Dear All
Professor Patrick Dunleavy, of the London School of Economics (LSE) has been quoted repeatedly by Scotland's 'jolly fat man' Alex Salmond as saying the costs the creation an independent Scotland would be about £200 million.
As someone who doesn't have the vast expert experience of Professor Patrick Dunleavy, even I know that is entirely rubbish and worthy of derision and mockery.
£200 million is small potatoes.
You couldn't set up the embassy network which I understand has been mooted at 90 embassies through-out the world.
Although numbers vary, the number of departments needed to be setup is supposed to stretch to at least 60.
£3 million for the Scottish Home Office sound right?
£3 million to setup the Inland Revenue sound right?
£3 million for the Scottish Border Agency sound right?
£3 million for the Scottish Ministry of Defence sound right?
Unsurprisingly Professor Patrick Dunleavy, London School of Economics has been roundly mocked online, in fact he took such a pounding, anyone else would have dug a hole, jumped in and taken no further part in the Scottish independence referendum debate.
But the Professor has decided to come back with a revised figure, this time, he says the transition to independence could now cost Scottish taxpayers £1.5 billion.
That is seven and a half times his original figure.
Now, he says that Scottish voters could be “relatively sure” that moving to full independence it would cost between £600 million and £1.5 billion over a decade.
Well that's bullshit as well.
Do you remember the Scottish Parliament original cost?
£40 million!
Final bill came out as £440 million!
So, what is the George Laird view, not having been a Professor, not having been to the London School of Economics, not having been employed by Government?
£3.5 billion with an additional reserve of £1.5 billion!
I am going with £5 billion in all in.
In this country, you can hardly find anyone who can do their jobs properly and add to it, we have some majorly hopeless politicians who are so out of their depth, they literally have to be led by nose of the people who run departments. That is why this country is such a shambles, we don't have real leaders, they are just 'figureheads' as unpopular Nicola Sturgeon clearly demonstrated at Health.
Alex Salmond has threatened to default on Scotland's share of the UK debt because the Westminster Government have vetoed a currency union or Sterling zone as described by some. By doing so that means an independent Scotland wouldn't get any defence assets.
Not a warship, not a plane, not a bomb, not a grenade, or even a single bullet.
No fast jets, no air force, army or navy, nothing at all.
Soldiers wouldn't even have a pair of boots because the Scottish MoD wouldn't have any money to buy them!
Nordic welfare for the poor, you can forget that straight away, but for those interested in Borgen like unpopular Nicola Sturgeon, you can have instead Nordic taxes, 70% of your income. For Government and local government you can get ready for massive cuts to budgets.
In this situation, don't think small cuts think huge!
Prof Dunleavy did a revised figure because Iain McLean, professor of politics at Oxford University, argued that this was artificially low.
He says that Prof Dunleavy relied on making a false distinction between “set-up”, “transition” and “disentanglement” costs. And as we all know, you add it all up, not just the bits that you fancy, McLean argues that all three categories should be included in “set-up” costs as they represented one-off burdens.
I would say that Iain McLean seems to be more in tune than Dunleavy, on how much the taxpayer would have to spring for Salmond's reckless adventure. Although the £1.5 billion new figure matches the estimate produced by the by the Treasury, that figure is in my opinion still far too low.
Salmond having to swallow more bad news continues to insist that £200 million was the correct figure.
At First Minister’s Questions, he went to accuse the Treasury of “issuing misleading figures and misinformation”, more egg on his face instead of curry it seems.
Jackie Baillie, Labour MSP, said:
“This is a major embarrassment for Alex Salmond. He now appears to be the only person claiming we could leave the UK on the cheap. As always, the First Minister wants us to believe that he alone is right and everybody else is wrong. It is now clear beyond all doubt that setting up a separate Scottish state would be a costly business.”
A Treasury spokesman added:
“It is becoming clearer by the day that the Scottish Government has massively under estimated the cost of setting up a new state.”
Time for a quote:
"My problem is that I have too many talented people and not enough Cabinet positions"!
Alex Salmond.
Standing at First Minister’s Questions, Alex Salmond is clinging to a figure which has been totally discredited and which Professor Dunleavy won't stick what is left of his tattered reputation on, it is just mind boggling the lack of genuine talent that is now bubbling to the surface.
It maybe entirely possibly that if you give Alex Salmond a tenner, you may get back three £3 notes and two fifty pence pieces back.
Finally, some advice for Scotland's 'jolly fat man' Alex Salmond:
'One must act like a gentleman even if one is not a gentleman'.
That means learn to tell the truth.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
I think you’re bang on the money with your projections, George, because, given the Scottish public sector’s congenital recklessness with with taxpayers’ money, you can bet your bottom dollar that the people heading up the new departments will demand that new, lavish premises be built to house them, using the bogus argument that no existing (and cheaper) premises would be fit for purpose. And it is inevitable that the politicians, to satisfy their vanity and lust for power, will agree to build them, screwing the taxpayer in the process. It’s a bleak, bleak prospect, and I can only hope that I’ll be able to up-sticks and get a job elsewhere when the economy tanks and I find myself on the dole (assuming the government has any money left to pay the dole!).
ReplyDeleteIncindentally, I don't think any of the figures being bandied about includes a new central bank - the cost of which - if one has to include vaults and printing presses and coin minting equipment and IT systems - would, one would expect at least match the price of the parliament building.