The news thread

[Ally Bongo]

 

caroline wheeler

 

@cazjwheeler

 

Breaking: The wife of the MP Andrew Bridgen claims her husband has been radicalised and captured by an anti-vax cult. She claims she and her son were left homeless and living off benefits after the “sect” took him over and destroyed their marriage

[Orraloon]

Only a question of time until Rishi!!!! and Sir Kier follow on, like sheep.

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-03-04/kamala-harris-demands-immediate-ceasefire-in-gaza-as-talks-hang-in-balance

[Ally Bongo]

1 hour ago, Orraloon said:

Only a question of time until Rishi!!!! and Sir Kier follow on, like sheep.

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-03-04/kamala-harris-demands-immediate-ceasefire-in-gaza-as-talks-hang-in-balance

Still controlled by Israel

 

David Lammy

 

@DavidLammy

.

@VP

Kamala Harris is right. The immense suffering in Gaza cannot go on.

@David_Cameron

and the

@Conservatives

must now join

@UKLabour

in calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.

 

[StirlingEgg]

Paul Scully mp and former minister announces he's going to stand down with a rare Tory admission...

"The standard deviation model is true in politics. Most people are in the middle. We can work with the bell curve or become the bell-ends."

😂😂

 

[Ally Bongo]

George Galloway pledges his allegiance to the monarchy in the House of Commons - no hat

The cunt will say anything

[Ally Bongo]

The BBC bringing back the Scottish cringe

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-46123984

How has Calvin Harris kept his accent?

When Calvin Harris picked up his Brit Award, a familiar question resurfaced.

A number of people took to social media to express their surprise that he was Scottish - and how strong his accent remained.

In the past, some have asked how he has retained his Dumfries tones when others leave the town for a couple of months and lose theirs entirely.

According to language experts, the question is an interesting one but without an "easy, one layered" answer.

Harris - born Adam Wiles - grew up and went to school in Dumfries and Galloway but his musical career quickly saw him move away and he has not lived in Scotland for many years.

And yet, when he speaks, it still sounds pretty familiar to most Doonhamers.

It is not uncommon, of course, for Scottish celebrities to see their accent put under the microscope.

Sheena Easton is often held up as an example of someone who quickly lost the sounds of her homeland while Sean Connery was seen as the flipside of that - keeping his accent despite a multitude of roles demanding he play someone from outside Scotland.

But has Harris retained his accent and, if so, how might he have done so?

 

[Orraloon]

2 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

The BBC bringing back the Scottish cringe

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-46123984

How has Calvin Harris kept his accent?

When Calvin Harris picked up his Brit Award, a familiar question resurfaced.

A number of people took to social media to express their surprise that he was Scottish - and how strong his accent remained.

In the past, some have asked how he has retained his Dumfries tones when others leave the town for a couple of months and lose theirs entirely.

According to language experts, the question is an interesting one but without an "easy, one layered" answer.

Harris - born Adam Wiles - grew up and went to school in Dumfries and Galloway but his musical career quickly saw him move away and he has not lived in Scotland for many years.

And yet, when he speaks, it still sounds pretty familiar to most Doonhamers.

It is not uncommon, of course, for Scottish celebrities to see their accent put under the microscope.

Sheena Easton is often held up as an example of someone who quickly lost the sounds of her homeland while Sean Connery was seen as the flipside of that - keeping his accent despite a multitude of roles demanding he play someone from outside Scotland.

But has Harris retained his accent and, if so, how might he have done so?

 

FFS. 

[TDYER63]

From 50 mins in

 

[Ally Bongo]

Facebook is down world wide

There will be no links from Ramy until it is fixed

[Hertsscot]

11 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

The BBC bringing back the Scottish cringe

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-46123984

How has Calvin Harris kept his accent?

When Calvin Harris picked up his Brit Award, a familiar question resurfaced.

A number of people took to social media to express their surprise that he was Scottish - and how strong his accent remained.

In the past, some have asked how he has retained his Dumfries tones when others leave the town for a couple of months and lose theirs entirely.

According to language experts, the question is an interesting one but without an "easy, one layered" answer.

Harris - born Adam Wiles - grew up and went to school in Dumfries and Galloway but his musical career quickly saw him move away and he has not lived in Scotland for many years.

And yet, when he speaks, it still sounds pretty familiar to most Doonhamers.

It is not uncommon, of course, for Scottish celebrities to see their accent put under the microscope.

