An Independent Scotland–An Unexpected Bonus

It has just occurred to me that should the Jocks decide in their referendum that their huff has arrived so they should leave in it, there is an immediate and real saving for the rest of us to be had from day one.

There are 59 Westminster Parliamentary Constituencies in Scotland. A Westminster MP is currently paid a salary of £66,396 English Pounds, so that’s £3,917,364 for all of them I've no idea what that will be in whatever currency they will end up using in Scotland should they secede, but then again neither does Alec Salmond (know what currency they will end up using that is). On top of this the 59 MPs claimed a total of £6,471,994 worth of expenses for 2011 which means the whole sorry lot costs us around £6.5 million per annum. An instant saving when they're no longer qualified to sit in Westminster.

The other good news of course is that the Labour Party would lose its 41 Scottish MPs and the Lib Dems their 6. Mr Miliband minor would find it much harder to get a parliamentary majority without a 40 plus seat head start. It might also do something to make the Lib Dems rue their failure to keep their promise to support boundary changes? It would also mean an instant resolution of The West Lothian Question. (see this article for a catch-up if you need one: http://tinyurl.com/p6ef8sk).

Personally I'm still looking for the answer to my “Mortimer Question” i.e.If every Scot you meet insists on telling you how passionately Scottish they are and how they are deeply wedded to their heritage, homeland and culture, why are they living and working here in the land of the hated Sassenach?

Is Ed Balls (By Both name & nature) Really Pro Profit?

So; Ed Balls (by both name and nature) went to talk to the CBI conference to try and convince them he is pro-profit. Of course he is pro-profit, of course he wants businesses to make profit. "Make loads of money" he says; not so that the businesses can re-invest in growth, dividends and jobs, but so he can grab it all in tax and give it to; benefit scroungers, immigrants, Local Councils; who will spend it on Ethnic Councillors, supporting organisations like “Black Gay Whales Against The Bomb”, and creating “Make Work” jobs for the boys to again stuff the labour ballot box; and, above all, create more Big Government to regulate even more aspects of our lives.

It is a constant source of amazement to me that the current generation cannot understand that the visceral essence of a Labour Government is predicated on their intention to tax and spend. Or, maybe the current generation is waking up to it, hence Labour’s stated policy to reduce the voting age to 16? If you don’t believe that there is a fundamental flaw in the doctrine of squeezing the rich until the pips squeak.Take a look at what’s happening in France.

(Dennis Healey as Labour Shadow Chancellor at the Labour conference on 1 October 1973, he said, "I warn you that there are going to be howls of anguish from those rich enough to pay over 75% on their last slice of earnings". In a speech in Lincoln on 18 February 1974, reported in The Times the following day, Healey went further, promising he would "squeeze property speculators until the pips squeak". He was later widely reported as saying that Labour would "tax the rich until the pips squeak").

There is revolution abroad in the the streets of France again (isn’t there always I hear you cry) about what its Government is doing.

The President François Hollande, a former Socialist party administrator with no experience of government before winning the presidency, has embarked on a policy of tax and spend in an attempt to finance his spending spree on public services and government civil servants. However, Hollande last week had to announce the “suspension” of a pollution tax on lorries that had triggered protests in Brittany. That was not enough to satisfy the rebels, however. A coalition of Breton farmers, lorry drivers, trade unionists and employers has now gone on the warpath against the eco-tax, claiming that Brittany would be penalised under the rules because of its remoteness.

Quimper, a picturesque town in Brittany, is a colourful hub of commerce where butchers and bakers vie for customers with sellers of sausage, cheese and wine. It is also a nucleus of insurrection against the Socialist government in Paris. Geneviève Coadour, the florist, is a figurehead of the so-called red bonnet rebellion. In between attending to customers last Thursday morning, she distributed protest posters and talked strategy with other insurgents. “We’re generally fed up with a government making such bad decisions,” she said, in a reference to Hollande and his governing team. “Unemployment has gone up. Taxes have gone up. We’ve had enough. We want change. “The eco-tax was the last straw”.

Suspension of the so-called eco-tax followed a government announcement last Sunday that it was scrapping plans to increase tax on savings accounts after a public outcry and a poll showing that 72% of the French think they are paying too much tax. In spite of the revolt against his tax and spend methods Hollande has clung to his 75% tax on earnings above €1m a year despite football clubs’ threats of a strike at the end of this month. But a big increase in corporate tax was abandoned after a protest by entrepreneurs. As a result of the high-tax policies thousands of people have been driven to leave France for more gentle fiscal climes overseas. It is now estimated that there are more French millionaires living in London than there are in Paris.

Outside of France there are those in Brussels and in Bonn who believe that M. Hollande’s policies are more of a danger to the Euro than Greece, Spain, or even Italy.

If we want to see these same disastrous polices here in the UK all we have to do is to believe the disingenuous Mr Balls (by both name and nature) and of course Red Ed Milliband Minor. It’s either that or prepare to man the barricades.