The Results of the UK's European Members Election 2019.

[gordi]

As I said above, the propaganda has been on-going for ages and in fairness, I'd suggest it's evolved
into a social acceptance in England. (The Guardian article is from early last year and check out the image...
Nicola Sturgeon looks very small).

Independent Scotland would face 'extended austerity' under SNP

Growth commission’s strategy would lead to extra decade of cuts and restraint, says IFS....

...'An independent Scotland would face an extra 10 years of austerity if it implemented plans outlined by a Scottish
National party report, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned.....

The Guardian:

hmm... The IFS has very strong links to WM, Whitehall and the UK political elite.
The very people who have for decades been fudging (and fiddling) the facts.

The Guardian themselves have previously published:

In 1974, two American political scientists, Hugh Heclo and Aaron Wildavsky, published an influential book about the workings of the British state called The Private Government of Public Money, which argued that an extraordinarily small clique of officials, who know one another well, dominate Britain’s decisions about taxation and spending. More than 40 years later, while the IFS vaunts its independence, multiple ties bind Ridgmount Street, Whitehall and Westminster.

For instance, Paul Johnson served in the Treasury between his first stint at the IFS and returning as director. Prior to the IFS, Johnson was tutorial partner at Keble College Oxford to Ed Balls, the former shadow chancellor. Balls’s pre-government journalistic career at the FT moved in parallel to Robert Chote’s, who was then at the Independent. Chote preceded Johnson as director of the IFS. During his tenure at the IFS, Chote’s wife Sharon White was building a career at the Treasury that would culminate in her role as second permanent secretary at the department. In 1997 Gus O’Donnell, who would go on to become head of the civil service, was in Washington as the UK executive director on the boards of the IMF and World Bank; he held a wedding party at his house for Chote and White. Later, when Chote wrote to Gus O’Donnell to bemoan the Treasury briefing against the IFS, he ended his letter with the words “We have all known each other for a long time …”

from: https://www.theguardian.com/business/201...mic-debate

The mere fact that the article quoted above includes the phrase:

"The commission was right to ignore future oil revenues in its forecasts because they were finite, but that increased the pressures on spending..."

Would suggest to me that the figures they are working from are inaccurate and quite frankly misleading.


According to UK government valuations – based upon current and projected markets – North Sea oil has an untapped wholesale value of up to £1.5 trillion (as quoted on the official Scottish Government website HERE
How can it be justified that we can just ignore £1.5 trillion of assets because they are "finite"??
That makes no sense whatsoever.

The IFS also prescribe to the WM mathematical model of the "UK Infrastructure Project" that I alluded to earlier.
The way it works is worryingly simple:
The UK Govt takes approx 85% of Tax revenues raised in Scotland and then (generously) allocates about 35% back to Scotland to "balance the books" there (via Barnett Formula).
The remaining revenues are spent "on Scotland's behalf" by Westminster, but mostly on important "UK infrastructure" projects like:

The High Speed Rail Link (HS1/Channel Tunnel Link) £5.8Billion,
CrossRail (Reading/Heathrow - London - Shenfield/Abbey Wood) £17.6Billion,
HS2 (London - West Midlands - Manchester / Leeds) at least £56Billion *estimated cost.
Crossrail2 (SW London - NE London) at least £30Billion *estimated cost.

Now these projects are all based solely in England (mostly London), come nowhere near to Scotland at any point, and it's very unclear how they will benefit Scotland in any way, but because WM describes them as "UK" infrastructure projects, the monies spent there are apportioned accordingly in the UK's balance sheets with Scotland paying it's "fair share" of almost 10% of the costs...

Tada! with just these 4 projects alone costing over £104Billion, that means that over £10Billion is suddenly wiped off of Scotland's balance sheet to fund English (UK) infrastructure projects!
It is sheer genius!
In the meantime, the Scottish Government does what it can to protect and develop Scotland's infrastructure, but we NEVER receive massive "UK" funding for any "Scottish" projects... funny that.

The latest slap in the face that I came across (quite recently although actually published 5 yrs ago) was a proposed infrastructure project which would "divert" fresh water from the Scottish Borders region down to the parched Southern areas of England via a series of new canals or pipelines.

Sorry I cant find the original link to the official story just this article in the Scotsman
And this from the World Canals Conference Site
[/url][url=http://www.waterindustryforum.com/documents/uploads/case-studies/AECOM%20Presentation%20-%20David%20Weight.pdf]and this from the Water industry Forum

Now, THIS project WOULD indeed be a "UK" project as it would affect both England and Scotland, so we would ALL (UK taxpayers) have to pay for it right?
But, wait a minute here..... it's Scotland's Water.
The proposal is to TAKE Scotland's water away and "divert" (GIVE) it to England. (Isn't that called stealing??)
So, we Scots would actually be PAYING towards a "UK" project who's sole purpose was to take our own water away from us and give it to England.
It would be like paying someone to steal your own wallet from you. Complete and Utter Madness.
But that is what we (in Scotland) are faced with all the time now, in the form of lies, deceit, obfuscation, misdirection, and outright theft!

Sorry if my posts come across as a bit of a rant, but this stuff really gets my blood boiling!

G