden and the Czech Republic)
2. They have not signed up to Schengen (although they “could” be signed up by 2015)
So the next time someone says Scotland will have to be a brand new member of the EU and, as a result, be forced to adopt the Euro and Schengen, just point them towards Croatia.
The point of #projectfear I think is not the individual scare stories which are shown up for what they are almost immediately. The purpose is just to sew seeds of doubt in general public because all they hear day in day out is ‘worry’ ‘concern’ ‘row’ etc. It is a fear campaign – content doesn’t matter. I suspect imported from our independent cousins over the pond for this campaign style. This tactic is round 1 – I suspect something harder hitting in the future Round 2. YES and SNP must be ready.
This article, for me, shows the importance of WoS & the work
the Rev does.
If I had read the original report I would have been
suckered in. As it is now, if someone uses this ‘£1,000’ excuse
in an argument against independence I now have the facts to
use to debunk.
It is so tiresome to see all these different ‘misinformation/lies’
being constantly aimed at stopping people from making informed
choices. Thankfully, I come here (amongst other places) to find
out what has been ‘missed’ in the reports and for a better understanding
of their propaganda.
Anne
I know it is a small point but didn’t Project Fear over in Merkin Land ultimately fail and Obama was re-elected?
Not that I would put off our Project Fear die hards over here on that score.
That is the point about independence, the ability to right the wrongs Westminster are stuck with. Independence means we can sit down, look at the things that are wrong with society and come up with our own plan that isn’t driven by world prestige as that is all that is driving Camoron at the moment as you will hear if you listen to what he says carefully.
Without the ability for the state to scare us into conformity Scotland will produce a horrid & grotesque population with no inherent fear of anything or anyone!
Okay, so I haven’t seen the White Paper and I don’t know exactly what the SNP are planning for an independent Scotland, but I’m guessing it won’t be ‘anarchy’. Which means there will still be a state and it will still do what all states do: try to scare its citizens into conformity. It’ll just be our state that’s scaring us, with our scare stories.
Slightly OT. What is this ‘free market’ I hear people speak of. Three systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich found a total of 737 companies control 80% of it all global economic activity. This network is dominated by a core of 147 companies that control 40% of global economic activity.
Choice and competition?
link to forbes.com
HandandShrimp – Yes correct. but I’m sure this part of the campaign is just a forerunner of worse to come. We can have no doubt whatsoever the government will use every single opportunity, whatever funds are necessary, and by any means to keep the oil/gas revenues flowing to London and her WMDs parked in the only harbour possible at Faslane.
I know it is a small point but didn’t Project Fear over in Merkin Land ultimately fail and Obama was re-elected?
The American version didn’t have a 300 year run-up.
Good point Jiggsbro
@a Supporter
That is indeed one possibility. Another is that he/she actually IS a Slovene with an obsession about Scotland (I know!), another that he/she is an MI5/6 agent, and so on. That’s part of my bewilderment. The obvious retort that he/she is a No-Better Together campaigner is just SO obvious that I don’t know if I believe it. I doubt we will ever find out this side of the referendum.
An amusing dialogue with “alastair galloway” yesterday in which he comprehensively demolished his/her arguments, but still s/he came back for more, and THEN started throwing the ‘racist’ accusation about because she/he was referred to as the “Sage of Slovenia”. Amazing stuff.
I sense the Herald is modifying its position. Interesting times.
keep well – Hail Alba
O/T again sorry but just spotted this in the Guardian…..of course an Independent Scotland would be twtpts to be included….:-
link to guardian.co.uk
Jiggsbro says:
Without the ability for the state to scare us into conformity Scotland will produce a horrid & grotesque population with no inherent fear of anything or anyone! Okay, so I haven’t seen the White Paper and I don’t know exactly what the SNP are planning for an independent Scotland, but I’m guessing it won’t be ‘anarchy’. Which means there will still be a state and it will still do what all states do: try to scare its citizens into conformity. It’ll just be our state that’s scaring us, with our scare stories.
It was written tongue in cheek by the way!
Jiggsboro
True but their rules about what you can say on their media outlets make up for some of those years. Some of the things said about Obama were truly mental. However, they totally over-cooked the negativity and I think our own Project Fear are travelling at a rate of knots down the same information channel.
As I noted before, I love this brilliant quote by the American writer H. L. Mencken:
‘The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.’
Suggest we mix it with the BT mob and add thousands more ridiculous fear stories . Each YES campaign group should have a prize for the most ridiculous scare story at each event where it has a stall
I had a couple of my Project Fear comments deleted from the Herald today. I take this as a badge of success. Hopefully I upset the OBE one.
In an Independent Scotland bolts might be octagonal.
This is surely another win for independence.
After a Yes vote we will decide how we arrange our taxes. Everyone in Project Fear are assuming we will blindly follow how things are done at present.
Do we really need road tax and all the bureaucracy that goes with it? Maybe we should look at scrapping it and increasing the duty on fuel, so the more you drive and use the roads the more you pay.
Do we really need a DVLA? At one time all vehicle licensing was done at County Council level, could we go back to that?
As with all things associated with running your own country we will decide what is the best way forward, and the biggest bonus will be all jobs from whatever methods we chose will be in Scotland.
Surely there will be the real opportunity to completely re-jig our complete tax system away from the incomprehensible three shell and pea trick which seems to be the sole purpose and existence of rapacious tax accountants.
Realistically there will be a transition process, but should such a dog’s breakfast of umpteen times modified tax schemes be willingly accepted as the way to keep going? There must be many tax raising concoctions, like the grossly mis-named road tax, that could be ditched in favour of an appropriately allocated roads improvement fund based on tyre to road usage.
What an absolutely fantastic opportunity to start with a clean sheet for all concerned and stuff the naysayers!