| Billsticker | Date: Monday, 2013-03-11, 10:01 PM | Message # 1 |
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| LOCAL COUNCILS SQUEEZED TO PAY FOR SALMOND'S FREEBIES
Orange Torch March 2013 (Page 1)
SNP Finance Minister John Swinney
Alarm bells have been ringing in council offices all over Scotland as news came
in that they will be expected to shoulder the lion's share of a new round of public spending cuts. With SNP Finance Minister, John Swinney determined to ring fence vote winning "freebies" such as prescriptions and bus passes, local councils
were left to pick up 83% of last year's round of cuts.
Now another £217 million is top be chopped off council budgets with a further £52 million reduction in capital spending. The squeeze on public spending is not exactly news, of course, with Westminster forcing through adjustments to the new financial realities that followed the economic crisis. What is infuriating for local councils is the dark suspicion that they are being strapped for cash in order to deflect criticism away from the Scottish Government onto "Labour led" councils and the "Tory led" Westminster coalition. Cuts?
The big problem for Salmond is that more and more Scots are becoming wise to his tricks. Hot off the press is the annual study from the Scottish Centre for Social Research. The study has shown support for Scottish independence languishing on 26% since Salmond came to power in 2007.
Now it has fallen to 23%, making the separatist fondness for talking up "the cast iron certainty" of independence look pretty lame. Nothing learned, they are still brazenly painting a rosy picture of an independent Scotland that will be immune to the harsh economic realities affecting everyone else in the world. The UK might need to tighten its belt but, once we cut loose, public services will blossom in Scotland without the need to raise taxes.
Naturally, university education will continue to be free as will prescriptions, bus passes and care for the elderly. It's a vision of a tartan paradise right enough, but one that fewer than a quarter of Scots are now falling for.
The drop in support for breaking up the United Kingdom will be some satisfaction for the "No" campaign that was recently roasted for being "negative". That one had us flummoxed, for it's surely obvious even to a two year old that anyone campaigning for a "No" vote is, by definition, taking a negative stance. It would seem that the nationalists are starting to panic as all the evidence points to the "No" campaign winning the argument.
The big problem for the separatists is not the runaway success of the "No" campaign but the poverty of their own. If voters are already unconvinced by the empty nationalist rhetoric and name calling they are hardly likely to be impressed when the big posters start going up on the billboards.
Awkward questions are being asked and, notably, the SNP is failing to provide answers. Come Independence Day will we be in or out of the ED and NATO?
Will we have the Pound, the Euro or some as yet unspecified new currency? Will we have adequate national defences? Will there be border controls? What about jobs, tax, pensions, benefits? And _ when can we expect to be told?
The Prime Minister recently unveiled the first in a series of analysis papers designed to provide the facts on separation from the perspective of HM Government. Responding, Nicola Sturgeon fell back on a favourite nationalist jibe. "Independence is the only way to ensure that Scotland always gets the government it votes for", she said.
It's a regular SNP claim that Scotland and England always vote differently in Westminster elections. But the facts don't bear this out. Scotland voted for the winning party in 12 out of the last 18 General Elections. So spare us the humbug, Nicola, and stick to the facts (if you've got any).
Message edited by Billsticker - Monday, 2013-03-11, 10:02 PM |
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