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About Me
- sm753
- A Scot and a Brit who gets grumpy about myths and distortions, whatever the source or subject. Who's the bloke in the picture? Not me, and a bit of a change.
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Quote of the day1 day ago
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News Headlines 1/06/20122 days ago
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Salmond's Bank of Mum and Dad2 days ago
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Charles and the future of the monarchy2 weeks ago
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"Dingbat" strikes again2 weeks ago
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A Call to Ideas3 weeks ago
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The end of the beginning...3 months ago
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This blog has moved4 months ago
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This Blog Is Now Closed10 months ago
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It's The Lexicon, Stupid11 months ago
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Alex Salmond for First Minister1 year ago
20 comments:
Well blow me backwards!
Sm753 attacking Labour - so much for AM2's 'pan unionist alliance'....
I'm sure he is mourning it's passing....
Muttley, I would vote for Beelzebub himself if it would help to dish the Chubby Shyster and his troupe of delusional / lying poltroons.
I have cast my tactical anti-Nat vote for the Gromit Party in the past, and would do so again.
Could you not find a picture of Forrest Gump?
And why was David Miliband wearing a pyjama top when he told the world that he was going into a giant huff, instead of a shirt.
These two make Michael Foot look like the height of style & elegance.
"I would vote for Beelzebub"
A tory confesses?
My picture is much better smee.
http://mypseudepigrapha.blogspot.com/2010/09/hootsmon-headlines_27.html
Look carefully.
I'm going to follow you, but don't get big headed.
It's just typing " Nationalist Mythbusting" is such a pain in the arse.
I also meant to say thanks for your kind comment in early September.
My god man, does this blog ever get updated?
Your friends in the nasty party are cutting left right and centre, cancelling nimrod, cutting our defence, cutting the navy....
Dear oh dear sm753.
"Grounded nuclear sub dragged free"
Is the captain related to you?
Is this a Nat daring to criticise the Defence policies of anyone else?
Let's face it, this is the party which doesn't remotely have a "Defence" "policy".
All it's got is a "means of facing both ways so as to not to frighten people about defence job losses in places where we happen to have seats".
It's blatantly obvious that the preference of most Nats is not to have a defence policy and free-ride on the UK and NATO just as Ireland does.
Why can't they be honest about it?
Muttley, I have been away on hols and will comment on the SDSR imminently.
BTW you appear to be glorying in the fact that one of your country's prime defence assets has had a short argument with a sandbank.
Your cringe is showing again, Muttley.
Scotland susidises London.
http://newsnetscotland.com/economy/861-world-renowned-economist-says-scotland-subsidising-rest-of-uk
Hilarious.
Any doubt that Hughes-Hallett is a card-carrying Nat is now dispelled.
What other explanation is there for his parroting the utterly fatuous "defence underspend" line?
It's really very simple: it is not possible for the MOD to spend money on helicopters (or tanks, or fast jets, etc etc) in Scotland because they are not made here.
However we still derive our full pro rata benefit from them so it is obvious and sensible to attribute a full pro rata share of the cost.
Got that yet?
Let's make it clearer. Imagine what would happen in an "independent" Scotland.
Where would its helicopters come from?
Oh.
Er.
Um.
Exactly the same places the UK's come from now.
I don't think the Union is going to be overly troubled by this half-baked Prof.
I think you've missed the point of what Hughes-Hallett was saying.
He wasn't commenting in relation to defence, he was commenting in relation to the overall fiscal position of an independent Scotland.
Shame about the undetectable sub getting stuck in full view of the world wasn't it.
Still, never mind.
CH directed me to an article on NutNetScotland.
That article majored on defence spending as some sort of hidden "subsidy"; I was responding to what was in front of me.
H-H's decision to parrot such a fatuous argument destroys any pretensions he has to being an independent source, as well as his professional credibility.
So I'm not all that interested in his utterances. There are all sorts of things he could have said which would have been impossible to argue with, but he is clearly adopting a partisan position.
Another traitor.
Ignore the stuff on Nutternet.
The interview was on Newsweek Scotland.
