Guest TPAFKATS Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Who, thepaisleypanda? If you were referring to Dorothy, then obviously, as we all know that he is richer than everyone - he even put a new telly in his second cludgie (instead of donating the money to that charity / sick wean / whatever he was trying to "strong-arm" people into donating to at the time). I don't know how you sleep at night... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TPAFKATS Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 The Tories have finally managed to find some friends in Brussels. Unfortunately the right wing Belgian Nva party that they've teamed up with support not only independence for Flanders but also Scotland. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isabella Duke Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Not that I doubt your word on it but ... have you got proof of that? So, what you are saying is that the Scottish Borders want to remain part of Scotland, within the UK - not really the same thing as them wanting to become part of England is it? Comparing apples and oranges again Dorothy? Still persisting with the personal abuse I see... Stuart didn't say anything about the borders wishing to remain part of Scotland withn the UK - you made that up. And the only person mentioning becoming part of England was again you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Dickson Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 How much is armed forces day costing? If 3500 people have paid 20 quid at least some money has been raised towards the cost. If armed forces day is free who is footing the bill? Glad I don't stay in Stirling council area... Look at the bigger picture not the soundbites. According to Fergus Ewing, Armed Forces day is costing the Scottish taxpayer £80,000, and admission to this well attended and popular event will be free of charge. My arithmetic is often criticised on here but if they have sold 3,500 tickets at £20 a head that's £70,000 raised towards the event leaving a loss of £580,000 to stage an event that succeeds only in making those who celebrate the 1690 Battle of the Boyne look completely contemporary, relevant and up to date. More cringe worthy news on the event is that having claimed in May that there was always going to be a huge rush for tickets as the event drew closer, that the organisers are now slashing ticket prices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Dickson Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 (edited) Not that I doubt your word on it but ... have you got proof of that? So, what you are saying is that the Scottish Borders want to remain part of Scotland, within the UK - not really the same thing as them wanting to become part of England is it? Comparing apples and oranges again Dorothy? So on one hand it's irrelevant and comparing apples with pears, then on the other it's relevant enough to want proof. Which is it? The polls I've been referring to are the Com Res polls in January and in June polling 1001 adults living in Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders and the polls conducted by UNDP in Crimea between 2009 and 2011. The polling figures look pretty similar to me. Crimeans were clearly longing for their former political union which had long since departed - while those polled in the Scottish Borders are clearly wanting to stay in their current political union rejecting Scottish Independence. I suppose if anything you would have expected stronger results in Crimea but that wasn't the case. Edited June 23, 2014 by Stuart Dickson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Dickson Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Personally, I'm not interested in watching re-enactments but mentioning this along with the Boyne definitely shows how desperate you are to get a reaction - sorry, not biting. Hardly. There are plenty of people on here who reference the various walks celebrating the events of a historical battle from 324 years ago deriding it as pandering to elements of our society who haven't managed to move on. Yet here, when our own Scottish Government is up to it's neck in a celebration of a 700 year old battle pandering to the most xenophobic in our society at huge cost to the Scottish taxpayer there's not one word of criticism. Sad really.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TPAFKATS Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Personally, I'm not interested in watching re-enactments but mentioning this along with the Boyne definitely shows how desperate you are to get a reaction - sorry, not biting.Of course, the irony here is that this is being marketed as Stirling's Big Weekend both Bannockburn Live and Armed Forces Day are included.Another Dicko fail? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Dickson Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Who mentioned pears? Proof of the 70-71% and 65% - actually comparing the two is irrelevant. I didn't want to mention "Oranges" given it's political significance..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Dickson Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Of course, the irony here is that this is being marketed as Stirling's Big Weekend both Bannockburn Live and Armed Forces Day are included. Another Dicko fail? Irony? Doubt it. You have to buy tickets for Bannockburn Live - and no-one is doing that. Clearly the Scottish public are more interested in honouring our modern day military heroes than they are in watching 700 hired weirdo's waving blunt swords at each other and falling over as dramatically as they can. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TPAFKATS Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 3500 then 3800 now no-one. Similarly it was 300 odd guys re enacting when I heard about it but now it's suddenly 700 who are being paid... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Dickson Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 So you know that it is people from Scotland that have the tickets for the armed forces day. How do you know that? http://www.armedforcesday.org.uk/events/find_your_nearest.aspx A list of all the Armed Forces Day Celebrations happening all around the country. Now unless you think that loads of people from all around the UK fancy a trip to Stirling on that day and would travel rather than celebrate their own local troops, I think it's a fair assumption that most of the people attending will be Scottish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TPAFKATS Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Of course all this Stirling's Big Weekend nonsense deflects attention away from Prof Dunleavys interview that was in the media yesterday. Only £200 million in his 'expert' opinion to set up a new Scotland. This isn't even an annual figure, it's a one off and less than £40 quid each. Now then what could we spend £200 million on instead... