Thursday 27 January 2011

We're Agin' it!

There's a story about the old time minister of religion who, when asked his opinion on sin, replied "I'm agin' it!".

Older readers (not so old actually) will remember when the SNP was agin' Devolution. They said it wouldn't work, and it wasn't what the people wanted. Only after everybody else had worked through the Constitutional Convention for ten years, preparing the ground and grinding out the detail, creating the consensus and writing the bills and laws that enabled Devolution to go ahead, did the Nats deign to come aboard the Devolution train.

Even the YesYes campaign divided the SNP, with some SNP politicians and members campaigning in favour and many not (they were agin' it!). Once everyone else worked to make it a fact, the whole of the SNP accepted it.

Well, now the Parliament in Holyrood is due to get more powers in the Scotland Bill which is getting a 2nd Reading today. And you know what? The SNP is agin' it!

They have tabled a motion that states the new powers are unacceptable.. the Commons Order Paper reads;

SCOTLAND BILL: Second Reading 

Angus Robertson
Stewart Hosie
Pete Wishart
Mr Mike Weir
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil
Dr Eilidh Whiteford

That this House, while recognising the need to further enhance the powers of the Scottish Parliament, nevertheless believes that the measures the Scotland Bill seeks to devolve are inadequate to meet the ambitions of the Scottish Government for the people of Scotland; considers the measures relating to air weapons, road safety and drink driving to be incomplete; regrets that the Calman Commission’s recommendations to devolve the aggregates levy and air passenger duty, and to devolve responsibility for the marine environment to match the Scottish Parliament’s responsibility for fisheries, as well as its proposal for a Scottish role in welfare benefits, have all been abandoned; regards the proposals for the Crown Estates Commission as inadequate; deplores the proposals in the Bill to re-reserve already devolved responsibilities; concludes that the tax varying provisions would embed a long-term deflationary bias in Scotland’s budget and that the proposed borrowing powers remaining subject to HM Treasury controls and limits render them insufficiently flexible; and therefore considers the Bill as a whole to be unacceptable. 

For the life of me I cannot understand why we put up with this bunch of chancers. The SNP adds nothing of value to Scottish politics, they oppose everything that anyone else suggests and, when there is actual work to be done, they let other people do it. Even when they get hold of power, as they did in 2007, they manage to achieve virtually none of their main manifesto pledges. They are intellectually and physically lazy and monumentally incompetent. On top of that they blame everybody else, Westminster, Labour, Tories, Lib Dems, for any problem they can't solve (quite a lot of problems in that category BTW).

The bet must be that, when this bill passes into law, when others have done the work and laid the foundations, the SNP will be queuing up to use whatever powers it transfers to Holyrood, and criticising any other politician that doesn't meet their "exacting" standards....

They won't be agin' it then.....





12 comments:

  1. So you quite like being stitched up with the Calman bill? Its a totally undemocratic piece of paper designed to undermine the Scottish economy to strengthen Westminster's grip.

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  2. Calman was set up and approved by the majority of MSPs, so I'm not sure what you mean by "undemocratic", unless you mean "I don't like it".

    As a matter of afct, I would be happy with the status quo.

    And what does "strengthening Westminster's grip" mean? Scotland is part of the UK and wil continue to be part of the UK after this bill is passed, and for the forseeable future.

    Nothing wrong with that, it's the will of the Scottish people, after all.

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  3. "The SNP adds nothing of value to Scottish politics, they oppose everything that anyone else suggests and, when there is actual work to be done, they let other people do it. Even when they get hold of power, as they did in 2007, they manage to achieve virtually none of their main manifesto pledges. They are intellectually and physically lazy and monumentally incompetent."

    Hmm. I think this is a variation of the old mother scared by a horse routine. I think, when you were a young and fresh faced type, a Scottish nationalist somehow conned you into delivering leaflets for them by telling you they were for the Labour Party.

    What a wee shane, lol.

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  4. This for one Handing back powers. I voted for powers not to hand any back at the whim of vindictive unionist MSPs.

    Wendy Alexander is not a fit person to scrutinise anything after her fraudulent behaviour by altering the name of an illicit donation she was in receipt of.

