You’ll Have Had Your Supper
Posted on
August 24, 2026 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Great news, everyone – Scottish Labour has finally worked out how to talk to the people of Scotland. This video featuring the party’s MP Melanie Ward just appeared on the Scotland Office’s LinkedIn page, and it explains the complexities of the interlinked Scottish and UK economies in terms that the UK government hopes all of you awful thick Jocko plebs might be able to understand. Enjoy.
And tomorrow morning, do remember to eat your cereal, won’t you?
What if you’ve got a white pudding supper. I dont think they’ve thought this through.
Mealie Chud Alex, Mealie Chud.
…and these are the people who gave away our rights to fish in our own waters to “Our European partners”, for some reason or other.
We live on an island, yet a fish supper is like a luxury these days.
And so’s a coal fire.
I can’t remember who it was that said we could never freeze or starve, because we’re built on coal and surrounded by fish.
My Geography teacher, Mr Duncan in 1968, for one.
Did someone mention another referendum? Not seen propaganda pish like this for more than a decade.
God, how patronising (and wrong).
SLab being as irrelevant and incorrect as ever.
Ach- I thocht I was gettin’ it-but cuid ye jist run it past us once mair…
Sorry – I didn’t even get halfway! Two reasons – unadulterated BS and, for some reason, I fancied a fish supper immediately
Is Melanie retarded?
Mark, maybe she is retarded but glib, paid a huge amount of public money and not a Nationalist.
She perhaps thinks she is a Nationalist but if so, then it suggests that post-colonial theory could have some validity. It is a perversion of rationality to claim to be a Scots Nationalist and make that video, how can it be explained?
SNP spokespersons seem so unaware of what’s going on that I think she just found out and wanted to show off how cleaver she is.
She played right into Unionists hands by only saying that Scots received more funding than the English but where is the essential detail that we pay in more per head than the English and we only get a portion of the money sent to Westminster by return.
Obviously no one involved in that production knows that and doesn’t realise they scored an own goal when we could have scored at the other end.
Blind leading the blind up a blind ally.
If only these people could read Wings now and then.
Effijy, you suggest that the SNP people making the fish and chips video have played into Unionist hands but you have failed to comprehend that theSNP are, really, ‘closet’ Unionists. If you have been reading and understanding the key points made for years on Wings’ then you would have grasped this elementary truth. Can you explain how you missed the point?
Good post, Jay.
Now, inch yourself to the very edge of the precipice, look boldly over the vertiginous, sheer drop, and consider the un-sayable, perhaps even the unthinkable.
Could it be that all the evidence suggests that a majority of Sovereign Scots are themselves ‘closet’ Unionists?
Be brave, Jay. Don’t recoil in fear and terror.
You have a majority of Sovereign Scots turning out year after year, election after election, to vote for Unionist parties, including your ‘closet’ Unionist SNP. Confront that elementary truth bravely.
Occam’s Razor, Jay.
I forgot she is Labour, so used to Unionist SNP.
Yes, if you think about it it’s really the SNP’s fault that you fucked up
The elephant in the room is the corollary of the Barnett Formula – if more and more of the NHS etc become private and public spending reduces, the Barnett consequentials will REDUCE the block grant!
Only managed about 20 seconds…
Wondering if that vid was created by the same person that did the 46-second-long artistic classic for Brian Donohoe MP – Keeping the tone light
link to youtube.com
BetterTogetherUK
Better Together Referendum Broadcast – 26th August 2014
‘The woman who made up her mind’
« That’ll be a NO from me… »
link to youtube.com
All very fishy.
Wow! Prof Richard Murphy must be quaking in his boots after that incisive analysis.
Oh how i dearly miss stair heid rammy . They are thick as shite, oh , it might just me !
Disnae say anything about Tory austerity and the numbers of people in Scotland killed by it.
Good spot. Fuck all about the dualling of the A96 too.
Oh, god, it’s The Glasgow Effect all over again.
link to heraldscotland.com
“Scots researchers have calculated that between 2012-2019, almost 335,000 more people died than would have been expected across the UK based on previous trends between 1981 and 2011.
The analysis, led by Glasgow Centre for Population Health and the University of Glasgow, adds to the existing evidence of a worrying stagnation of improvements in life expectancy since the early 2010s.
However, it is the first to quantify the effects of austerity policies implemented by the UK Government in 2010 on excess death rates. In Scotland, around 20,000 more deaths than expected occurred.
Without support, researchers said, “people have been dragged under by decreased income, poor housing, poor nutrition, poor health and social isolation – ultimately leading to premature death.””
“decreased income, poor housing”
Just as well uncontrolled immigration never contributed to these two.
See what you should do, sam. Compare the graphs of UK life expectancy and prosperity against the graphs showing immigration of health-disadvantaged and poor people.
And mind, even if these graphs show a strong correlation, that’s no evidence of causation.
Any fool can clearly see that importing hundreds of thousands of the world’s poor, year after year, could never have an effect on average prosperity.
Just as any fool can clearly see that importing hundreds of thousands of people who have not had the benefit of free medical treatments and vaccinations in their early life, year after year, could never adversely affect the nation’s health.
Cousin marriage. FGM. The increased prevalence of foreign, genetically determined conditions such as sickle cell. None of these would show on the stats.
Isn’t that right, sam?
Conveniently she forgot to remind us that when England decides to slash funding to public services, Scotland gets less money and suffers as a consequence, and then BBC News disapprovingly analyses the “black hole” we have somehow created entirely by ourselves.
Okay, who is this imbicile?
Johns moss says:
24 August, 2026 at 8:06 pm
Okay, who is this imbicile?
Someone who knows how to spell a simple word like imbecile ?
“This video featuring the party’s MP Melanie Ward”
Batter together
I like it. A wee chuckle from me Alastair.
Busted flush of a party bereft of any policy and beholden too to mother Labour Great Britain. The days of a Scottish Labour if ever there was such a thing is gone, long gone.
The electors of course know that. And that is why the Labour Party languish as a minority party.
And that is why the SNP needed to be broken. And that is why the levers of the state conspired to do down Alex Salmond and turn the SNP.
If however. as is being reported, there are emails between very senior SNP and establishment discussing how woke and gender policies could be introduced to drive out hard line independence supporters then the charade of democracy becomes utterly apparent.
The system is rotten to the core. Democracy is a sham.
Exactly what I believe Willie.
“… as is being reported, there are emails between very senior SNP and establishment discussing how woke and gender policies could be introduced to drive out hard line independence supporters…”
=========
WHERE is this ‘ being reported’?
A link would be helpful.
Aye,it pools in London then shared by their rules.We can do better ourselves.
They should show someone ordering a fish supper, then getting a spam fritter because the guy in the queue in front decided “we are all eating spam fritters”.
The guy in front makes you pay for the full price of the fish supper, even though you only get a spam fritter, makes you pay for his spam fritter, then tells you “you still owe me for the spam fritter”.
– then next to the fish supper we see a fortnum and mason luxury hamper … this is the norwegian sovereign wealth fund
Andy Burntbum has pledged infinity special chicken suppers with extra spicy sauce to some distant cousin who lives over east.
Another guy, a media expert, tells us england invented fish and outside the union there will be no fish, since they belong to england.
Where’s the pish-soaked, jakey tramp in the queue, ranting about hotpot not being available and accusing the boy behind him of being a shirt lifter?
my mate had this senile old labrador, a fat bastard to boot, that would aggressively obsessively try to hump your leg as soon as you entered the room
… this is the vibe you are giving me.
I have already pulled on the armband – don’t make me cock the spandau
anglo filth britnat yoon scum
Asking fer a mate. Fit’s the surest way tae mak ye cock the spandau?
Haud oan noo. That’s nae a euphemism is it?
Ye’re a clarty auld basturt, sae ye are 🙂
About right,lol.
OMG, I can feel my intelligence shrinking in response to such utter pish.
Well done Slab on reminding us that we are beholden to our imperial masters when it comes to spending the pocket money they so graciously allow us to spend.
Fish supper eh? I thought her man preferred Chinese.
My bad – I got her confused with another one (Joani Reid). They all sound the same.
Strange how she didn’t mention Messr McCrone to explain how we bought the bulk of all those slightly smaller fish suppers for those poor put upon people in England eh?
Curious eh?
Mash b******s- come and get yer fish suppers for free, roll up roll up..
Ur yoo, gaun tae gie me a pruscripshun, fur ma fuckin’ medikayshun?
sorry , forgot to add the all important – ur whit?
as it adds that somewhat desperate note of dependency
Deep-fried patronising piece of sh*t of a broadcast.
Vote for them?
I’d rather smear myself in peanut butter and jump into a cage of rabid squirrels.
next up, she explains GERS
link to youtube.com
this is what the fragrant people eat
link to archive.ph
differnt kind of munchie box
Scotland 2026: A Fish Tale
You go to order a fish supper.
It costs £15 because of Labour’s employment taxes, business rates and Net Zero forcing the shop to pay the highest energy prices in the world.
