Whaur's yer Arc o' Prosperity noo?

In past years Alex Salmond was fond of pointing to our Irish cousins across the water and crowing..."Look how bonnie they look, well fed and everything... Scotland could be just like Ireland, y'know, if only the English would get off our backs..."

Today Fitch, the credit ratings agency, relegated Ireland's rating to A+, meaning even more pain and trouble for the Irish economy and its prospects of recovery..... 

In 2007, Eck also favoured less banking regulation.......from The Times, 7th April, 2007;

"....We are pledging a light-touch regulation suitable to a Scottish financial sector with its outstanding reputation for probity...."

What can you say? The man's a comic genius.....

At least as funny as Spike Milligan and the Pakistani dalek..... if not quite so grounded in mundane reality...

Ireland - the Arc of Religiosity?

The SNP never tires (well it has tired recently) of telling us that Scotland should be more like Ireland. We hear less of it now that the Arc of Prosperity has sunk beneath the North Atlantic and the Irish Economic Tiger has had its teeth well and truly pulled.

What we also hear less of is the SNP's reliance on money from religious sources to fund its recent electoral surge. The SNP's most successful election campaign in 2007 with massive donations from two of richest and publicly religious figures in Scotland.

Given this reliance of money from such sources, is it wrong to worry about social policy should Scotland leave the UK and set up as a small new fledgeling state?

A few years ago, before it was the economic "Tiger" of recent myth, Ireland was that small new fledgeling state, with powerful religious institutions to "guide" the politicians in social policy.

We know the results, with politicians subservient to the clergy, the church given power of veto over many areas of society including the law and education, the Magdelene Schools and this sad, sorry, stuff...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8381119.stm

So. Should Scotland be more like Ireland, as the SNP wants? Or not?

The Sqeak of the Tiger

Some of us will be familiar with the SNP's pricelessly funny and stunningly stupid examples of "independent" countries with which to compare Scotland, countries that we would "like to be like": viz Iceland and Ireland. These wondrous bubble economies were seen as exemplars for Scotland. How wonderful to be the new Iceland, sang Alex in the bath. At least they were seen as exemplars until they collapsed in a tornado of debt, and now their economies are in ruins.

Another SNP slogan bites the dust. to join "Scotland free in '93", we have "Let's do an Iceland" and "Love Ireland, just like us".

Full embarassing* story here:

http://www.theherald.co.uk/search/display.var.2500541.0.emergency_deal_launched_to_rescue_irish_economy.php

*For the SNP that is...