Showing posts with label SNP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SNP. Show all posts

Monday, 13 September 2021

Wings over Scotlands fake propaganda attempting to misinform on Scottish Law

 If you didn't previously understand  Wings over Scotland was anything other than a fake propaganda blog feeding misinformation to its readers then this should help you finally to see the light. https://archive.is/Tatlc  











Wings can be seen here desperately trying to falsely sell the idea that Craig Murray was unjustly Jailed on some sort of invented crime of "Jigsaw Identification" which however is a charge wholly invented by Wings himself as the actual crime Craig Murray was Jailed for was in fact "Contempt of Court." alone. The fact this assertion made by Wings is untrue we should assume until actually proven otherwise that lots of his other assertions on the Prison Services treatment of Craig Murray in the same blog are also potentially untrue as well because anyone would be a complete utter fool believing anything written on a propaganda blog without finding other external factual sources to back them up

A full summary of the whole Court Case proceedings against Craig Murray can be seen on the Scottish Courts Document link provided  and can be clearly seen to be for "Contempt of Court" not for Wings own invented crime of "Jigsaw Identification".  While reading the whole text is an eye opening experience on the whole case a shorter summary if chosen could be read within pages 36-42 of it. 

https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/default-source/cos-general-docs/pdf-docs-for-opinions/2021hcj002.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2BECuq6OluW_Fd_2zDDexAu6Xh_6MTwtdhKiiKo7altQJmMRsdiuZpQb4











The Guardian Newspaper also laid out the Contempt of Court charges in an article.       "Lady Dorrian, Scotland’s second most senior judge, said Murray’s offences were so serious and deliberate he deserved imprisonment, despite a plea from his lawyer that the 62-year-old was too infirm to go to jail, and had a young family. She said his repeated breaches, which included refusing to take down the blogposts despite legal warnings from the Crown Office, were a “contempt of considerable gravity”.  His actions “strike at the heart of the fair administration of justice”, she added."Sitting with Lords Turnbull and Menzies, Dorrian, the lord justice clerk, said Murray’s actions had not only risked identifying four complainers but could also frighten rape complainers, the Scottish legal term for complainants, from stepping forward in future, particularly in high-profile cases involving powerful defendants.

Several of Murray’s followers said they had identified complainers as a result of his blogposts, yet he continued to keep them online.

Murray “understood the risk inherent in the action he was taking, deliberately decided to run that risk knowing that jigsaw identification of the complainers might result, and did so repeatedly. It appears from the posts and articles that he was in fact relishing the task he set himself.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/may/11/former-ambassador-craig-murray-jailed-for-alex-salmond-case-blogposts

So while Wings continues to try to flog the already dead Horse that Craig Murray is a completely innocent  man unjustly jailed we can see from the Legal court Summary and other published articles that Craig Murray in truth set out to aid the identification of accusers in a court trial despite a court order being already in place to protect those accusers identities.

Craig Murray was aware a protection order was in place yet at no point did he appear to care of the implications of exposing accusers names or for their safety.

Craig Murray chose his course of action knowing the risks and doesn't appear to have given a thought either for the implications of his deliberate actions for his own later protestations of  poor Health or for the wellbeing of his own Wife and young Children while jailed, but only after his conviction did these considerations come into any sort of play which would suggest Craig Murray might not give much of a damn about anyone but himself in truth in many peoples eyes and later on was merely trying act the part the wounded party instead. 

If Wings invented propaganda trying to portray Craig Murray as an innocent man is beyond the pale then how did so many of his faithful but equally clueless fan club still fall for his  propaganda Wee Blue Book on Scottish Independence which rather than being "full of useful facts " which were actually based on already out of date Scottish Government 2011-2012 GERS financial figures when later Scottish Government 2012-2013 GERS data (which also included a £1.2Bn downgrade to the earlier numbers) were already available to him to use at the time of publication instead ?  Its estimated that approx £300K was raised from crowdfunding to print and distribute the Wee Blue Book which when based on already out of date financial numbers in the first place was a complete waste of so many peoples hard earned cash but as an act of probable fake propaganda on the wider Nationalist movement itself was something of a masterstroke (depending on your point of view) and if it was only fit for the dustbin in 2013 then it isn't worth even a passing look for "facts" at todays date when another 8 years of newer Scot Gov figures now exist. If anyone is in doubt of the value of the Wee Blue Book all you have to do is to look and see what year of GERS it uses and the much later date the WBB was published. 

