Will Scotland Leave the UK?

[Itshim]

Originally Posted by Chris

Devolution in Wales was always a bonkers idea. England and Wales have had the same legal system and the same body of primary legislation since the 16th century. It works in Scotland because the union of 1707 deliberately preserved the concept of Scotland as a distinct legal entity within the united parliament of Great Britain. There has always been a political dimension to Scottishness that I never detected when I lived and worked in Wales, where Welshness was an entirely cultural/linguistic thing.

There was a whole raft of things devolved government could immediately take control of in Scotland and which people could immediately understand were now Holyrood’s domain because while they had previously been delivered by the Scottish Office, which was a Westminster government department led by UK government ministers, it was empowered by distinctly Scottish legislation.

But labour love it

Nicola Sturgeon will not seek re-election at next year’s Scottish general election.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg5j74ld9lo

In a statement published on social media, she said making the decision had been "far from easy".
She added: "However, I have known in my heart for a while that the time is right for me to embrace different opportunities in a new chapter of my life, and to allow you to select a new standard bearer."

I’m not sure she’s been bearing the standard she thinks she has.

Don’t let the door hit you on the bahookie on the way out, hen.

[Pierre]

Brand new…overdue….£400M ferry has crack in hull.

Money well spent.

https://news.sky.com/story/fiasco-hi...rvice-13328718

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Brand new…overdue….£400M ferry has crack in hull.

Money well spent.

https://news.sky.com/story/fiasco-hi...rvice-13328718

needs thicker paint

Originally Posted by papa smurf

needs thicker paint

If it was as thick as the SNP it might just work

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by papa smurf

needs thicker paint

lol

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Brand new…overdue….£400M ferry has crack in hull.

Money well spent.

https://news.sky.com/story/fiasco-hi...rvice-13328718

How much has been spent on not building HS2 and, to the nearest decade, how late will it be?

It's not like the UK has a long and successful track record of procurement with public money or infrastructure projects.

Originally Posted by jfman

How much has been spent on not building HS2 and, to the nearest decade, how late will it be?

It's not like the UK has a long and successful track record of procurement with public money or infrastructure projects.

… for those not acquainted with what passes for political debate in Scotland, this is the standard natbot reply to every criticism levelled at the Scottish government with regard to the ferry fiasco. Literally every thread you can find on Xitter or Facebook will have this exact retort in it somewhere (and usually several times over).

Someone else wasn’t very good at something, therefore it’s ok for us to be crap at our jobs.

And they accuse unionists of talking Scotland down.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Chris

… for those not acquainted with what passes for political debate in Scotland, this is the standard natbot reply to every criticism levelled at the Scottish government with regard to the ferry fiasco. Literally every thread you can find on Xitter or Facebook will have this exact retort in it somewhere (and usually several times over).

Someone else wasn’t very good at something, therefore it’s ok for us to be crap at our jobs.

And they accuse unionists of talking Scotland down.

For those not acquainted with unionist retorts in Scotland, they generally look at this too.

No genuine regard for value for money to the taxpayer - London gets a free pass ten times over. No appetite to understand any wider issues so long as they can say “SNPbad”. If the independence argument (essentially that of this thread) presents two choices it’s entirely relevant to point out that the UK Government is equally, if not more, rubbish.

[Stephen]

Don't think there has been any 'value for money' in a very long time.e for anything.

Originally Posted by jfman

For those not acquainted with unionist retorts in Scotland, they generally look at this too.

No genuine regard for value for money to the taxpayer - London gets a free pass ten times over. No appetite to understand any wider issues so long as they can say “SNPbad”. If the independence argument (essentially that of this thread) presents two choices it’s entirely relevant to point out that the UK Government is equally, if not more, rubbish.

Every fiasco is bad on its own terms. Standard nat whataboutery (and its sibling, ‘wheesht fer Indy’) doesn’t add to the analysis, it attempts (badly) to deflect from it. It is a fact that this week, MV Glen Sannox has been benched - again - because of a basic manufacturing fault. That anyone else, anywhere else, has ever made a bad decision in public procurement does not alter that fact, nor does it alter the conclusions we can reasonably draw from it.

There is an HS2 thread on the forum, feel free to vent your spleen on it about how awfully that has been managed. I agree with you, it’s a travesty, and wholesale planning reform is required if any major infrastructure project is ever to be affordable and timely in the UK ever again.