Sheena Easton is often held up as an example of someone who quickly lost the sounds of her homeland while Sean Connery was seen as the flipside of that - keeping his accent despite a multitude of roles demanding he play someone from outside Scotland.

But has Harris retained his accent and, if so, how might he have done so?

 

Are they going to do another exclusive about how David Beckham has retained his English accent?

[Malcolm]

A decent budget from Jeremy and thank god he cut NI rather than income tax so that Humza can’t dick about with it.  Also encouraging work.

[mariokempes]

33 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

A decent budget from Jeremy and thank god he cut NI rather than income tax so that Humza can’t dick about with it.  Also encouraging work.

The highest tax take since ww2, and another round of cuts to public sector ? Aye magic

[Ally Bongo]

36 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

A decent budget from Jeremy and thank god he cut NI rather than income tax so that Humza can’t dick about with it.  Also encouraging work.

Not raising the tax free allowance (again) is a tax rise meaning he is cutting fuck all 

You do know this ?

[RDFH64]

1 hour ago, Malcolm said:

A decent budget from Jeremy and thank god he cut NI rather than income tax so that Humza can’t dick about with it.  Also encouraging work.

Would rather he put the NI reduction into the NHS to help reduce the record waiting lists the Tory’s have created.

[Hertsscot]

What a waste of taxpayers money. Should be coming out of her pocket

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/06/taypayers-foot-the-bill-after-academics-libel-action-against-minister

[Hertsscot]

Another Tory opening their mouth before consulting their brain. Sunak was talking about dangers to politicians but here is a Conservative Peer making allegations that led to death threats. He needs to sort his own house out.

[Ally Bongo]

https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/24165053.snp-scottish-income-tax-fantasy-labour-msp-michael-marra/?ref=twtrec

SNP Scottish income tax fantasy of Labour MSP Michael Marra and Malcolm

Where to start with Michael Marra’s comment about the Scottish Government’s Budget being “based on the economically and fiscally illiterate assumption that income tax can be used to plug the hole left by the SNP’s failure to grow the economy”.

It is, of course, a most politically convenient assertion from MSP Mr Marra, Scottish Labour’s party spokesperson on finance.

However, it does not stand up to scrutiny.

Mr Marra should know, surely, that the fortunes of the economy in Scotland are inextricably linked to those of the UK as a whole.

The Scottish Government does not in reality have major economic levers under the current set-up.

READ MORE: Alarming talk on future of free university tuition in Scotland

Of course, it has some devolved economic powers and has done a good job with some of those, as can be seen with Scotland’s success in attracting inward investment. There was a sensible acceleration of infrastructure spending from Holyrood in the wake of the global financial crisis, although the capacity to boost such expenditure unilaterally is severely constrained by the devolved funding arrangements.

In short, the Scottish Government’s economic powers are small potatoes indeed. And they most certainly pale into insignificance relative to the wrecking ball the Conservative Government has taken to the UK economy.

Mr Marra, as someone who would presumably in many other circumstances highlight the huge degree to which Scotland is intertwined with the rest of the UK, should realise that this wrecking ball has hammered the economy north of the Border as well as every other part of Britain.

You would think Mr Marra and his Labour colleagues in Scotland might want to highlight the great damage caused by the Conservatives.

However, most of the time, they seem entirely wrapped up in pointing their fingers at the SNP and its junior partner, the Scottish Greens.

You could with some justification take the broad view that Scottish growth should be expected, under current arrangements, to amount to the expansion in the UK as a whole minus the drag from Scotland’s particularly acute demographic situation. Scotland faces particular challenges when it comes to the size of its working-age population, and notably the outlook for this. The population is ageing throughout the UK, but Scotland faces particular difficulties.

Of course, free movement of people between the UK and European Economic Area countries was a crucial means by which Scotland could tackle or at least mitigate this challenge.

This great benefit was removed by the Tories’ hard Brexit. And Labour, unfortunately, has made it clear it will not bring it back, having ruled out the UK rejoining the single market if it wins power.

And this red line for Labour means that the blow to Scotland’s exporters from Conservative policy, with the hard Brexit resulting in the loss of frictionless trade between the UK and EEA countries, will also not be reversed or mitigated in any way.

To be fair to Mr Marra and Labour, they did not cause the Brexit damage.

However, they have made it clear they will not address it, and that is lamentable.

Obviously, for political reasons in Scotland, you can see why Labour wants to point the finger at the SNP and accuse it of failure on the economic front.

READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Astonishing silence from Labour

This, however, seems somewhat disingenuous from Labour. Surely it must know the blame for what has been visited upon Scotland lies at Westminster.