More information on and errors from the Wee Blue Book debunked here  https://chokkablog.blogspot.com/2015/10/wings-and-his-wee-blue-book-of-errors.html

and here https://chokkablog.blogspot.com/2015/10/wings-wee-blue-book-of-errors-part-ii.html

Scottish Government link showing the £1.2 Billion downward amended 2011-2012 GERS numbers published along with the 2012-2013 GERS numbers in March 2014.   https://www.gov.scot/publications/government-expenditure-revenue-scotland-2012-13/pages/11/

Date of Publication of Wee Blue Book shown here as 11 August 2014   https://wingsoverscotland.com/weebluebook/


Other links worth reading on the WBB 

https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2014/09/scotland-and-snp-fooling-yourselves-and.html


GERS Meeting at Holyrood including a statement from Margaret Cuthbert. 

https://youtu.be/Ee0442kULmg?t=3860


Podcast explanation of GERS from Scottish Parliaments own Economic Advisors 

  https://fraserofallander.org/gers-2020-socially-distance-yourself-from-the-myths-and-furore/

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Sunday, 14 February 2021

Everything you ever wanted to know about the GERS numbers is here .

 Why should Scots be able to trust the GERS numbers which are Scotlands financial accounts and published on the Worldwide Internet ?

The above question is partly self answering , why would the SNP Scot Gov allow publication of economic numbers on the Worldwide Internet for the leaders of any Country of any Government in the World to see for themselves if they were not reliable truthful numbers ? Allowing the publication of false numbers would mean any Government allowing that wouldn't be taken seriously and there are no Senior Members of the SNP dispute the GERS numbers are not already 100% reliable. 

The Video link given below here shows the SNP's long associated Economist Margaret Cuthbert , Richard Murphy and other Scottish MSP's at a Holyrood Committee Meeting in 2017 , Cuthbert makes clear here she spent years checking the numbers and being involved in updating GERS to make them as accurate as possible, she also says the SNP has its own Group that makes changes to the GERS numbers. 

Margaret Cuthbert, Richard Murphy and Scottish MSP's at Holyrood Meeting on GERS Video Here


Here is a Podcast and  published Website articles on how both UK and Scotlands economics works from the Economics Dept of Strathclyde University here.

Podcast : Strathclyde University GERS Podcast  (Worth listening to)

How the Scotland inside the UK Economic model currently works Scotlands economy in the UK 

Guide to understanding the GERS Report from Strathclyde University GERS Guide 2020 

More on the accuracy of GERS & "Confidence Levels" GERS Accuracy & Confidence levels


"Back to School for GERS", what the numbers mean ,who makes them and some commentary on the numbers from 2019. Back to School for GERS 2019  

Wikpedia Link to "Who are Fraser of Allander at Strathclyde University" which includes the statement "The director of the institute is Professor Graeme Roy, a former Senior Economic Adviser and head of the First Minister's Policy Unit under Nicola Sturgeon."  Who are Fraser of Allander ?

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The Scottish Government GERS report 2020 can be found on the Scottish Government website here Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (GERS) 2019-2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)   which shows that for the financial year 

2019-2020  Scotland spent £81bn (seen in Table S.5)  but raised less from ALL Scotlands own Tax Revenues at £65.8bn (seen in Table S.3) which means an overspend of approx £15bn. 

By scrolling down the lower half of the linked page the Scottish Government also provides some commonly asked Questions and Answers ..a few of them coped to here.

"Q: Who produces GERS?

A: GERS is produced by Scottish Government statisticians. It is designated as a National Statistics product, which means that it is produced independently of Scottish Ministers and has been assessed by the UK Statistics Authority as being produced in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics. This means the statistics have been found to meet user needs, to be methodologically sound, explained well and produced free of political interference.

Q: Do you use company headquarters to assign corporation tax or taxes like VAT?

A: No. Corporation tax on trading profits is estimated on a company-by-company basis, depending on the economic activity each company has in Scotland, not location of company headquarters. VAT is a consumption tax, and is therefore estimated based on purchases that are made in Scotland, rather than the location of a company’s head office.

Q: How do taxes from the whisky industry feature in the GERS estimates?

