What Ed Balls didn’t say
If you ask them on social media, Labour MPs and activists will all hotly deny that the party signed up to the Conservatives’ plan for £30bn of austerity cuts in the next five years. It’ll be interesting to see whether they try to continue doing so in the light of Ed Balls’ appearance on the Andrew Marr Show this morning.
Specifically challenged by Marr on the SNP’s allegation that Labour and the Tories were as one on what Marr rather tactfully called “£30bn of contraction”, Balls nodded his assent and offered not a word of disagreement or protest, before going on to insist that balancing the books “as soon as possible” was vital to the credible management of the economy and the SNP’s approach was “irresponsible”.
(He merely noted that the Tories wanted to subsequently cut more.)
That seems pretty conclusive to us.
I’m astonished!
The spinners will use his lack of a vocal confirmation to try to create some ambiguity.
Seems this election is bipolar,
Austerity parties versus anti-austerity parties.
Unionist parties versus non unionist parties.
UK parties versus Independence supporting parties.
MSM versus online activist sites.
Fracking versus non fracking.
Opaque Government versus open Government.
The people get to pick one side of the equation.
I know which side I have decided on supporting.
One of Labours election pledges is to cut corporation tax. Was that not a terrible thing six months ago?
Is it just me or does Marr’s “irresponsible” come across more like a statement rather than a question? Particularly following his unprompted “indeed” agreement with Balls’ assessment.
So spin doctors permitted the question as long as Marr cushioned the term ‘austerity’ with the euphemism ‘contraction’?
Balls doesn’t need to say anything – his BBC political mouthpiece ‘pwoud Scot’ Andrew Marr says it all for him as he parrots off the latest UK Establishment epistle.
Only a nutter would say there is no need to balance the UK books – of course what we in Scotland say is why should we be the grossly disproportionate givers onto the balance scales?
Grid charges, anyone?
Scratch Labour find a Tory underneath.
At least now we have confirmed the difference between the two different coloured Tory parties……none.
Did Ed Balls offer his hand first?
Andrew Neil making Caroline Flint look a complete idiot. Brilliant!
I’ve had to stop watching the odious Marr, telly is covered in scratch marks from me attacking it like a Bengal tiger. So ashamed I sent that vile ("Tractor" - Ed) a get well soon email.
@Barontorc
I am that nutter, and I wonder why you accept that there is a need to “balance the UK books”, if by that you mean balancing the public sector accounts.
Do, please, explain
For your viewing pleasure and entertainment – Jack the joke McConnell coming onto Sky News to impart his pearls of wisdom
Caught in a trap, of their own making.
[…] If you ask them on social media, Labour MPs and activists will all hotly deny that the party signed up to the Conservatives’ plan for £30bn of austerity cuts in the next five years. It’ll be interesting to see whether they try to continue doing so in the light of Ed Balls’ appearance on the Andrew Marr Show this morning. […]
Those in Scotland who still plan to vote for Labour in May can have no excuses for denying what they are voting for.
From the FT Dec 2014:
Having tried to ignore the deficit throughout the autumn, the Labour leadership now accepts it has to address it, starting with a warning letter from Mr Balls to frontbench colleagues.
“You should be planning on the basis that your departmental budgets will be cut not only in 2015-16 but each year until we have achieved our promise to balance the books,” he wrote.
link to archive.today
Open your eyes Labour supporters, you are voting Tory Lite.
The Labour party of today is more right wing than John Majors government and is plain to all to see if they really want to.
Isn’t the labour party all about what they don’t say these days?
They used to be the party that called it straight at least most of the time.
Nowadays you can’t trust a word from them.
Compare and contrast any of Alex Salmond or Nicola Sturgeon’s Q and A sessions.
Balls and Osbourne are just not in the same league.
Contraction Monkey!!
Whatever SLab pretend, head office call all the shots. I cannot see any distinct difference between Lab and Con ( or LibDems). Labour is pro-austerity, simple as that.
How this GE is being perceived and played out in England is quite beyond my comprehension. The big (non) choices seems to between two near identical parties or also rans who because of FPTP will get few MPs.
Thank Heavens we in Scotland have a real choice!
Vote SNP get SNP
Or
Vote Other get the London/austerity/Trident consensus
Does anyone know the specific species of monkey whose backside goes blue when it gets angry?
I get the feeling that Balls is working against ED, maybe be seems himself as another Gordon Brown, believing he would make a good PM. What world do these guys live in. They don’t have the experience or in Osborne case the education to get the UK out of this self made hole its in.
I saw a Labour leaflet this morning that claimed, “Balance the books & cut the deficit every year while securing the future of the NHS. None of our manifesto commitments mean additional borrowing.” This claim is full of wonk speak.
The annual deficit today is around £80 billion. To balance the books, means one will have to cut £80 billion from the expenses sheet, raise taxes by £80 billion or a combination of both.
That could be done in a single year or spread across as many years as one thinks it will reasonably take. Osborne made such a promise in 2009 but here we are, six years later, still with a crushing deficit.
If one spreads this over the next five years, a combination of spending cuts & tax rises to the tune of £20 billion will be needed EVERY year for the entire term of the next UK government & possibly beyond.
Labour may technically correct by claiming than no additional borrowing is required but they will still need to borrow £80 billion in the first year, £60 billion in the second, £40 billion in the third & so on until the deficit is net zero.
Thus, if Labour were to achieve what they claim, by 2021,
they will still have added a further £200 billion to the colossal debt pile which currently stands at £1.5 trillion.
