To FFA or not FFA

Finding out the truth about what is happening in Scottish politics at the moment is more confusing than a David Lynch film dubbed into Serbo Croat.  I don’t think anybody with more than ten functioning brain cells can really get a grip on what is going on, and I include Nicola Sturgeon the Leader of the Scottish government and the Leader of the Scottish Nationalist party, in that statement.  

                                         

Anybody who talks in certainties is either blinded by their own rhetoric or has no idea what is going on. Or both. So here is a blog to confuse things further. 

                                               

In the Referendum last year 63% of the population did not vote for independence. In the general election 63% of the Scottish population did not vote for the SNP (Scottish Nationalist) but they won all but two of the seats available. As I have said before we now have a 20 year old Member of Parliament and other Members of Parliament were not even members of the party before the referendum vote last September.

                                           

In some ways it was not a pro SNP vote it was an anti Conservative government vote and everybody was taken by surprise at the result.  The Labour party that has always been very strong in Scotland were pathetic.  Nobody would vote for Ed Miliband as he does look like a muppet.

Taking a more grown up view, Britain is digging its way out the recession probably due to the measures that the Tory government have put in.  Nobody likes austerity but the books have to balance and you can’t spend what you don’t have, or let me rephrase that, we have got to stop spending what we don’t have.

                                        

The issue I can’t quite get my head around is FFA, Full Fiscal Autonomy.  This is not the same as FIFA although some of the accounting might be … To put it very simply Scotland seems to spend £8 billion more than it makes and I’m well aware that this is 'statistics' and that 'statistics' can prove anything. Boris Johnston, who’s borderline insane, went on record as saying ‘why not just give the Scots their budget and tell then to get on with it because then they will soon learn how nasty it can be up at the sharp end of things.’  or something like that. This is what it said in the Daily Record at the weekend double page spread pages 8 and 9. There was a very nice book review on page 9 of the pull out section, some crime writer called Ramsay murdering folk on the banks of Loch Lomond … but back to the more boring issue of politics.

                                          

1.  All experts say that FFA would be extremely painful in the short term.  It is an initial deficit of £8 billion on top of the UK share of the deficit.

2. The gap is mostly caused by the recent plummeting of oil prices. The UK budget watchdog cut their long term forecast by 94% … and of course that is where much of the SNP base their income.  In the next 20 years they were hoping for £36 billion, it is more likely to be £2 billion, but these figures are changing.

                                                              

3.  It is one of my own personal rants in that these things have to be timed with what the global economy is doing, no country on the face of the planet is independent we all interlinked.  Two SNPs have described FFA as silly, the other said it would be economic suicide simply due to the state of the oil prices. 

                                                    

4.  The question of where the funds will come from seems to be one that no one is very precise about answering.  During the general election the SNP were very anti austerity but how anti austere can you afford to be with a deficit of £8 billion, sorry if I’m sounding sarcastic but … I’m sure Jeff will have something to say about the Greek management of their economy.  And the Nationalists are saying there will be a tartan turbo charged austerity and the figures seem to back that up.

                                                      

5.  In the long term the Nationalists claim that the Scottish GPD could grow by 86% based on a substantial increase in financial services, tourism, transport, food and drink, universities and healthy ageing, this will be the new export policy of the Scottish brand.

Opponents said the report was based on fantasy economics and having worked in the health industry for over 30 years the terms 'Scot' and 'healthy ageing' don’t really gel in my mind.  The harsh reality is it is only the healthy that get old in this country.  In some areas of Glasgow  male life expectancy was 54 years. That has improved ... a little over the last  two years.

                                                 

6.  The FFA policy would certainly implement changes that were rejected by the populace in the referendum of 2014 and if you consider 63% of the population did not vote SNP then you have to question what is reflecting  the will of the people.

                                                

And the last point is quite a simple one, the paper states that the only good thing about FFA is that it would stop the Tories having any say in how Scotland is run.

                                            

I was down at Carlisle at the weekend which is just over the border, Gretna on one side, Carlisle on the other.  The north of England suffers as much as the Scots do under a right wing government and there is a general sense that the Scots are developing a bit of an 'I’m alright Jock' attitude.  Removing ourselves from the British electorate will condemn every socialist south of the border to long term Tory rule as that is the way the country is imbalanced.

                                         

I think it's better to trot to the right when it needs to, then trot to the left when we have had too much of that....in the end it's back to the midline?

I posed the questions, I have no answers except I’m at an age that I am young enough that it is going to hurt, but so old that I won’t be able to reap the benefit. On that depressing note I missed my deadline so I’m getting back to it now…

Caro 

two weeks to go

                                       

I once had a strange friend, a professional guitarist, who would play 'Observant Bob ' ( that's a game not a piece of music). He would stand in the street and point at something on a nearby rooftop. He would then wait until a crowd had gathered to see what he was looking at, then he would walk away. This is an example of 'social proof' and maybe has a lot to do with the recent Spiral of Silence blog. It can also be called the herd instinct i.e. the more people follow a behaviour then the more appropriate this behaviour seems to be. Obviously in the past it was a useful survival tool.  If a tribe of Scotti Ancientius are doing a wee bit of roaming in a gloaming and suddenly they all turn left and run away up the nearest glen, chances are it’s because they have seen a large male spiked toothed haggis approaching from the right. Anybody who didn't turn left and leg it would be haggis poo  the next day.

