El Gordo's pre budget speach

[Bagpuss]

I would like to see a tax on celebrity TV programs

[Mailman]

well the last time he said he would spend billions on education some smartie pants looked through his numbers and noticed that all the money he was talking about was already ear marked for education and in fact spending on education wasnt increased at all.

Same thing will happen, make lots of noise about investing in education but when push comes to shove nothing new will actually be done.

Unfortunately you English are too stupid to vote morons like this out of office.

Mailman

[Bagpuss]

Unfortunately you English are too stupid to vote morons like this out of office.
Mailman

The English did vote them out of office

HTH

[Paddy]

The government should put their own house in order first. One of the MOD sites I was working on had water sprinklers running all summer. The site is going to be demolished in the spring and it is empty. The heating is left on together with the hot water system. When I queried why should a completely empty building have the heating and hot water on the rely given was that the turning off of the heating and hot water was not mentioned in the building decommissioning document.

[expat]

The English did vote them out of office

HTH

Free England! Dump the Scots! Please....

[Betty]

Free England! Dump the Scots! Please....

Quite agree, and if you look at the map of the UK and draw a line continuing the border is a SRAIGHT LINE is goes North East and shows that there is no Scottish Oil, its all English. How the Scots mange this propaganda is to suddenly bend the border line to run along the line of latitude totally against international boundaries. Cut them off without the oil

[DeadKenny]

Caught something he said about addressing avoidance and the rules on managed service companies. It was just tucked in there with the tax relief stuff for film makers.

[expat]

Quite agree, and if you look at the map of the UK and draw a line continuing the border is a SRAIGHT LINE is goes North East and shows that there is no Scottish Oil, its all English. How the Scots mange this propaganda is to suddenly bend the border line to run along the line of latitude totally against international boundaries. Cut them off without the oil

Sorry, that doesn't quite stand up:

- projecting the line of the border from the small section at Berwick-upon-Tweed would not quite lead to a NE border, rather somewhat less that that, with some oil in Scottish waters and some in English.
- even that would be farcical, as a glance at a map with rhis line dranw on it shows. Unless you think the English border should naturally run through the North Sea just off Aberdeen.
- There is an international convention on this, recognised by Westminster, which does indeed use the parallel of latitude.

Personally I think that would be wrong: I would be more in agreement with a line that took into account the prevailing direction of the border on that side of the countries concerned (not merely the section of the border on the north side of Berwick, which is exceptionally angled in order to go round Berwick and place it in England).

However, there are some who would see that as fair only if some redress were made for the large-scale wealth transfer made in the past. Others would just say that if all the oil is the price of freedom, it's cheap at the price.


Edit: BTW, isn't the sentiment "cut them off without the oil" a dreadful giveaway that England does profit from Scotland?

[hattra]

Sorry, that doesn't quite stand up:

- projecting the line of the border from the small section at Berwick-upon-Tweed would not quite lead to a NE border, rather somewhat less that that, with some oil in Scottish waters and some in English.
- even that would be farcical, as a glance at a map with rhis line dranw on it shows. Unless you think the English border should naturally run through the North Sea just off Aberdeen.
- There is an international convention on this, recognised by Westminster, which does indeed use the parallel of latitude.

Personally I think that would be wrong: I would be more in agreement with a line that took into account the prevailing direction of the border on that side of the countries concerned (not merely the section of the border on the north side of Berwick, which is exceptionally angled in order to go round Berwick and place it in England).

However, there are some who would see that as fair only if some redress were made for the large-scale wealth transfer made in the past. Others would just say that if all the oil is the price of freedom, it's cheap at the price.


Edit: BTW, isn't the sentiment "cut them off without the oil" a dreadful giveaway that England does profit from Scotland?

As I posted some time ago (can't be bothered to look it up again - it was a thread on installing thermal collectors under Scottish roads or some such) Scotland actually receives more from England (mainly from general taxation) than England gets from Scotland (mainly oil revenue) - IIRC the difference was about £5billion a year in Scotland's favour (which is why the Scots can afford free uni places, and that sort of stuff), and has stayed at that level for quite some time (the same applies to NI, and to a lesser extent, Wales).

Also, the calculations above assumed that Scotland owned ALL the oil, though in reality, quite a lot would fall in "English" territorial waters

[Mailman]

Change "quite a lot" with "some" and you are probably closer to the truth

Maybe they should just pass a law that stops them evil Scots and Welsh MP's from voting on matters that only concern England?

Naw, that will never happen because that kind of thinking would be too radical for you poms!

Mailman