You haven’t enough change left for a bottle of Irn Bru because they’ve sugar taxed it to stop you enjoying yourself.
Depressed, you try to buy a bottle of Buckfast and 20 Benson and Hedges on the way home, but Klarna declines your payday loan so you can’t afford the Minimum Alcohol Pricing and tobacco duties.
Ach, gies a chip.
Then you’re stabbed at the bus stop because Andy Burnham decided your town needed its “fair share” of violent foreign moochers.
Police Scotland rushes to the scene to arrest you for suspected racism while you bleed out on the ground.
#DeaderTogether
Scotland hasn’t got the highest energy prices in the world.
That’s an easily verifiable fact.
Quite a few of the other things you mention are a result of SNP/Green policies. Policies so popular in Scotland that a majority of Scots keep voting for them.
I’m no fan of Burnham, but blaming him for making Glasgow a sanctuary city, for example, isn’t going to change anything.
That’s gonna need the voters of Glasgow to sort it out themselves.
“Scotland hasn’t got the highest energy prices in the world”
Oh, it’s ‘only’ the fifth highest energy prices in the world? Even though we’re sitting on centuries worth of oil, gas and coal.
Thanks for playing.
“Quite a few of the other things you mention are a result of SNP/Green policies.”
What’s the difference between these fake political parties?
“Policies so popular in Scotland that a majority of Scots keep voting for them.”
They’re not popular.
“I’m no fan of Burnham, but blaming him for making Glasgow a sanctuary city, for example,”
Why is a failing local council allowed to stick its beak into what immigration laws are going to be enforced, when that’s ultra vires and illegal?
Think, Hayley. Think.
We’re not sitting on centuries worth of oil and gas. Another easily verifiable fact (excluding onshore shale gas, for which I don’t know the figures, although I do know that nothing gets an Indy supporter quite so agitated as the idea of fracking for it).
As for your assertion that Scots turn out predictably over and over again to vote for unpopular policies, at both national and local levels, what can anybody say?
When I do think I reach the conclusion that Scots are so hopelessly tribal that we’re our own worst enemies. That’s not an original conclusion BTW, plenty of others have observed that too.
But what that means, if the UK ever breaks up, is that the tribal groups inhabiting Scotland will go their separate ways quite soon after.
It’s a shame none of Alf’s postcolonial boys ever wrote about the Balkanisation of artificial countries, once the external, oppressive, colonialist yoke holding them together is lifted.
Perhaps they did, and Alf is simply keeping it zipped about that awkward truth.
“Scotland hasn’t got the highest energy prices in the world”
We’ve been though this before Hatey yet you still appear to be in denial about this most obvious reality and much else related to colonial Scotia.
Scotland’s energy prices are certainly the highest among all the energy-rich nations.
In addition, Scotland is a major exporter of massive energy surpluses produced here, for which Scots receive no royalties/taxes. Which means a threefold problem:
1. Scots are made to pay the highest energy prices in the world, which makes us uncompetitive, poorer and with related adverse health issues;
2. Scots have most of the energy we produce stolen from us;
3. A decolonized Scotland could easily enjoy some of the cheapest energy in the world which would make us far more competitive and prosperous than we would ever be as a plundered colony.
This therefore relates directly to our enforced under-developed GDP under colonial rule.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
“Scotland’s energy prices are certainly the highest among all the energy-rich nations”
But then you have to define “nation”, Alf.
Because if the vast majority of the world sees the UK as a nation (which it does), then Scotland hasn’t even got the highest energy prices within the UK.
I’m making a sensible decision here to believe the energy price comparison sites over your claims.
But you do raise an interesting point. On a thread devoted to picking fun with childish, simplistic, insulting comparisons between the economy and fish suppers, you automatically choose to simplify the complex reality of our energy prices for your target audience, so that you can hopefully prove your point to the unquestioning credulous.
Makes you think, eh?
She’s an imbicile
Worse a Labour imbicile
which is nearly as bad as an SNP imbicile
Where’s the mealie puddin by the way…
Just seen the video at the top of the article.
We are fucked.
“Isn’t it great having nukes to protect our foodbanks?” And then wind the Russians up by selling weapons and blueprints to Ukraine.
Just because we have someone with a severe intellectual disability its not fair to involve the fish and chips in your video.
At the bottom of the video, she’s written “Cod we take a moment of your time to set out how public spending works in Scotland? ? ?
From the fiscal framework to the Barnett Formula – Minister for Scotland Melanie Ward MP explains!” and the video gets a reply from
“Richard Arnott
10h
Nice fish. Shame about the economics.
This video muddles together the Scottish Government budget, UK spending attributed to Scotland, the block grant and Barnett consequentials as though they are the same thing. They aren’t.
Even official figures can allocate Scotland a population share of UK-wide spending such as defence regardless of where that money is actually spent. So presenting all expenditure “for Scotland” as money Scotland receives is deeply misleading.
Barnett is also not simply “England spends more, Scotland gets more”. It applies only to changes in comparable devolved spending and can produce positive or negative consequentials.
Two different-sized pieces of fish don’t explain Scotland’s finances. They just make a complicated subject look conveniently simple.”. Not for Minister for Scotland Melanie Ward MP.
‘She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in human resource management’. SISO.
Lets be honest Scotland gives more than it gets, fact.
The sole reason Scotland cannot leave this voluntary union is because if she did England would be bankrupt and the banking system would be in free fall without the support of the Scottish oil and our taxes because England is in so much debt £4trillion.
Scotland hasn’t have any debt she also doesn’t have a currency which is legal tenure and the bank for the UK is the bank of England for the whole of the UK debt.
Here is where Scotland hold all the cards and yet the SNP never used it during the 2014 referendum.
Alex should have stated the UK debt will remain with the UK but he didn’t.
England is shiting its self in case Scotland leaves for me this is the sole reason we should leave, having a week neighbor is in our interest.
The U.K. might face some difficulties in having to cut spending to accommodate the debt repayments on a smaller economy, but rUK could survive in a similar state as today with a debt/GDP ratio of 120%. You’ve also got to remember we aren’t in the 1980’s oil boom any more. The direct taxes levied on oil and gas production contribute around 0.35% of total public expenditure (about twice that contributed by Tesco), compared to about 6.8% at the height of the oil boom in 1984.
However, in retaliation for UDI and a Scottish Government refusing to take any share of the national debt, the U.K. Government could implement export restrictions on non-essential goods (e.g. anything that isn’t food or medicine) across the U.K. – Scottish border. That would hit the rUK economy a bit, but it would be catastrophic for the Scottish economy where every sector relies to a greater or a lesser extent on something that comes across that border. The U.K. is in a much stronger position because it has an established stable currency, an established stable bank, a much larger economy, and is not geographically dependent on Scotland for its imports and exports. A negotiated settlement is and has been the only viable option.
Non-viable options also exist.
G@za and Ir@n are popular role models for some people. It would be up to the rest of us “normies” to ensure these people retire to somewhere much more congenial.
Such as G@za or Ir@n.
Too harsh? Orcland will grant them an entry visa and generous pay for a mere 6 months in the meat grinder.
“Alex should have stated the UK debt will remain with the UK but he didn’t”
So what are we to make of that?
Let’s start with the premise that Alex was smarter and more knowledgeable than you’ll ever be. Then see where that leads us on the subject of Scotland’s share of the UK debt. Not forgetting Scotland’s share of the UK’s debt to the EU.
I quite understand that the “with one bound, Scotland was free” trope is popular with certain strands of Indy thinking. And I fully understand why.
But we have to live in the real world.
“Lets be honest Scotland gives more than it gets, fact.”
Yes, ‘let them eat cake’ is aye the imperialist advice whilst the natives are plundered and exploited.
My own estimate based on GDP-per-capita comparison with several neighbouring states suggests colonialism is costing Scots between £150-200 billion per annum.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
And recent research suggests it may be even more.
But really, colonialism needs to end simply on moral grounds and the imperial UK construct is anything but moral, as it proves every day.
That’s some inflation, Alf. I can mind when it was only £150 billion PA.
How long before it hits the trillion mark? That’s a number we could easily write on the side of a bus.
“the imperial UK construct is anything but moral, as it proves every day”
Who needs the appeal to the moral high ground when all that money is being stolen, Alf? But I’m intrigued.
How did the imperial UK construct prove its immorality yesterday?
I was going to say Hatey – for the land of make believe this is incredibly unoptimistic. If Scotland had the same GDP as the USA for example (why not, you saying that the USA is better than Scotland??), GDP per capita would be $5.5m. That’s the real cost of colonialism.
“How did the imperial UK construct prove its immorality yesterday?”
So many examples, Hatey, you’re obviously not paying attention to how imperial powers behave, for instance:
– selling bombs to other countries so that they can lob them at their neighbour;
– refuelling and servicing foreign military aircraft enroute to bomb other countries
– training foreign military personnel on how to attack other countries and peoples.
