Wednesday, August 15, 2007

A Little Less Conversation

The National conversation announced by our First Minister and the SNP makes splitting up the UK all sound so simple. He also has decided that we're paying for this conversation that clearly the majority of people in Scotland didn't ask for and don't support. The paper is long on rhetoric and short on practicalities, but then it would be wouldn't it? In particular the economics of it all strike me as somewhat shaky. The principal underpinning everything is - other small countries do really well and so will Scotland.

Shrek’s pronouncements on TV last night about the Norwegian and Irish economies being models for what could happen in an independent Scotland may have been very bad timing. Yesterday in a survey in Ireland worries over the economy and a slowdown in Ireland's property sector knocked Irish consumer sentiment to a near four-year low in July.
The IIB Bank/ESRI Consumer Sentiment index fell to 74.7 from 83.2 in June - its lowest point since October 2003. A cooling property market and lower levels of house building have led to jitters of a spill over into other areas of Ireland's thriving economy and fears of an impact on employment prospects.

To quote the King, not of Scotland but of just about everywhere else. We need “a little less conversation a little more action please.” Salmond and the rest of them are too engrossed in the game of politics and not focused on the realities of life.

2 comments:

James Higham said...

So, accepting the last paragraph, what next, Richard?

Richard Havers said...

Let's just get on with the job of governing the country under the rules that apply. This wanting to move the goal posts deflects from the tasks at hand. In my experience people keen on changing the rules are usually not up to the job.

The issues we face as a country are not about independence and all the nonsense that goes with it. Th population of Scotland didn't vote for this, the SNP are a minority government. They got around a third of the votes and their little cousin Robin and his Green chum got around 1% of the votes cast. This is not a mandate for all this nonsense.

Everything AS and the SNP do is about pushing for independence,.

What should they do.

1. Address environmental issues more fully.
2. Address affordable housing for the young in particular
3. Focus more on improving the appalling tourism marketing
4. De Quango us

That'll do for starters :)