It was the Tories who delivered the hard Brexit. Then again, with Labour making a big noise about not rejoining the single market, we can perhaps see why Mr Marra would not want to shout too much about that.

In fact, he and his Labour colleagues might not want to talk about Brexit too much at all to the electorate north of the Border, given the big vote in Scotland to remain in the European Union.

 

READ MORE: Denial after denial from brass-necked Tory arch-Brexiter

The UK’s economic output has fallen short of that of similar countries by about 5% since the 2016 Brexit referendum, economists at investment bank Goldman Sachs observed last month.

Another dreadful thing delivered by the Conservatives (from 2010 onwards) which has laid Scotland low is grim austerity, with savage cuts to welfare and public sector pay freezes and caps.

You could be relatively “economically illiterate”, to use one of Mr Marra’s own phrases, and still realise that such policies have taken many billions of pounds out of people’s pockets and thus weighed very heavily on aggregate demand and growth over the years.

Surely Mr Marra must be aware of this effect? Austerity has hampered the whole of the UK, although Scotland looks to have been one of the worst-affected areas, given the make-up of this savage programme.

The International Monetary Fund forecasts the UK economy will this year record the second-weakest growth among the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations.

The UK is expected by the IMF to expand by just 0.6% in 2024, marginally ahead of the 0.5% forecast for Germany.

France is forecast by the IMF to grow by 1% this year. The US is projected by the IMF to expand by 2.1% in 2024.

There is, of course, plenty of scope for valid debate over how much people should be taxed and how money should be spent in the context of the quite limited devolved fiscal powers of the Scottish Government.

In Scotland, higher earners pay more income tax. However, you can see instantly some benefits in terms of spending, including free university tuition for people living in Scotland and the Scottish child payment.

In recent times, it has become increasingly frustrating to hear those who should know better paint a picture that the Scottish Government has some kind of huge economic and fiscal powers.

And it is, frankly, utterly demoralising to hear Mr Marra’s assessment of Scotland’s finances and economy.

[Malcolm]

4 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

Not raising the tax free allowance (again) is a tax rise meaning he is cutting fuck all 

You do know this ?

absolutely.  I have mentioned fiscal drag on numerous posts.  Income tax is down to the Scottish government not Westminster.  You need only look to Humza for the punitive rates he imposes and fiscal drag.  £43k in Scotland, £50k in England.

[Ally Bongo]

3 minutes ago, Malcolm said:

absolutely.  I have mentioned fiscal drag on numerous posts.  Income tax is down to the Scottish government not Westminster.  You need only look to Humza for the punitive rates he imposes and fiscal drag.  £43k in Scotland, £50k in England.

See the post above referencing the same pish that Labour are coming out with

[Toepoke]

11 hours ago, Hertsscot said:

What a waste of taxpayers money. Should be coming out of her pocket

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/06/taypayers-foot-the-bill-after-academics-libel-action-against-minister

I'd settle for a swimsuit photoshoot as compen.

8 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/24165053.snp-scottish-income-tax-fantasy-labour-msp-michael-marra/?ref=twtrec

SNP Scottish income tax fantasy of Labour MSP Michael Marra and Malcolm

Where to start with Michael Marra’s comment about the Scottish Government’s Budget being “based on the economically and fiscally illiterate assumption that income tax can be used to plug the hole left by the SNP’s failure to grow the economy”.

It is, of course, a most politically convenient assertion from MSP Mr Marra, Scottish Labour’s party spokesperson on finance.

However, it does not stand up to scrutiny.

Mr Marra should know, surely, that the fortunes of the economy in Scotland are inextricably linked to those of the UK as a whole.

The Scottish Government does not in reality have major economic levers under the current set-up.

READ MORE: Alarming talk on future of free university tuition in Scotland

Of course, it has some devolved economic powers and has done a good job with some of those, as can be seen with Scotland’s success in attracting inward investment. There was a sensible acceleration of infrastructure spending from Holyrood in the wake of the global financial crisis, although the capacity to boost such expenditure unilaterally is severely constrained by the devolved funding arrangements.

In short, the Scottish Government’s economic powers are small potatoes indeed. And they most certainly pale into insignificance relative to the wrecking ball the Conservative Government has taken to the UK economy.

Mr Marra, as someone who would presumably in many other circumstances highlight the huge degree to which Scotland is intertwined with the rest of the UK, should realise that this wrecking ball has hammered the economy north of the Border as well as every other part of Britain.

