The Scottish Government

#49

Ayrshire and Monklands? Ask the Health Secretary she combined the two areas by reference to the Kerr report. Like her you have confused the threat of 'closure' with 'downgrading'. 'Closure' of a hospital or A&E was never threatened, A&E surgical facilities were to be downgraded in the area. As one of the leading people opposing the proposal, a nurse, stated,'A surgeon from Glasgow can drive through to perform surgery if required'. I personally can't see the difference for a patient needing surgery being transported to a surgical unit some miles away from the accident in a modern ambulance, and a surgeon having to drive the same distance to perform the operation. Except of course that the ambulance has blue lights etc to clear the traffic! Unecessary duplication of services and a waste of a valuable resource.

Did you not note that you have 'lost' another two A&E departments and a specialist cancer treatment facility with the cancellation of the Kerr proposal, approved by the previous administration?

The problem with the economic argument is that it makes people deal with the reality of a situation, and make rational decisions on difficult issues.

Your argument and the pleas of John Swinney on the 'fairness' of subsidising the island ferries reminds me of the South American country's government that argued that women had 'done their bit' by raising children etc, and were entitled to a pension at the age of 36, (not 63 but 36!!!). Very acceptable I am sure to women and their immediate family. Two years later the Country was bankrupt so NO pensions, NO social security payments, NO medical facilities..... All done with the best intentions.

If you don't want to know the costs then you are kidding yourself on, and heading for big trouble.

So what have the SNP achieved in first 100 days of government, more than the previous coalition in eight years?

Free bus travel for over 60's? No that was the last lot!

Six more booze outlets at the home of Scottish Rugby? Yes just what we needed!

No more BOGOF's on booze? YES that will solve the Scottish alchohol problem!! Let's hope the nasty supermarkets don't go for half price booze, or buy one get another half price, or 3 for the price of 2. Should keep our Justice minister busy for the next 4 years!

Oh yes, this blog and a white paper on a referendum, and more powers for the parliament.

#46

I was right, you are jealous!!

You should have come to Fife, and paid the tolls!!

#51 - Me Again - Fife.

I'm sorry. But are you in the NHS, or what? You seem to be obsessed by medical matters. The rest of us are trying to work out a possible future for Scotland and you are talking about surgeons dropping their scalpels on one patient, jumping in a car and travelling to a factory or roadside to carry out a life-saving operation on another critically injured casualty.

The subsidised ferries, again. What has this to do with the early pension of women in some unnamed South American state? What I'm talking about is the resurgence of business in the isles actually paying for their subsidies in the form of an increased tax take. Except that, just now, the tax would end up in London, lost and gone for ever.

Or would you like to see the islands reserved for Hooray Henrys' Holiday Homes? Sell a semi in London - Buy an estate in Scotland!

The truth is that the economy of London and the South East is that of a separate state. It is atypical of the economy in the rest of Britain, and the whole of Britain gets the medicine that keeps London in business.

All our taxes (bar Council Tax) go down to the Treasury. There the cash stays until London weighting has been extracted for all its essential services - police, firemen, nurses, teachers, the social services, court officials, prison officers, ambulance drivers - the lot. Then more is creamed off to extend and modernise the commuter rail service, the airports the roadways and the channel links including Eurostar. Then there are all the arts and museums and galleries, which we 400 miles away subsidise and have no chance of visiting, unless at huge expense in hotel bills and travel. I would like to have seen the Terra Cotta Army, but it is out of my price range for the above reasons. What's left is doled out to us like kids' pocket money.

People do not realise that the money flowing into London from the regions contributes to the multiplier effect, effectively allowing it to race away from the rest of the UK even faster. Big money in the form of large salaries, huge Government contracts, consultancies, the Games etc flows out to that local economy allowing small business and subsequently larger businesses to flourish easily and successfully, generating even more prosperity.

We could, through independence, at least invest Scotland's own tax revenues in our own economy and get it going again.

I am talking billions, Fifey, while you are discussing peanuts, casualty units and booze.

#52 you again
Jealous? Tell our enemies that they may take away our jobs, but they'll never take our sense of hummooouuuurrrrrr!!

I came over from Kincardine today @17:00 to try out the new motorway spur south of the Forth Road Bridge.
It worked perfectly, the only hold up was folks taking their time over the bridge, rubbernecking the northbound queues at the toll barriers, then later approaching the roadworks on the M8 which is currently being upgraded westbound to dual carriageway standard.

I've said, in my experience over 30-odd years driving 30,000 miles a year, curing congestion is not about widening the roads but widening the exits.

btw: what happened to #48-#50?

#53

I am not obsessed about anything specific, if you must know. I am just puzzled as to why wrapping ourselves in the Saltire will apparently pay all the bills, cure unemployment, make Scotland an entrepeneur's dream haven.