Quite how this will be achieved in a low wage, low productivity economy (30% lower than the USA, France or Germany) with a shocking annual trade deficit (£34.8bn) is anyone’s guess.
But I don’t think anyone in Labour really cares because what really matters, is that every one of their MP candidates gets another season ticket for the gravy train.
You mean to say these two completely different political party’s are not different at all?
Does this mean there is a deception here?
And the BBC may well be in collusion?
How very dare they!!!
I am crestfallen
Aye! That’ll be right!!!
@ Barontorc
I think you hit the nail on the head re Scotland’s disproportionate share of “balancing the books”such as grid charges, interest on BoE loans, infrastructure funding from block grant with no “UK” element etc.
A concise breakdown would be useful.
@ Fiona
You have pointed out already that the BoE could simply print money and thus “balance the books”. However, from watching Keiser Reports it seems that that is exactly what has been happening but that the printed money, rebranded “quantitative easing”, is simply used in higher bank bonuses and companies buying back their stock to keep share prices up and hence bonuses. None of it “trickles down”.
t seems that regulation is the answer to end the industrial scale thieving going on.
@ Capella
Certainly they have been printing money.
The story we were told for decades was that printing money is irresponsible and inevitably leads to massive inflation. So the option was taken off the table and that position was supported by all of the mainstream parties. That was fine until their pals in the banking industry needed a bail out. Suddenly printing money was not a disaster at all: it was absolutely required.
They seem to have had a doubt that some of us might remember the original story. That is why they did not call it “printing money”, but instead called it “quantitative easing”. You were not supposed to notice it was the same thing.
Obviously money supplied to the financial sector in any form does not “trickle down”. That is hardly news. We have years of testing that hypothesis: it is false. Unambigously and undeniably false.
But the point of printing money is not to “balance the books”: balancing the books is a crazy idea as currently proposed: for there is only one pot of money for both the private and public sector. If you balance the public sector books you take the money out of the private sector, and so the consequence is greater private indebtedness: that is not just my opinion: it is the avowed policy of all the neoliberals and they make no secret of it, although they say it in weasel words. Their strategy is to make you and me borrow more money, and that is what they mean by “all in it together”.
The Jim UHU Murphy the leader of the Scottish Monkey Party (SMP) will no’ be pleased.
SNP in secret deals with Labour, Labour in secret deals with Tories, and the Tories venerating some separatist on the commons lawn. We need to be told the truth.
link to oi57.tinypic.com
Malcolm Tucker’s Profanityometer just blew up
Rev Stu.
You might be interested in this from Caroline Flint.Quote,We will freeze and cut Corportion Tax,I thought when SNP considered this Slab MSPs like Jackie Baillie bad mouthed J Swinney about it,did Flint run this by Murphy before saying this.
Noticed Brewer could not get connected to Mike Weir ,just another BBC blimp.
I’m proper sick of Marr these days, and his style of savaging like a dead sheep. If they don’t answer the question, he just lets it slide.
I have a supply and confidence agreement with Neil, sometimes I at least agree he had a decent go at the politician.
During the run up to last year, I really tried to read as much as possible about the UK govt financial position, and there is a lot of international comment on this govt hurtling towards bankruptcy, and just printing money. It is totally scary, and for me, it was a huge factor in wanting independence.
However, it is almost certainly the key factor in the dirty tricks campaign by rUK.
I simply cannot fathom why so many people choose to believe we are too poor, when it’s a simple truth that if we were worthless, then the referendum would have been at least argued on a level playing field. Money is their God in London.
They did not just bad mouth Swinney about it, scott: they made a great deal of the “fact” that the SNP are “tartan tories” on the side of the wealthy and bereft of any redistributive policies at all. The cut to corporation tax proposed by the SNP was a major plank in that argument.
But what are you doing, remembering that? Where is your “goldfish of the 21st century license”? Did you fail the exam?
Capella
Take a look at link to new.livestream.com
from last week where Richard Murphy explains how the QE myth works & that it is nonsense. Really good event & makes the financial stuff easy to understand.
desimond says: “Contraction Monkey!!”
Actually, a cheese-eating contraction monkey.
Good link,Lollysmum.
Richard Murphy’s blog is always worth reading.
[…] What Ed Balls didn’t say […]
There is no need to take any of this talk from Balls seriously.
It’s the same script that Osborne used in 2010.
Pooling and sharing from Tory to Labour
and from Labour to Tory,
until everything is mixed through.
Then you have the ToryLab Party – full policy integration.
That’ll be after 5 years of ToryLab coalition Gov.
just to bed things in – as you might say in the allottment.
These are very troubling times for the Unionist Establishment.
This is forcing them to think very carefully about their priorities.
They know that the UK must remain solvent and for that,
they need Scotland and all it’s plentiful revenues.
So they are all agreed on one thing – the Union must remain.
Everything else is negotiable – up to and including
the unionist political Parties.
Meanwhile, they will simply fill the screens and the papers
with Westminsterbabble and muddlytuff –
it’s the equivalent of the music you hear in a supermarket,
till you stop hearing it because it is only there to fill a silence.
But all is not well as the earthquake of voter discontent
continues to rumble.
Political tectonic plates are moving.
Soon a new political landscape will be formed,
for which the map is waiting to be drawn.
One thing is certain – there will be changes.
And there we have it!
After all these years of austerity cuts, or should we use the
BBC’s double speak of of “contraction”, (isn’t that a much nicer way of saying more Food Banks, Zero Hours Contracts, reduced welfare and public services), the good old Labour Socialists want the same additional £30Bn of cuts as the totally NOT different Tories.
Let’s put the bankers first before the people who elected us.
