It wasn’t the Euro, the EU or national identity that did this to us–it was global finance and incompetent UK, US and Irish governments

It wasn't the European Union that did this to all of us - it wasn't the Euro, it wasn't nationalism - it was rampant unregulated amoral gambling by global financiers and bankers, allied to the incompetence and failure of vision, foresight and nerve of US, European and UK governments.

Labour and British banks did it to the UK - the Irish government and Irish banks did it to Ireland - the US government and Wall Street banks did it to America, and compounded it for the rest of us.

Reflect on this before sneering at Ireland and allowing schadenfreude to cloud your judgement, and mouthing cheap Labour sound bites about the failure of Celtic Tigers and the Arc of Prosperity.

Labour are the guilty party - the incompetent Conlib Coalition are now compounding the error in their misconceived programme of cuts, attacking public service, the poor, the sick and the vulnerable.

Only the Scottish Nationalist Government stands between the people of Scotland and this economic incompetence and social lunacy, but they are limited by the lack of full fiscal autonomy.

Saor Alba!

Alex Salmond on Scottish tax powers

The undernoted was published by the SNP today, and includes a letter to the Scottish Secretary, Michael Moore, by the First Minister today – the highlights in colour of certain passages are mine, and were not in the original document.

Salmond puts UK straight on Scottish tax power

2010-11-19

Alex Salmond has set the UK Government straight over the tax powers available to the Scottish Parliament.  In a public letter to the Scottish Secretary Mr Salmond responds to a series of inaccurate claims from the Scottish secretary about the future of the 3p tax power.

The SNP has always made clear that the current tartan tax is an unfair and regressive tax.

The full letter is below:

LETTER FROM THE FIRST MINISTER – ALEX SALMOND TO THE UK GOVERNMENT 19t Nov 2010

Your letter of 18 November about the Scottish variable rate of income tax (SVR) is a travesty of the position. The reality is as follows.

The then Scottish Executive paid the UK Government £12 million in 2000 to add SVR functionality to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) tax collection systems. Thereafter, an annual fee of £50,000 was paid.

HMRC said in 2007 that additional work was needed to maintain the readiness of the IT system, and in summer 2008 made clear that they would be installing a new IT platform. Scottish Government officials attempted to elicit information on what this meant for Scotland and the functionality of the 3p tax power.

We were finally asked on 28 July this year to pay over the sum of £7 million to HMRC for this purpose. Why nowhere in your letter did you mention this.demand?

Anyone proposing paying this £7 million to HMRC would need to explain where the equivalent cuts would be made in Scottish public spending.

And even if we had paid it - at a time when Scotland is on the receiving end of massive cuts to our budget from your government - the SVR under the new system could not have been implemented until 2012/13: another key point which you failed to mention.

In any case, at that stage it seemed an academic debate because the SVR itself is set to be replaced under any version of the legislation which you intend to introduce in the next few weeks.

On 20 August, Scottish Government officials offered talks with HMRC on the issue of the SVR - an offer which has not been responded to. The first we have heard from the UK government on the matter since 20 August is your letter of yesterday.

It is clearly unacceptable that Scotland should be asked to pay, again, for something which millions of pounds have previously been paid for. If HMRC choose to replace their IT systems, that is clearly a matter for them. However, anyone would expect them in specifying their new systems to replicate the functionality of the old.

No Scottish administration has used the 3p tax power, none of the main parties in Scotland advocate using it now, and it is intended to be overtaken by the Tory/Lib Dem Calman financial proposals - flawed measures which, had they been established for the start of the current spending review, would have resulted in the Scottish Budget being £900 million lower in 2009/10.

The real issue, therefore, would appear to be about the future.

You stated - as did Danny Alexander in his letter to me of 20 October this year about the Spending Review settlement - that: "it is an established principle that the costs of devolution should be met from the Scottish Budget."

This is not the case - in fact, the opposite is true.

HM Treasury's recently-updated Statement of Funding Policy states at paragraph 3.2.8 that:

"Where decisions of United Kingdom departments or agencies lead to additional costs for any of the devolved administrations, where other arrangements do not exist automatically to adjust for such extra costs, the body whose decision leads to the additional cost will meet that cost."

The clear impression can only be that your letter was not about the cost of financial powers that are going to be superseded, but rather about establishing a precedent for the Scottish Government paying to install and administer the Calman tax proposals - which unlike the SVR will require to be used every year.

Given the huge pressures on the Scottish public purse because of your government's spending cuts - and the further threat to our budget from the Calman proposals themselves - we need answers to these key questions as a matter of urgency:

How much is the UK Government intending to ask the Scottish Government to pay for the Calman tax powers - measures which could reduce Scotland's budget, as indicated above?

When do you propose asking the Scottish Government, and therefore the Scottish people, to pay?

Exactly when would these financial powers be capable of being implemented?

A copy of this letter goes like yours to Annabel Goldie MSP, Iain Gray MSP, Margo MacDonald MSP, Tavish Scott MSP and Patrick Harvie MSP, and David Gauke MP, and also to the leaders of the Scottish parties at Westminster: Angus Robertson MP, Ann McKechin MP, and David Mundell MP. I am also sending copies to John Swinney and Fiona Hyslop.

Given that you released your letter to the media, I am also releasing this.

ALEX SALMOND

The Theft and squandering of Scotland’s oil revenues–Norway and ‘Diomhair’

Watch, and weep for what might have been ...

