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where is the traffic from a 6 lane bridge going to go?
6 land bridges are more learning from previous, where bridges tend to have more maintenance per mile than other roads, so an extra land either side helps to minimise distruptions.
I have no issue with attacking the SNP for stuff they have made a mess off. what I will not accept is making stuff up to attack them ( why bother when there is real stuff) and I have real issue with those that ignore the many successes from the years they have been in power. Of course most of those successes ar for the poor, the sick and the elderly so right wing dogmatists hate them
Argee - thats nonsense and you must know it Exactly the sort of nonsense that bugs me
If they had built a 6 lane bridge the bleating would be " why waste the money on a 6 lane bridge when ll the feeder roads are 4 lane?" or " why not build all the roads 6 lane as well?" or some other spurious attack
name me a 6 lane bridge that feeds into 4 lane road networks anywhere
~A9 dualling - yes it needs to be done. Now explain to me which other government functions you want to cut in order to complete this expensive infrastructure project. Remember the scots gov has a basically fixed budget half of which goes to health
Could you give us a clear list of these SNP led SG successes to avoid any confusion?
Edit to add a helpful primer from 2021 (things have got worse since on all the metrics discussed)..
https://thinkscotland.org/2021/04/snp-record-good-bad-report/
@argee, just as well they have two spare lanes in either direction then isn’t it?
Good stuff, never been on that bridge, last time i went to Edinburgh was about 25 years ago!
Done so many times
1 alleviated the nasty 2 child benefit limit that leads to child poverty that leads to entrenched illhealth and disadvantage with the "scots child payment"
2) taken assessment for disability payments out of the hands of a private company ( who were given incentives to deny payment) to in house leading to a far fairer assessment process, vastly reduced appeals and a reduction in poverty in disability
3) opened up new railway lines and electrified the main Glasgow / Edinburgh line leading to faster and nicer train journeys and a reduction in pollution plus bringing Scotrail back into public ownereship
4) Got rid of the fake markjet in the NHS that cost 10% of the total NHS budget and then did not interfere significantly further apart from significant recruitment
5) reduced privitisation in the NHS reduciung costs
6) stopped punative parking fees on NHS premises were possible
7) avoided strikes in the NHS by paying staff better and sitting down and working with unions
8) an end to prescription charges
9) free social care fo0r the disabled and elderly
10 ) free university education - no tuition fees
11) an end to bridge tolls
12) Tax relief for small businesses
13) higher bursary for nursing students
14) minimum alcohol pricing
15) alternations to the tax system to make it more progressive despite the tax varying powers being minimal and set up in such a way as to be almost unworkable
thats just a few off the top of my head - but of course if you are a dogmatic rightwingere none of these things will be seen as the good things they are
another one - ending of "right to buy"
and mitigation of " the bedroom tax"
land reform act and support for community buyouts
More secure lets for tenants making no fault evictions much much harder, providing security, a cap on rent rises and a stop on evictions during covid
Ill stop now 🙂
From Wikipedia - which explains it about as clearly as possible - people tend to use "Scottish Government" as short hand
The Scottish Government consists of the Scottish Ministers, which is used to describe their collective legal functions. The Scottish Government is accountable to the Scottish Parliament, which was also created by the Scotland Act 1998 with the first minister appointed by the monarch following a proposal by the Parliament. The responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament fall over matters that are not reserved in law to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Ministers are appointed by the first minister with the approval of the Scottish Parliament and the monarch from among the members of the Parliament. The Scotland Act 1998 makes provision for ministers and junior ministers, referred to by the current administration as Cabinet secretaries and ministers, in addition to two law officers: the lord advocate and the solicitor general for Scotland. Collectively the Scottish Ministers and the Civil Service staff that support the Scottish Government are formally referred to as the Scottish Administration.