It has been reported that 1 child in 3 from the Glasgow area are already eating from Food Banks. Will these Labour cuts be enough to ensure that a majority of kids will be out begging for food?
Not to worry as there are still a few Labour MPs who are not millionaires as yet. Some haven’t even qualified for their Ermine Robes as yet. So sod the kids, let’s fill our pockets quick.
In neoliberalism democracy is a problem where austeritys enablers have brought back austerity from the dead – a zombie economic idea which has no record of working.Austerity belongs to the intellectual fossil record not progressive political thinking.
In 1933 for example Sweden abandoned austerity promoted full employment economic growth fair division of national income and social security – Britain stagnated with endemic high employment until the economy was stimulated by military measures ( war anyone?) the crudest form of economic recovery. Clearly no lessons learned in nearly 100 years of economic thinking as politically a debt created in the private sector is rechristened public debt and then disproportinately repaid by those most vulnerable to economic shocks I.e. The poorest and those bordering on povertyi are hit the hardest.
It is the overall policy mix that matters the correct balance found in those large welfare states e.g. Denmark and Sweden- so much is known about the consequences of austerity that is is an indefensible ideology- a hyperbolic neoliberal fantasy. Contractual policies cause fiscal contractions prolong recessions without reducing the debt to GDP ratio especially if the cuts are prominently around public spending.
We should not be voting for anyone who supports the idea that a banking crisis should end up on the state’s balance sheets.
Vote SNP – the best hope we have for acheiving economic independence from austerity which remains a very dangerous idea.
Vote SNP, Get Scotland!
Vote Labour, Get Fucked!
Was that a Masonic handshake…?
Caption Time!
“Tarred wi’ the shame shite.”
@ Dr Jim:
“You mean to say these two completely different political party’s are not different at all?
Does this mean there is a deception here?
And the BBC may well be in collusion?”
That would be a first…
Wait. WHAT!?!
GIDEON: “You got a real purrty mouth…”
BALLS: “Deal?”
GIDEON: “Deal!”
BALLS: “Done.”
GIDEON: “You certainly have been.”
GIDEON: “See you on May 8th.”
BALLS: “Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. Say no more. Say no more…”
GIDEON: “To me…”
BALLS: “To you…”
BALLS: “We need to unite against our common enemy.”
GIDEON: “THE JUDEAN PEOPLE’S FRONT?”
BALLS: “No, the SNP…”
@Lollysmum
Have you been able to get the second part of that session to work as I can’t?
The Deal.
GIDEON: “Balls to Socialism!”
BALLS: “Sorry, What-ism…?”
Molotov/Von Ribbentrop II
BOTH: “You are SO fucked!”
GIDEON: “You’re MY wife, now…”
Trust Jim to use superglue.
Jaysus. I hope they washed their hands afterwards…
“Balancing the books” is one of the biggest lies in politics. Not only that but the repercussions of following such a policy is satanic in nature where people are left without medical help (in pain – no surgery) , no jobs, youth with no future, breaking down sanitation & water supplies, crumbling roads and infrastructure etc….all to have some numbers add up on a piece of paper……..and as always to make sure the British Empire banks make a profit and get their bonuses (remember no need to balance-the-books when it came to bail outs of banks).
The exact same fraudulent debt/ austerity agenda which was forced on the third world in the 1970/80 has now reached the western world. The Greek people only ever saw 3% of Goldman Sachs organised loans. 97% when straight back to the British Empire banks, but the Greek people have now to pay 100% of the money.
Of course europe has seen the “austerity-agenda-need-to-balance-the-books” before in the T4 programme put in place in 1939. The build up to the Nazis euthanasia programme was pre-dated by social behaviour change polices, such as pupils being given the task of working out how much a disabled person “costs” to keep.
link to life.org.nz
It is no coincidence that “austerity-need-to-balance-the-books- agenda” is being pushed by the elites at the same time that euthanasia is being pushed onto ALL western populations: being “debated” in Scottish parliament, child euthanasia being made legal in Belgium as it was deemed a “human right”, criminals now able to request euthanasia in Europe (not allowed yet due to outcry from population but watch this space).
When the Americans got their independence they did not “balance-the-books” if they had they would have imploded. What they did was to initiate the AMERICAN CREDIT SYSTEM. This mean that they did not have to borrow money from any British Empire bank but simply printed their own money free of charge…. that is right FREE OF CHARGE.
Abraham Lincoln did this again when he found that the Union was broke and would have to either borrow money at 12% from the British Empire banks or print GREENBACKS FOR FREE. He printed for free and paid for the war and future development at 0% interest.
In the first world war when the British Empire banks were broke, the UK Government printed its own money – the BRADBURY NOTE FOR FREE. It was only when the British Empire-City-of-London banks started to complain that they could not make any money out of the war that the Government stopped printing its own money.
link to ukcolumn.org
Then again in 1945-52 the Americans did not say to war-torn europe you need to “balance-the-books” as this would have resulted in mass deaths and living in the stone-age. The injected masses amounts of credit (bretton woods: link to en.wikipedia.org ) at very low rates and forgave the Germans 50% of their “debt”. That is right……. instead of letting people die and live lives of misery they took the bit of paper with the numbers on and crumpled it up and threw it in the bin. People were to come first the numbers were secondary and the European miracle happened.
Since then we have had China who have brought their population out of the paddy fields and pushing ahead with space exploration, fusion power, and high speed railway. They have done in 30 years what the west did in 200 years.