Imperialism deals in bombs, not in human values, Hatey. As we have witnessed in bombed nation after bombed nation:
“..the colonial mission to civilize the primitive is just a smoke screen” (and) “colonialism results in the massive destruction of whole societies” (Cesaire).
Scots need to oppose this immoral behaviour, not be party to it.
Just for a moment there, Alf, I thought you had a serious point to make.
I guess the joke’s on me.
The world’s a dangerous place. Just because you would like it to be completely filled with nice, cuddly countries, with benign, cuddly saints running them, that doesn’t make it so.
Countries and their leaders need to chart a course based on their own interests. That inevitably means choosing the least bad option when no good options exist.
It’s part of being grown up, Alf.
“colonialism results in the massive destruction of whole societies” (Cesaire)
He should know. He was a government minister in the colony of Martinique, where every single one of the original indigenous inhabitants, man, woman and child, was wiped out and replaced, mostly by people of Cesaire’s race.
If Cesaire had possessed the morality he liked to preach to others, he’d have fucked off back to Africa.
We need a unionist troll, quick; post something disingenuous to refute that “100%Yes” post above, in case any Scotch get ideas.
And que…..”Adrian”!
I’m gonna refute that any plausible Scot ever refers to himself as Scotch.
And I’m gonna question why you slipped into Spanish in your last line.
Feel like a lone voice in the wilderness, but if Scotland is debt free on Independence Day, then that means Scotland is the new successor state, Scotland is one day old, and the UK continues on as the Continuer UK, complete with all UK debt, and permanent seat on UN Security Council. It’s a popular opinion, but I don’t subscribe to it.
Instead, dissolution of the Union by one or other signatory to the Treaty of Union, say upon Scottish Independence, doesn’t mean Scotland leaves the UK, but instead, there no longer is a UK. Both Scotland and England revert back to the sovereign entities they were before the Union, thus both Scotland and England are back on the map, and there is nowhere for a Continuer UK state to exist.
In this latter case, Scotland will inherit a share of UK debt, and rightfully so. Those “bods” we routinely sent to sit in Westminster mean Scotland is complicit in UK misdeeds to some extent. But don’t panic. If Scotland shoulders a rightful share of UK debt and responsibility, Scotland will also benefit from a proportionate share of UK assets. Assets worth…. Well, Trillions, but a bit hard to quantify, and harder still to realise.
In addition, a degree of debt might actually help the reemergence of Scotland, where oil, renewables, and resources could lead to Scotland having a healthy balance of trade but a hard currency, making our exports expensive, so a debt we can afford, need not be completely bad news for the wider economy.
There is another component to consider, which relates to improprieties inside the Union, say for example if Scotland’s oil resource was deemed to be a colonial exploitation where Scotland drew no benefit from its extraction. Scotland might thus seek to pursue an element of compensation in the divvying up process for all our wealth being squandered in London.
Similarly, injury to Scotland’s economic interests through our unconstitutional Brexit subjugation might also feature. Lay on MacDuff. Ignoring the sovereignty of Scotland’s democratic opinion properly should cost them dear.
Will Scotland see a penny? I highly doubt it frankly, England is skint, but Scotland will not lack for teeth or leverage when it comes to the break up of the UK. (Unless of course we put a dribbling cretin like Sturgeon in charge of negotiations). Or Swinney.
Scotland will probably inherit a serviceable army, navy and air force too. Whether they’re any good for our actual defence is debatable, and of course, the Clyde goes nuke free.
Last point, Westminster has already tried to frame the argument that England would in fact be a Continuer UK state when Scotland departed, but while nothing would surprise me, I don’t think the bilateral Treaty of Union continues to exist after a component member has exited the treaty. The UK won’t continue. It will cease to exist, and I don’t think Westminster will be able to dictate the terms and constitutional ramifications of the dissolution.
The UK’s permanent seat on the UN Security Council will probably go to India. Be funny if it went to Iran… but of course, I’m being facetious.
The state of that! What a patronising pile of guff! I’m more disappointed by the lazy attitude shown by the local seagull residents than fish suppers being used as props to explain economics to us simple Jockos. Any self respecting brigand of the air would have dive bombed those fish suppers and snaffled them before she could blink!
Aye it’s like “you’re tae fucking thick to understand numbers, but this fish is bigger than that fish ya daft twat, sit doon”.
Aw, Adrian’s trying to post in Scotch. Bless.
Give it up. petal.
”Aw, Adrian’s trying to post in Scotch”
Wait, what? “Adrian” (I think you meant Aidan) is trying to post in whisky…?
No, I think the term you were looking for is “Scots”, rather than Scotch. Man alive, can’t even get your own pet subject matter right, let alone correctly spell someone’s name… well, let’s face it, five letters is a lot to have to remember when you’ve the intellectual capacity of a white dog turd that’s spent too long on a hot pavement.
Actually James, it’s you trying to post in “scotch”, by which I mean the incoherent meaningless ramblings of someone who is aggressively pissed up at 11:30 in the morning on a working day.
That it?
Amateurs in action; must try harder.
“That it?”
I’m betting that’s a phrase you’ve heard quite often.
What is it they say about men who drive big cars again, Rangey Boy?
Big car small…..
What is it they say about low IQ tramps with no car, who can’t drive and can’t even get into one, Fatso?
And the other side of the Barnett formula, if spending on the NHS or Education in England decreases, then the consequential are negative.
And England is not only privatising their NHS, they are also doing the same with their schools.
Did she mention that the U.K. government steals our tatties?
UKGov also turns a blind eye while random boys, lacking all certificates of authenticity, ponce aboot in tartan and kilts.
I was reading about it on here just the other day!
All the patronising guff we have had to endure ,all the propaganda and downright lies , all the dumbing down – is there any politician out there who might speak to the population with honesty and accuracy and not as though they are tiny tots in nursery school.
Meantime, out in the real world:
link to theguardian.com
All that “free” leccy. All that water. All that empty space.
Looks like while we were all squabbling from behind our keyboards, others assembled the jigsaw very quickly and got moving.
Barnett Formula according to Caithness Business Index
1. It ignores Scotland’s needs
The formula does not consider:Rurality; Island geography;
Higher health needs; Ageing population; Poverty levels; Transport costs; Energy costs in remote areas.
Scotland has higher per?capita service costs than England, but the formula does not recognise this.
That’s absolutely right Sam, and one of Joel Barnett’s main criticism is that Scotland’s advantage was essentially baked into the baseline.
However, despite its intellectual faults, tactically it provides Scotland with significantly more per-head in spending and crucially per-head in taxes raised which is funded by the U.K. taxpayer. In a constrained funding environment, and where the Scottish Parliament has significant autonomy over taxation and spending, it’s very likely any alternative mechanism would seek to align spending per head and taxation per head, and force the Scottish taxpayer to fund the shortfall and any additional spending commitments. That’s why it’s associated more with the unionist side than the independence side.
Swinney was warned, by trained honest people, that the Smith Commission was a miserable effort at containment, nothing more and he went along with it. He knew its tax proposals would worsen Scotland’s financial situation over time. He didn’t care. We don’t even collect Scottish income taxes! Swinney is to Independence that Starmer is to the working class and the poor which is the same as ..pick your party big wig, any party.
As I posted earlier.
“Disingenuous Adrian”.
But hey, worth a try, champ.
Neither of us can say with truth if the Formula meets the needs of Scotland.
Here is the abstract from a bit of research done in 2013.It finds Scotland’s healthcare funding if based on need would be greater. I’m sure I have seen the same conclusion with regard to education in the past.
“Assessing the relative healthcare spending needs of the UK’s
devolved territories: a Scottish perspective
Abstract. This paper applies Scotland’s health allocation formula to Primary Care Trusts in England, Health Boards in Wales, and Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland, in order to assess the relative healthcare expenditure needs of the countries. According to the Scottish formula, England’s per capita healthcare expenditure need is around 10% lower than Scotland’s, while Wales’ per capita expenditure need is around 2% lower than Scotland’s, and Northern Ireland’s is around 7% lower than Scotland’s. Scotland’s relative expenditure need over England is largely a function of higher rates of mortality and long-term illness, rather than its relative sparsity. Northern Ireland’s relatively lower need is largely due to it having a relatively young population. We also compare the results of Scotland’s allocation formula with the equivalent English formula, and find that the two approaches differ in their view of what constitutes an equitable distribution of resources between PCTs.
link to researchgate.net
“…raised which is funded by the U.K. taxpayer”
Nope. The UK taxpayer can’t pay its own bills, far less subsidise Scotland. It’s funded* by borrowing, the cost of which which is attributed to Scotland. We are notionally (since the whole exercise re GERS is notional) charged with the debt interest too.
* That’s assuming GERS is accurate. It’s not. It doesn’t follow accountancy regulations, it’s full of estimates etc etc. That’s before we consider that even the Fraser of Allender Institute, hardly a hotbed of Scottish independence supporters, states that it gives no indication about an independent Scotland’s finances since it could make any number of different spending and revenue raising decisions. Plus I’d hope our accounts would be accurate, unlike Iain Langs’ self admitted politically motivated GERS.