                                    
                                                     Yip, this blog is going there....

You are probably all familiar with the experiment carried out by psychologist Solomon Asch. He was the one who drew three lines on a piece of paper ( two the same length, one longer) and a student was asked which two are the same length.  On a one to one basis the student always gets it correct. When five other people enter the room and say that two un-matching lines are actually matching, the student, in more than 30 % of instances will change his mind to an incorrect answer.  Social proof is responsible for stock market panic, the evils of fashion, religion.  You only have to look at the craze of diets; Scarsdale, F plans, 5 to 2s, Atkins, juicer diets which all ignore the simple premise that you need to eat slightly less calories than you use up! Social proof at its most extreme is responsible for the Jim Jones type of mass suicide. 

It can have its positive effects though if you are in a strange city looking for food you just head for a restaurant that is busy with locals.

The advertising industry manipulates social proof very well. They tell you that a product is better because more people use it. Which is obviously  not true. 

Somerset Maugham’s wise words were “if 50 million people say something foolish, it’s still foolish”. If you don’t buy L’Oreal shampoo is that because you think you’re not worth it? 

                                                 
                                                      Alex, leader of the Nats.
                                       It's rumoured he wants to become King Of Scotland

It can also lead to phrases making their way into the consciousness when the phrase itself can be nebulous, the actual meaning of the phrase remains vague.  The one we were taught in school was the phrase 'the Irish question' which was a political football but the actual question itself was never truly defined. It could be argued the phrase 'weapons of mass destruction' was banded about as a reason for going to war.  It’s also starting to creep in to the debate on Scottish independence.
                                           
                                    Alistair Darling. Owner of the best eyebrows in the campaign.
                                                            He leads- Proud to be Scot,
                                                                  Delighted to Be united.


The phrase 'it’s the right thing to do' is the battle cry of the Independents but not really backed up by any evidence as to why it is 'the right thing to do'.  The leader of the Church of Scotland warned people on the news this morning to stop their bullying tactics and there is a sense that the vote is starting to divide the country, divide families and ruin friendships.

                                            
                                                       Nicola Sturgeon. Known as Helmet Hair.
                                                                Very small person.
                                                      EvKa and JeSi can now make jokes about fish.

I might be biased but to me, most of the bullying tactics are from the yes camp. The accusation of being unpatriotic falls easily from their lips. And can lead to a smack in the chops.  So as well as dissolving the UK we are in danger of dissolving ourselves as the nation that is Scotland.  It’s less than two weeks to go to the vote and I think most sensible folk are sick to the back teeth of it which is a terrible thing to say about the most important decision that Scotland has made for the last five hundred years. We are fed up being told nothing factual,  and any debates simply come down to who can shout the loudest.  Nobody seems to know if we can stay in the EU, Fish quotas, Farming subsidies, nobody knows what currency we are using, nobody knows if we are responsible for any of the national debt of Great Britain and when asked those pertinent questions they will just be told 'it’s the right thing to do'.  

I did an event last week and at the end the interviewer asked me if I was a yes or no. I just mentioned the fiscal uncertainty and that while I was proud to be a Scot I would be delighted to stay united.

I felt a wave of hatred rush down from the audience.   At the after do soiree with warm Prosecco and unidentifiable small munchy things, a man come up to me and give me a piece of his mind which was a shame as I don’t think he had any to spare.
                                                     

  He started off by saying that for the first part of the talk he thought I was quite an intelligent young woman.   (how easily fooled!) He then asked me about the colour of the blood in my veins before giving me a two and a half minute rant about independence and its people like me who let the side down and he seemed to have a lot of pride in the fact he taught himself Gaelic as 'Scotland needs to push itself forward on the world stage'.
There is no logic in that statement so don't try to find any.

                                                               
                                                                   Sensible Scottish Person with smart jacket on.

While I was thinking venous blood is a slightly darker red than arterial blood and if you are trying to push yourself forward in the world why don’t you learn Spanish,  I was on the edge of smirking as the scene was so ridiculous - this was real finger pointing in the face stuff. But his very insular way of looking at the world is quite worrying. However, in a moment of huge personal triumph I managed to wait until he had to draw breath ( he was producing a lot of hot air ) then I muttered the name of the great Scottish philosopher David Hume (pic above) and said that we, as an nation hold very dear to our hearts the right of freedom of speech and the right to have our own opinion.  At that moment I managed to walk away in my four inch stilettoes without falling over, spilling the Prosecco or dropping my small unidentified vegetable on its bed of puff pastry. If I had really thought about it I would  have incorporated a Miss Piggy hair flick
                                              

We have two weeks to go. I hope we survive.  Before somebody gets punched.

Caro Ramsay 05 09 2014