A: Like any industry, the whisky industry’s activity in Scotland generates tax revenue through a range of sources, such as corporation tax on profits, income tax and national insurance contributions on staff earnings, and non-domestic rates payments on business premises. These are all captured in the estimates of Scottish public sector receipts reported in GERS.

In addition, whisky consumed in the UK is subject to VAT and alcohol duty. This is assigned to Scotland on the basis of how much is consumed in Scotland. Whisky which is exported does not generate UK VAT or alcohol duty. There is no export duty in the UK.

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The Scottish Government also produce another page on Question and Answers on Scottish Exports including this one which is often used to deliberately misinform people 

Scottish Government Scottish Exports Questions and Answers

Are Scottish goods which are exported via ports from the rest of the UK counted as international Scottish exports?

Yes. The ESS publication measures the destination of goods exported from Scotland regardless of the port from which they leave the UK.

How are Scotch Whisky exports treated?

All international exports relevant to Scotch Whisky are counted as Scottish exports, irrespective of the port at which they depart the UK. The data is sourced from the HMRC Overseas Trade Statisitcs report.

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As it isn't everyone who can easily understand complicated financial reports there is an easier and simpler explanation  of one single years GERS figures for 2018-2019 here , it is fully cross referenced to the Scottish Governments own website numbers so that you can doublecheck and verify  the information given for yourself.

2018-2019 GERS figures simply explained here   

The follow up to that article can be found here and is also worth a read What GERS can and cannot tell us

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Along with the debunking of the "Whisky Export Taxes" and "Scottish Goods through English Ports"  misinformation revealed on the Scottish Governments own website earlier there are others that can be easily exposed as being completely deliberate fraudulent lies. 

"Scotland pays for Londons New Sewer System "  This one is another deliberate Lie spread around many places by Nationalist Fake propagandists of which this is only one of many versions.

This is only one of hundreds of fake invented memes by Yes Scotland and you would be a complete fool to beleive any of them they are only produced to deceive.

 This one though called the London Tideway Tunnel has information on it on Thames Water companies own Website and reveals the only people paying for it will be its own customers alone. Who will pay for London Tideway new Sewer ? Just another one of the hundreds of Nationalist Lies used to deliberately misinform other Scottish people, ask yourself seriously why they need to do that ?

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With the Holyrood election now coming in May new Nationalist fake propagandists have started to appear already.


Making the false claim Scotland is paying Billions for HS2 , the actual truth published by the Scottish Government that can be found online in their own published accounts added up to £131 million in a whole 5 years. More information on this Lie can be found on this link here Nationalist HS2 propaganda lies

If Scottish Independence is such a good thing why do so many Nationalits organisations spend so much of their time deliberately lying to Scotland ? It's almost as if they are afraid to campaign honestly ?
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Another wholesale producer of Nationalist fake propaganda memes is " Business For Scotland" and its sister propaganda unit  "Beleive in Scotland "  which are both filled with exactly the same invented meaningless propaganda produced by one Gordon McInytre Kemp.


So how do we know this is just rubbish ? Well for a start it simply asserts this is fact a without actually showing us where the evidence comes from or whether its even real or even matters. This is a common theme with all Nationalist memes, you are just simply to swallow they are truthful without any evidence to prove that they actually are (and you can bet they are NOT)  This one is basically a play on Scotlands Oil Revenues which Scotland produces large volumes of in the past but we know the future of Oil Revenues is not going to be good as we move to an electric vehicle future. Although Oil Revenues produce large Sales Volume Value it also costs an awful lot to get out the ground and to refine which means the actual profits from Oil are pretty small as a fraction of the Sales value,  on top of these very slim profits the Scottish Government only gets Taxes on Oil producers so Kemps attempts at trying to bullshit people with fake propaganda memes like this actually don't mean very much at all and so  Business For Scotland and Beleive in Scotland are better ignored for their fake propaganda is worthless, better to get real numbers from Scottish Governments own website and other verifiable sources than from fake propaganda outfits like these. 

More information on Business for Scotland, its fake propagandists and debunked articles are available here  Stop getting GERS wrong  and here The big lie about Scotlands Oil  and here Who Do Business for Scotland Represent ?

