A Mori opinion poll in Sunday's Observer suggests that a Tory victory is far from certain and that, after next year's General Election, a hung parliament might just be the more likely option.
The newspaper reports
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/22/tory-lead-falls-mori-poll
that ...
"The Ipsos MORI survey for the Observer, which will cause alarm in Tory ranks and boost Labour's hope of performing a "great escape", puts the Conservatives on 37%, only six points ahead of Labour on 31%. The Liberal Democrats are on 17%."
The poll refelcts persisting doubts about the quality of the Tory leadership and the vague nature of many of their policy prescriptions.
Monday, 23 November 2009
Friday, 20 November 2009
John Swinney - Scottish Politician of the Year
Mr Swinney is, it seems, "Scottish Politician of the Year". Which award was given him by the Herald because "he has handled a very difficult brief in the teeth of the recession really well "...
Is that right. Let's examine the evidence...
John Swinney is the Finanace spokesman for the SNP. The SNP had two big promises in the area of Finance.
1. A local Income Tax to replace the "Hated Community Charge".
2. A Scottish Futures Trust to replace the "Hated PPP".
Mr Swinney is the man in charge of these key policies, neither of which has been enacted.
The LIT was complicated in theory, obscure in practice, fiendishly complicated in execution and quite probably illegal in Scots law. So it has been dropped and the Community Charge continues in being.
None of this was news to Mr Swinney. Some version of LIT has been mooted on and off for 50 years: but it has never been enacted for the reasons detailed above. Mr Swinney knew all of that, but still went ahead and made a manifesto promise to deliver it...without actually thinking through the details of his chosen policy.
The Scottish Futures Trust, now there's a story. This magicical mechanism was intended to do away with PPP. It would, we were promised, provide the Finance and the Project Management Mechanisms to deliver major infrastructure developments, more quickly, efficiently and at a fraction of the costs of PPP. And...
Well, to be honest, it doesn't exist. There is something masquerading under the name of a "Scottish Futures Trust", but it does not provide the Finance for major (or indeed any)infrastructure projects. If truth be told the so-called "Scottish Futures Trust" consists of an office in Glasgow with a big rubber stamp with which to "approve" projects that would have been approved in any case. It's fig-leaf and a process bottleneck. It's essentially worthless, and it has not delivered on new major development.
In fact, while we were waiting for this mythical beast to be born, the SNP built not one new school, EARL and GARL were abandoned, and the Aberdeen ring road sunk for lack of vision by the SNP and lack of a proper funding mechanism. The one major infrastructure project that is to go ahead is the new Forth Bridge. And the funding? We don't really know yet, but it will not be from the SFT....
Two and a half years wasted in the futile pursuit of badly defined and thought out policies on local taxation and infrastructure funding, and vital infrastructure projects dropped or delayed or de-scoped as a consequence.
And the politician responsible is "Scottish Politician of the Year"?
What must the rest of them be like...???
Is that right. Let's examine the evidence...
John Swinney is the Finanace spokesman for the SNP. The SNP had two big promises in the area of Finance.
1. A local Income Tax to replace the "Hated Community Charge".
2. A Scottish Futures Trust to replace the "Hated PPP".
Mr Swinney is the man in charge of these key policies, neither of which has been enacted.
The LIT was complicated in theory, obscure in practice, fiendishly complicated in execution and quite probably illegal in Scots law. So it has been dropped and the Community Charge continues in being.
None of this was news to Mr Swinney. Some version of LIT has been mooted on and off for 50 years: but it has never been enacted for the reasons detailed above. Mr Swinney knew all of that, but still went ahead and made a manifesto promise to deliver it...without actually thinking through the details of his chosen policy.
The Scottish Futures Trust, now there's a story. This magicical mechanism was intended to do away with PPP. It would, we were promised, provide the Finance and the Project Management Mechanisms to deliver major infrastructure developments, more quickly, efficiently and at a fraction of the costs of PPP. And...
Well, to be honest, it doesn't exist. There is something masquerading under the name of a "Scottish Futures Trust", but it does not provide the Finance for major (or indeed any)infrastructure projects. If truth be told the so-called "Scottish Futures Trust" consists of an office in Glasgow with a big rubber stamp with which to "approve" projects that would have been approved in any case. It's fig-leaf and a process bottleneck. It's essentially worthless, and it has not delivered on new major development.