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oaksoft Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 http://www.armedforcesday.org.uk/events/find_your_nearest.aspx A list of all the Armed Forces Day Celebrations happening all around the country. Now unless you think that loads of people from all around the UK fancy a trip to Stirling on that day and would travel rather than celebrate their own local troops, I think it's a fair assumption that most of the people attending will be Scottish. The idea of putting the words "Armed forces", "heroes" and "celebration" into the same sentence is beyond sycophantic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Dickson Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Of course all this Stirling's Big Weekend nonsense deflects attention away from Prof Dunleavys interview that was in the media yesterday. Only £200 million in his 'expert' opinion to set up a new Scotland. This isn't even an annual figure, it's a one off and less than £40 quid each. Now then what could we spend £200 million on instead... Really? There's no annual cost? I suppose all the staff members will be volunteers working for free - perhaps under some forced labour scheme set up by the Natsi party to serve the new state. Did you actually read the report? On Page 13 and 14 Dunleavy accepts the unionist argument that on top of the £200m the new Scottish Government would have to spend £400m on new IT systems and processes to handle benefit claimants. And he accepts that it would cost a FURTHER £500m to create a new IT system that will handle the new Scottish tax system. He goes on to say that whilst those costs would have to be met he didn't consider them to be set up costs because they would be replacing "legacy" systems. His report is also heavily caveated as you would expect because he has no idea how the disentaglement process would go. He's made the assumption, for the purpose of the report, that there is no hostility towards the new Scottish Government from the Rest of the UK, and he's made assumptions that the rUK would be happy to put in place a 50:50 agreement that meant sharing some of the services with the new Scottish government. He says the 50:50 agreement would make sense, and it probably would but we know that when it comes to projects like this politicians often have absolutely no sense at all. Finally the £200m figure isn't a stand alone cost for the setting up of a new administration. The costs are higher than that. However Dunleavy has factored what he calls offsets from policy savings like cuts in the defence budget and savings from "streamlining". Again that's fair enough, but remember that fact the next time the SNP try to tell you that in an Independent Scotland we will be able to afford free nursery care for all kids because we aren't paying for Trident. The same money can only be spent once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Dickson Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 The idea of putting the words "Armed forces", "heroes" and "celebration" into the same sentence is beyond sycophantic. In your mind maybe but to most of the sane world the Armed Forces are just men and women who have been sent into battle zones by the government we all democratically elected. We should celebrate their bravery, their heroism, and their professionalism. Right now Oaksoft, I have a family member who serves in the Army. He's currently stationed in Kenya where they were helping to train the Kenyan Wildlife Service in conservation and in techniques to combat poachers. He was due home last week but he's still there. Why? Well there has been an increase in terrorist activities in Kenya, and the UK government received intel that UK aircraft were going to be targets of a terrorist attack over there. He and his colleagues now remain in position just incase things escalate and UK citizens living in Kenya need protection and assistance. To him, he's just doing his job. To his wife and kids it's all a bit annoying that he works for such an inconsiderate employer - the UK people. But to those UK citizens over there they are heroes of the highest standard of professionals, and they are grateful for the peace of mind their presence offers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Dickson Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Hmmm, so now you are ruling out foreigners - you UKIP-lite boys are all the same. I've absolutely no idea if people would want to go to Stirling instead of staying at home and neither do you. First you try to put words in my mouth and now you are trying to read the minds of people hundreds of miles away? You made the claim, therefore the burden of proof is on you - no, thought not. Why are we having all these "centenary celebrations" of the start of a war that killed millions? Should it not be in 4 years time, you know, to celebrate the victory / end of the killing. That's right, it's to try and make us all feel more British before the referendum. Hmmm. Sorry? What are you talking about? Armed forces day doesn't celebrate the start of anything, or the end of anything. It's just a day to remember our forces. I suspect you've gotten confused over the D Day Celebrations a few weeks ago. A day that marked the 70th Anniversary of a day of extreme heroism when allied forces landed in occupied France and started to push the Nazi's all the way back to Berlin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Dickson Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Guess what folks, another lie. He even provide the link earlier to provide the proof of this. Same old dicko, always lying. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b046pckj/sunday-politics-scotland-22062014 1hr and 20 seconds in approx. I await your apology. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Girdiorn boy Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Vote yes to get rid of the west minster scumbags who are prying on the poor and cutting there money while they get expensise and take home huge pay packets. They should take a pay cut in the national interest and put that money back into helping all the young unemployed people who are struggling to find work. im lucky that i have a college course lined up in august but dicko wouldn't like it as its in music. mon the socialists Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Dickson Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 (edited) FFS, where to start. First of all, I haven't read any of the report so I'm not going to question any of the numbers. I suppose the rest can be summed up in two parts. (1) We already pay running costs for these departments under the UK so it shouldn't cost that much more (if anything) to run our own. (2) the IT: We have already paid for our share of it. I'm not saying I want it as most of it is shite. There should be nothing complicated about the IT systems that the government uses it's just that they think along the lines of (in a Boris Johnson voice) "that one's more expensive so it must be better". This would be our chance to get proper systems that actually work and without paying millions over the odds for them. (Cue you saying something like "all government contracts pay over the odds".) Sorry, there is a third part - we already know that the same money can't be spent twice (I assume that is what you were trying to say) - if you try then you end up in lots of debt - oops. The report is worth reading. It's not even a difficult read. Even you should be able to cope with it. On the subject of IT I agree it's a chance to get good stuff. My ex wife came took a TV from my bedroom when we separated. It was my TV, bought by me, for me but she took it. It annoyed me so I bought a new one - a much better one, bigger, brighter, more feature rich etc. I like it. The old TV would have eventually needed replaced anyway, but regardless the new TV has cost me money. Money that I probably wouldn't have had to pay out for a good number of years yet had we not been separating. The same applies here. Dunleavy says the IT costs are not set up costs because they replace legacy systems, and that's fair enough. But whatever you want to call it, it's still a cost that is going to have to be met by Scottish taxpayers and it's a cost that will have been brought forward simply because of the divorce. Oh aye, and while we are on the subject of debt - remember John Swinney wants to increase Scottish borrowing by 3% every single year. Edited June 23, 2014 by Stuart Dickson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Dickson Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Vote yes to get rid of the west minster scumbags who are prying on the poor and cutting there money while they get expensise and take home huge pay packets. They should take a pay cut in the national interest and put that money back into helping all the young unemployed people who are struggling to find work. im lucky that i have a college course lined up in august but dicko wouldn't like it as its in music. mon the socialists Music is fine. I like music.I listen to it every day. I do find it a bit strange though that those who make big money from music didn't need to go on a college course funded by taxpayers to get a certificate. They simply got on with making money. Maybe you should look at doing the same, and stop wasting taxpayers money and your own time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Girdiorn boy Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Music is fine. I like music.I listen to it every day. I do find it a bit strange though that those who make big money from music didn't need to go on a college course funded by taxpayers to get a certificate. They simply got on with making money. Maybe you should look at doing the same, and stop wasting taxpayers money and your own time. im not wasting my time tho as i have made some of the best friends i ever have on that course so its a win win there for me, my music is all very aniti establishment and anti tory as its what we need in this country stop the shafting of the poor and disabled and young by heartless right wingers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
groucho Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Isn't this the real story The costs could be offset due to Scotland having a "smaller government machine", spending less on areas such as defence The initial expenditure should be seen as an investment which will save on future running costs The long-run viability of an independent Scotland is "generally high" Prof Dunleavy's latest work comes after he dismissed the UK Treasury's use of his research to calculate £2.7bn of start-up costs as "ludicrous". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Dickson Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 im not wasting my time tho as i have made some of the best friends i ever have on that course so its a win win there for me, my music is all very aniti establishment and anti tory as its what we need in this country stop the shafting of the poor and disabled and young by heartless right wingers Ah so non commercial and the kind of tune that will keep you busking on the streets. Well good luck with that, and thanks for proving my point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Dickson Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Isn't this the real story The costs could be offset due to Scotland having a "smaller government machine", spending less on areas such as defence The initial expenditure should be seen as an investment which will save on future running costs The long-run viability of an independent Scotland is "generally high" Prof Dunleavy's latest work comes after he dismissed the UK Treasury's use of his research to calculate £2.7bn of start-up costs as "ludicrous". Yes and no. Dunleavy does say that some of his offsetting to get to the £200m fee could come from savings from a smaller defence budget and from streamlining through the use of better IT. He doesn't attempt to estimate to the cost to the new country of the redundancy payments and unemployment benefits that would need to be paid to the victims of streamlining. Dunleavy doesn't state an opinion on the long term viability of an independent Scotland. His report simply is an attempt at costing the start up costs for a new country. He's made assumptions because he has had to but at least we have a set of figures from him and he's shown his working. It would be nice if the Scottish Government would do something similar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Girdiorn boy Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 Ah so non commercial and the kind of tune that will keep you busking on the streets. Well good luck with that, and thanks for proving my point. anyway how would you feel attending a scotland game and singing flower of scotland knowing that everything in that song you said no too, scotland will be laughed at if we vote no as a weak nation full of week people. we need to vote yes to secure our future in witch every person is looked after and no one is thrown on the scrapheap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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