Another recent push of nefarious invented propaganda seen below here , all of this stuff is just regurgitated meaningless rubbish that was also being circulated during Indyref in 2014 and is just the same pitiful misinformation attempt but put through a "rinse and repeat redesign cycle" for new "useful idiots" to swallow. Are you going to be one of them ?   All this sort of stuff was debunked years ago elsewhere and can still be found on this link. The big Meaningless list 


Of course all they want you to do is "Beleive "  and don't dare actually take ten minutes  to think for yourself and investigate whether you are just the target of a Con trick deliberately trying to mislead Scots Voters on the realistic size of real economic numbers that the Scottish Government already publish elsewhere themselves.  The big Meaningless list . The Scottish Government publishes details of  how it collects actual real Tax Revenues from any profits companies make from all of these items , ita ONLY taxes collected from company profits that really matters and how that is done can be found here. Open the document and scroll down for the full list of items th Scottish Government collects tax revenues from.

SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT DETAILED REVENUE METHODOLOGY PAPER 2019-20

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Another good source for finding debunking of Nationalist fake memes can be found here 

A year on and some crap about the Vow  

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So the after all this information , the really important question again is, if Independence for Scotland is supposedly so good then why do Nationalists organisations spend so much of their time deliberately trying to lie to other Scots voters about it with so much invented fake garbage ? Especially so when they spend so much of their time actually trying to rubbish the factual financial numbers their very OWN SNP Scottish Government produces itself and publishes to the whole World already ? 


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Friday, 11 December 2015

The SNP's big self inflicted Forth Road Bridge disaster.










12 June 2016   More Lies again coming out from the SNP

EDINBURGH Western Liberal Democrat MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton said he was told as long ago as January that the Queensferry Crossing was running behind schedule.
He made the claim during First Minister’s Questions as he challenged Nicola Sturgeon over the Scottish Government’s insistence that it found out only last week that bad weather meant the £1.35 billion bridge across the Forth would not be completed by the end of the year as scheduled.
Mr Cole-Hamilton said: “Many people will find it hard to understand why 25 days lost to adverse weather can lead to a five-month delay in opening the crossing..."
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MINISTERS were yesterday accused of keeping a six-month delay to the new £1.4billion Forth road bridge under wraps until after the election.

Opposition MSPs rounded on Economy Secretary Keith Brown after he revealed the Queensferry Crossing will now not open until May 2017.Engineers had hoped to complete the bridge by December 2016 but Mr Brown blamed "adverse weather conditions" for hitting construction.He told MSPs that 25 days were lost over April and May due to high winds and the "contractors' contingency time has been used up".
Work was also halted in April when a 60-year-old worker was killed on the site. Mr Brown was forced to deny claims contractors were gagged from speaking out on the delays because of confidentiality agreements before last month's poll.
Lib Dem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton, whose Edinburgh Western constituency includes the southern end of the bridge, said the project was in "abject distress".Hitting out at SNP cabinet member he said: "Much about this statement now suggests a project in abject distress.
"How on earth does 25 days lost to weather in April and May equate to an 180-day delay in opening the bridge?"Does he take us for fools? Does he now expect parliament to believe that the first ministers learned of this was just, conveniently, days after the Scottish election?"
Mr Cole-Hamilton demanded ministers publish all correspondence relating to the delay. Labour deputy Alex Rowley said the delay "will be greeted with great disappointment in Fife and beyond".He added it was "important that ministers do not announce unrealistic deadlines" and also called for "full transparency".
Tory MSP for Mid-Scotland and Fife Murdo Fraser sought assurances that the existing Forth Road Bridge will not face another "catastrophic closure", following last December's shutdown caused by a crack.
Mr Fraser added: "Is it true that contractors working on this new bridge were aware of the delay some weeks ago and were asked to sign confidentiality agreements not to disclose this information until after the Scottish Parliament elections on May 5?"
Read more on this Link here  
What is clear is that the SNP DOES take people for fools, this is clearly another example of the SNP being deceitful and hiding known facts from the electorate until after the Holyrood elections were past because announcing this earlier would have been unfavourable to them. The SNP is no doubt the most deceitful political party in whole UK politics. 
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  Latest Update 27 Jan 2016 :
"For weeks the SNP government in Edinburgh told us that cuts to the maintenance budget of the Forth Road Bridge had nothing to do with the bridge's eventual closure.
"The reality is the SNP made short-sighted cuts to essential maintenance budgets which meant that an essential piece of infrastructure was shut down at a crucial time for the Scottish economy."