Now faced with demonic “austerity-need-to-balance-the-books- agenda” China, Russia, Brazil, India and South Africa have come together as the BRICs with other countries clambering to try and get on board. The reason they want to get onboard is that they are establishing institutions giving cheap credit for growth such as the Asian bank….they are NOT BALANCINIG THE BOOKS.
So much so that even the sinking UK/ city-of-london has tried to jump ship:
link to uk.reuters.com
Today in Canada the population is taking the Bank of Canada to court to force it to print money for the Government and regional governments for FREE as it did until 1974, for infrastructure projects and future platforms for development:
link to ukcolumn.org
The point being, that there is NO NEED to “borrow” any money for development of a country as the country can always PRINT ITS OWN MONEY FOR FREE.
So the next time a politician states that you have to “balance-the-books”, know that is one of the worst and biggest lies on the planet, that kills people and leaves them in lives of misery…… that of course, includes the SNP …..who seem to delight and be extremely proud of “balancing-the-books”, and have no other solutions but to borrow money from the very same bankrupted city-of-London banks that we bailed out last time.
Which one’s the Red Tory and which one’s the Blue Tory?
The Bawbags Have Landed
Strange day. Four pages in the Sun on AS. Four pages in the Sunday Post on Nicola. Have the tabloids decided who is winning – or are they making sure that is Tory by screwing Scottish Labour
You can see the full interview here, i couldn’t tell the difference between the pair…
link to atrueindependentscotland.com
Two rotten peas from the same rotten pod.
You couldn’t put a fag paper between them as individuals and you certainly couldn’t put a fag paper between their political ideologies.
For those party types scanning these threads for their chain tuggers? Your bosses wrecked our economy, pished our money up against a wall, blamed us for their incompetence, punished us for their incompetence and came back for more of our cash and political support so they can continue to pish our money up against a wall. Oh all the while stripping us of democratic representation, our rights, our self respect and capped with a naked attempt to rip our cultural and historic identity from us.
You think to win our votes back after that lot?
Tell them that May 7 isn’t that far away.
Tick tock… Our turn.
@ Lollysmum
Interesting talk by Richard Murphy. As he says, “austerity is a political decision” and that QE for green infrastructure and projects would be a good thing.
Problem is that at the moment QE money is never invested in the real economy but simply makes the rich richer. (Large companies borrow at zero percent, buy back their own stock, inflate the share price, cream off the bonuses etc).
Max Keiser thinks that this is in fact deflation and cites Japan as a good example of a stagnant economy just propping up zombie banks, as is Europe.
But the real problem is that the MSM never seem to challenge these Austerity Monkeys!
I’m not an economist but I did find this animation useful. It did the rounds during the big crash in ’08, Money as Debt.
link to youtube.com
Where does another £30bn cut land? Social Security probably or, the worst off with no voice, those that vote SLab automatically as their wealthy troughin SLab MP’s threaten and lie at them. A giant Gordon Brown legacy ending his farce union cut by cut, job by job.
Labour voter: “Every vote for another party that isn’t Labour helps the Tories.”
Tory voter: “Every vote for another party that isn’t Tory helps Labour.”
I think ex Labour man Tommy Sheppard sums it up extremely well, when he says:
“There is currently one Tory member of the Westminster parliament in Scotland. After the election there will be one or none. Scots voters have pretty much zero impact on the size of the Tory group in the UK parliament: we can only wipe them out once.”
link to scotsman.com
From Andrew Rawnsley’s column in today’s Observer:
‘North of the Tweed, Labour is saying: “Vote Nationalist – Get Cameron.” For reasons I explained in this space a few weeks ago, this might actually be true. But the Labour message seems to be having little impact so far. The latest polling puts support for the SNP at levels that are terrifying for Labour. I bumped into a Scottish Labour MP, a sane chap who this time last year would have thought himself a shoo-in for re-election: he has a five-figure majority. “I’m fucked,” he declared. The SNP was going to beat him. He morbidly remarked that he was only fighting the seat “to get the redundancy”.’
From Andrew Rawnsley’s column in today’s Observer:
‘North of the Tweed, Labour is saying: “Vote Nationalist – Get Cameron.”
What Andrew Rawnsley really ought to have said is:-
‘North of the Border, Labour is saying . . . ‘
The Unionists NEVER talk about ‘the Border’,
‘cos they don’t want anyone to think
in terms of two countries.
In short, brainwashing.
Some might come from Trident or maybe its going to Trident 1.5. Balls exact opposite of Dr StrangeMorphyglove and SLab who want Trident 2.0 at £100+bn in the Clyde because then Murphy and co can then multi-lateral WMD disarm the planet, by buying even bigger bombs, y’see.
link to archive.today
Rancid Graun say its “downgrade” but splash the unearned cash, hide them the Thames estuary, teamGB rules the waves, with the USA etc
Gits.
This just serves as a reminder that we need to be constantly vigilant, because you can be sure the BBC, STV and the papers won’t pick up on this in the final weeks.
With that in mind, the Devo Files have begun, starting with Inverclyde’s current MP, Iain McKenzie:
link to wildernessofpeace.wordpress.com
Any comments, questions, corrections & shares would be greatly appreciated.
Was the hand shake that forges in the next coalition government.
WHAT They didn’t say 2
link to bellacaledonia.org.uk
Quite staggering corruption oozing out now with this ex Flipper Darling special advisor, never off BBC 24 where I was 18 Sept, doing her very own terrifying ProjectFear, “we’ll have no money in oor poor we separatist purses tomorrow if we vote YES”
Its her deeply impartial and professional son what leaked the Treasury plan to pull out of Scotland and half hour before the public announcement too.