Barnett thought his Formula was “grossly unfair” due to inequalities in public spending. He thought it would be a temporary arrangement lasting no more than a couple of years. He found its continuation a “terrible mistake” and a national and personal “embarrassment”
@ sam: interesting stuff re Barnett and Caithness. Thanks for posting.
Caithness Business Index
“It is based on outdated population data
The population share used in the formula is updated only periodically, not annually.
Scotland’s population has grown more slowly than England’s, meaning the formula gradually reduces Scotland’s share — but with a lag that creates distortions.”
Fada bho abhainn an t-sluaigh, as a favourite band of mine sang back in 1991.
Zero understanding of the world outside of their big cities and their communist state apparatus.
Jappy;
“As a civil servant in London in the 1960s, and being part of the establishment, I always accepted the general view that an independent Scotland would not be able to survive on its own without financial help from the London Exchequer.
However, when in 1968 I was able to closely examine the UK’s “books” for myself in an official capacity, I was shocked to find that the position was exactly the opposite: that Scotland contributed far more to the UK economy than its other partners. And this, of course, was all before the oil boom.
I realised that the Treasury would wish to keep this a secret, as it might feed the then-fledgling nationalistic tendencies north of the border. I decided to keep an eye on the situation to see how long it would take for the true facts to emerge, which I felt would only be a short time. However, the machinery of Westminster, aided and abetted by the media, did an excellent job of keeping the myth about “subsidised” Scotland alive.
This came unexpectedly on 13 January 1997 when, in reply to a series of questions put by Alex Salmond (then an MP) to the Tory government of the day, Treasury minister William Waldegrave admitted that Scotland had paid a massive £27 billion more to the Exchequer than it had received since the Tories came to power in 1979, or around £5,400 for every Scot – a statistic which received barely any media coverage….”
link to caithness-business.co.uk
“What a needs?based formula actually means
A needs?based formula allocates funding according to measurable indicators of need, not just population or history.
Typical factors:
Age profile; Health needs (chronic illness, disability, life expectancy); Poverty and deprivation; Rurality and population density; Island and remoteness costs; Housing need and homelessness
Instead of:
“Scotland gets X% because it’s Y% of England’s population”
…it becomes:
“Scotland gets X% because its people are older, sicker, more rural, and more expensive to serve in key areas.”
For Scotland, that shift is huge.
2. Where Scotland’s “needs” are higher than the UK average
Scotland scores above the UK average in several cost?drivers:
Health: higher rates of long?term conditions, heart disease, and poor health in deprived areas.
Ageing: a growing older population needing more health and social care.
Rurality: large rural areas with sparse populations.
Islands: Orkney, Shetland, Western Isles—high transport, energy, and service delivery costs.
Deprivation pockets: Glasgow, Dundee, parts of Ayrshire, Inverclyde, etc.
Under a pure population formula, none of this matters.
Under a needs?based formula, it matters a lot.
3. Where Scotland might gain under a needs?based system
Health and social care
Scotland’s health needs and geography make delivering services more expensive per person. A needs?based formula would likely:
Increase Scotland’s relative share of health funding
Justify higher per?capita spending on social care
Recognise the cost of remote and island healthcare
Transport and infrastructure
Serving remote communities, ferries, rural roads, and island links is structurally more expensive.
A needs?based formula could:
Allocate more for rural transport
Recognise island connectivity as a cost driver
Support higher capital spending per head
Anti?poverty and social programmes
Higher deprivation in some Scottish communities would:
Justify more funding for targeted social programmes
Support early years, education, and public health interventions
In short: Scotland’s geography and health profile would likely mean more money per head than a simple population share would give.
4. Where Scotland might not gain—or could even lose
A serious deep dive has to admit this: a needs?based formula is not a one?way ratchet in Scotland’s favour.
Areas where Scotland is closer to the UK average
In some services—like certain education metrics or crime rates—Scotland may not stand out as clearly “higher need” than other nations or regions.
Competition with other high?need areas
A needs?based system would also recognise:
High deprivation in parts of Northern England
Health needs in Wales
Rurality in Northern Ireland
So while Scotland would likely gain relative to a pure per?capita model, it would be one of several high?need territories, not uniquely privileged.
5. How big could the change be?
We can’t put a precise number on it without a full model, but we can outline the direction:
Compared to a pure population formula, Scotland almost certainly gains.
Compared to current Barnett + historic baseline, it’s more nuanced:
In some areas (health, rural transport, social care), Scotland might gain or at least protect its current advantage.
In others, the historic baseline might already be generous, and a strict needs test could trim some of that.
The key point:
A needs?based formula would lock in Scotland’s higher costs where they are objectively measurable, rather than relying on historical accident.”
But Scotland will still be artificially ‘poor’.
All part of the Onion dividend.
@Sam – the funding received under the Barnett formula is consolidated though, so it’s up to the Scottish Government how money is apportioned between different uses. So if it feels that the appointment in say transport is generous, and health is insufficient, then the Scottish Government can make that apportionment at its discretion.
If your point is that Scotland has greater needs because of its rural and comparatively older population, well that’s true but under Barnett it also receives more money per head, and more money per head than is raised in taxes. So under an independence scenario in the short term at least taxes would need to rise or spending cut, and in the medium term it would depend on whether Scotland could achieve higher rates of growth.
Broken hearts are for arseholes.
“Typical factors: … Housing need and homelessness”
Uh Oh. There’s 5.7 million UK households getting cash from the government to help keep a roof over their heads.
And most of them are in England.
There’s an estimated 1.5 million new homes needed to be built, requiring government subsidy and intervention, and most of them are needed in England.
Seems odd that the boy, having listed “Housing need and homelessness” at the top, then goes on to studiously ignore it afterwards.
Because it’s a humongously expensive “need” and it’s mostly an English one.
Ah. As expected. The unionists seasoned pish goes “naw it isnae” [that’s Scotch, Adrian] and “naw he didnae”.
“….A country the size of Scotland with broadly comparable oil resources; Norway, had of course wisely created an “oil fund” in 1995, which just five years later had reached a total of £250 billion – enabling the Norwegians to sail through the credit crunch despite having delayed the starting of the fund for 20 years. Since 2000 the value of that fund has more than doubled to £0.51 trillion.
With the oil boom, Scotland’s economy should have been transformed. Scottish oil has to date funded the Treasury with the lion’s share of £300 billion, which would have pushed Scotland up from a notional 7th place in world wealth rankings (had it been in control of its own resources), to 3rd place.
Current industry estimates suggest that there are at least 40-50 years (and perhaps twice that) of significant North Sea production remaining, with a total value in excess of £1 trillion and possibly as high as £4 trillion according to independent experts….”
Come on, girls, tell us it,s the “wrong kind of oil” and it’s worthless unless it goes to Westminster.
Go on. Tell us.
It’s certainly near worthless when the current Scottish government at HR, the SNP and Green administration, has committed Scotland to Net Zero by 2045, 5 years ahead of the rest of the UK.
No amount of twisting of the facts can obscure that as recently as May 2026, the Scottish people dutifully filed through the ballot boxes to endorse another 5 years of that administration, and by extension, endorsed the closing down of the North Sea at the earliest possible opportunity.
The Scottish Government, and the majority of the Scottish people who vote them into power, want that oil and gas left in the ground. No other interpretation stands scrutiny.
As for “at least 40-50 years (and perhaps twice that) of significant North Sea production remaining, with a total value in excess of £1 trillion and possibly as high as £4 trillion”, the industry consensus is that these figures are nonsensical.
Agreed about the things that should have happened back in the Nineties and Noughties. But they didn’t. And there’s no turning back the clock.
I read that Norway is continuing to drill exploration wells and intends to exploit anything it finds. Sensible people, the Noggies.
What the Indy movement should do, as part of the drive to put clear, blue water between it and the SNP/Green loonies, is totally repudiate Nut Zero and declare an end to the eye wateringly expensive green energy scam. That would involve it having to backtrack on the “free leccy” trope and acknowledge that Reform/Restore are correct about exploiting oil and gas.
So it won’t happen. But that’s the price of allowing tribalism to win over pragmatism and reality.
Get a Time Machine or a job, Fatso, preferably both.
A shower would also be in order.
@James – £1trn in oil extracted over 40 years produces an estimated tax revenue of £4-6bn per year, around 0.5% of the total value of public spending today. That assumes 100% of that is within Scottish waters.
In contrast, the city of London produces about 10x that.
Whoopsie, forgot to clip off the https:// in previous post link making vid embed.
So what to do on a site that purports to want Scotland to return to self-governance…
Wait for days for a post to possibly appear or not, even though it should have shown up before my above post as it wasn’t held in moderation.
Counter the sophistic “everything Scottish is pish guff” with an internationally known successful currency investor, or risk hammers by Stuart.
link to youtube.com
But on the topic of this article, if Labour are still such utter tosh at enlightening Scots, and rightly deserving of ridicule, it would seem like an open goal for some articulate individual with funding to produce the likes of a small blue coloured booklet to properly inform Scots on various matters.