    This bill is not being scrutinised in a fair manner by any term of democracy after listening to the second reading in Westminster yesterday.

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  5. Very droll indy, but you're no Chic Murray.

    CH, the link doesn't work....

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  6. Sorry about that it did in the preview, I'll post it bare.

    http://www.newsnetscotland.com/politics/1525-snp-pledge-to-tackle-flawed-scotland-bill#comment-28859

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  7. indy, I do get frustrated at the Nats. See my profile.

    I know a lot of Nats and they are nice people who should be doing good things for our people: building schools and hospitals and getting better justice etc. But they have diverted themselves into the dead-end called nationalism.

    And they are intellectually lazy: if I had a pound for every time a discussion with an SNP voter/member had ended with "if we were independent that would never happen...". Sheer bollocks and an excuse not to address real problems in the real world.

    It's as if nationalists confuse "independence" with "abracadabra!".

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  8. So us Nats should stick to building schools and hospitals with whatever amount of our own money Westminster decides to give us and not worry our fluffy little heads about the state of the economy, pensions, foreign policy or defence because those are Westminster problems in the real world and therefore not for the likes of us?

    Lol. Let's be honest about the real difference between us.

    I would rather see Scotland governed by a selection of people picked at random going into Marks & Spencers in Argyll St this Saurday afternoon than being governed from Westminster.

    The reasons for that are 1. No-one cares as much about Scotland as the people who live here and therefore no-one is better motivated to make decisions in Scotland's best interests and 2. We are a lot less likely to end up being governed by Tories that way!

    You on the other hand would prefer to see Scotland governed by Tories than to be independent and governed by Labour - which is probably what would happen.

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  9. Your argument (1 above) can be used by any region...the capital doesn't care about us.... and the main implication..that Scotland gets less (economically and many other ways) out of the UK than it puts in...is not true.

    Your key point, IMO, is; "I would rather see Scotland governed by a selection of people picked at random going into Marks & Spencers in Argyll St this Saurday afternoon than being governed from Westminster."

    That's a common attitude among Nats. I wouldn't. I think it's just silly.

    I think we accept the voters judgement in any democracy. An independent Scotland would have right wing parties, and therefore the possibility of a Tory (or equivalent) government. To think otherwise is to be, as I said above ".. intellectually lazy: if I had a pound for every time a discussion with an SNP voter/member had ended with "if we were independent that would never happen...". To think there could not be a right wing Scottish government is to say "if we were independent that would never happen.." But it could and it would.

    In fact we already have a right wing SNP administration, and we're not independent....

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  10. cynicalHighlander1 February 2011 at 13:43

    "Your argument (1 above) can be used by any region...the capital doesn't care about us.... and the main implication..that Scotland gets less (economically and many other ways) out of the UK than it puts in...is not true."

    Just because you believe something (wild assertion) doesn't make it true unless you can provide relevant links.

    As you still cannot show Calman as being 'democratic' further evidence. Time for some academic transparency? Or are you happy to be governed by corruption?

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  11. Sorry CH, It's not me that's saying Scotland gets more out of the union, it's nationalists that say we get less, therefore we should have independence.

    It's up to them to prove it. They have tried for 70 years and failed.

    Unless you can prove that we are worse off economically and in other ways than we would be if we broke up the UK, then there is not a great case for independence.

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  12. It's always good to get your logic and facts right if you want to win argunments.

    To quote from the website you ref:

    "...The report suggested that the SNP was wrong to ring-fence health spending - just after the party launched its 2011 camapign with this very pledge...."

    Why shouldn't a think tank say the SNP is wrong...?

    "..... It also cast doubt on the SNP government's ability to fund big infrastructural projects using the non-profit mechanism they have created to replace PFI/PPP...."

    The NPD version of PPP was not created by the SNP. It was created by (I think) Fife Council. It has certainly been used before, and not by the SNP. The doubts are valid. Our council was promised a capital grant to build a new school, now it has been told the money will come in the revenue budget, and it must use PPP (NPD). There's no more detail and the council is looking for more info.

    "... This also echoed the attacks of the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats..."

    Just criticising the SNP is not proof of error, nor is agreeing with other political parties.

    After all, Labour and the Lib Dems could be right!

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