Yet Catherine MacLeod forgot to mention any of this, maybe too busy being a Glasgow Herald journalist to do stuff like her job, oh wait…
No doubt BBC Scotland running with headline, UKOK civil service/City slickers leak secret info to BetterTogether mummy, Herald journo, UKOK BBC propagandist, shock.
Wonder how much easy City loadsamoney was made? They really can do anything they feel like in UK civil service.
WP says
Andrew Neil making Caroline Flint look a complete idiot. Brilliant!
I saw that interview this morning too. Neil basically took her apart as he asked her how Labour were going to achieve their 5 point plan that Ed hailed in conference yesterday.
If I remember rightly, I’m sure he asked her if this was not a sign of desperation. That basically, Labour will now say anything that will get them the keys to No. 10.
Ah well, 7 or 8 weeks to go …who knows what nonsense will come up next!
The big two Unionist parties have opposed proportional representation because it would end their WM duopoly.
Now, suddenly, we hear calls from their ranks for PR to stop the ‘undemocratic’ way the SNP might get 50 seats with just over a million votes.
Their double standards and hipporacy have no bounds!
Yes, WM needs a democratic representative voting system … But it needs much more besides!
Looks to me as though the sums don’t add up. With interest on the debt running at £12 million per hour (£288 million per week or £105 billion per annum) this is unlikely to clear a debt of £80 billion in a single year, let alone reduce payments towards the debt in subsequent years.
As they say in layman’s terms, if the interest rate should rise, they’re fucked. I can see the debt topping the £2 trillion mark ahead of schedule, the only thing this useless shower will have achieved within their proscribed timescale.
O/T but today I am using an elderly PC with windows XP and having googled SNP I am being warned by Avast antivirus that SNP site has a bad reputation. Perhaps Johann Lamont was right, we are a virus.
Wings and Rev. Stu get green ticks to say they are safe to use.
I am sure all this is just a geeky type thing and there is nothing sinister involved, like trying to keep people away from searching for the truth. Or is it?.
Balls the default Chanceelor.
Total taxes raised in the UK £466Billion. Total taxes raised in rest of the UK £412Billion + £90Million borrowed. £502Billion.
Total taxes raised in Scotland £54Billion. Scotland gets £54Billion back £35Billion + £16Billion (UK) pension/benefits. £3Billion on Defence.
Scotland could raise £4Billion in Oil tax revenue by cutting Oil taxes (up to 80%+ increased by the Con/Dems.10% (£2Billion a year) There is Oil in the West. Scotland could save £1Billion putting a tax on ‘loss leading’ alcohol. Save £1Billion cutting Trident/illegal wars. Land /estates are exempt from inheritance tax and there is tax evasion. Cut £Billions in interest payments. Scotland would be £10Billion better off with fiscal autonomy/Independence. Westminster economic policies hold Scotland back.
ConDems elected to protect NHS/Education cut them both. NHS £2Billion a year. Education £3Billion a year. They are sanctioning the most vulnerable but giving the wealth who caused the crash tax breaks.
Two cheeks, one arse.
Capella
Re 2nd half of Murphy event. No it isn’t working for me either. That was when my livestream cut out & I left the live event at that point.
Very often Livestream post the complete event on YouTube a couple of days later so I’ve emailed them to see if they have done it with this one. Will let you know what the response is.
Why are they dressed almost identically?
That is a bit scary in itself.
Thatcher secretly took the equivalent of £Billions out of Scotland. Mismanaged the Oil industry. Cancelled a Pipe line wasting the equivalent of £Billion of Gas. The Gas was burnt off. Thatcher tried to get the Oil pipe line to Newcastle, when Peterhead was the nearest land mass. It is near Edinburgh /Grangemouth. Westminster gets away with murder. Westminster totally mismanages the Scottish economy. The first thing the CobDems did was increase the Oil tax 11% (£2Billion) in 2011 Budget, to adversely affect the Scottish economy.
I watched the two of them on Marr and I suspect like many others have to thank the politicisation of the Referendum for being able to see through the beautifully performed non – answers.
Fiona – if you read what I wrote – we ain’t a million miles apart –
…Only a nutter would say there is no need to balance the UK books – of course what we in Scotland say is why should we be the grossly disproportionate givers onto the balance scales?…
THe rUK had better get their house into order and quickly drop all the fripperies like Trident and wars here and there, as a ‘world force’ ha bloody ha!
They can’t even pay for the ill health caused by their own austerity as they look for more and more ways to screw money out of the system for private gain. Labour / Tory – no difference. Bloody shameful.
And why should we Scots carry the heavy end of the stick they cut.
Not surprised Ed Balls is in bed with the Tories on austerity cuts. He openly supported them and specifically Osborne on his stand on Scotland not being allowed to use the pound if they dared to vote for Independence.
This support of Osborne by Ed Balls finally pushed me to resign from the Labour Party and never to vote from them again. He’s another career politician in deep in the establishment trough.
@ yabadabadoo 1.22
you must have been in moderation for some time.
Trouble with printing money is that that is precisely what the BoE has been doing (quantitative easing) but it never goes further than the banks and financial institutions who simply recycle it amongst themselves in share buy-backs and bonuses. They are not lending to businesses for growth. They are not paying people enough to allow them to spend. They simply pocket the profit, buy luxury goods (how many Lamborghinis does any one person need), inflate property prices in London, and then socialise the debt.
Something else has to happen such as a government commitment to invest, raise the minimum wage, pay adequate benefits and pensions etc
If Andrew Marr had asked Ed Balls the right questions we might be further forward in this election campaign debate.
Marr obediently parrots the Thatcherite westmisnter establishment line on the austerity cuts. Wrongly claiming that not adhering to a disasterous tory policy is somehow tantamount to economic ruin and that ‘There is no alternative’ to tory austerity.
Biased much? 😉
Still, it is at least illuminating for scottish voters to see Balls jump on to the runaway tory austerity train with both feet. Something which destroys ‘scottish’ Labour’s lies that they give a shit about the poor, the disabled and properly funding public services like the NHS.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that Murphy is not the only Labourite who is fond of an ‘air blast’. In the neo-liberal world of supply and demand it is only Labour that can ensure a quality product. The preferred inhalant of the connoisseur is Toluene or as it is known on the street, ‘Tolly’.
link to oi62.tinypic.com
Red Tories.
Out.
UUURGH! Tweedledum and Tweedledee how utterly repelant.
Don’t pay the EBC tax anymore, the mere picture of them together is enough. Can’t bring myself to press play on the video, not good for the blood pressure.
@Iain Gray’s Subway Lament
No mainstream party other than the SNP have a vision beyond the austerity agenda so eagerly sought by Labour, Tories and the LibDems.
Public services and the welfare state are bottom of the pile when it comes to the policies of these parties. Their agenda is simple, slash and burn politics. After all in the main, it costs them few votes.
While, at the same time these elected politicians build relationships with big business, hedge funds, millionaires and billionaires who they hope will fund their party and (hopefully) their own lifestyle.
They fail to see this as any kind of sell-out, after all they were elected on the policies that were plainly spelt out, how the spongers were to be the hardest hit. Especially the immigrant spongers, of which to parrot the MSM, the UK has been over run with.
It is true that the UK has been over run with spongers, they are though of the elite variety and mostly reside in Westminster and the Lords with a not insubstantial amount scattered throughout the various Palaces and Castles in these British Isles. There is no need to sign on and no possibility of sanction if you are a “monster” sponger.
Slowly though, people are awakening to this travesty, where the poor are being robbed in order to allow a life of luxury for the parasites that suck us dry. Awareness has only just started and Scotland and it’s people are leading the way in this enlightenment.
We must continue to expose the lies, deceit and self interest of those that wish to govern us, the message is getting out. Have faith and never give in, our people depend on those that will continue to tell the message.
Wings and it’s readers all have a part to play, lets do that.
Donald Urquhart,The monkey with the bright blue bottom is a Lesula (luh-SOO-la) from the Congo. Yes horrible thought of those two with just such things. Actually it is better looking than both of those put together, sort of serious and Statesman like. Have a look, link to futurity.org
Great posts on here. Vote snp.
Who all has been out canvassing ? Here’s what I’ve noticed;
SNP voters are determined
There’s a lot of anger at Labour
It’s taking a bit longer to get round the doors cos folk want to stand and talk about it.
Some streets have more SNP members than Labour have intending voters.
It’s like the move from Labour to SNP is spreading from street to street,scheme to scheme.
It’s entirely possible that support for Labour could collapse completely.
You’ll have had your tea! PLP meeting planned for 10th May
link to archive.today
Glaring omissions from Labour’s draft Holyrood manifesto for 2016 have shown that the disastrous Cuts Commission agenda is alive and well today.
A policy consultation document circulated to Labour members at their Scottish conference makes no commitment to maintain the 1,000 extra police officers recruited since the SNP took office, makes no promise to protecting free prescriptions, makes no commitment on free school meals and makes no commitment to increase NHS spending in real terms.
Meanwhile Labour’s most senior councillor, COSLA president David O’Neill, this week launched an attack on universal services, claiming that “those who propose it are behind the times”.
A copy of Labour’s policy document can be viewed at link to b.3cdn.net
in which Labour
1. Don’t commit to Small Business bonus.
2. Don’t commit to council tax reform.
3. Don’t commit to free prescriptions.
4. Don’t make a commitment on ensuring NHS funding increases in real terms
5. Don’t make a commitment on free school meals.
6. Don’t make a commitment on carer’s allowances.
7. Make no commitment on keeping the winter fuel allowance non means-tested.
8. Make no commitment on 1,000 extra police officers.
9. Make no commitment on maintaining housing benefit for 18-21 year olds (Tories plan to remove it).
10. Make no commitment on 30 hours free childcare.
link to snp.org
@Thepnr
I find it helpful to point out to scottish voters that two of the westminster establishment’s ‘finest’, Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind, didn’t seem too upset over championing austerity for the masses but not for them.
Other than using it as a chance to try and corruptly rake in tens of thousands of pounds for themselves obviously.
Until they got caught that is. 😉
Two of Parliament’s most respected members were secretly filmed discussing how they would be prepared to use their contacts to benefit a private company and charge large sums of money, reveals a joint investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches and The Telegraph.
During meetings with our undercover reporters Sir Malcolm Rifkind described himself as ‘self-employed’ and claimed ‘nobody pays me a salary’. For his services he discussed his usual fee of ‘somewhere in the region of £5,000 to £8,000’ for a half a day’s work.
Mr Straw invited our two undercover reporters to his Parliamentary office. At a meeting he explained he could bring his name to the business. He also explained that he normally charges a fee of £5,000 a day for his work/
link to channel4.com
The lib dems wee Danny Alexander also got his sticky wee fingers caught in the till only a few days ago.
The conduct of Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander has been questioned by the SNP today, following the latest donations scandal reported on the front page of the Daily Telegraph.