How much will it cost us, the people, to pay for Alec's pipe dream? If he wants our votes he has to give us a rational answer!

If you don't want to know the facts, then join him in cloud cuckoo land!

#54

Well nice to know you enjoyed the new roads at the Forth Road Bridge, all paid for by bridge tolls?

You'll get it right yet son!!

#56. You again.
Thursday, October 4, 2007 14:09

Aye, shame we've had to wait 40 years until the bridge is knackered before joining it properly to the rest of the national road network and another road is now going to have to be built for the relief crossing.

Getting it right?
A stoater:

>>>all paid for by bridge tolls<<<

Care to enlighten us on how much of the £36m cost, was paid by FETA and bridge tolls?

Detail and facts do appear to be confusing for you these days, eh no, Dad?

why are people responding to "it's shmee again"--fife.
he/she is trying to niggle as they are irked that the game is up.
you are only one vote-you are in a minority(get over it!)
lets move on and discuss what doors will open and what great new opportunies we will have once we unshackle ourselves from the uk straightjacket.(that's what they use to restrain the insane--oor frean fi fife). and we must have been insane to have accepted the deluge of propaganda used to keep us down all these years.
i wont be responding to you "it's shmee again" as your bereft of vision.
keep on voting labour and reading your daily record(you have plenty to choose from these days. in fact they are even trying to GIVE them away!!)

#58 Alan B
#57 Livilion

Afraid it's that time again. I am in the majority and after the farce of your leader trying to dodge the issue of promising 1,000 more police to win the election, and your Justice Minister sweating buckets when grilled by the interviewer on 'Politics Scotland' today, I suspect we'll be in a bigger majority come 2011. Is it true that Edinburgh Council is making 300 Nursery teachers redundant? If not, why was I asked to sign a petition against it the last time I visited the capital?

Access roads to the bridge I have been advised were funded, if not in full then in part, by the tolls from the bridge. I will check.

For the record I am a socialist, don't read the Record, or swallow any spin from any politician, including your party's. Open your eyes, smell the coffee....

So youre a socialist and dont read the record and yet your an apologist for the labour party? Aye right.
Like it or lump it, the SNP are in power now, coming from nowhere with massive swings to oust labour all over Scotland. The unionist media tried their very best, as usual, to see that labour were kept in power but this time it didnt work. Wonder why it didnt eh? The silly people didnt listen did they? Wendy even apologised down in England for us ... where is our apology for the smears , failure, lies and negativity? If she cant apologise to us, she isnt fit to hold office. It took her brother long enough to accept (kind of) responsibility for the voting chaos. what A nerve. If that is what scottish (with a small s) labour have to offer Scotland, i think it as plain as the nose on all our faces they are finished and not before time.

What did Jack McConnell say 'do more less'... what a vision eh? try - do nothing to write home about at all.

What did Lord Robertson infamously say,'devolution will kill independence stone dead'. Doesnt look like that now does it? The SNP, i repeat, are in power. Get used to it, after all Scotland has had to suffer that last inept holyrood administration called labour who overturned votes on fishing rights etc, stalling on and rejecting ridding Scotland off the council tax, ganging up with each other, wrecking bills on tiny detail and all sorts of other trickery, i think we all know the truth, weve lived it you see. Westminster even changed our fishing waters and gave them to England even before the first msps took their seats in the new scottish parliament!

The unionist parties once said that the SNP would wreck devolution. The truth is the unionist parties have been wrecking the process , theyve been rumbled by the people and this devolution settlement with very very limited powers was destined to appease the Scottish people and stop them getting more powers. It was a ploy. The unionist parties cabal is meeting behind closed doors as we speak, sums them up really. Their trouble is the people have cottoned on now, and they are seen for what they are.,

Wendy has been caught telling porky pies to parliament again last week, no mention of that from you. This time on their own letter pre election where their so called school building program proposals were non exixtent with them blaming mays election for getting in the way. Of course it was ppf where the people would have another debt and another noose round our necks for our lifetime if labour had their way. Basically i think, there are more questions for yourself than you have answers.

The coffee smells nice for a change by the way, this new SNP government are a breath of fresh air and have done more since may than the unionist parties have done in 300 years - PUT SCOTLAND FIRST.

The people here have never caved in to the media telling us who to vote for and saying we arent good enough. Fact of the matter is even more voted to put labour out. I know the truth must hurt but hey ho there is a majority wanting change and independence whether you like it or not. The union was finished years ago, and their is also a re-awakening of Englishness now over the border.

Open YOUR eyes man. Labour up here couldnt fight their way out of a paper bag,they just took us for granted as they had their media to fight for them but guess what???

Labour and the unionist media (with all the slurs they could throw at Scotland and its people) LOST!!!!

We broke their stranglehold and things wont ever be the same again.

INDEPENDENCE FOR SCOTLAND IS UNSTOPPABLE.

THATS THE REALITY.