Read more by clicking here  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-35419963 

Salmond was warned eight years ago of stuctural issues with the Forth Road Bridge but Sturgeon as SNP Infrastructure Minister still personally cut its maintenance budget by 58% , the bridge failure was therefor a failure just waiting to happen because of the SNP's derliction of duty in maintaining the Bridge to proper safety standards.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/dalyell-salmond-told-of-bridge-fears-eight-years-ago-1-3977037#ixzz40YuhJaoH
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The link below shows a video of both Sturgeon being challenged on the FRB issue by Andrew Marr and the previous FRB Senior Engineer at the Bridge failure enquiry recently, pay attention to what the body language and technical knowledge (or lack of it ) on the issue should be telling you.
               https://www.facebook.com/100548780288332/videos/212076082468934/

It's not true to say "the fault could not have been foreseen", which of course is only "technically"  obvious unless continuous daily inspections were in place which they were not, however " the whole area of steelwork that included the part where the fault existed was highlighted "At risk" and was on the list for full replacement as long ago as 2009, it was the fact that Sturgeon herself signed off the 58% cut in the maintenance budget meant that all the work programmed to be done more than 5-7 years ago was stopped and only the higher priority jobs on the maintenance list were attended to ie the cable end anchors and the bridge bearings...all the rest of the work was unduly delayed due to Sturgeon herself  as "Infrastucture Minister" signing off the budget cut . If the previous identified "urgent" work had not been delayed needlessly for 7 years due to Sturgeon's own budget cut the fault would not have happened because the whole area would have been already replaced. To claim otherwise is the usual SNP spin to avoid taking any responsibility. More deceit.
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Most Scots by now are aware of the bad news of the Forth Road Bridge closure but the real physical pain will only truly be experienced by those unlucky Commuters and Business's whose drivers are now having to sit in long tedious queues of traffic and take long multi mile detours leading to frustration, possible health stress and unavoidable extra costs. The costs of this extra travel will have to be borne by individuals themselves and to the profits of businesses already having to operate  in difficult competitive market conditions. Families too will be directly affected by this  in other ways, partners particularly ones with young children will see less of  their loved ones because of them having to leave earlier in the mornings to get to work in time and also get Home much later after work in the dark evenings. Some working parents with younger children might not actually be at Home now to see their children get up in the morning for school or be Home in time to see them before they get put to bed in the evening throughout the whole working week.

If you know people caught up in this ..ask them how bad the experience is, how bad the queues are, how much its costing them and in what ways its affecting their family lives....and then tell others that don't yet know, because as a nation thats supposed to care about others we truly all need to understand how people are being affected by this.

It's obvious to say that this is hardly a good experience for anyone directly involved and yet  the whole sorry event should  never ever have  happened, bridge's are inanimate objects of mechanical engineering that knowingly require regular safety inspections and preventitive maintenance. The failure of any Government to ensure the right procedures and funds to keep a bridge in safe and operational order is only its own responsibility, even if contractors have been employed to oversee the work involved it is still only the Governments responsibility when things go wrong as they themselves are ultimately for both overseeing the contractors work is to a correct standard and that funds for that work are made available. There are no excuses from this responsibility. None.

In this case though Nicola Sturgeon herself was Infrastructure Minister when Finance Minister John Swinney cut the Forth Road Bridges maintenance budget, this cut in money available for  repairs meant that the Bridges maintenance contractors had then no choice but to prioritise which repairs were the most urgent from their already quite large identified list, do them first and for the other already identified issues to  do lesser amounts of remedial work using the lower amount of money left available to them.  Not having the full amount of funds required to do all the strengthening work work highlighted by bridge inspections in the timescales preferred by bridge engineers is what caused this failure to happen. Derek Mackay the SNP Minister for Transport and Islands has admitted that work that was planned for 2010 which was later cancelled due to budget constraints WOULD have  renewed the whole area of steelwork including the part which has now failed leading to this chaos , the reason for the original reason for wanting to strengthen the whole wider area was that it was ALL identified as being overstressed and required strengthening, but because of shortage of repair funds a lesser amount of work than that originally recommended was undertaken in the interim period.