Norway's far-sighted use of its oil revenue compared with the UK's frittering away of the oil revenues stolen from Scotland.

Joseph Stiglitz and Scotland's oil

Prof. Andrew Hughes Hallett

See Part Two for the Diomhair revelations about that shameful theft of Scotland's resources.

Saor Alba!

Diomhair clip - YouTube

Diomhair revealed the full details of the conspiracy to defraud Scotland of its oil revenue. How any Scot can watch this without feeling a sense of betrayal and burning resentment is beyond me, especially when one considers what Norway has has done with its oil revenues.

Saor Alba!

More Megrahi nonsense from Menendez

Nobody came to Senator Menendez's kangaroo court in the US - a publicity stunt masquerading as a Congressional enquiry - so he had to make things up. His representative who came to Scotland - and failed to take notes at a meeting with Scottish Government officials - has total recall of a load of nonsense.

Fortunately our government officials did take notes. Of course, Holyrood's ****hole in residence, Richard Baker, predictably aligned himself with the US and Menendez. Perhaps he should have consulted his new boss, Ed Miliband, who if he has any sense will rapidly distance himself and the Labour Party from the Deal in the Desert/BP conspiracy theory - Jack Straw certainly did.

Iraq, Scotland and Jim Murphy – yesterday’s man

The new Leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband has publicly repudiated his party's stance on Iraq, to the cold fury of his Blairite, warmongering brother. But David is right. Harriet Harman voted for it, and so did almost all of the New Labour gang. Sitting behind David Miliband are Alistair Darling and Jim Murphy, the late and unlamented Scottish Secretary, a Blairite and Iraq war supporter and defender. Both men are stonefaced as they listen to their new leader.

I follow that with some clips of Jim Murphy before the May 2010 general election in action when he had some clout and some say in Scottish affair.

It’s safe to say, as one vocal critic alleged, that neither he, nor the previous Labour government, nor the Tories, nor the LibDems, nor the members of the House of Lords have let, or will let their privileged children anywhere near the killing grounds of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Murphy tries to project a nice guy image, but he is in fact an old-style backroom Labour bruiser. I hope he never again has any significant say in the life and future of Scotland, and that he sinks back into political obscurity.

Living with the Taliban – the Afghanistan conflict

A Western journalist lives with a Taliban fighting group, documenting and filming their daily lives, risking his own freedom and his life in the process. A remarkable film, by any standards.

I would guess that those watching this clip will polarise at two ends of the spectrum –

those who think it portrays the Taliban as brave, humble and deeply religious people fighting against a foreign invader for their country, their faith and their families

and

those who think it is an outrageous piece of propaganda by misguided and unpatriotic Western liberals to portray the Taliban in a sympathetic light, when in fact they are brutal religious zealots who persecute women and harbour Al Qaeda cells  plotting terrorist attacks against civilians in the West.

There will also be many who find this a thought-provoking piece of courageous journalism, and who try to make up their own minds.

Wherever you are on this spectrum, I ask you to reflect on the following facts and ask yourself the following questions -

FACTS

The United Kingdom has been involved in this military action and occupation for nine years.

There is no end in sight.

Combatants on both sides are dying daily.

Innocent civilians – men, women and children are dying almost daily.

Both sides are totally convinced that God is on their side.

Opinions on the conflict are deeply divided in the UK, with probably a majority of the electorate being against the war being continued and in favour of withdrawal.

The Karsai Government is deeply corrupt.

Opinion in Pakistan is deeply divided over the conflict.

The coalition forces are not winning this conflict.

The original objectives of the invasion of Afghanistan have been repeatedly redefined and have become blurred and confused.

The occupation of Afghanistan has created what is rapidly becoming an unbridgeable rift between the West and Islamic nations and cultures. It has also created serious tensions within the UK itself.

The invasion of Afghanistan was launched by the now wholly discredited Bush/Cheney neocom regime in America.

The coalition forces and the Karsai government will almost certainly do a deal with the Taliban to secure a diplomatic end to the conflict.

QUESTIONS

Whose country is being occupied by a foreign invader?

Has any invader ever won a war in Afghanistan in the last few centuries?

Is the persecution, torture and oppression of women by the Taliban unique in the Indian sub-continent?

Is the denial of the rights of women to play an equal part in religious hierarchies unique to the Taliban or does it exist among the nations of the coalition?

Are fundamentalist beliefs in war as an instrument of religion unique to the Taliban or do they exist among the nations of the coalition?

Does Afghanistan provide the only place in the world where Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups can train, organise and plan terrorist attacks?

Have the nations of the Western coalition considered invading any other country to protect the rights of women?

Have the nations of the Western coalition considered invading any other country to root out and destroy terrorist bases?

LibDems ready to press the self-destruct button …

Sir Menzies Campbell - Ming the Unionist - a very parfit gentil knight, a British establishment figure, waffles on about the national interest (by national, he doesn't mean the country of his birth, Scotland - he means the UK, the political entity that knighted him) dances around Jon Sopel's questions, but the reality of the present situation is all too clear - Nick Clegg is set to do a deal with Cameron, abandoning cherished LibDem principles along the way, and putting in power a Tory government that is anathema to Scottish voters.

If such a deal is done, the LibDems are dead as a political force, especially in Scotland. The feeble Tavish Scott is unlikely to stand up for the interests of Scots - after all, he rejected a coalition with the party he had most in common with - the SNP - because of his blinkered unionism.

There's still time not to press the self-destruct button, Nick ...