Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Alex Salmond says Scotland could “exact revenge” on the Westminster parties at the ballot box because a huge gap has opened up between their proposals for devolution and what they promised on the eve of the independence referendum.

The first minister and Scottish National party (SNP) leader, who announced he would step down after losing last month’s independence vote, said the devolution plans put forward in a new command paper on Monday were weak.

With the Commons due to debate devolution on Tuesday afternoon, Salmond told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme: “There is a huge gap that is emerging between the vow – the last-minute, desperate promise made under the guarantee of Gordon Brown by the three Westminster leaders – and what was suggested in the command paper, which was just a regurgitation of what has been indicated last spring, promises which were so weak they hardly featured in the no campaign.

“Right now, the initial judgment that’s coming from Scotland is that people have no confidence in Tory guarantees and are absolutely fizzing about what looks like a preparation for a betrayal of a strong commitment made.”

Despite previously saying the referendum would settle the question of Scottish independence for a generation, Salmond suggested this may no longer apply if the Scots felt conned and tricked.

“Circumstances obviously can change. Clearly if you had a situation where the three leaders made such a public vow – not even a political promises but a vow – in the last few desperate hours when they thought they were losing the referendum campaign, then that would be a very substantial change in circumstances.”

He pointed out that the SNP now had a 10-point lead in opinion polls for the general election next year, which poses a significant threat to Labour and Liberal Democrat seats.

Salmond added: “These matters ultimately are for the people of Scotland to decide. It’s the people of Scotland who will decide whether it’s satisfactory to be conned and tricked by Westminster leaders or who will exact a revenge at the ballot box, which is their democratic right to do.”

The command paper published by the government on Monday did not appear to contain many new details of proposals for devolution and was condemned by the SNP as a “cut-and-paste job”.

Ministers have promised a cross-party agreement brokered by Lord Smith of Kelvin by the end of November and draft legislation in January.

However, significant differences remain, as the Conservatives and Lib Dems are happy to hand over full income tax powers to Holyrood, while Labour is only willing to see an upward variation of 15p from the rate of the rest of the UK.

There is also nervousness that the Conservatives are trying to tie the proposals to a deal for making sure England is fairly represented in the union – the issue of English votes for English laws.

Over the weekend, Gordon Brown, the Labour former prime minister who set out the joint no campaign devolution package, accused David Cameron of threatening to make Scottish MPs into second class citizens in Westminster, if English votes for English laws went ahead.

He also said the plans for Scottish devolution were not radical enough and should include matters such as the environment and transport.

Speaking straight after Salmond on the Today programme, William Hague, the leader of the Commons, again denied that plans for reform of the English constitutional position would affect Scottish devolution. He also accused Salmond of “looking and hoping for a sense of betrayal”.

“Every commitment made by not only the Conservatives, but the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties about what would happen if the result of the Scottish referendum was no, every commitment has so far been kept and will be,” Hague said.

“All of the party leaders are absolutely unequivocal that the commitment will be met. So there is no reneging here, however much it might suit Scottish nationalists to try to say that there is.”

Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dem Scottish secretary, said Salmond was sounding “increasingly desperate”.

My money is still on a SNP landslide, Labour are history!

Agree Chris, the Conservatives have been history in Scotland for some time now and Labour will join them after the GE.

And with it will go Noo Labs hope of a majority.

Every cloud Max, every cloud! :0)

Max.

The SNP seem more left than the Labour party and can't stand the CONS, or the smell of the Kipper party and their feelings towards the liberal is less than loving.

Who do you think they will vote with at Westminster.

I think the parties should write their manifestos and call an election within the next month.

From memory there was no reference to the proposals Wavy Dave is trying to con the English into for the sake of saving his own skin.


What a disastrous administration.

Spot on Fred, spot on.

The SNP will not be voting on English matters, and that's where the money comes from Fred.

Bet your the kind of person that doesn't buy sweets or put out a pumpkin for the kids at Halloween, celebrate Christmas, Easter or Guy Fawkes... Bah Humbug!!

We never had any fuss about Halloween & trick or treat , until the big retail store's found that they could make a penny or two, also school proms is another thing imported from America.

Scotland has had similar for a long while. It is called guising. It is done in Canada and probably from immigrants from Scotland.

How you can have an entity called the UK with the major Tax collecting system and say that anything in the the UK does not "effect" directly, or indirectly Scotland, Wales or Ireland beats me.

Remember the butterfly in the jungle.

If there is complete devolvement of Scotland then it is obvious that SNP can't vote on bills effecting the England.
==

But put it to the voters.

It’s more likely that George Osborne is the next Doctor Who than he will balance the government’s books – Tax Research UK 10/10/2014

I have warned, successively, that the Budget forecasts on tax revenue growth were ludicrously high both for this year and for several to come, writes Richard Murphy.

I also suggested that the OBR was discredited by endorsing them. As the table below shows, I did the maths to show why that had to be the case (it wasn’t hard to do). And now, as the FT reports:

“Britain’s economic recovery has generated far less tax revenue than forecast, raising the prospect of even deeper spending cuts after the general election to balance the budget.

“The latest blow to the public finances was an admission from the Office of Budget Responsibility on Monday that income tax receipts – the biggest single source of government revenue – are likely to fall short of government targets this year, despite record levels of employment.”

Three immediate issues follow from this. The first is that the quality of Treasury forecasting is dire. No one in their right minds could have believed the levels of growth forecast in March 2014 as shown in this table, the data for which is taken straight from the March 2014 budget with my extrapolation of growth rates added:



It wasn’t just growth in tax revenues that was forecast, it was growth way beyond any underlying level of economic increase in activity that was suggested was going to happen this year, and that was always utterly implausible.

Second, we have to consider the possibility that the Treasury just lied when putting forward these growth projections. They are so ridiculous, that has to be the best possible explanation for them.

And we have to the consider that the OBR may have been complicit in this – because if it was truly independent it should have been flagging up how unlikely this revenue growth was in March, and not now.

And what does it all mean?

It means all Osborne’s economic claims are bunkum – but you should read Mr Murphy’s analysis at Tax Research UK.

And the real level of productive work and "working hours" are falsified.

What it all means is the so called recovery is a figment of the imagination.


Yet the big boys at the IMF are hailing blighty as the current poster kid for growth.


Pray and delay?

What I think is even more marvelous is that according to Osborne all the UK problems were down to Brown and labour's incompetence and that the UK was insulated from economy collapse around the world.

Now he is shrieking, our future problems are due to "stagnation" in Europe and World trade situation.

I thought in that he was prepared by the labour government's problem and bad management he would have all the solutions!

He seems to me he is either a self deceiving l'enfant natural, or lying.

To be fair, Broon really did thrash the economy.

But the "jobless" recovery seems to be a couple of wheels short of a wagon.

It's in the Guardian, so it must be true!



House prices in London surging at almost 20% a year

National Housing Federation warns you’ll need to earn more than £100,000 to afford typical 80% mortgage



Rupert Jones


theguardian.com, Tuesday 14 October 2014 13.02 BST



http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/oct/14/house-prices-london-surging-mortgage

What recovery????? Oil SP is falling through lack of demand.

A World recession is just around the corner.

Ask the Germans, the Russians and the Chinese.

Dave Camoron ‏@EtonOldBoys
4 million children one in three are currently living in poverty in the UK, one of the highest rates in the industrialised world #votetory

oil price is falling due to shale production and cheap(er) oil isn't all bad for all the obvious reasons

Only the greens dislike cheap oil prices.