Today' revelation in the Telegraph (link to be added) that the government has ordered a review into the Barnett formula, by which Scotland benefits to tune of £1500 per person, will be welcome to most - assuming it comes to anything.
But what a gift to the SNP! I suspect Scottish MPs in marginal seats will be telling Gordon Brown that this will lose Labour a whole raft of seats at the next election.
Most people are naturally suspicious of government reviews as they tend to tell the government what they want to hear - look at the review of 24 hour licensing, which found, surprise surprise, that it had been an outstanding success! The test of a review of the Barnett formula is if it passes the Barnett test. Lord Barnett said recently: "I didn't create this formula to give Scotland an advantage over the rest of the country."
In some ways, this formula is a bit like the Schleswig Holstein question in the days of Lord Palmerston. Only three people understand it, and two of them are dead. The one thing I remember about it is that I discovered that when Crossrail got the go-ahead, it meant that Scotland would also benefit to the tune of 10 per cent of Crossrail's cost. What I could never get confirmed is whether if a similar project is undertaken in Scotland, the reverse is true. I think we all know the answer.
24 comments:
We'll have to wait and see now won't we. Being as the former Conservative and Unionist Party want to cut Scotland adrift being unable to make much headway and sensing a Westminster advantage I'm sure you'll not have much to say on the matter except good riddance ... which is sure to attract the vote to your team.
The biggest trouble with the Barnett Formula is that it doesn't help Manchester and Newcastle and indeed rurtal Cornwall, not that it does help high cost areas of Scotland, NI and Wales.
Even more damaging to Labour will be the not wholly surprising fact that Brown tried to cajole his old pal Ming to get Labour and the Libbies to keep the SNP out of government in Scotland. The 'old pals' act will do damage to the Libbies as well up here- which is no bad thing at all! I'll have to read 'The Scotsman' ( The UK's top paper) to get all the gory details.
Come on Iain, don't ruin Lord Palmerston's joke.
"The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it.”
Another nail in the United Kingdom's coffin also. Potentially.
If Scotland has its money reduced the SNP will have a field day and it will increase pressure for fiscal independence and bring 'It's oor Oil' campaigners out onto the streets.
Still, with a Scottish First Lord of the Treasury ordering the report, and with a Scottish Chancellor delivering it for review to Wendy Alexander and Des Browne, the prospects for any detrimental outcome for Scotland are serverely limited.
Interesting figures! I didn't realise is was that great a difference. Here in Medway (Kent) we currently receive a total of £284 per person -- little more than one-sixth Scotland's funding.
Seems to me to be a purely party political move. Note that the taxes going north were not a problem last year, when we had Scottish Assembly elections (I refuse to call it a Parliament, as that would imply there were Parliamentarians of note present north of the border, rather than glorified local councillors). Now we have local council elections on our doorstep, predominantly in England, the money flow suddenly becomes an issue. Wouldn't want Brown to suffer an embarrassing defeat, would we...?
A prediction:
1. In coming months, Brown campaign is partly based on the review as evidence that he listens and cares about English taxes.
2. Election happens, Labour lose anyway.
3. Review is published *after* the election, comes out in favour of Scotland.
4. In next general election, Scottish Labour use the review to campaign that Labour are safe for Scotland.
Am I being to cynical?
Can we see any more blatent example of jerrmandering than this from the Dear Leader?
"Vote for Labour and keep the Barnett Formula, vote for SNP and we cut it".
I know Gordon was going on about Scotland not being able to afford to be SNP at the last Scottish election but this is ridiculous
The one thing I remember about it is that I discovered that when Crossrail got the go-ahead, it meant that Scotland would also benefit to the tune of 10 per cent of Crossrail's cost.
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Can you explain this bit?
Ah dear me ,Brown and his reviews. Of one thing we can be sure . It has no other purpose whatsoever except the coarsest of political calculation.
I notice that the New Statesman carried a long article by that ----( part of woman’s body) Marquand on Lib Lab cooperation. The crux is that without a majority in England brown will have to include Liberals in the Cabinet to claim a legitimate right to govern in England without "English votes".
I suspect the deal has already been done and this is why Clegg is parading his stupidity and insincerity for all to see risking even his authority in the Party to save Brown over Lisbon. This is the context of the Scottish position for Brown. It is the key to his new Reich and he thinks of nothing else
Talk of Lib lab pacts bubbles to the surface whenever Brown is behind and all Brown’s thoughts are on juggling Scottish seats with English legitimacy which will set the terms of the deal.Somewhere in his foul mephitic lair this blind Caliban is moving a pawn in the four dimensional game of manipulation he endlessly plays.
That’s what this is; a pawn .The precise details of his fiendish machinations are currently opaque but fiendish they certainly are
Another review ordered by Gordon Brown ? Surely not ....
Since Gordon Brown gives people their opinions we can be sure this is a smoke screen for a decision he has already thought about making, but will review latter - when he knows what the Tories are going to do, no hold on let me think - will the people see my vision in this. Perhaps another review ... now whose credibility can I borrow this time ?
Chris Paul
You cannot blame the Conservative Party for the iniquities of the half devolved Union. This is Labour`s arrangement , it was designed to protect their SCottish seats from Nationalists whilst including them fully in Westminster.
It was never sustainable and should not be . The fact that Labour have got away with this attcak on the English for so long is what should suprise you.
