Dear All
No taxation without representation.
It’s a famous American quote, the Scottish
National Party plans taxation, in fact they plan a lot of taxation, too much;
they have promised a Nordic style welfare system and also a low corporation tax.
The sums just don’t add up.
George Osborne, the UK chancellor is having
a great Scottish indy campaign, people don’t believe a word that Alex Salmond
and Nicola Sturgeon say, too many times the promises and assertions turned out
to be false.
Some people call it lies.
Whatever you call it, the entire Scottish
indy campaign is bogus.
Osborne has said there would be "very
significant" tax rises or cuts to public spending if a Scottish oil fund
was set up post-independence.
That has the ring of truth; there isn’t
enough money available to have an Oil Fund without drastic cuts.
That means the working class people of
Scotland would suffer hardship beyond belief.
George Osborne popped out the pearls of
wisdoms as part of the message of the latest
UK government analysis on the possibility of an independent Scotland.
Short version, working class people are
going to be screwed post indy, and then the austerity kicks in, we would be the
Athens of the North.
Do you know any bins with food in them,
keep a weather eye, you might be dining on a bin lid.
The UK Government paper said such a plan for
the Oil Fund would mean taking £8bn out of a go-alone Scottish budget and
diverting it into the fund.
Danger danger Will Robinson!
The Scottish National Party has backed a
Norwegian-style oil fund for as long as I can remember, they are big on spin
and short on detail.
Since 1990, Norway has invested profits
from its oil industry into coffers for the nation's future, that fund is
incredibly healthy, it stands at £475bn.
The trick with money is to save it that is
how wealth is created, smart investments shows the Norwegians with a fund 40%
bigger than the value of the entire Norwegian economy.
This makes them have the world's largest
sovereign wealth fund.
Awhile ago, I had an idea for a smaller
version called the City Sovereign Fund which is about Councils ploughing profits
in a City Fund which could be used to fund special projects or get the Council
out of a real jam.
The
analysis paper titled: Scotland Analysis - Macroeconomic and fiscal performance
said:
"An independent Scottish state could
try to smooth its public finances and manage volatile and declining oil and gas
revenues by establishing an oil fund. Implementing an oil fund in a similar way
to Norway would imply very significant tax increases or cuts to public
spending, over and above the plans that have been set by the UK government to
repair the impact of the financial crisis."
The money isn’t there is the bottom line.
Scotland’s unpopular Deputy First Minister
Nicola Sturgeon said:
"If you were sitting in Norway
listening to George Osborne you would laugh at him - I expect a lot of people
in Scotland will today as well because they are a country of similar size to
Scotland that is sitting right now on a £470bn oil fund for the future. That is
what happens when you steward your oil resources properly."
I don’t see many people in Scotland
laughing about the botched independence campaign or the threat to people’s jobs
and security.
Osborne also said that Scotland had
benefited over the last 30 years from oil and gas industry tax revenues.
The trouble is we should have benefited
more; the money was used to shore up problems in the UK and Scotland.
We could have done better but we didn’t,
but there is no evidence to suggest that Salmond and Sturgeon could manage
Scotland better, evidence of cock ups tho!
There is no Scottish Government and local
government reform and as such Scottish indy is completely bogus and No is the
best option.
And the majority of Scots think the same as
me.
Oil Fund good idea, trouble is SNP Government is such a shambles that they can't be trusted.
And you can take that to the bank!
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
The UK has invested heavily in the North Sea using UK money. They will be looking for compensation for that heavy investment in any Independence negotiations. That would be the negotiations that the SNP think they will see the UK Government roll over and allow the SNP to tickle their belly. Either the SNP are naive to the point of criminal stupidity or they believe scots voters are.
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