In fact, while we were waiting for this mythical beast to be born, the SNP built not one new school, EARL and GARL were abandoned, and the Aberdeen ring road sunk for lack of vision by the SNP and lack of a proper funding mechanism. The one major infrastructure project that is to go ahead is the new Forth Bridge. And the funding? We don't really know yet, but it will not be from the SFT....
Two and a half years wasted in the futile pursuit of badly defined and thought out policies on local taxation and infrastructure funding, and vital infrastructure projects dropped or delayed or de-scoped as a consequence.
And the politician responsible is "Scottish Politician of the Year"?
What must the rest of them be like...???
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Explain yourself sir, or by god I'll...
Over on the Our Scotland forum, I've been having an interesting exchange about "the unionist position", in which one Cuthill76 seems to think that, if you are not a nationalist, you have to explain yourself to him/her.
This is of course an absurd position, so I wrote a little playlet to explain to Cuthill and others why their position is logically untenable....
Cuthill76 posed the challenge ...
To which I responded
the curtain rises...
A Small Voice: Hey you: can you please tell me why we shouldn't cut off our right arm? Can you please do this by providing tangible reasons and please avoid negative attacks on the Amputatist position..
Me: Whut? Who are you?
I speak for your right arm..
No you don't.
Yes I do, I'm the Right Arm Amputatist Party (RAAP)
Where are you? And how can you claim to speak for my right arm?
I'm here...down here..that's right... a pinkie. And I demand redress for past wrongs....
What wrongs...
Nobody asked me to be attached to your body....it just happened, before I was born. It was the parcel of rogues in a stem cell. I wasn't consulted and I demand redress. Chop off the arm.
But your not my right arm, your just a tiny minority digit...
...I speak for the whole of the arm, and I demand amputation, or at least a referendum on amputation. And I want it now. Or later. And I demand that you give me reasons why I shouldn't amputate..
But that's crazy. I don't have to tell you why I want to stay attached to my right arm. It's always beeen there, it works quite well, if I lost it I would be a bit hampered and I have no desire to lose it. As for the arm, how would it survive on its own?
There's tons of small arms surviving quite well all over the world. They don't need foreign shoulders to lean on or foreign legs to help them get about. They're called the Arms of Prosperity, and you get them from Iceland to Ireland....
But I don't need to tell you why I want to keep my arm. It's my arm and I like it. That's enough for me...
BODYIST!
What do you mean?
Your a bodyist. You want to keep your body whole and deny me the right of amputation.
But it's my body! Dammit. And it's my arm, I don't see any sensible reason to cut it off.
Why should you keep it?
Why not?
See. You refuse to give any reasons why you should keep your arm. Your stupid and bodyist and you don't have any reasons for keeping your arm.
Apart from it works and its mine and I don't want to lose it? Isn't that enough?
Not for us Amputists. We don't agree with connection and we demand Amputaton now!
Yer aff yer heid mate. It's you that should be justifying amputation, not me that should be justifying keeping my body parts...
COWARD! BODYIST! and so on ad infinitum...
the curtain falls
This is of course an absurd position, so I wrote a little playlet to explain to Cuthill and others why their position is logically untenable....
Cuthill76 posed the challenge ...
To the unionists. Can you please clarify your position on why being part of the Union is a good thing? Can you please do this by providing tangible reasons and please avoid simply negative attacks on the nationalist position.
To which I responded
the curtain rises...
A Small Voice: Hey you: can you please tell me why we shouldn't cut off our right arm? Can you please do this by providing tangible reasons and please avoid negative attacks on the Amputatist position..
Me: Whut? Who are you?
I speak for your right arm..
No you don't.
Yes I do, I'm the Right Arm Amputatist Party (RAAP)
Where are you? And how can you claim to speak for my right arm?
I'm here...down here..that's right... a pinkie. And I demand redress for past wrongs....
What wrongs...
Nobody asked me to be attached to your body....it just happened, before I was born. It was the parcel of rogues in a stem cell. I wasn't consulted and I demand redress. Chop off the arm.
But your not my right arm, your just a tiny minority digit...
...I speak for the whole of the arm, and I demand amputation, or at least a referendum on amputation. And I want it now. Or later. And I demand that you give me reasons why I shouldn't amputate..