This sanctimonious waffling about "The Union" from you ,is about as sick making as the Lib Dum witter about democracy whilst breaking a manifesto pledge.
Have you absolutely no shame .. ?
Nick, he can't explain it because he just made it up.
As ever, Lord Palmerston was being facetious. The Schleswig Holstein question was very simple. (Who is to be master?) Only the answer was difficult.
These reviews are an all too familar thing. Could it be that Brown has such a fragile sense of his own worth as a leader, that on every decision he needs some legitimacy to what he does.
I get the idea of these reviews as being equivalent to sock-puppets with Brown's hand up them whisphering in his ear that all his decisions are good ones.
Of course these reviews won't say anything which the government won't want to hear (see the 24drinking review yesterday for that), but its worrying that we are now in the 'Policy by review' world, rather than 'Policy by politicans' world. Politicans are accountable, reviews and the shadowy people which write them, arn't.
The formula is actually designed to eliminate the spending in England in Scotland. For every increase in spending in England the increase in Scotland is slightly less e.g 5% for England, 4.7% for Scotland. So over a period of time the spending per head will converge.
Please note however that this is only for identified Goverment spending which is about 66% of the total.The remaining 34%, civil service, MOD R&D etc is not included and most of this (over £150 billion per annum)goes to the SE of England.
The Goverments own figures show that the biggest recipient of cash per head (all goverment spending) is the SE.
So before you start remarks about £1500 per head more check the numbers.
Oh do please stop going about this Barnett formula tosh.
Scotland have the oil, so it is perverse to suggest that they are benefiting unjustly, when the North Sea oil kept us bankrolled for years.
"So before you start remarks about £1500 per head more check the numbers."
Well if its in the Telegraph, it must true! Heaven forbid that we should also scrutinize some of the claims made about disproportionate spending in some parts of the country.
Hope the timely doubling of the tax on Oil/Gas companies which has been used to help balance HM Treasury books does not prevent further exploration in the North Sea either, because at the end of the day the more reliant we become on imports, the more likely prices will rise for consumers throughout the UK.
My my, it seems such a long time ago that those in the South were enjoying lower gas prices while reaping the benefits of the extra revenue into treasury coffers. The minute the oil start to dry up, suddenly the Scots are being given an unfair advantage.
Now please everyone have their sick bags at the ready
Does anyone have any information on Barnett Plus ?
'cos there is such a thing and they keep VERY quiet about it.
Scotland have the oil, so it is perverse to suggest that they are benefiting unjustly, when the North Sea oil kept us bankrolled for years.
How does that work then , which industries visible or invisible do we take out fo ther equation and call 100% ours. The City ?
Would the Oil have been England`s if it was discovered in the Thames Estuary ? No
While this is arguable both ways the democratic defacit is not and thats what it is really all about .
We have to have English votes. At the moment the thin lipped mean Pictish hoard are getting aboslutely the best of all worlds and we are getting the worst.
PS
Anon- The rise of nationalism from misty affectation to serious politics is exactly co-extensive with the first barrels of black stuff coming ashore.Thats you Scot ...tighter than a sharks arse, always has been always will be .( They are so mean they woudn't breath out if they could avoid it ).
I think we should do a deal with the Orkneys keep the Oil and get rid of the Ginga hairy arsed oiks
It's a scorched-earth policy to try and scare the errant flock back into the Labour fold. It is backfiring spectacularly.
Actually, Lord Palmerston drawled that, of the three men who had alone grasped the intricacies of the Schleswig-Holstein Question, one was dead, one had gone mad, and the third - himself - had forgotten.
The Barnett Formula, figured out in the days of the Callaghan Government, is actually designed over time to reduce Westminster public spending in Scotland, in terms of per capita advantage for Scots over our friends in England - while recognising that delivery of essential public services is inevitably more expensive in a country where three-quarters of a considerable landmass is most sparsely populated and where, simply by dint of Scotland's latitude, winter heating costs (for instance) are greater for schools, hospitals etc.
Barnett should not be carelessly attacked as some anti-English scheme to benefit the subsidy-junkie Jocks, and should not be considered in isolation from the Exchequer's considerable revenues from oil and natural gas exploitation in the Scottish North Sea (which is most of it), duty and export of Scotch Whisky, and Scotland's abiding role as Airstrip One - hosting, for instance, at Faslane the Trident submarines which make us a top target in a putative nuclear war. If the English want Trident, they're welcome to it.
john macleod---some sense at last on a topic that so many people south of the border cannot grasp(including Iain Dale).
newmania--see above. Nonsense and ignorance in equal measure from you.
Nixon and China, I suppose.
Only Brown and Darling can tell the Scots once and for all to get over their peculiarly 1970s, wildly ahistorical self-definition in terms of (mostly imaginary) grievances, and so, among much else, to stop demanding an unconstitutional denial of equal British subjecthood to the people of England, a violation of everything that the Labour Movement was founded for, and a device for employing the middle and upper middle classes in the Central Belt to do nothing much, to the neglect of the poor, the working classes, the Highlands, the Islands and the Borders.
Will Brown and Darling pull it off? Or will the twin bourgeois curses of greed and self-pity win out, accompanied by the standard self-justifying drivel about how it is all somehow to do with helping the less fortunate?
Pure spin. Labour cannot afford to damage their relationship with Scottish voters even more. This is headline making for the benefit of the English, and another attempt to quell an obvious vote winner for the Conservatives.
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