Over the period 2010 to 2019 austerity cuts led to a reduction of about £540 billion. Local government funding and social security were hit hardest.
The worst affected areas were usually the most socio-economically deprived.
The block grants did mean that the devolved countries could to some extent mitigate the cuts. England’s council spending was cut on average by 24% from 2009/10 to 2016/17 ( 45% in Salford and 5% in Hampshire). Scotland’s council spending was cut by 11.5% on average, but 29% in Glasgow.
Poverty kills. Poverty rates in England are about 22%, somewhat lower in Scotland. Child poverty in 2023/24 was about 31%. Trussell trust provides food banks. In 2010/11 it had 35 in England. By 2019/20 there were about 1300.
There has been an extraordinary rise in mortality across the UK. Life expectancy for the poorest has gone backwards rather than steadily increasing as it has for decades, faltering only under Thatcher.
Stephanie Bottrell got into the news. She feared the bedroom tax and faced either financial stress or moving house. She climbed a motorway barrier and walked into the path of a lorry. Her suicide note blamed the government for her death.
Scotland has not voted for a Conservative government for decades.
We should be hearing this from Melanie Ward, MP.
Devolution is a mess and so are the fiscal arrangements for Scotland. What a chump was Swinney to accept the Smith Commission crap.
“What a chump was Swinney to accept the Smith Commission crap.”
Yes, Swinney also tells the SNP faithful he is constrained by the Scotland Act, legislation that makes Scotland a colonial dependency. If he was a real nationalist he would use elected ‘nationalist’ majorities to tear it up. Instead he continues to administer the colony in the interest of the colonizer, not the people.
Swinney is doing exactly as the colonizer tells him via the Scotland Act, and he admits it, just as he admitted the £600,000 ringfenced indy fund has been spent on keeping the party afloat.
There has been no “extraordinary rise in mortality” across the UK, the mortality rate has decreased overall since 2010, and life expectancy has improved, albeit at a slower rate than previously.
Ah, c’moan noo Aidan!
Div ye want Indy or nae?
If ye dae, swear blind tae abody that WM is killing us, but total control fae HR will mak us all live longer.
link to blogs.lse.ac.uk
“The austerity measures introduced by the UK government in 2010 had severe consequences for the British population. Yonatan Berman and Tora Hovland find that these spending cuts cost the average person nearly half a year in life expectancy between 2010 and 2019. Regional disparities in life expectancy across the UK also widened. Overall, austerity measures resulted in about 190,000 excess deaths, or a 3% increase in mortality rates, from 2010 to 2019, including many “deaths of despair”.”
link to academic.oup.com
“Profound changes to mortality trends and inequalities were observed across both nations and all cities in the decade up to 2020, including increases in death rates among the 20% most deprived populations of almost every city. For deaths at all ages, this was particularly evident in Leeds, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Dundee, and Glasgow. For 0–64?years, Scottish cities stood out. With few exceptions, both absolute and relative inequalities increased in the same time period. COVID-19 further increased death rates and inequalities. The analyses provide a hugely concerning picture of worsening mortality and widening inequalities across England and Scotland. When viewed in the context of the evidence for the impact of UK government austerity policies on population health, they represent a wake-up call for both current and future UK governments.”
link to transformingsociety.co.uk
“We argue that the hundreds of thousands of extra deaths seen in the UK between 2012 and 2019 (with many more during and after the pandemic) can be accurately described as social murder. Why? Simply put, these extra deaths are largely due to austerity policies, and although it was well known that these kinds of policies would cause higher mortality, people in power implemented them anyway.
Evidence old, evidence new
As academics, we have spent years undertaking a series of meticulous research studies, evidence reviews and data analyses before coming to this conclusion. But we haven’t been surprised by the results. After all, we have known for decades (if not centuries) that increasing poverty, reducing public services and taking away social security benefits all damage the health of populations.”
“austerity measures resulted in about 190,000 excess deaths, or a 3% increase in mortality rates, from 2010 to 2019, including many “deaths of despair”.”
Covid caused 208,000 excess UK deaths in around one third of the timescale.
100% of these were “deaths of Covid”.
But you’ll never read sam bleating about them, even although there is far less room for uncertainty over the numbers and the cause, than for his favourite hobby horse.
I mean, hundreds of thousands dead (millions worldwide) cos the Covid Spreader cants couldn’t run a secure genetic research facility! Who cares if no political points can be scored from it?
“we have known for decades (if not centuries) that increasing poverty, reducing public services and taking away social security benefits all damage the health of populations”
I was quite unaware that public services and social security benefits had been around for centuries.
“we haven’t been surprised by the results”
Refreshing, but not surprising, to see academics admit that their “meticulous” research magically corroborated their starting assumptions.
Got to say though, sam, that memories of Arday are still too fresh for you to start presenting the work of academics as any kind of slam dunk.
If you are correct though, sam, you would be well advised to look to the future, not the past. The problems, such as an aging indigenous demographic, plus the floods of public service demands from penniless and unhealthy migrants, are all going to depress the figures further. There’s no money, the climate is deteriorating, costs are spiraling, and The War is intensifying.
The best days, such as they were, are over. They’re not coming back.
You will cleave to the notion that if a minority of the customers could only seize a disproportionately large chunk of the resources from the majority, then the members of the minority would be better off.
They would be, I admit that, only I don’t believe the majority are ever gonna supinely sit back and let that happen.
None of those studies suggest that the overall mortality rate increased between 2010 and 2019, or up to 2025 (we have to consider the impact of Covid-19 separately). If you read this BBC article you can see that the mortality rate is a) at its lowest level ever, and b) reductions in the mortality rate from 2010 onwards, albeit at a much slower rate than in the decade prior.
link to bbc.co.uk
What you have is three highly ideological studies intending to make the case for a much higher rate of government spending and a larger more interventionist state. There’s nothing wrong with that viewpoint, but it equally highly politically opinionated work should be confused for a dispassionate examination of the evidence.
For example, the authors do not appear to consider that:
– U.K. life expectancy remains comparable both in level and in trends to other developed countries.
– that the reduction in the rate of decline of the mortality rate actually started in 2010, prior to the introduction of any austerity policies. Aside from a war, mortality is very likely to be a downstream impact of any economic changes or government policies, which meant the causes of this would be appearing in the late 2000’s.
– the higher that life expectancy gets, it is likely to be much more difficult to make sustained improvements due to inherent human frailty and the capability of the human body. In the 1400’s life expectancy was 35, but comparatively simple improvements in sanitation, basic medicine, and maternity care produced drastic improvements. At 81 (UK average) it takes much more expensive and complex interventions to generate comparatively much smaller improvements. That’s why even in hyper-wealthy tax havens like Monaco, life expectancy is only a bit higher, at 86.
– When considering lives being lost as a result of policy or economic changes at a population level, you also have to consider the contractual. Whilst the analysis implies that 330,000 people died who would have otherwise lived healthy lives for decades longer, this is serenely unlikely. In practice, it’s likely a great majority of people who have died through for example heart disease, would likely have died months or a few years at best either, not survived for another 30 years.
So, the claim that mortality has increased is false, the role of austerity in slowdowns in the decrease in the rate of mortality is unproven, and the suggestion that 330,000 died who otherwise would have lived long, healthy lives is unproven.
“….naw there wisnae!….”
Jesus wept.
An interesting take on things, sam.
Some people would rather kill themselves than have a more equitable allocation of scarce resources benefit society in general.
Cos that’s what the “bedroom tax” was all about. Reducing the excess space some social housing tenants enjoyed so that other social housing tenants in more cramped and overcrowded circumstances could stretch out a little.
How absolutely typical that a progressive lefty should choose to interpret this as some kind of evil.
Swinney was well warned, He kent fine. The Smith Commission was a sham, containment.
Where the FUCK is engerlands barnet formula where the fuck is engerlands parliament, where the fuck is engerlands version of gers , if Scotland was such a basket case engerland wouldn’t hesitate to BIN Scotland , so all you desperate yoonies can spout endless pish day and daily it makes no difference to REAL independence supporters
The snp are NOT an independence party they are a collection of deviants,perverts and corrupt incompetent LIARS , just the SAME as the yoonionist parties you fuckwit yoonionist clowns vote for every election , so spare your endless condescending exceptionalist pish and sort oot the WANKERS you fuckwits vote for, the GREAT uk run by scum and elected by MORONS
Your turn with the Baton Of Erudition is it?
‘Fucks’ 3.
‘Yoonies’ 2 in the same sentence.
‘pish’ 2.
‘fuckwit’ 2.
‘Wanker’ 1.
Thank you for your contribution to the Unionist cause. You don’t mind if I post this on my Reform page, give the lads a laugh, this is what we’re up against.
Unionist “Pricks” : 4.
C’moan boys, let’s see a fight over who gets possession of the Baton Of Erudition.