But that's crazy. I don't have to tell you why I want to stay attached to my right arm. It's always beeen there, it works quite well, if I lost it I would be a bit hampered and I have no desire to lose it. As for the arm, how would it survive on its own?
There's tons of small arms surviving quite well all over the world. They don't need foreign shoulders to lean on or foreign legs to help them get about. They're called the Arms of Prosperity, and you get them from Iceland to Ireland....
But I don't need to tell you why I want to keep my arm. It's my arm and I like it. That's enough for me...
BODYIST!
What do you mean?
Your a bodyist. You want to keep your body whole and deny me the right of amputation.
But it's my body! Dammit. And it's my arm, I don't see any sensible reason to cut it off.
Why should you keep it?
Why not?
See. You refuse to give any reasons why you should keep your arm. Your stupid and bodyist and you don't have any reasons for keeping your arm.
Apart from it works and its mine and I don't want to lose it? Isn't that enough?
Not for us Amputists. We don't agree with connection and we demand Amputaton now!
Yer aff yer heid mate. It's you that should be justifying amputation, not me that should be justifying keeping my body parts...
COWARD! BODYIST! and so on ad infinitum...
the curtain falls
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
The Dearest Bridge in the World
The SNP has announced the bill authorising the building of a new Forth road crossing. The bridge, at an estimate of £2billion+ is reckoned to be one of the dearest estimates/mile of any similar bridge.
here
But it is not at all clear how they will finance it. The SNP's flagship policy of a "Scottish Futures Trust" has failed to materialise as a funder of major projects, and the SNP has rejected an offer of £1billion towards the cost from the UK Government.
The Nationalists will only say that the money will be "found from capital budgets.....but of course, the cost to the capital budget means that vital infrastructure projects; roads, schools, hospitals and other much needed public projects, will suffer.
Question: is this the best use of the available money in the current circumstances?
here
But it is not at all clear how they will finance it. The SNP's flagship policy of a "Scottish Futures Trust" has failed to materialise as a funder of major projects, and the SNP has rejected an offer of £1billion towards the cost from the UK Government.
The Nationalists will only say that the money will be "found from capital budgets.....but of course, the cost to the capital budget means that vital infrastructure projects; roads, schools, hospitals and other much needed public projects, will suffer.
Question: is this the best use of the available money in the current circumstances?
Friday, 30 October 2009
Glasgow Rail Link Not Debated
This from the SNP candidate in Glasgow North By-election...
So the SNP candidate agrees with the SNP group? Big news, eh?
This from the Herald...
but...
...there was a debate scheduled on the Glasgow Airport Rail Link.... and the walkout allowed the SNP to duck out of taking part in that debate....
Am I being cynical in suspecting the typical and frequently used SNP/Monty Python tactic... run away, run away!!??...
SNP by-election candidate, David Kerr, hailed the action of the SNP Group in Glasgow council after they walked out in protest at the Lord Provost's refusal to discuss the scourge of organised crime in Glasgow.
So the SNP candidate agrees with the SNP group? Big news, eh?
This from the Herald...
... Lord Provost...ruled that (the) motion... was neither competent nor relevant..." and "...the council was happy to discuss organised crime as long as the motion was competent...
but...
...there was a debate scheduled on the Glasgow Airport Rail Link.... and the walkout allowed the SNP to duck out of taking part in that debate....
Am I being cynical in suspecting the typical and frequently used SNP/Monty Python tactic... run away, run away!!??...
Friday, 9 October 2009
Where's our schools Fiona?
In February 2007, Fiona Hyslop, speaking to The Herald, said:
“Within the first 100 days of an SNP government we'd start replacing PPP with a Scottish Futures Trust. It would be a not-for-profit trust which would serve as an alternative finance scheme - and it would squeeze out the PPP programme.”
Two and a half years later, we have no Scottish Futures Trust and the effect on our (non-existent) school building programme is evident.
SNP politicians say that they have "opened" a number of new schools, but what they do not say is that the SNP has not commissioned one new school in all the time they have been in power.
Last week they announced that there would be part-funding for 14 new secondary schools, but none of these are expected to be complete by the time of the next Scotttish elections.
As for the claims to have "opened" new schools: over the last two years, the only projects that have been completed are either PPP projects left over from the Lab/LibDem administration or delivered and funded by local authorities, without help from Holyrood.
