Tax on the poor again – appreciate this story has done the rounds on social media the last few days but I hadn’t gotten around to reading it.
Scottish motorists face being required to pay as they drive under a plan being considered by ministers to help meet climate change targets.
Fifteen years after the SNP committed to the abolition of road tolls in its manifesto, road pricing is back on the agenda, with ministers regarding it as inevitable.
We know from previous experience in Dundee that bridge tolls on the Tay Bridge not only caused serious congestion at rush hour but also effected the quality of air in the city during those periods, in a city with some of the worst pollution levels in Scotland already on it’s roads. While the idea is at an early stage, it could mean motorways such as the M8 being tolled and a return to charges for bridges and tunnels. This is an easy option to justify environmental targets and is a tax on the poor when public transport is already poor to awful in Scotland and expensive.
The Scottish government argues that radical steps are required because transport accounts for 29 per cent of Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions, with cars making up 38 per cent of that. This is a lazy and easy option, and yet again another huge mistake by this SNP Government if they do in fact take this forward.
I’ve had enough now –
The Scottish government’s remaining Covid powers are set to be extended for several more months.
Legislation mandating face coverings and vaccine passports was due to expire on 28 February. However, this looks set to be pushed back to 24 September, with Deputy First Minister John Swinney saying it was important to keep options on the table.
i know that Covid has not gone away and still poses a risk to certain groups, I appreciate that I am also being very selfish with this opinion but I have had enough now. I have had enough of face masks, of not being able to communicate properly at work, of restrictions to daily life. We handled the pandemic as badly as any country did in the world bar England, persiting with restrictions now just makes the situation worse not better. We need the NHS working full on, children and young people need some normality in school, we have need to start to fix our mental health and get services back to as normal as we can. I just don’t want this anymore, we need to move on and we need to trust people to do the right thing, enough.
My gift to English Taxpayers –
Blackford said: “One of the things that we will do when we become independent is we will take responsibility for pensions in Scotland and we will use our taxes overseas to make sure that pensioners are looked after and of course, what we want to make sure is our pensioners get a better deal.
Last week, Guy Opperman, the UK pensions minister, accused the SNP of misleading voters over pensions. He said: “If Scotland chooses to become a foreign country, then working English, Welsh and Northern Irish taxpayers should not pay for a foreign country’s pension liabilities. So is the money I am paying in now a gift to English, Welsh and Irish tax payers? Is that what we are seeing here? I wouldn’t trust the SNP to negotiate anything let alone pensions. Saying that it probably won’t be an issue anyway as I seriously doubt we will be independent any time soon anyway.
Nutters, all of them – What is it with these nut jobs that they need to fight a f war every couple of years. Life is too short as it is without this bullshit. The Tories, some in Labour, and weirdos like McDonald and Smith in the SNP give this kind of crap a boost with their words and actions. The politicians don’t fight the war, they are not the ones who suffer the most. If we end up fighting yet another war we have got to make every single politician pay at the next election and get rid of all of them. War makes money for already rich people and papers like the Express, should be ashamed of their role in stocking up this hunger to kill other people, journalists who write this crap also have no shame. This is just madness.
grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com 
State Pensions:
Time Rideout, economist and member of The Scottish Currency Group, posted an article a few days ago on Iain Lawson’s website (Yours For Scotland: https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2022/02/13/well-can-we/) .
I posted a few questions of Tim and he gave answers in a useful discussion.
Pensions come out of current government revenues via taxation and/or, if there is a shortfall, borrowing and are a welfare entitlement based on people’s individual National Insurance contributions over their working lives. My understanding was that, as George Osborne admitted in 2014, the British state would continue to pay state pensions to qualifying persons in Scotland.
However, Tim’s view is that as pensions are neither an asset nor a liability an independent Scottish government should take over their payment in entirety – he produced figures from GERS 2021 tht showed that Scottish NI receipts are more than sufficient to cover Scottish pension payments, with a surplus left over. So, if we take them over it has two benefits:
1. Takes all uncertainty away so the fearmongers are neutralised.
2. Pensions don’t form any part of Independence negotiations i.e. rUK keep rUK debt
The British state are obliged to pay pensions if we decide we want that but then they get to mess us around with our supposed share of liabilities. Tim reckons this takes the wind out of their sales … and we can easily afford it.
If only Blackford could articulate the strategy – if that is what he was intending although I’m not sure he was as he hasn’t consulted specialists like Tim Rideout – then there would be no controversy.
Duncanio
Yeah I did read it but we need to play hard ball and back track a little, we are talking billions of pounds so it needs to be off set against imaginary debt that we will be accused of having. Blackford is the worst isn’t he, he is an issue for the cause as he just does not come up with any ideas and his performance even against Johnson is shockingly bad.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
The argument of congestion and pollution through queuing cars to stop the charging of tolls is a non-starter I’m afraid , they’ll use NPR like the London congestion zone , your number plate appears on the system , you’re automatically charged.
The real argument against it is that it is another level of taxation on an already depressed economy we don’t need. Charging to use existing infrastructure is simply rent-seeking and gets us no new infrastructure which is what we desperately need.
VP
I think it penalises the poorest the most, as well as, the points you made which I accept. I also remember when the tolls were on the Tay Bridge and it created huge issues morning and afternoon/evening and they even tried to argue no tolls would make it worse which anyone with half a brain knew was bullshit. They need to sort out public transport and the roads. More one way systems with the other lane being cycle lanes etc. Scotland is just a conservative with a smaller c government with limited ideas.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Utterly depressing isn’t it.
We don’t have one original thinker in Holyrood right now. We appear to have voted for a bunch of colonial administrators who only listen to lobbists and their ‘captured’ spads.
How on earth is this bunch able to convince the so called ‘soft no’s’ to vote for an Independent Scotland?
The policies are ill thought out by people promoted way above their abilities.
It’s humiliating. Surely the level of incompetence we’re seeing now, can only be deliberate?
With respect to GRA Self ID, when you’ve got the EHRC calling for the Scottish Government to slow down and tread carefully, you might think a sensible administration would listen.
What are the chances?
Nally
Totally agree, as bad as anything Scottish Labour ever came up with. This Government have been invaded by the stupid and the woke, poor policy and incompetence, bad combination if there ever was one. The unionists are winning by just doing nothing at all other than sit back and watch the SNP/Greens rival the level of idiocy of Johnson and the scumbag Torie. Enough to make you cry.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Good morning Bruce, Does Fatford ever really read what he writes in has infamous sheaths of papers? Talk about a windbag. The way he put his statement gave the impression Scotland couldn’t afford to pay her own pensions, filling all the No merchants with joy. I despair I have lost all hope of us ever being free. This treacherous SNP party has ruined Scotland. When I think back to 2014 how full of hope the commandery we all shared, the love we shared for our country, to be reduced to a country where free speech and democracy are being slowly eroded, to a place where it’s considered normal to ask young people about their sex life even if they don’t have one. Thanks for all you do. Saor Alba.
Lara
The SNP are the poorest I can ever remember them since Swinney was leader to be honest and Blackford is the worst but there are some decent ones like Cherry but why they remain in that party is beyond me as the SNP are just a thicker version of Scottish Labour with a Tartan Tory tinge for me now. They are pretty much useless and you would suspect they are deliberately trying to kill the dream stone cold dead.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce