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Showing posts with label Holrood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holrood. Show all posts

Sunday 19 January 2014

Eight months from today – the birth of a new nation, or something else …?

Eight calendar months from today, Scotland will know if it’s going to be an independent country or remain a region of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Eight months from today, Scots will wake up either to the realisation that they have made history and are privileged to be present at the birth of a new nation -  one that they themselves have created - or to the realisation that a pivotal moment in history has passed, and they have decided to reject a unique opportunity, one that will not come again in the lifetimes of many of them.

Eight months from today, Scots parents and grandparents will know whether they have bequeathed to their children and grandchildren a new nation, with a chance to make a new and better future, or have left them in an old, tired, corrupt nation and in subordination to the last vestige of an old failed empire.

Eight months from today, the young will look at their elders and know whether they have given them autonomy and hope, or whether, driven by personal fear of change and selfish motives, they have denied them that autonomy, that hope, and have denied them their future.

Eight months from today, either the world’s nation will be beating a path to Scotland’s door, fascinated by the birth of a new world nation – in fact, the rebirth of an ancient nation – or will be shaking their heads in bewilderment and thinly-concealed contempt for a people that elected to reject their independence.

What happens eight months from today is in your hands, Scottish voters – you have the chance to make history or let that chance slip away like sand through your fingers, to be blown away for a generation, and perhaps for ever.

Make the right choice

The right choice is to vote YES

Wednesday 12 June 2013

Welfare and benefits – social protection – in an independent Scotland

Yet again, scare stories - unsubstantiated claims - by Better Together about Scotland's welfare systems after independence are exposed as untrue

There has been relative decline in welfare expenditure in Scotland as a proportion of that spent in UK from a peak of 9.7% in 2002/03 to 8.9% in 2011/12

Spending on social protection, including welfare as share of GDP is estimated as being lower in Scotland than in the rest of the UK in each of the past five years

Independent report of the Expert Working Group on Welfare recommends a TRANSITIONAL PERIOD of shared administration. The Scottish Gov. agrees this would be sensible.

ALL options for the delivery of welfare at the point of independence, including a STAND-ALONE SCOTTISH SYSTEM of administration are possible

Scotland delivers almost ALL parts of the current UK benefits system to people living in Scotland from locations within Scotland.

Scotland also provides a wide range of welfare services to England. Some of these services are significant, with a claimant count in millions.