Sod giving Scotland independence. London needs an independence movement. We can still pay the rest of the Union £20bn a year but we can call it International Aid.
Simon Jenkins in the Guardian was his usual pompous self today, “… the 72 Scottish MPs seem a bizarre presence. There is no question but that their number must be reduced. If Brown were constitutionally honest, he would propose such a reduction now”. Erm - that might make sense if Labour didn’t already reduce the number to 59 at the 2005 General Election.
Meanwhile, the SNP MP widely regarded as the brains of the operation, Angus Robertson (Alec Salmond being the mouth, stomach, intestines, sphincter and most definitely the liver) has called into question his own inability to do basic arithmetic. This press release on the good things that could be purchased if a Trident replacement were not, clearly states…
10 new Secondary Schools x £16,500,000 each = £148,500,000
5 new Hospitals x £180,000,000 each = £720,000,000
30 Community Sports Centres x £5.7 million each = £165,300,000
Train 100 Dentists x £115,000 each = £11,385,000 (close but no gold star)
Train 100 Doctors x £300,000 each = £29,700,000
Train 200 Teachers x £25,000 each = £2,475,000
Perhaps the SNP should be required to show their working out notes in future. While it would be predictable to ask if these are really the people you want running the Scottish economy, the press release helpfully indicates there would be “£42,500,000 remaining for contingency”. Although in the SNP’s case, that’s contingency in the mathematical sense rather than in case of an emergency.
“Alec, Alec! An emergency’s just occurred. Some bastid civul servant keeps insistin’ that 2 plus 2 isn’t 5. Shall we sack him and pay his redundancy from the Trident contingency fund?”. To be fair, they have now corrected their arithmetic (or “sums” as they call them in the SNP whips office) on their website - but I still want to see their working out.
editor[at]recessmonkey.com
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What a sad little person you are! When it comes to arithmetic we can do better than take lessons from anyone south of the border. Sure it was only yesterday a £400million miscalculation was highlighted in G.E.R.S. ONLY ONE OF SEVERAL “DISCREPANCIES” from the chancellors office (all affecting Scotland incidentally) over the past year. You can keep Broon and Cameron and stick Trident on the Thames we would rather live in a society with a social and moral concsience. We know we can afford to go it alone, but if we do all those Scottish MPs at Westminster would be out of work and thats why they are scaremongering. The self preservation society who want to save the Union for their own greed, If you think you shouldnt give us money then cast us adrift and watch us go, youll be stuffed without us.
Dunselma said this on January 17th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Maybe if our London-centric government moved more of its jobs out of the capital other employers would follow suit meaning the nation’s wealth wouldn’t be so concentrated in one area. Is there any other country in the world where wealth and employment is so centralised?
monkey spanker said this on January 17th, 2007 at 7:40 pm
Yes. there are lots of country’s in the world where wealth and employment is so centralised. Prague’s average wages are double the rest of the country and the unemployment rate is about 2% compared to double figures for the country as a whole. I could say the same of Budapest, Bratislava, Moscow etc etc and that’s just Europe. What planet are you on?
Praguetory said this on January 17th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Praguetory - if the Czech Republic and other Eastern European countries are our model for wealth distributiom then something is wrong. A great number of high-level corporate and public jobs are in London which means that people from around the country have to move to the South-East. Given this trend, London can hardly complain when it has to fund the rest of the country.
What planet am I on? Unfortunately one full of tossers who vote Tory because they had sexual fantasises about their mums when they were teenagers.
monkey spanker said this on January 18th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Your original comment was utterly wrong. Expect to be corrected. I agree that we should move many public-sector jobs and prestige projects (e.g. Wembley, Dome) out of London just get your facts straight when you post.
Praguetory said this on January 18th, 2007 at 1:22 pm