Twat H is ancient, but then Wally is carrying enough blubber for three. Should be an even match.
Keep it clean. Nae stamping on your opponent’s falsers.
English version of a foody poem. Posted before, but a while since.
“If you had seen this toast before it was made,
You’d lift up your hands and bless marmalade!”
(Adapted – see note below*)
THE APPLE OF IDENTITY
The apple of identity crumbles on the tongue
as shortbread from a tartan tin
or oatcake too thin to bear the buttered blade.
(Our dentures fix their nerveless grin).
Some worm by ear insinuated
hath drilled our brain into a riddle.
Each kernel of thought drops through a slot.
A glut of glume bestrews our griddle.
From ransacked mouth the husks still spill.
From cankered core pour hollow pips.
All fail to germinate on half-baked floor.
A tongue of Highland Toffee licks our lips.
Native recipes we scorn to approve:
No peat-smoke reek nor teuchter’s Babel!
Full English Breakfast on North British Stove:
Cumberland sausage will command our Table!
———
* Couplet adapted from:
“Had you seen these roads before they were made.
You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade.”
Sir Walter Scott quotes it somewhere, but the apparent attribution is to Major William Caulfeild (sic), who took over from Field Marshall George Wade (1673-1748) with road, bridge, and fort construction in the North of Scotland, designed to facilitate British troop movements in the quelling of the Jacobite insurrections. In 1725 Wade had been appointed “Commander in Chief of His Majesty’s forces, castles, forts and barracks in North Britain”.
Cf obvious connection of placenames Fort William, Fort Augustus, Fort George with the Duke of Cumberland, Prince William Augustus (1721–65), English military commander, third son of George II. Cumberland was nicknamed “The Butcher” for his atrocities in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden (1746).
“Stinking Billy”.
The Geneva convention had not been written at that time. Without trying to be being contentious, what else did they expect? Remember, they had tried to overthrow the whole system. That would have included the Scottish church and central Scotland. Getting as far as derby taught the English (put the fear of God into them) that there could be No Quarter given. This was a fight to the end which included crown, church and state. Protestant England was surrounded by enemies waiting to pounce. Another important point is keeping an 18th century army in the field was a gamble.
If Charles had fallen on the field and the ringleaders were hung the outcome for the rest may have been less horrific.
” Journalism is now a middle class hobby which is subsidized by their parents”
” Transparency campaigner Benjamin Harrop wrote to the force seeking the written statement Ms Sturgeon made to officers after she was questioned by detectives.
Police Scotland last month refused his request but Mr Harrop asked for the decision to be reviewed – and indicated in a social media post that if the force continued to refuse, he would be taking the matter to the Information Commissioner.
He told me today he did so on Monday, appealing to Mr Hamilton for Ms Sturgeon’s police statement to be made public.”
link to archive.ph
———————————————–
Very interesting development.
Could the lawyers on here cruising silently beneath the surface as opposed to those pretending to be lawyers comment on this?
Can it happen?
Very interesting if it is, but somehow I suspect Tricky Nicky will slip the ever tightening net on this one though.
Here’s hoping not, numbers 32:23 an that..
Maybe pal Val “wi the money tae voluntarily pay mair tax” will pony up her defence lawyers fees, wouldn’t be surprised really..
Aidan,
Labelling research as “ideological” without any evidence is what you have done.
There was no “natural limit” to live expectancy between 2010 and 2019. other countries such as japan saw their life expectancy and mortality rates continue to improve.
What is being looked at is extra or excess deaths.The estimation of excess deaths attributed to austerity in the UK from 2010 to 2019 involves a comparison of observed mortality rates with predicted trends based on historical data.
The observed and predicted mortality rates, say, for men 15 to 84 years in England between 1981 and 2019 can be plotted.On the graph there is one line of dots showing mortality in each year. A solid line shows the trend fitted to those rates over the period. Extended to cover 2012 to 2019 it shows a divergence between what was predicted and what happened – an increase in mortality.
One study estimates that there were over 300,000 excess deaths during the period 2010 to 2019.The impact was particularly severe in the most deprived areas, where mortality rates increased significantly compared to previous trends.
“The estimation of excess deaths attributed to austerity in the UK from 2010 to 2019 involves a comparison of observed mortality rates with predicted trends based on historical data”
Historical data largely gathered from what was a different demographic.
As always, sam completely ignores the tens of millions of immigrants who now form a substantially changed population. A population with different genetic susceptibility to disease, different vaccination and immunisation histories, and different exposures to endemic conditions foreign to the UK.
It’s a neat trick to pretend this change is “invisible” in the statistics, so that any “visible” change MUST be due to the pet hobby horse of the writer – in this case “austerity”.
This willful ignoring of the elephant in the room can be used by the nefarious to mis-attribute all kinds of statistical changes, such as increases in crime, deterioration in social integration, rising poverty, terrorism, declining health, lack of housing, increases in rents, etc. to other causes.
Almost always, something “right wing”.
It’s by this deliberate obscuring of truths, that sam and his ilk, whether deliberately or not, seek to allow our country to be taken from us by stealth.
It’s very clear that the research is heavily ideologically driven, consider just some of the statements from one of the links you posted:
“Many politicians and their wealthy benefactors favour austerity because it allows governments to reduce spending, and in time, also reduce taxes. It also increases the opportunity for private businesses to make money from the resulting gaps in public services”
“Yet the threadbare social security system remains in place, alongside the rhetoric that more people need to be supported, encouraged or forced into work”
“Questions need to be raised about why public health agencies did not give warnings. Was there explicit or implicit censorship by ministers or government officials?”
These are all explicitly, ideologically-driven, partisan positions, and obviously not the result of a dispassionate examination of the evidence. Equally, you can look at Gerry Mcartney’s Twitter and see the coverage of a range of heavily left-aligned causes like the middle east, climate change, the wellbeing/circular economy and de-growth. None of that means he isn’t worth listening to, but the work has to be understand as an attempt to support a particular form and view of government, rather than neutral analysis.
You mentioned Japan, between 2010 and 2019 average life expectancy increased by +1.5 years vs by +1 year in the U.K. If we compare to other developed countries across this period, the U.K. performed better than Canada or Germany, but worse than France or Australia. The U.K. overall amongst the weaker end of the middle of the pack, but definitely amongst its peers, and the difference between the strongest and the weakest improvement is on or around a year.
If we then compare the same data set to the previous decade – 2000 to 2010, most western countries saw much greater improvement in life expectancy in that decade compared to the subsequent one, and the UK is again around the middle of the pack. So what we have seen in the U.K. is the same as in other western countries, albeit that the U.K. was very slightly weaker in the latter decade compared to the former.
Consider what you would have to believe to be true to say that 300,000 excess deaths were caused by austerity:
– that the financial crisis, the biggest recession up to that point in the post-war period, had no impact on the “desperation deaths” the authors attribute entirely to welfare changes.
– that a significant number of people started dying in 2010 in anticipation of welfare changes planned in 2012. The coalition government was not elected until May 2010, so this would need to be a significant number of additional deaths in the 2nd half of the year. We know there was no increase in either suicides or deaths due to accidents at that time, so we are talking deaths due to natural causes, significantly increasing, simply as a result of the election of the coalition government.
– that the 330,000 deaths alleged to have been in excess were people significantly below their life expectancy who would have gone on to leave decades of healthy life, not people who were very close to death and who died days or months earlier than they might have done.
– that no other trends in health or policy aside from austerity had any impact on the mortality rate, for example the significant reduction in the number of people who smoke (reduced by about 66% between 1990 and 2019).
TL;DR
It’s lefty claptrap.
It’s very clear that the research is heavily ideologically driven, consider just some of the statements from one of the links you posted:
“Many politicians and their wealthy benefactors favour austerity because it allows governments to reduce spending, and in time, also reduce taxes. It also increases the opportunity for private businesses to make money from the resulting gaps in public services”
“Yet the threadbare social security system remains in place, alongside the rhetoric that more people need to be supported, encouraged or forced into work”
“Questions need to be raised about why public health agencies did not give warnings. Was there explicit or implicit censorship by ministers or government officials?”
These are all explicitly, ideologically-driven, partisan positions, and obviously not the result of a dispassionate examination of the evidence. Equally, you can look at Gerry Mcartney’s Twitter and see the coverage of a range of heavily left-aligned causes like Gaza, climate change, the wellbeing/circular economy and de-growth. None of that means he isn’t worth listening to, but the work has to be understand as an attempt to support a particular form and view of government, rather than neutral analysis.
You mentioned Japan, between 2010 and 2019 average life expectancy increased by +1.5 years vs by +1 year in the U.K. If we compare to other developed countries across this period, the U.K. performed better than Canada or Germany, but worse than France or Australia. The U.K. overall amongst the weaker end of the middle of the pack, but definitely amongst its peers, and the difference between the strongest and the weakest improvement is on or around a year.