You would think Mr Marra and his Labour colleagues in Scotland might want to highlight the great damage caused by the Conservatives.

However, most of the time, they seem entirely wrapped up in pointing their fingers at the SNP and its junior partner, the Scottish Greens.

You could with some justification take the broad view that Scottish growth should be expected, under current arrangements, to amount to the expansion in the UK as a whole minus the drag from Scotland’s particularly acute demographic situation. Scotland faces particular challenges when it comes to the size of its working-age population, and notably the outlook for this. The population is ageing throughout the UK, but Scotland faces particular difficulties.

Of course, free movement of people between the UK and European Economic Area countries was a crucial means by which Scotland could tackle or at least mitigate this challenge.

This great benefit was removed by the Tories’ hard Brexit. And Labour, unfortunately, has made it clear it will not bring it back, having ruled out the UK rejoining the single market if it wins power.

And this red line for Labour means that the blow to Scotland’s exporters from Conservative policy, with the hard Brexit resulting in the loss of frictionless trade between the UK and EEA countries, will also not be reversed or mitigated in any way.

To be fair to Mr Marra and Labour, they did not cause the Brexit damage.

However, they have made it clear they will not address it, and that is lamentable.

Obviously, for political reasons in Scotland, you can see why Labour wants to point the finger at the SNP and accuse it of failure on the economic front.

READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Astonishing silence from Labour

This, however, seems somewhat disingenuous from Labour. Surely it must know the blame for what has been visited upon Scotland lies at Westminster.

It was the Tories who delivered the hard Brexit. Then again, with Labour making a big noise about not rejoining the single market, we can perhaps see why Mr Marra would not want to shout too much about that.

In fact, he and his Labour colleagues might not want to talk about Brexit too much at all to the electorate north of the Border, given the big vote in Scotland to remain in the European Union.

 

READ MORE: Denial after denial from brass-necked Tory arch-Brexiter

The UK’s economic output has fallen short of that of similar countries by about 5% since the 2016 Brexit referendum, economists at investment bank Goldman Sachs observed last month.

Another dreadful thing delivered by the Conservatives (from 2010 onwards) which has laid Scotland low is grim austerity, with savage cuts to welfare and public sector pay freezes and caps.

You could be relatively “economically illiterate”, to use one of Mr Marra’s own phrases, and still realise that such policies have taken many billions of pounds out of people’s pockets and thus weighed very heavily on aggregate demand and growth over the years.

Surely Mr Marra must be aware of this effect? Austerity has hampered the whole of the UK, although Scotland looks to have been one of the worst-affected areas, given the make-up of this savage programme.

The International Monetary Fund forecasts the UK economy will this year record the second-weakest growth among the Group of Seven leading industrialised nations.

The UK is expected by the IMF to expand by just 0.6% in 2024, marginally ahead of the 0.5% forecast for Germany.

France is forecast by the IMF to grow by 1% this year. The US is projected by the IMF to expand by 2.1% in 2024.

There is, of course, plenty of scope for valid debate over how much people should be taxed and how money should be spent in the context of the quite limited devolved fiscal powers of the Scottish Government.

In Scotland, higher earners pay more income tax. However, you can see instantly some benefits in terms of spending, including free university tuition for people living in Scotland and the Scottish child payment.

In recent times, it has become increasingly frustrating to hear those who should know better paint a picture that the Scottish Government has some kind of huge economic and fiscal powers.

And it is, frankly, utterly demoralising to hear Mr Marra’s assessment of Scotland’s finances and economy.

Thought Malcolm had made the Herald for a minute 😄

 

[vanderark14]

Malcolm - wants all the best roads and best transport services but doesn't want to pay for it. 

A tory and a spoilt baby

 

[Orraloon]

Anybody considering investing in Hunt's new Great British ISA? Malcolm?

Another tax bung to the already wealthy. 

 

[Orraloon]

I think "levelling up" has been redefined.

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-03-06/outrage-as-canary-wharf-gets-242m-for-levelling-up-in-the-budget

[TDYER63]

30 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Anybody considering investing in Hunt's new Great British ISA? Malcolm?

Another tax bung to the already wealthy. 

 

A wee tax bung to prop up the shitty British stock market. 

 

[Alibi]

15 hours ago, Hertsscot said:

What a waste of taxpayers money. Should be coming out of her pocket

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/06/taypayers-foot-the-bill-after-academics-libel-action-against-minister

Compare this with Michael Mathieson.  Why is she not being asked to pay the £15k herself?