Ministers like Fiona Hyslop have been quick to attend opening ceremonies and take the credit, but they have done nothing to deserve any credit for any schools.
A damning statistic: tThe Scottish Futures Trust will not build and deliver a single school in the lifetime of this parliament.
“Within the first 100 days of an SNP government we'd start replacing PPP with a Scottish Futures Trust. It would be a not-for-profit trust which would serve as an alternative finance scheme - and it would squeeze out the PPP programme.”
Two and a half years later, we have no Scottish Futures Trust and the effect on our (non-existent) school building programme is evident.
SNP politicians say that they have "opened" a number of new schools, but what they do not say is that the SNP has not commissioned one new school in all the time they have been in power.
Last week they announced that there would be part-funding for 14 new secondary schools, but none of these are expected to be complete by the time of the next Scotttish elections.
As for the claims to have "opened" new schools: over the last two years, the only projects that have been completed are either PPP projects left over from the Lab/LibDem administration or delivered and funded by local authorities, without help from Holyrood.
Ministers like Fiona Hyslop have been quick to attend opening ceremonies and take the credit, but they have done nothing to deserve any credit for any schools.
A damning statistic: tThe Scottish Futures Trust will not build and deliver a single school in the lifetime of this parliament.
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
What Exactly is The Scottish Futures Trust? ..and can we trust it to build our schools...??
The Education secretary has announced 14 new Secondary Schools* across Scotland. These schools are to be financed by traditional methods of borrowing.
So what, I hear you say, of the SNP's flagship "Scottish Futures Trust", the all singing all dancing replacement for PPP, the magical money making machine that was to do away with the hated PFI and provide enough money to match the previous, Labour-led, administraton's school-building programme "brick for brick"? Whatever happened to the SFT?
The SNP says that these schools will use the SFT. But they will not be financed by the SFT. How can that be?
Well. It seems that the "Scottish Futures Trust" has been transformed (without actually telling anyone) from
...."an all singing all dancing financing mechanism that will help match the previous school-building programm brick-for-brick",
into ...
..."a wee office in Glasgow where 5 civil servants will use Project Management Software to report on the progress of a few new schools that are actually financed in the same old way as before..."!!!
Right. So no Scottish Futures Trust and just 14 schools and none of them likely to be completed by the end of this Parliament.
That's why we voted SNP, is it?
As I said elsewhere: the SNP lack of vision and ambition for the people of Scotland is so disappointing. Disgraceful actually.
*Any new school building is good news, but to put this figure in context: there were 3 Secondary and 3 Primary Schools built in my own council area by the last administration. So only 14 in all of Scotland, and not likely to be completed any time soon, is pretty mean, is it not?
a little p.s. 6th Oct. 2009.
There is to be a debate at Holyrood on Thursday on the provision of schools. Apparently Fiona Hyslop ducked the last big Education debate (on teacher numbers). Will she hide away again?
So what, I hear you say, of the SNP's flagship "Scottish Futures Trust", the all singing all dancing replacement for PPP, the magical money making machine that was to do away with the hated PFI and provide enough money to match the previous, Labour-led, administraton's school-building programme "brick for brick"? Whatever happened to the SFT?
The SNP says that these schools will use the SFT. But they will not be financed by the SFT. How can that be?
Well. It seems that the "Scottish Futures Trust" has been transformed (without actually telling anyone) from
...."an all singing all dancing financing mechanism that will help match the previous school-building programm brick-for-brick",
into ...
..."a wee office in Glasgow where 5 civil servants will use Project Management Software to report on the progress of a few new schools that are actually financed in the same old way as before..."!!!
Right. So no Scottish Futures Trust and just 14 schools and none of them likely to be completed by the end of this Parliament.
That's why we voted SNP, is it?
As I said elsewhere: the SNP lack of vision and ambition for the people of Scotland is so disappointing. Disgraceful actually.
*Any new school building is good news, but to put this figure in context: there were 3 Secondary and 3 Primary Schools built in my own council area by the last administration. So only 14 in all of Scotland, and not likely to be completed any time soon, is pretty mean, is it not?
a little p.s. 6th Oct. 2009.
There is to be a debate at Holyrood on Thursday on the provision of schools. Apparently Fiona Hyslop ducked the last big Education debate (on teacher numbers). Will she hide away again?
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