This it is not the first time Mr Alexander has been at the centre of dodgy donations story. In December of last year it was reported in the Sunday Herald that Mr Alexander accepted £50,000 cash from a tax dodger.
link to snp.org
No wonder Alexander is out and out pleading to tory voters to save him. Only nasty party supporters could enthusiastically switch their vote to an unprincipled yellow tory like Danny.
Funny how all the westmisner establishment parties most keen on austerity for the rest of us have the biggest sleazebags and most corrupt MPs, isn’t it?
Capella you are wrong – money given to the elite always trickles down – in torrents, when – while leaning on their sports cars – the rich piss their champagne on the poor.
Why is it that the required austerities never affect those implementing them?
Why are you lot putting up with it? – as the Proclaimers so clearly sang “Why do you let someone else rule your land…?
Especially this particular lot.
Mealer @ 4.26, would agree with your comments from Cumbernauld, although we voted Yes. Quite a lot of anger, very clear statements of support for SNP.
It won’t be for lack of work if we don’t unseat Mr McClymont. Groups out every weekend – posting selfies on FB, then there are evening meetings to leaflet or canvass.
We are awaiting our second run of leaflets, so that is a new/different leaflet.
I honestly think all of the SNP branches are working their socks off!
Valerie,
Aye,translating verbal support on the doorstep into actual votes requires a lot of work.Its important that,as the campaign moves forward,we rope in all our members to do what they can to help.Even if it’s just thinking of one friend who never usually votes and persuading that friend to do a postal vote for the SNP.
Here’s Unionist MP’s priorities: link to wp.me
Helicopter money
link to mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk
@ TheItalianjob (and any others i’ve missed).
Welcome to the WOS family, i think you’ll find there are quite a few members who, like yourself, are EX Labour members but who now fight very admirably for WOS and an independent Scotland.
Once again, welcome aboard and get stuck in.
😉
Its that John King; killed it stone dead so he has 😉
Balls bizarre notion of “balancing the books” means poverty for millions while squandering squillions on weapons of mass destruction. Ludicrous of course but he has to win the Middle English vote.
There was not a glimmer of concern on Ed Balls’s face when Marr mentioned the billions of “contraction”. That should tell you more than anything where the party’s economic priorities lie.
Sorry for going O/T but time is running out on the crowdfunding appeal to get rid of Tory Mundell.
If you can spare it, all donations will be appreciated to help the campaign.
link to indiegogo.com
Mealer 4.26 & Valerie 5.07
Well done on your canvassing efforts.
Mornaghan on Sky News had live interview with a very dapper well groomed Lord Maconnell.
They were both trying to push the line that the GE is like a rerun of the referendum with Maconnell promoting the David Cameron line ‘silent majority’ will come out in force and win the day.
Beware the silent ("Tractor" - Ed)s.
Austerity Economics for Dummies
Monthly income – £2500
Mortgage – £1000
Other Debts – £400
Luxury Items – £600
Food for family -£500
After Austerity
Monthly Income -£1800
Mortgage – £
Capella,
“you must have been in moderation for some time.”
That is what happens when you are rerouted via GCHQ, lol.
You are 100% right.
The American Credit system does not = QE.
O/T For you info the Bank of England is not the major creator of money in UK but the private banks are, with fractional reserve banking. Now tighten to 20:1 (some were/are levered 60/1).
So the way the fraud works is the BoE creates a pound and gives it to RBS who can now create another £20 out of thin air, to loan out to the london housing market or to buy UK Gilts. If they buy £20 of UK Gilts and get even 1.7% on a 10yr gilt, they will be making 34% interest on the £1 the BoE gave them. With that amount of ingenious profit it must be time to pay out big banker bonuses for all their hard work.
Nice racket if you are in the bankster elite.
But lets get back to your point.
The American Credit system is not just the creation of money (QE)but the issuing of credit via Government Treasury regulated banks (ie under the control of the people)for the PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT of society.
(is it not strange that all politicians state (including the SNP)that the BoE needs to be “independent” – ie in private control, from the Government – ie controlled by the people. Why can Governments be trusted with nuclear weapons but not the creation of money or regulating banks?)
The first thing that has to be done is to regulate the banks. The deregulation of the banks/ city of London was really the decriminalising of the fraudulent behavior we have see, bring the economy of the west to its knees.
The 1933 Glass-Steagall Act but a barrier between the investment casino “banks” and the banks holding the life blood of a country: you savings, pensions, and commercial banking.
In 1999 the US repealed the Act and over in the UK Thatcher and Labour deregulated (decriminalised) the City of London.
Getting the Glass-steagall act back on the statue books is now a real topic in the US, with Democratic Presidential Candidate Martin O’Malley promoting it:
link to usnews.com
After Glass-steagall with all the nations banks regulated and all the fraudulent debt dissolved by the Government, credit can be issued for physical development.
You are right again to look at where the credit goes. It has to go to science drivers and national project to increase the productivity of the nation: the chinese are not going to the moon to take nice pictures… they are going to mine helium three (moon dust on surface) – the preferred fuel for fusion power.
Both Egypt and Nicaragua have announced national projects to built transformational canals, that will go towards full employment for citizens and developing the next generation of scientist and engineers for these countries ie a middle class white collar workers.
