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freakowski

Listed below are comments made by freakowski between Wednesday, 26th November 2008 and Tuesday, 3rd March 2009.

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Lifestyle choice 09:11am on 03 Mar 2009 Hows about banning advertising. And we could make drinks manufactures who want to sell booze in scotland have a mandatory health warning (a picture of a "pavement pizza" or the face of a life-long alcoholic might do the trick).

We could have sticky labels printed for all the imported stuff.

Job Done and not a tax problem in sight. Mine's a large barf and tonic by the way.
Another HBOS surprise 5:35pm on 14 Feb 2009 HBoS Corporate were very proud last year of having achieved some kind of advanced status with Basel II. My (limited) understanding of this is that Basell II was supposed to limit banks from reckless lending, so avoiding the kind of mess they've got into.

Could you give any insight into how HBoS managed to be compliant with Basel II, run up such reckless lending AND be within the law?

People stand to lose the homes, their jobs, their savings, their pensions because something went badly wrong at HBoS - we really ought to know if the regulations were side-stepped.
New year, new storm 00:21am on 07 Jan 2009 Re #75 Aye_whatever ...
"Is it as easy to pop to the Tescos as journeying from Edinburgh to London Euston?

My point is that in the next few years we're all going to have to change life-styles to some extent - so rather than feed the voracious motor car with yet more steel and concrete, maybe we should re-adjust the infrastructure at either side of the existing bridges - such as building tesco next to the railway station.

I expect a thousand word essay in response ...
New year, new storm 1:49pm on 06 Jan 2009 Why can't we just have a new railway bridge?

Once the fifers have sped across the Swinny crossing, they'll have to negotiate the M8 or the west side of Edinburgh. And when the oil really does run out, and petrol's 10 euros a litre, how clever's a road bridge going to look to our children, who'll still be paying for it?
Into battle on tax 5:42pm on 26 Nov 2008 #94 Old-Nat

And this comes to one of my major concerns over the future of Scotland.

(a) Yes, we should probably have joined in the Euro at the start and (b) yes we probably should in the future but (c) not without taking our main market and business partners (ie the rest of the UK) with us.

Otherwise, we have the nightmare scenario of having so many companies and organisations (such as the banks, service industry, manufacturing etc.) operating across the (Berwick Gretna) border with two different currencies. How's that going to work? We'd just make ourselves uncompetitive with our biggest trading partner.

It's been a real failure of the past 10 years that the government has never addressed petty (anti-European) nationalism by presenting a set of convincing arguments in favour of European integration. At that point, many of your concerns about the Westminster settlement simply wither away. Until then, "going it alone" and tearing us out of one financial system and diving into another doesn't make sense ...
Into battle on tax 5:20pm on 26 Nov 2008 #90 Sneckedagain

Tosh. I feel like I'm in a Science Fiction movie where the past is changing in front of my eyes. Your belief that the collective political experience of scotland revolves around the antics of a single party is wrong and laughable. But, there's no point arguing that one because you clearly

I agree with you (partially) on the Tommy Sheridan point - but I think that a decent SSP would have taken more "anti-labour" votes from the SNP than the other way around. May even have taken mine.

N.B. Interestingly, their rationale for independence was that it would be more likely that they could impose their policies on Scotland than the UK. Including Nationalisation of the banks ...
Into battle on tax 2:30pm on 26 Nov 2008 #80 Browndov (that better?)

N.B. Your arguments are undermined by your childish use of name-calling.

Oh and I seem to remember that the Scotland Act was a virtual carbon-copy of the final report of the Scottish Constitutional Convention. I suppose if messes Blair and Brown had vehemently disagreed with it, they'd have spiked it, but they didn't - it was in their manifesto and they actually delivered on it. Hence we have a Scottish Parliament now.

Personally I voted "Yes-Yes", the second Yes being about tax-raising powers. The Scottish Government has the ability to raise our income tax so we could raise some extra money to support better Small Business/Healthcare/Education/Transport/Housing if we really wanted. Of course, you'd have to sell that one to the Scottish people.
Into battle on tax 2:04pm on 26 Nov 2008 #73 Ah - common ground at last:

"I (and others) would also describe ourselves as "European Unionists", because we think that political union is important."

Personally, I also believe in the EU (which makes me a minority everywhere). Many of the big problems of the world today can only really be addressed by pooling sovereignty to some degree or another.

But of course, that highlights the nationalist strategy that we should transfer control of our economy directly from the Bank of England and Treasury in London to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

So - who's got the best plan for the Scottish part of the British economy? Mr Darling or Jean-Claude Trichet? (I had to google the last part).
Into battle on tax 1:08pm on 26 Nov 2008 68 It's a small world, and Northern Ireland isn't the US.

We share a lot in common with them, including an over-lapping political system as part of (like it or not) the UK. SNP MPs sit on the same benches as Ulster Unionist and Democratic Unionist MPs. So, as I said before, to call someone a Unionist for defending devolution is pejorative, disingenuous and simply not true.
Into battle on tax 12:57pm on 26 Nov 2008 63. The devolution settlement was created on large part by the efforts of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, which was constituted of Churches, Trades Unions, NGOs and all political parties with the exception of the Conservatives (who didn't want any devolution at the time) and the SNP.

It was voted on by the Scottish people in a referendum and given a 74% to 25% majority by those 60% of us who voted.

It was the Donald Dewar, and not Gordon Brown or Tony Blair who wrote the Scotland act, he, and many others, was a passionate believer in home rule.
That's what we've got now.

Let's make it work, not break it down.

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Constitutional_Convention

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