Listen carefully to what Derek Mackay says in this Interview by clicking here   His attempt at saying this faulty part could not ever have been identified that it was going to fail is at best a half truth only, while its true no-one could ever identify exactly the time and date of exact potential failure the same part HAD been identified as being at risk of failure and of requiring strengthening work previously on a documented memo.

It's therefore untrue of anyone to try to say the area that has now failed is not the responsibility of the Scottish Government , it was the Governments responsibility not to ignore a memo stating that identifed problems not repaired due to budget cuts could lead to chaos..the Infrastructure Minister must have ignored those warnings and chosen to gamble that they would not fail before the new Forth Crossing was completed...but it was a gamble that failed. 

Derek Mackay has now been accused of lying about where the crack has occurred, he also states in this interview that budgets were NOT reduced during the handover from FETA and Transport Scotland.
 click here to read that article     
" Mackay admitted the area where a truss cracked should have been replaced in 2010.
But he had said previously that the fault had not been in the area scheduled for repairs – which were then cancelled.The apparent contradiction came in a radio interview in which Mackay said the 2010 work would have involved “the replacement of that area and much more”.Just 24 hours before, he had told MSPs the shelved maintenance had not been in the area “where the fault has occurred"
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  Read Nicola Sturgeons rebbutal of having any responsiblity for the Bridge closure here 
 "Nicola Sturgeon yesterday insisted she doesn’t regret slashing the Forth road bridge’s maintenance budget – despite a memo showing the SNP were warned it could lead to chaos.
The First Minister came under fire at Holyrood over the bridge’s closure, which was caused by a cracked truss end link.
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale cited documents from the former bridge operators that revealed the maintenance budget was cut by 58 per cent.
Minutes from a Forth Estuary Transport Authority meeting in 2013 said the cut would mean “a number of capital projects had to be deferred beyond 2015”.
The documents added: “That deferral of part or all of these projects does increase the risk to the long-term structural 
integrity of the bridge.”
Sturgeon was Infrastructure Secretary when the meeting took place.

The revelations came after Transport Minister Derek Mackay admitted that repair works cancelled in 2010 would have replaced the section of the bridge that forced the closure.

Kezia Dugdale said the SNP had made
 short-term decisions that came at the expense of the bridge’s long-term future.She added: “We need a Government who don’t put off essential work in the hope of saving some money. For the First Minister to try to sweep everything under the carpet just won’t wash.”
Sturgeon said: “The work that was being considered in 2010 was prompted by concern about another part of the truss end link, not the part that is now cracked.
“The opposition criticism of the
 Scottish Government appears to be that five years ago, a body that took decisions independently of the
Scottish Government decided not to fix a part of the bridge that was not broken, a part that only became broken in the last few weeks.
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A Blog with an excellent  timeline showing when the work required on the Truss Links was originally identified and  the number of times and dates when the work was re-scheduled (with reasons) right up to the date of failure can be found by clicking here 

This is just the latest episode of evidence of a  long series of mistakes on Sturgeons part, not least her majority responsibility (almost 100%) in putting together the now known  False Prospectus SNP White Paper "Scotlands Future" based on fictional Oil revenues and unlikely business growth predictions, an out and out attempt at decieving an elecorate that beleived it to be an honest and true evaluation of Scotland  future...we now know it was no more than wishful thinking on the parts of the Senior SNP politicians desperate to get their way and to hell with the consequences. If there had been a YES vote Scotland would now be facing a ten year potential shortfall of £67 billion in its spending budget..just to put this into perspective it compares with a projected cost of £3.9 billion cut over ten years of Tory imposed Austerity..look at the figures ..there is no comparison and yet the SNP continue to berate the Tories for their "Austerity"policies but keep completely silence on the distruction they themselves nearly imposed on Scotland and Scottish lives. I don't ever think i've come across a more deceitful group of people in my whole life. Nicola Sturgeons own demonstratable issues of being able to make very poor judgements go right back to when she tried to get a twice convicted fraudster leniency from a prision sentence which she nearly resigned over previously and yet she still tries to avoid taking any sort of responsibility when anything goes wrong, a trick she no doubt learnt from her well practised predecessor. See the facts on these two links , notice on one where it states clearly that Sturgeon was almost completely responsible for putting together the False Prospectus White Paper. http://www.sundaypost.com/news-views/politics/holyrood/sturgeon-almost-resigned-over-defence-of-convicted-fraudster-1.848096    also see the effect the False White paper would have had on Scotland made by Sturgeon and company here http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/joan-mcalpine-in-daily-record.html
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Latest News: Engineer raised alarm about the Forth Road Bridge problems 10 months ago http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/bridge-cannot-cope-engineer-raised-7002935 


























































































Friday, 20 November 2015

Is an SNP led "Indy 2" referendum finally dead for at least a generation ?