If credit goes into building and increase the productivity of mankind then humanity has a future. This is the BRICS view and they are acting on it right now, as the West drives a depopulation “austerity-balance-the-books” policy running the real economy into the ground.
link to larouchepac.com
After massive years long BBC style Project Fear, equal Scottish partners in the blessed union, stay with us we love you, THE VOW fraud’s all a load of shite but you must vote for Morphy Slab or else vile separatists, you cant have SNP MP’s Westminster or else, we’ll change the while electoral system if you dare to try and vote SNP, “yes you have been removed from the electoral register here in Aberdeen, no there is no obligation to even tell you you have been removed, no I cant explain to you why you have been removed from the electoral register but I can tell you it began on Sept 19 2014, no i cant tell you why that date was chosen to remove voters…,”
There’s absolutely no mention of Scotland by anyone anywhere in England, ConDem conference Nick Clegg speech, nothing, nothing about Scotland in news, red tory Milliband weekend speech yesterday no mention of polling SLab wipe out impending and so on.
Well rancid Graun says you can watch a lunar eclipse in their Scotland region which is a bit better than the Guardian calling me an incestuous highland dancer into sadomasochism whilst wearing a kilt.
Cant wait for next weeks UKOK round of teamGB love:D
Oh dear got themselves in a bit of a fankle even going as far as trying to disput our right to vote “we love you ” just don’t think of bloody voting for what you believe in strange thing this democracy thing don’t you think
Oops sorry,bad choice of words .
Won’t use again.
Would like to say that it was a masonic handshake but then I would have to kill you all.
FAO yabadabadoo – your posts are fascinating. Could you recommend any primers on the financial system (preferably stuff that can be downloaded to a Kindle or tablet)? I think there must be loads of us who get the drift of problems but lack the detailed knowledge to explain them effectively. Cheers.
And the Ed show really believes that the books can be balanced in the next term? Are they trying to kid themselves?
BOTH: “Tory bastard.”
Donald Urquart and Helena Brown.
The Lesula monkey(Cercopithecus lomamiensis) is affectionately known locally, in Congo, as the Blue butt monkey. It is described as having an almost human face and a blue butt and scrotum. It is closely related to the Scots butt monkey (gluesniffecus liesallthetimesis) who’s leader has been similarly described. Allegedly.
@Barontoc (3:14 pm)
I really think we are very far apart, though I may have misunderstood your posts.
I think the idea of “balancing the books” is batshit crazy, if the books referred to are those of the UK state or of the public sector.
There is only one pot of money, basically. There are three sectors who use that pot of money: public sector, private sector, and foreigners in the form of taking money for the things we import. They also put money in for the things we export so what matters in this context is the net balance of imports and exports, otherwise known as the balance of trade. It is massively in deficit.
If the public sector is in deficit that means it spends more than it gets. That money goes into the economy and it goes to the private sector one way or another. If the public sector is in surplus it takes money out of the economy and that money comes from the private sector one way or another
What that boils down to is that if the government is in surplus, you and me and business are necessarily in debt. The bigger the surplus the bigger the debt. It is just accountancy: there is nothing mysterious about it. Every credit has a corresponding debt somewhere.
Now you may argue that the government does not intend a surplus: only to break even. Fair enough. If the private sector also breaks even (balances its books) then so long as imports and exports exactly match there is no problem at all. But they don’t. So if the public sector breaks even and we have a negative balance of trade then once again the private sector is necessarily in debt.
And that is the plan, as admitted by George Osborne, IDS and Mark Carney.
As it happens a government is nothing like a household: but a household is like a household, oddly enough. So it seems obvious to me that it is madness to place the burden of debt on households which can do nothing except cut spending in order to service that debt: rather than on government, which can ensure that excess spending makes jobs and infrastructure etc so as to increase the demand and thereby increase the tax take and reduce government spending over time.
Of course Capella’s point about what they do with the money they print matters: increased spending does not inevitably produce good outcomes because you can decide to give it to your pals, or to use it to pay ever increasing unemployment benefit or whatever. But that is a separate point.
What I am arguing for is complete rejection of the “household budget story” and its role in justifying the contraction of the state and the impoverishment of the people. From that follows what we should do with debt and deficit in order to improve our current situation: but it is not the same thing and it requires different policies altogether. In short it requires a return to full employment as the policy aim, regardless of what that does to government debt and to deficit: for they do not matter.
At present even the SNP subscribe to the tinkering which offers slightly slower debt and deficit reduction, and that is not much different from the Labour party. I hope (and believe) that the SNP do this largely because this daft story has such a hold on the public imagination that it is too hard to get to where we need to be in one step. But I am not sure about that.
And that is the plan, as admitted by George Osborne, IDS and Mark Carney.
Sorry should have linked to support for that statement: it is illustrated in chart 3:31 on page 76 of the Dec 2014 report from the office of budget responsibility called Economic and Fiscal Outlook. Accessible here:
link to budgetresponsibility.org.uk
Ah, but glory be to the Guardian who sew the first seeds of possibilities today with a just maybe, perhaps and shush keep it quiet, but yes it’s a possibility.
link to theguardian.com
How many Scottish votes will be lost by these cartoons? not a lot I suspect, they deserve a wider audience, let the bastards get on with it! 🙂
A union official Michael Hogg spoke up against the take-over of the functions of Transport Police by Police Scotland on the wireless this morning. A thicker & more dim-witted performance I haven’t heard for at least a week. His dire warnings of the loss of “expertise”, repeated ad nauseum, “expertise” which could take decades to get back and yet was completely unable to elaborate upon what this “expertise” was when pressed, together wiith a constant reference to the “SNP Scottish Government”, left no doubt as to his political affiliations or the complete unsuitability of this doughball for office when he biggest change will probably be the uniform. God Struth!!!
Allegedly, according to Guido, the Tory whip was in paroxysms of joy shouting ‘This way for the Tory cuts’ to the shame-faced Labour MPs shuffling through, doing as Balls commanded..
Tariam
not sure what happened to my answer to your post. may have got stuck at GCHQ.
Will try again.