If we then compare the same data set to the previous decade – 2000 to 2010, most western countries saw much greater improvement in life expectancy in that decade compared to the subsequent one, and the UK is again around the middle of the pack. So what we have seen in the U.K. is the same as in other western countries, albeit that the U.K. was very slightly weaker in the latter decade compared to the former.
Consider what you would have to believe to be true to say that 300,000 excess deaths were caused by austerity:
– that the financial crisis, the biggest recession up to that point in the post-war period, had no impact on the “desperation deaths” the authors attribute entirely to welfare changes.
– that a significant number of people started dying in 2010 in anticipation of welfare changes planned in 2012. The coalition government was not elected until May 2010, so this would need to be a significant number of additional deaths in the 2nd half of the year. We know there was no increase in either suicides or deaths due to accidents at that time, so we are talking deaths due to natural causes, significantly increasing, simply as a result of the election of the coalition government.
– that the 330,000 deaths alleged to have been in excess were people significantly below their life expectancy who would have gone on to leave decades of healthy life, not people who were very close to death and who died days or months earlier than they might have done.
– that no other trends in health or policy aside from austerity had any impact on the mortality rate, for example the significant reduction in the number of people who smoke (reduced by about 66% between 1990 and 2019).
An interesting analysis of your leccy bills and an explanation of why they will almost certainly be higher in 2030 than they are now:
link to theguardian.com
That’s assuming no nasty Orcs take to blowing up bits of the generation and distribution infrastructure too. Not an assumption attracting certainty these days.
The take home is that it turns out that employing hundreds of thousands of folks on the “energy transition” and spending hundreds of billions of pounds on new kit was never going to deliver “free” or even “cheap” leccy.
Crivens! Who could have seen that one coming?
Meantime, some experts are predicting that unpaid leccy bills will reach £7 billion by the end of 2026. Got to say, the “can’t pay, won’t pay” approach to the red demands gets more attractive by the day.
Want to bet no asylum seeker even knows leccy bills exist? 24/7 free power will be part of their “human rights”.
There ye go again Hatey, blaming Scotland’s high energy costs on Ru**ia and everything else on immigrants.
When we aw ken the real ‘Orcs’ as far as Scots are concerned is the England-as-UK government, for that is who decides our energy costs and who is allowed to live here, or who we happen to be bombing today.
But Alf, you blame absolutely every problem that Scotland has on English immigrants. You’ve even written a book about it.
Do try and stop dribbling while you type, Adrian.
“But Alf, you blame absolutely every problem that Scotland has on English immigrants. You’ve even written a book about it.”
It does rather seem that way!
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Keep my name out of your mouth. Go and have a wash.
“blaming Scotland’s high energy costs on Ru**ia”
Good Lord, Alf! Do even professors have to take remedial English comprehension lessons these days?
I’ve written before about the balance between writer and reader, and how far it can swing in the “reader is thick” direction or the opposite “writer is unclear” direction.
But there are limits to how far that can be applied, and you’ve just smashed right through them.
The bank of England is just that, it was never the bank of Scotland Wales and Ireland.
And No Scots “mint” means that Englands debt is Englands.
Besides the fact that Scotland is not officially attached to England as the English monarch and English parliament dissolved Scotlands parliament from the parliament of Englands Great Britain parliament treaty hundreds of years since,
and Scotland withdrew its parliament from the said treaty under ” sine die” hundreds of years since.
The colonial control over Scotland only comes about due to the devolved governance sent belatedly to Scotland, when Englands parliament realised their control error was missing since they had dissolved Scotland from the treaty,
There was no mention of the Barnett formula in the previously three hundred years of Scotland not being in the 1707 union, it was created with the Scotland act in which The parliament of England and English monarch has no legal or official leg to stand on,
And for as long as the parliament in England has a dissolved governance based in Scotland there is no evidence of [One and the same parliament ] or England upholding the actual treaty they abandoned so early on.
So as long as Scotland excepts a Colonial devolved governance [ not proposed or mentioned in the 1707 treaty of union ] from the parliament of England …….we are a Colony of England.
Most people in Scotland have never wondered why it was suggested that Scotland suddenly needed controlling with a devolved governance at all from the Westminster parliament nor questioned there independence as a nation having been dissolved and separated from the union with the parliament of England.
It really is about time Scotland did enquire which bit of the treaty they are not in …states there will be more than One parliament in Great Britain. That is not One and the Same parliament parliament, seeing as one is in the Country of Scotland and one is in the Country of England,
Two Sovereign Countries that are supposed to create GB, of which still need to be, if GB as a CREATED STATE wants to continue
You live an a fantasy world that you control in your wee head. You are a fucking child.
“You are a fucking child.”
Colonial ideology applies such “adult and the infantile” rhetoric to make the colonizer’s “presence seem natural” (Nandy), which it is not.
Your paternalistic view is how the colonizer portrays and, as we see, rebukes the colonized, as a ‘child’. Hence the colonial terms ‘mother country’, and of course ‘dependency’ (i.e. colony).
Damnitall Alf!
I thought I had the full set.
Now you’ve introduced Nandy.
What’s the swapsie for a Nandy? How’s about if I give you 5 Fanons and 3 Cesaires? I’m loathe to part with my Elkins and Jonesy right now.
Say what you like about the guy, but he doesn’t half do a great chicken piri piri on the ol’ Josper.
He can do without your supercilious, faux-superior, colonialist condescension, CC.
Besides, check your cultural misappropriation. WTAF do YOU know about what makes a great chicken piri piri? 🙂
Both England and Scotland have to remain Sovereign independent Countries for Great Britain to Exist.
There can be no Devolved government sent to Scotland from the Westminster parliament that plays and acts as a parliament of GB.
Because that parliament of GB does not exist without a Sovereign Country of Scotland retained in that 1707 treaty, in history and in present day.
Scotland as Sovereign Country today for the State of Great BRITAIN TO EVEN EXIST.
Smearing the integrity of researchers does your case no good. This is my last post on the subject.
Loopstra 2017 Each 1% cut in Pension credit spending led to a 0.68% increase in mortality
Martin 2021 changes to spending in healthcare, social care and public health led to over 57,000 extra deaths between 2010/11 and 2014/15 in England, counting only the immediate impacts
Rajmil 2019 compared to the lowest austerity third of countries, the intermediate and high austerity countries had excess mortality rates of 40 and 31 deaths per 100,000 population, respectively, in 2015
Watkins 2017 Cuts to health and social care spending in England led to 45,000 extra deaths between 2011 and 2014.
Hiam et al 2017 The long-term decline in mortality in England and Wales has reversed, with approximately 30,000 extra deaths compared to what would be expected if the average age-specific death rates in 2006–2014 had continued.
Berman /Hovland 2025 “Our recent IZA Discussion Paper reveals that austerity measures introduced in the United Kingdom after 2010 to control public debt have imposed a profound human cost. These measures contributed to approximately 190,000 excess deaths over a decade and severely slowed gains in life expectancy.”
There are numerous, very high quality pieces of work that have considered the decline in mortality rates and recognised the complex, multi-causal nature of changes in mortality, for example this article published in The Lancet:
“Much of the debate around the plateauing of life expectancy in the UK has focused upon the possible contribution of the UK Government’s policy of austerity.35,36 Resources for the National Health Service and social care for older and susceptible people have been under increasing pressure in the past decade. However, the fact that there has been a slowdown in improvements in many countries suggests that at least part of the phenomenon is not the result of specific and unique UK Government policies and health and welfare spending. The health-care budgets of at least some of the comparator countries have also been constrained, which might partly explain the general tendency observed. We were unable to address this issue with the data we had available. Additionally, our results suggest that the adverse relative trends are driven equally by problems among people of working ages and not just among older people. Certainly, the emergence over the past 15–20 years of excess mortality in adults younger than 50 years in England and Wales relative to the 22-country median deserves further investigation”
“One factor that will influence the position of England and Wales compared with other high-income countries is the relative timing of the mortality effects of the smoking epidemic in other countries. For men and women in the UK the peak of the mortality effects of the epidemic has now passed, and thus will no longer have such a constraining effect on mortality improvements in England and Wales relative to other countries”
link to thelancet.com
Similarly;
“Of even more concern is the fact that over the past 30 years the relative international standing of the UK has deteriorated. This deterioration is seen in nearly all age groups and across a diverse range of causes of death. A key long-term influence is that for both sexes the UK was in the international vanguard of the smoking epidemic, which continues to affect the UK mortality disadvantage among women”
“All countries showed mean annual improvements in life expectancy in both 1990–2011 (overall mean 0·23 years [95% uncertainty interval [UI] 0·23 to 0·24]) and 2011–19 (overall mean 0·15 years [0·13 to 0·16]). The rate of improvement was lower in 2011–19 than in 1990–2011 in all countries except for Norway, where the mean annual increase in life expectancy rose from 0·21 years (95% UI 0·20 to 0·22) in 1990–2011 to 0·23 years (0·21 to 0·26) in 2011–19 (difference of 0·03 years)”
link to sciencedirect.com
“No such explanation for the recent downturn in mortality improvement in North America and Western Europe is evident. Although some commentators have pointed to increasing inequality and to austerity policies, cross-national evidence in support of these arguments is weak. Multiple factors are likely to be involved, but it has been easier to reject some of the initially proposed explanations than to provide robust evidence in support of these or any other hypotheses. Recent mortality trends have likely been influenced by the interaction of historical factors and contemporary events. For example, higher rates of obesity in the United States and the United Kingdom may have made the populations more vulnerable to the recent adverse factors, such as widespread availability of opioids (US) or reductions in health budgets (UK), and contributed to their greater downturn in mortality improvement (Adams et al., 2006), but the relatively small number of annual observations and a large number of potential explanations and confounders make identification of likely causes challenging (Murphy et al., 2019)”
link to pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
So we can see that when the data is analysed objectively, using the highest quality methods, those conclusions are not supported. It is only highly political, highly partisan research (which has its place) that advances the single-cause mortality theory. You’ll note that none of the papers I cite above contain party political slogans, or attempt to advanced the universally rejected theory about addressing budget deficits from 2011 onwards without any changes in public spending.