None of which detracts from the absolute catastrophe caused by the SNP’s transparent attempt to buy Clydeside votes for the nationalist cause by favouring a small, failing shipyard with a contract that was beyond its expertise, then compounding the error with a series of complacent, mule-headed bureaucratic decisions that guaranteed the failure of a difficult project in inexperienced hands.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Chris

Every fiasco is bad on its own terms. Standard nat whataboutery (and its sibling, ‘wheesht fer Indy’) doesn’t add to the analysis, it attempts (badly) to deflect from it. It is a fact that this week, MV Glen Sannox has been benched - again - because of a basic manufacturing fault. That anyone else, anywhere else, has ever made a bad decision in public procurement does not alter that fact, nor does it alter the conclusions we can reasonably draw from it.

There is an HS2 thread on the forum, feel free to vent your spleen on it about how awfully that has been managed. I agree with you, it’s a travesty, and wholesale planning reform is required if any major infrastructure project is ever to be affordable and timely in the UK ever again.

None of which detracts from the absolute catastrophe caused by the SNP’s transparent attempt to buy Clydeside votes for the nationalist cause by favouring a small, failing shipyard with a contract that was beyond its expertise, then compounding the error with a series of complacent, mule-headed bureaucratic decisions that guaranteed the failure of a difficult project in inexperienced hands.

Conclusions that can be drawn once you apply any deeper meaning to it (independence, SNP competence) absolutely do depend what happens elsewhere because the ballot box is a choice of alternatives.

The same applies when Scottish Labour howl at the moon about NHS performance it’s not unreasonable to look at the rest of the UK and in particular Wales. SNPbad works better if it can be demonstrated that literally anyone else is good.

To date none of the branch offices can do that and, even against the backdrop you portray above, it looks like the SNP may well win at a canter once again next year and Labour get almost wiped out in the FPTP seats as Scotland reject Austerity 2.0 and warfare over welfare. They’ll get saved in the regional lists by “Daddy voted Labour and his Daddy voted Labour” types.

Battle for the Planet of the Apes at the other side as well since the Conservatives will fight Reform for Rangers fans attracted to flags.

Originally Posted by jfman

How much has been spent on .

Whatabout ... whatabout ... whatabout ....

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Paul

Whatabout ... whatabout ... whatabout ....

And yet nobody can adequately counter the point, they can merely object to the premise that they should. A tried and tested election strategy by unionists in Scotland, it’s why the SNP always win.

Chris did eventually get round to identifying the planning system as the enemy of infrastructure projects, similarly any public procurement is held up by subsidy control (formerly State Aid) rules designed to curtail the role of the state rather than drive efficiencies or deliver value. Add in the erosion of the state to the extent all “experts” have to be brought in as contractors on exorbitant daily rates, reports commissioned, risks assessed in a big private sector gravy train for which there is almost never a penalty for failure.

One might reasonably suggest the system needs ripped up, and that’s more achievable outside the UK.

*planning itself is a devolved area, rules around subsidy control are not.

Originally Posted by jfman

And yet nobody can adequately counter the point, they can merely object to the premise that they should. A tried and tested election strategy by unionists in Scotland, it’s why the SNP always win.

A tried and tested objection based, here, on the premise of a topic-based discussion forum. The HS2 topic is still there. I note you are still not exercised enough by its issues to actually post there. Because, of course, you mention it purely to distract attention from what is possibly the single most egregious failure of SNP policy. (Until, of course, NHS Scotland gets sued to within an inch of its life next year for implementing de facto gender self ID in all its staff changing rooms on instructions from Bute House. But that’s another topic again).

Chris did eventually get round to identifying the planning system as the enemy of infrastructure projects, similarly any public procurement is held up by subsidy control (formerly State Aid) rules designed to curtail the role of the state rather than drive efficiencies or deliver value. Add in the erosion of the state to the extent all “experts” have to be brought in as contractors on exorbitant daily rates, reports commissioned, risks assessed in a big private sector gravy train for which there is almost never a penalty for failure.

One might reasonably suggest the system needs ripped up, and that’s more achievable outside the UK.

*planning itself is a devolved area, rules around subsidy control are not.

Wow. What a word salad - and all with the intent of ignoring one simple fact. Nationalists need symbols, and these hulls, produced by the last shipyard on the lower Clyde, were meant to be those symbols. The fact is that SNP politicians are of such poor calibre, not only did they force an inadequate shipyard to start building from inadequate designs, they couldn’t even understand that sooner or later they would be held accountable for the mess they made.

And so every time a new aspect of their brave new world goes to rat poop, their loyal foot soldiers are deployed to point and shout, anywhere, absolutely anywhere, but at the leaders who (had they got their way) would be runnning an entire nation state by now.

We have dodged a bullet. Sadly the inhabitants of Arran have not.