Could this new information hammer the SNP's chances 

for good ?

Very recently Alex Bell  (ex SNP policy advisor to Alex Salmond) published a report  on "Rattle" that  "The SNP’s model of independence is broken beyond repair. The party should either build a new one or stop offering it as an alternative to Tory cuts"  (Read the whole important article here )
However some of the important text that makes an Indy2 difficult is below .......
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"2014 was an economic sweetspot for two reasons. It was a good year for oil, and it came after thirty good years. Thus the Scottish economy looked healthy and was able to boast that it had chipped in more to the UK treasury than it had got back over recent times.
That is not the same as being able to say the Scottish economy could afford British levels of spending, which was a significant plank of the Yes promise. That debatable point could be obscured by lots of noise, and the SNP is accomplished at shouting.
But Nicola Sturgeon knows the SNP is good at misdirection. The party’s success has been built on hard work and spin. Behind the scenes she isn’t gullible. It may work in public to rubbish claims by the Institute of Fiscal Studies that there is a gap between what Scots pay into government and what they get out in services, but only fools believe their own propaganda. The fact is a gap exists – Scotland does not earn enough to pay for its current level of spending."
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The current spending gap  between what Scotland spends and what it actually earns in Tax Revenues is approximately £9 Billion pounds, this means that to be "Independent" or to take on "FFR" (Full Fiscal Responsibility) it would have to be able to fund that gap (at least), either by raising Taxes , cutting Spending (including deep Welfare cuts) or combinations of both plus potentially taking on levels of debt (which needs to be serviced ...which has added additional costs)  in the money markets. (for more on debt issues and costs read the "Rattle " article direct )
This "Onshore" Spending gap has in the past been offset by good "Offshore" North Sea Oil Revenues  on profits which in good years balances the shortfall ,sometimes even excelling it but in bad years of poor revenues the shorfall in Scottish Spending needs  is met by the RUK taxpayer as part of the "pooling and sharing" of resources arrangements with the RUK government.
It goes without saying then that with the halving of Oil prices and the hugely rising costs of operating in the North Sea the final revenues on taxable profts are now very small in fact the last reported Oil tax revenues wasn't a profit at all it was actually a cost to the UK taxpayer of around £300 million.
This means that currently the natural Scottish "onshore" spending gap is now fully exposed at around £9 billion pounds required to fill that gap. Therefore if the SNP wanted to hold another Indy2 referendum it would have to convince Scots to accept a lower standard of living than in RUK after Independence due to having to cut spending or have higher rates on personal Income tax in Scotland  (or both) this could also cause a movement of Jobs and workers which wouldn't be good for the Scottish economy either. I doubt if the Scots electorate would ever successfully vote to have  a lower standard of living as their RUK counterparts..after all do Turkeys vote for Christmas ?
It has to be assumed then that the SNP would choose to wait until better economic conditions  arrived and only then it could attempt to try convince Scots once again of a rosy and successful future, however this might be hard to achieve considering the electorate have seen how they were deceived last time.
So the ten million dollar question is ..how short or long a period could it be until Oil prices rose to allow the SNP to have a second attempt at Independence ?
It's not just as simple as waiting to get back to where the Oil price was last year because the cost of operating in the North Sea have also risen hugely with  steel and engineering infrastructure being so old it is now needing replaced at modern day costs, this means profits and therefore taxes on profits are going to be so much smaller than they used to be in the last ten years. It's been said in fact that for Oil revenues to get back to the levels of 10 years ago Oil prices per barrel would have to get back nearer to $200 per barrel compared with the price last year of $113 per barrel. 
Recent data that has been made available from BP though now suggests that Global Oil reserves are actually going to double by 2050 and  will far outstrip demand , therefore it could be expected that Oil prices per barrel could now remain low or even go lower than now for a very very long time to come, this in turn (if its fact) is going to make it very difficult for the SNP to make another case for Independence for potentially a very long time as well... on the back of Oil revenues at least.
The SNP  could of course try also to convince the electorate to vote on accepting a lower standard of living than in the rest of the UK...but could Turkey's really be convinced to vote for Christmas..I personally don't think it would ever be successful and a second failed Referndum would sink the SNP as a political party for a very long time.
The BP article is below :.
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"The world is no longer at risk of running out of oil or gas, with existing technology capable of unlocking so much that global reserves would almost double by 2050 despite booming consumption, BP  has said.