Anecdotally, I mind something I heard on the radio maybe 20 years ago.
A consultant obstetrician, working in a busy NHS hospital, was being interviewed. This admirable woman explained that she kept a map of the world on the wall of her clinic as an “ice breaker”.
The first thing she did with most of her new expectant mums was to take them to the map, and using sign language where necessary, get them to indicate where they originally came from.
I knew then that without radical changes to our bleeding heart NHS and benefits policies, we were doomed to suffer. Doomed to have our medical treatments rationed. Doomed to be denied services we had already paid for so that others could jump the queue.
And so it has come to pass.
Austerity my arse. We supinely sat back and let the bleeding hearts turn our National Health Service into the World Health Service, treating uncounted millions who never paid in a penny and never will.
And now we’re supposed to believe the likes of sam as he claims it’s all down to austerity.
Should Scotland ask where its parliament was for three hundred years?
Should Scotland ask how the State of Great Britain exists if two Sovereign nations of Scotland and England are no longer Sovereign in a voluntary union.
Should Scotland ask how you have avoided being sectioned for so long ?
“So a’m walkin’ doon Sauchiehall Street the ither day, right? Sun’s oot, folk millin’ aboot, aw that. And a see this wee pet shop wi’ a sign ootside that says:
TALKING DUG FOR SALE — £20.
A talkin’ dug! A’m thinkin’, aye, very good, somebody’s haein a laugh.
But a’m curious, ken? So a nip inside.
Shop’s roastin’. Wee guy behind the counter looks up at me and goes,”How kin a help ye, pal?”
A says, “A’m here tae see yer talkin’ dug.”
And he nods, dead casual, like a’ve asked fir a packet o’ biscuits.
“Aye, nae bother. He’s ower there in the corner.”
So we wander ower, and there’s this scruffy wee mutt sittin’ pantin’ away like he’s just run a marathon.
A says, “Right… how kin a dug talk? That’s impossible.”
Shopkeeper just shrugs. “Ask him yersel.”
So a lean doon and go, “Whit hiv ye been up tae then, dug?”
And a swear tae God — the dug lifts his heid, clears his throat, and in the poshest, BBC-newsreader voice you’ve ever heard, he goes:
“Well, my first position was with the Swiss Alpine Rescue Service. Tremendously demanding work.”
A’m staundin’ there like, whit?
But he’s no finished.
“After that, I served with airport security — detecting narcotics and various contraband. Very high-pressure environment.”
A’m takin’ a step back at this point, wonderin’ if a’ve inhaled somethin’ funny on the way in.
Then the dug says, “And subsequently, I was deployed to Afghanistan to locate IEDs. Quite the chapter in my career, I assure you.”
A’m starin’ at him, jaw on the floor.
So a turn tae the shopkeeper and go, “This is unbelievable. But why sell an actual talkin’ dug fir juist twenty quid?”
The shopkeeper just folds his arms and says, “He’s a lyin’ wee bastard. He’s niver been ootside this shop.”
Guid ane Northcode.
Aye, e’en the dugs doon the close ken the colonized fowk haes tae “mimic the colonizer” (Fannon) tae mak ony progress in a colonial society.
Very interesting, Alf.
So every time ye hear a dug bark ye think it’s quoting Fanon.
Thanks fer sharing.
Scotlands resources, Scotlands taxes, and Scotland revenues, Scotlands land and sea are a Sovereign nations assest’s that belong to Scotland as a Sovereign nation in a voluntary political parliamentary union with Englands parliament ( providing ) that the two nations remain Sovereign Countries to create the State of Great Britain.
Should either one of those two Countries no longer hold Sovereignty then the state of great britain no longer exists,
We can say this has happened on a number of occasions.
For instance when the parliament of Great Britain removed the parliament of Scotland for over three hundred years leaving Scotland a independent Sovereign nation again.
When Westminster parliament of Great Britain gave its Sovereignty to the EU.
When Westminster parliament of Great Britain ( in England ) ceased and left the treaty of union with a gap of eleven missing days while England made adjustments to it Calendar in 1752.
When the Westminster parliament dissolved the parliament of Great Britain in 1800 to create the agreement with Ireland,
These are moments in time, recorded history, that the Westminster parliament acting as the parliament of Great Britain abandoned the 1707 treaty with Scotland and did not re- new its treaty with Scotland.
Alf Baird has been on this platform for a few years now and has repeated the same one-way crap. It’s like a cult, quasi-religious sermon from on high. The fruits of Alf’s rants is a wee gang of misfits; Wee Sam the faithful puppy, Crazy Confused who dribbles endlessly trying to make sense of himself in public! Turdbrain the cowardly violence protagonist, Gullible Geri who throw in the towel, and Northy and Lochy who really never got over the defeat of the IRA. Very low IQ, Very high emotional baggage. A bucket of pigs swill. But highly amusing.
I forgot about Geri – I wonder whether she got sectioned/remanded, or simply gave up?
Run down by an F16 on a Zebra Crossing?
Dragged underground by the mysterious denizens of a pop-up biolab?
Have you checked on CM? That’s the eventual destination of those who become capable of developing their lunacy to semi-pro levels.
MB
I “never got over the defeat of the IRA”..
Eh?
How so?
You should bear in mind that I served there during the “troubles” before responding..
You forgot about Che or Cheyne who produces endless amounts of drivel, all saying the same thing.
LOL. Total. Self. Awareness. Bypass.
Would have been much better if she had used a battered sausage and two pickled onions.
Perhaps you’re unaware of it, Jessie, but by putting that “battered” in there, you’re encouraging, or at least trivialising, sexual violence.
Scotland will never flourish under the Union because it is an enforced dependency; a suppression of natural development.
A country in control of its own resources can do things a dependent country can’t. The difference is invisible but real.
The examples provided by all those formerly colonised shitholes suggest your claim doesn’t universally apply.
As does the hundreds of thousands fleeing those countries now in control of their own resources, to come here to the former colonial exploiter, for a better life of benefits, freebies and handouts.
You, of course, will interpret this a me being “unionist” or some such other smear.
Rather than accept the simple truth of what everybody can see with their own eyes.
Jappy again;
“Scotland’s real riches do lie in energy. The country exports 24% of its surplus electricity south of the border, with much of the back-up provided by hydro power unused. And even without nuclear, the future looks bright. The Glen Doe hydro station on Loch Ness which was opened by the Queen in 2009 but almost immediately closed again by a massive construction flaw, reopened last year and can produce enough electricity for 240,000 homes – the whole of Glasgow – by itself.
Further projects down the Loch are planned to eventually increase this to over 1,000,000 homes – enough for almost half of Scotland. Wind and wave energy will also contribute significantly in the future, as Scotland takes hold of a renewable-energy bonanza which will dwarf the proceeds of North Sea oil, and never run out.
There is, of course, a reason that the Unionist parties and media focus on the latter, finite, resource rather than the endless former one. The No campaign is, in more ways than one, a massive confidence trick.”
Ah, James, how I envy you.
You will go to your final rest blissfully convinced that one day, Scots will surf a bounteous wave of cheap leccy for ever more.
Of course, the fact you never lived to see it may bother you a little.
But not much.
I posted the other day about how the UK missed its 2025 target of running entirely on renewable energy, just once in the year, for 30 minutes.
I haven’t found any comparable figures for Scotland. Maybe you could find out the longest period in 2025 (or 2026) that Scotland has so far run entirely on renewables.
It would be fun to find out by how much that time period has to be scaled up to cover an entire year. And how much it has to be scaled up again for all the houses, vehicles, industries, etc. that still need to transition away from fossil fuels.
And how much all of that expansion and scaling up is gonna cost.
BTW. Why do you think that the media are trying to censor news of a “renewable-energy bonanza which will dwarf the proceeds of North Sea oil, and never run out”?
Rest assured; I don’t envy you!
Who’d be Hatey?