IU am laughing at the use of ~"thinkscotland" as a source - an opaquely funded rightwing unionist think tank with zero credibility 🙂 set up by a right wing figure with an axe to grind who has made a fortune out of care homes - care homes that have an appalling reputation
I thought it might be fun top unpick one issue that is often used as a stick to beat the scots government with. Drug deaths in Glasgow.. these deaths are mainly in a small population of long term hard core heroin users which is a pretty difficult issue and of course drug policy is a reserved matter. Scots government have made several attempts to alleviate the situation creating policies based on best evidence from worldwide experience. Because drug policy is a reserved matter Westminster has blocked these policies and refuses to devolve drug policy. so how is this the Scots government fault when any steps to alleviate the situation is blocked by westminster?
the cynical amongst us would say this was blocked purely to create a stick to beat the SNP with
IIRC the "shooting galleries" are now in place which is one part of the solution. Ill bet drug deaths drop dramatically. Its taken the best part of a decade of fighting with westminster to get this in place.
The problem I have with what @Hurricane and @IRC are saying about Scotland not being better than it was (debatable, but moot) is the implication they make that the rest of country has gotten better. That ain't gonna fly or stand-up to any scrutiny.
The issue with the SNP and how they've managed Scotland is that they are the least worst option. And while Scotland may not be better than it was (again, debatable depending on how you look at it), it's not got nearly as bad or suffered the same fall as the rest of the UK.
Do I wish Scotland was better? Yes.
Do I wish the SNP had performed better? Yes.
Are the SNP the best thing since sliced bread? No.
Will I/would I vote for them again? Yes.
By being the least worst option, are they significantly better than Tories/Labour/Lib Dems? Yes.
Am I a nationalist? No.
Do I want Scotland to be Independent of Westminster? Yes.
Can I square those seemingly contradictory thoughts? Yes. I want a modern constitution, I want shot of the royal family, I want a better voting system than FPTP, I want back into Europe, and I want to see positive, progressive change. And most of all, I want to see us transcend the notion of nationality and patriotism - nonsense concepts. Take us into a Star Trek style federation
reluctantlondener pretty much said everything I was thinking.
One point I would raise, in reply to whoever it was who said everything has gotten worse over the last 15 years, one thing that has improved is knife crime and murder rates.
Stabbings and murder are definitely down quite considerably. 15 years ago I remember Glasgow being the murder and knife crime capital of Europe.
Now, I know the SNP can't really take credit for that. But then they get blamed for so much stuff that they don't really have that much control over I think it's also fair to point to the stuff that has definitely gotten better while they have been in charge.
Personally I would like a proper federated UK in the EU with a proper modern voting system and constitution fit for the 21st century.
No one is offering that and its seems unlikely in my lifetime.
My judgement is an independent Scotland would be a better place to live than remaining anchored to the backward looking and right wing rUK. Its not as good as a proper federated UK IMO - but its a far better prospect than remaining anchored to a sinking rUK
I am not an ideological independence supporter. I am pragmatic based on what would improve my quality of life
there are a lot of things that have got better in Scotland over the last 15 years. All things that improve the lot of the poor, the sick, the disabled and the elderly. Hence none of these things are seen as good by rightwingers and are not seen by the middleclasses at all.
surprising no one has been sticking the boot in? Yet another example of its not the crime its the cover up!
TBF in that case it was the crime. Unless you think charging the taxpayer £11k for a streaming bill to watch the footie isn't a resigning matter.
About time that arsehole got the boot for something TBF. Still remember the shit show he caused when education was his game. (well, I remember a shit show, the specifics elude me right now)
An Independent Scotland would do so much more for Scotland as a whole, especially if inserted back into the matrix.
The east coast could open up totally(and it needs it) from Peterhead to Edinburgh with ferry and freight terminals for goods coming across the north sea.
There used to have a Rosyth Zeebrugge service. We looked at using it for a short break. It didn't add up pricewise compared to driving to Hull. Seems the ferry service finally stopped because it wasn't economically viable. Independence wouldn't change the size of the customer base. I would love to be able to drive to a port in Scotland to get to Europe either with a car or a bike. I don't think it is being part of the UK that is stopping me though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosyth_%E2%80%93_Zeebrugge_ferry_service