When taking into account all accessible forms of energy, including nuclear, wind and solar, there are enough resources to meet 20 times what the world will need over that period, David Eyton, BP Group head of technology said.
"Energy resources are plentiful. Concerns over running out of oil and gas have disappeared," Mr Eyton said at the launch of BP's inaugural Oil and gas companies have invested heavily in squeezing the maximum from existing reservoirs by using chemicals, super computers and robotics. The halving of Oil prices since last June has further dampened their appetite to explore for new resources, with more than $200bn-worth of projects scrapped in recent months.
By applying these technologies, the global proved fossil fuel resources could increase from 2.9 trillion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) to 4.8 trillion boe by 2050, nearly double the projected 2.5 trillion boe required to meet global demand until 2050, BP said.
With new exploration and technology, the resources could leap to a staggering 7.5 trillion boe, Mr Eyton said.
"We are probably nearing the point where potential from additional recovery from discovered reservoir exceeds the potential for exploration."
The world is, however, expected to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels in favour of cleaner sources of energy as governments introduce policies limiting carbon emissions in order to combat global warming.
"A price on carbon would advantage certain resources," Mr Eyton said.
Governments are expected to agree on a framework to limit global warming by limiting carbon emissions at the United Nation's climate summit in Paris starting this month. European oil companies have urged policy makers to introduce a global price on carbon that will favour the use of less dirty natural gas at the expense of coal.
"Ultimately, national and international policies will determine how much of and which resources will be produced."
"We envisage increasing competition between energy resources," he said. "This will likely result in increased competition in the energy market and disruption for the incumbent."
In North America, a price of $40 per tonne of carbon would make gas turbine power plants more cost-effective than coal, BP said.
However, an $80 per tonne price on carbon would make onshore wind technology competitive with gas-fired power and would also make carbon capture and sequestration with gas-fired power economic.
And while oil is expected to be the main source fuelling the transport sector by at least 2035, electric vehicles could approach cost-parity with the internal combustion engine, due to advances in battery technology, BP said.
BP, the largest operator of solar and wind power among its peers, will see its investment portfolio evolve over time in line with government policies, Mr Eyton said.
However, an $80 per tonne price on carbon would make onshore wind technology competitive with gas-fired power and would also make carbon capture and sequestration with gas-fired power economic. "
The original online report can be found via this link by clicking here
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The oil price is unlikely to recover next year, according to the boss of the French energy giant, Total.Total's Patrick Pouyanne "doesn't anticipate a recovery in 2016". In fact, he thinks supply will grow faster than demand next year.
He is not alone. Last Friday, Goldman Sachs put out a note suggesting prices could fall a lot further.
"While [we are] forecasting oil prices over the next few months to be near $40 a barrel, or roughly where they are trading today, there could be another 50% to fall," the investment bank said.
Read the whole Total Oil article by clicking here 
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For explanations on the Scottish economy , the "onshore" and "offshore" revenues and also on how "pooling and sharing" works to the Scottish advantage see Kevin Hagues presentations by clicking  here

Kevins main Blog and menu can be found here 
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Update 12 Jan 2016 :Oil down to $31.26 per barrel.
Latest on the Oil price and how its affecting different countries ability to budget, this doesn't specifically mention Scotland but Sir Ian Wood said the North Sea Oil industry just doesn't work at $45-$50 previously , how bad this will actually be probably won't be apparent until after the publication of the next GERS report before MAY, hopefully they won't get away with trying to delay them ,,,but i wouldn't be suprised if they try this because te numbers will lose them votes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35289766

"SNP Energy Spokesman admits "No more huge Oil incomes for Scotland ever"  Click on here.


Why Electric Cars will cause the NEXT Oil Crisis fall
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-ev-oil-crisis/