Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Visionary Finance

On the very same day that the Scottish "government" announces its intention to save the planet, it also informs us of "The Vision" of a Scotland 2030 being a country "ringed by massive container ship ports."

To be fair,there are a few other worthy infra-structural projects planned for the year... er...2030, which, no doubt if they ever come to fruition, will, indeed, "grow" the economy and "make life better for Scots."

But I’m generally not that fair for very long and reading a little bit further down and trying to discover where the cash will come from to initiate “The Vision”, I came across this little after-thought from Mr John Swinney, the finance secretary, who said that
the list was not limited by finance and might be added to or reduced, either through the public consultation process or by the Scottish Parliament.

Okaay, no mention of there of actually where the financing is coming from, presumably then private investors will be funding "The Vision"?
Not entirely:
The expansion of Glasgow and Edinburgh airports will be funded entirely by the private sector so these projects are not dependent on Scottish Government spending.

Other projects, such as the new Forth crossing, will be paid for by the taxpayer and such projects will influence what else the Scottish Government wants to spend money on.

So, the list's fulfillment will be limited by finance (ie by how much the taxpayers want to cough up for it) and might be added to or reduced, either through the public consultation process or by the Scottish Parliament, sometime between now and the year 2030.
Or it might be all forgotten about when the SNP's next Big PR Vision comes along....

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find your "Scottish government" interesting - taking that you are a Northern Irish unionist and damm well know fine that the administration that ruled Northern Ireland from 1921-1972 styled itself the government of Northern Ireland and its head styled himself the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.

There was no creation of such offices in the Government of Ireland Act of 1920. Your mob simply chose to call themselves that whilst saying they were "loyal". The act provides for a "Chief Executive Officer" and describes the "Government" as the "Executive Committee of Privy Council of Northern Ireland". Check the statute. No mention of a PM or "government"

Closer to home and our time, the Assembly of Northern Ireland has recently restyled the office of Presiding Officer (prescribed by statute) to that of "Speaker". As you are aware that office is held by a member of the DUP.

Maybe you should lecture your own crowd about taking vanities?

O'Neill said...

Whoa there a minute....

1. It was the biggest mistake that Northern Irish Unionism ever made effectively declaring UDI and setting up its "own government" in the period 1921-1972. It should have been continued to be governed as the rest of the UK, ie from Westminster.

2. Re the "Assembly of NI", if you car to read any of my previous blogs on this subject, you'll quickly realise that I regard the "Stormont" and all the various self-important politicians contained therein as pure Mickey Mouse, a joke form of democracy.

Maybe you should lecture your own crowd about taking vanities?

And perhaps you should maybe do be a bit more research and actually read a few more of my previous posts before fitting me into your conveniently defined category?

The DUPes are most definitely not "my" "crowd", I'm a UK Unionist, I believe in the concept of one sovereign parliament at Westminster.