“If you want to get into the nitty-gritty... the usual perception is that Scotland spends something like 20% more on public services per head than the UK average, now there is nothing wrong with that if you can raise the money. Those numbers are very misleading because the spending in that part is what is spent on behalf of Scotland but not necessarily in Scotland. The estimates of Scotland’s share, that’s contributions to defence is £2.8billion whereas roughly £2.0billion are actually paid out in Scotland. So there is an implicit subsidy going south in that sense and you can think of plenty more examples, I don’t want to get into North Sea Oil – which is an obvious one. But things to do with the crown agents who take fees for electricity generation and give it to the treasury, there use to be a case of landing fees. The foreign exchange earnings are, the tax revenues are all accredited to the London Government and so on. And so when you get down to it, on the current account for the last five years at least, maybe longer, Scotland’s had a current account surplus – which is currently, according to the National Accounts of Scotland is £1.3billion..
..that’s not what the numbers show, that just the perception. If you actually look at the numbers, I quoted them for defence earlier , the distinction is what is said to be spent on Scotland’s half but is not actually spent in Scotland.”
------------------
That's the issue, it's not about defence per se & it's not about independence, it's about fiscal autonomy within or without the union.
"The estimates of Scotland’s share, that’s contributions to defence is £2.8billion whereas roughly £2.0billion are actually paid out in Scotland. So there is an implicit subsidy going south in that sense"
No there is not. You can't buy helos in a place where no helos are made.
"I don’t want to get into North Sea Oil – which is an obvious one."
Yes it is, and it's also "obvious" from the numbers that it is a declining factor and only manages to make a surplus in particularly good years. Over which we have no control.
"But things to do with the crown agents who take fees for electricity generation and give it to the treasury"
Trivial amounts - a few million.
" there use to be a case of landing fees."
Did there really? How quaint.
" The foreign exchange earnings are, the tax revenues are all accredited to the London Government and so on."
No, they are not. Have a look at the appendices to GERS - they really do try to attribute the numbers properly.
" And so when you get down to it, on the current account for the last five years at least, maybe longer, Scotland’s had a current account surplus"
Frankly I doubt that, and I also doubt the relevance of "current account surplus".
" – which is currently, according to the National Accounts of Scotland is £1.3billion.."
So it is. That's only the current account, ignoring capex. And for a year with a particularly high one-off figure for PRT. Meanwhile, North Sea production continues its inexorable decline.
I have never uttered the words "too poor" and I have never seen any evidence of any responsible UK politician doing so either.
What I will say is "poorer" along with "smaller, weaker, less safe, less secure, more parochial, more bigoted."
sm753 what is it that you don't understand?
Is it that one only gets a proportion of ones earnings as big mumma says I wan't my cut as you owe me or is it that when they were dishing out intelligence they skipped you as not worthy? I suggest the latter as sense has to bear some creditability and I am still looking for yours.
Professor Andrew Hughes Hallett
http://policy.gmu.edu/tabid/86/default.aspx?uid=36
Are your qualifications better than his?
GERS hasn't a shred of creditability as they were designed by one Ian Lang in his words.
"The booklet I have had prepared and printed, setting out the details of the Government’s expenditure and revenue in Scotland, I judge that it is just what is needed at present in our campaign to maintain our initiative and undermine the other parties."
Traitorous Tories to Scotland to keep them under Westminsters thumb.
CH
"GERS hasn't a shred of creditability"
Er, we are talking about the current version, which since 2007 has been signed off and endorsed twice by your own "Hapless" Swinney.
I believe the quote was something like "GERS is the official report with the correct figures", or something.
That enough "creditability" for you?
As for H-H's qualifications, I don't care what they are. By coming out and parroting some of the totally fatuous "arguments" presented by the SNP - and I note without any quantitative facts to back them - in such a blatantly politicised and political way, he has blown his cover as a card-carrying Nat and shredded his credibility.
Anything he says from now on is tainted.
Delusion is treatable and help is available on the NHS until the Labour/Tory cuts start to bite. Good luck.
Goodness gracious.
French jets landing on floating sovereign british territory willy nilly, nuclear submarines running aground on the coat of scotland, Scottish RAF bases facing closure, trident postponed AGAIN, nimrods and battle tanks scrapped.
Still no comment from the self appointed professor.
Shambolic, I do hope this isn't how you treat your students.
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