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sieteseven

Listed below are comments made by sieteseven between Tuesday, 2nd December 2008 and Tuesday, 2nd December 2008.

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In the long term 2:22pm on 02 Dec 2008 The difficulty with the Calman report, as anybody in Scotland can tell you, is that it was set up ONLY by pro-unionist parties. It was set up in direct opposition to the Scottish Governments own 'national conversation', consultative process, which in contrast has a completely unrestricted brief.

The upshot of this, is that Calmans' remit is restricted, to the extent that even considering full fiscal autonomy, it is held back by equally weighted consideration to retain Scotland within the union.

I have to say, this is disappointing, as whilst only some in Scotland would want total independence, there are many more (including many in England), who believe the easiest solution for Scotland is indeed full fiscal autonomy, whilst remaining in the union.

The result would be Scotland spends what it earns, no subsidies, AND no Barnett formula calculations.

Sadly, Gordon Brown and the pro-union parties in Scotland have prevented this from being properly considered. As a result, any decisions based upon Calman, will simply be as big a fiscal mess as currently exists under Barnett.

An opportunity wasted.

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