The benefits to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland at ENGLAND’S expense just get bigger and bigger
Over the last two weeks an incredible list of extra benefits for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has been declared, none of which will be available in England but all of which English taxpayers will pay for. At present what Scotland alone pays into the UK Exchequer falls £11 billion short of the amount they receive from it to pay for services. The extra benefits will all be paid for in their entirety by the people of England.
It has been announced by the Scottish Executive that all Scotland’s infant pupils are to get free school meals as from August 2010 costing between £30 and £40 million. The Review Committee set up by the Welsh Assembly is recommending that all Welsh university students pay only £1200 per annum in fees while England’s pay £3000 (Scottish university students do not pay tuition fees as it is, not even when they are at English universities) and that Welsh students from poorer backgrounds should receive grants up to £6000pa. In Northern Ireland prescription charges, already scrapped in Wales and about to be scrapped in Scotland, will be scrapped in 2010.
The Scottish Executive has now come up with a demand for its own national high quality TV digital channel costing £75 million and asking for broadcasting powers independent of the BBC and responsible just to the Scottish Parliament. Scotland already has its own BBC Scotland, Wales its own BBC Wales, NI its own BBC NI and British citizens of Asian origin have their own Asian Network. England in contrast has no BBC England at all; and while all three countries have their representatives on the Board of BBC Trustees, England does not. All it has is a representative of 9 separate BBC English regions -just one for a population which amounts to 80% of the whole UK population.
Gordon Brown, the Scottish UK Prime Minister, has also appointed a new Secretary of State for Scotland with a seat in the UK Parliament. He is Jim Murphy MP for Rendrewshire. Wales and NI likewise both have a Secretary of State with seats in the Cabinet. England, however, has no Secretary of State, no one at all to represent its interests in the Cabinet..
Mr Brown has also set up the Calman Commission to investigate ways and means of improving what is on offer to Scotland since devolution and how to improve its processes. Lord Calman has already announced his commission will be considering providing more financial powers to the Scottish Parliament.
‘The total situation beggars belief,’ Mrs Scilla Cullen, CEP Chairman. ‘It simply is impossible even to attempt to justify, let alone quantify, the degree of discrimination being imposed upon the people of England by the Unoin government. Just one statistical fact might show it for it is. Birmingham has the highest child poverty rate in the whole of the UK. That alone is enough to illustrate how utterly unfair it all is. One would think at least one English MP would rise up and demand justice and equality for England.’
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7664007.stm
A £100m loan is being given by the Bank of England to the UK arm of the collapsed Icelandic bank Landsbanki to help repay the bank’s UK creditors.
Where will that cash be going?
October 13th, 2008 at 11:17 pmAnd now of course the English taxpayer is financing the two Scottish banks to the tune of 37 Billion quid, yet NICE still says its too expensive to pay for drugs to help English patients that have life threatning illnesses
With the bail-out of the banks by the Westminster Raj, Scottish Independence now seems like a pipe dream for Alex Salmond, its probably goodbye to an SNP win at the forthcoming By-election, and a nightmare for the Campaign for an English parliament.
Hopefully it may get up the noses of Scottish separatists to think that they have to rely on Westminster to help them out of their troubles, but as you say,not an English MP in sight.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:25 amWhere do we go from here ?
“Hopefully it may get up the noses of Scottish separatists to think that they have to rely on Westminster to help them out of their troubles…”
Eh?
Thanks for the thoughtfulness LBB, but thanks and no-thanks. The cause for Independence doesn’t hang on the bizarre machinations of unionist mass press. No one – outside the unionist media – believes any of it.
Glenrothes? Yes, damaged – but only down to the pound, pound pounding of the frankly, incomprehensible, ‘Gordon Brown is the hero of the modern world’ rift.
???
Let me get this straight. The man does not do his job properly for ten years, acts on the ONLY viable course of action left to him next to economic meltdown THEN has the arrogance to use it as a political tool against those who DO NOT WISH to be part of a union, on union terms, which exposes it to such risk in the first place?
Please.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
I think people will start to see the holes in Gordon’s cape over the next few weeks, and take better heed of the feedbags round the muzzles of his scaremongering Scottish Labour trolls, and their latest fear tactics.
How long will this UK be in debt for? LOL!
Pull the other one Mr.Brown.
October 25th, 2008 at 1:16 amI think you rather misinterpreted my comments Alba, believe me when I say good luck at Glenrothes, if I were living in the constituencey, make no mistake I would vote SNP even as an Englishman, a victory for you would be a victory for Englands future.
I aggree 100% with your opinion of your fellow countryman, all the people that fall for the guff of him being a hero and world leader in todays mess (sic) makes me wonder what planet they are on.
Go for it on the 6th and good luck, from an English separatist.
October 25th, 2008 at 6:05 pmThanks LBB – here’s hoping.
Akin to Glasgow East, I’m expecting the Labour majority to be slashed, but not counting on an out-and-out victory.
The difference with Glenrothes is that Labour are bringing to bear as much negative campaigning as possible at the local level [the SNP won the seat in the Scottish elections last year] next to the back-beat of ‘Gordon has saved the world’ from the mass unionist press. So we have scores of Labour activists doing the rounds and criticising/spreading rumours about the SNP’s relatively short-record here, within the walls of Labourite social clubs in the area etc.
What we’ve seen over the past few years is encouraging. The Labour heartlands has seen the traditional vote plumment, no doubt. But in the short-term, they still have enough to hold on to Glenrothes.
A friend of mine once remarked how people in core Labour areas have a VERY slow ‘click’ factor. They seem to have a penchant for voting in the very people keeping them in poverty etc. Even recently, they consistently criticised Labour – but voted them in nonetheless – for the eight shambolic years they were in office in Edinburgh.
Even now, many associate the 70′s ‘workers party’ with this contemptible shower of rat-bags who are pushing themselves as the working mans party today. What utter drivel. Even ex-marchers like Jimmy Reid and co. have attested to this. In many cases, the tendency to vote Labour seems purely to come from a habitual and stubborn refusal to acknowledge their many short-comings, other than making informed decisions in a changing political landscape.
In saying that, there have also been scores of traditional Labour voters, the ones who can grasp reason at least, that seem to be THINKING and grabbing on to other options. Many seem genuinely excited by the SNP.
I agree 100% with your general wonderment on the ‘Gordon’s caps’ score. Frankly, it staggers me. At the very least, there doesn’t seem to have been any serious attempt on this mark to bring Brown to call. The man has been part of the problem here, it just astonishes me that he seems to be getting away with it so easily.
On another note, an English friend, who will likely vote Tory in the UK election, suggested that a Tory victory in the UK election [backed by the majority of English votes] is not a foregone conclusion.
Now that, admittedly for my own selfish means, is depressing. Can this really be the case?
October 26th, 2008 at 2:41 pmFor ‘Gordon’s caps’ read ‘Gordon’s cape’. Sorry!
October 26th, 2008 at 2:45 pmYour woffle McNasty does not address the\ question of more & more privilages falling into the laps of you pampered ,spoilt selfish Lot, crying wolf for a past time, talk about the best of both worlds ! Salmonds no different ! he will grab as much as possible ! the day of reckoning draws closer !
October 27th, 2008 at 7:46 pmUmmm, in any case, I believe Mr.Salmond has put the only solution on the table, ending all arguments economic and otherwise, much to the chagrin of Scottish unionist MSPs and the three-hundred or so automaton delegates in Westminster. As such, he is committed only to pursuing complete independence, which is something you should welcome.
There. Simple, even for a complete muppet like you.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:28 pm