Friday 13 February 2009

The mark was missed

Local Income Tax was dropped this week - for very sensible reasons. Darling's raid on the Scottish coffers of future years means that the funding to implement this far fairer taxation system will be missing. Imagine the Chancellor doing that to his own constituents! On top of that there isn't, currently, a majority in Parliament for progressive local taxation.

While it was the sensible thing to do, the sensible use of Government resources, it did open up the opportunity for Labour to score a palpable hit. Missed completely, though, as Ian Bell pointed out.

2 comments:

Wrinkled Weasel said...

It was pretty obvious that Gordon was going to sabotage every good thing the SNP want to do.

Let's not forget the refusal to provide capital funding for the Forth Bridge, and their refusal to help Scottish Fishermen during the fuel crisis.

While I am here, as an Englishman, resident in Scotland, who voted SNP last time, what are you actively doing to combat anti-English aggression?

Calum Cashley said...

Any aggression should, of course, be reported to the police. Anti-English aggression is, of course, a crime under the Public Order Act 1986 (UK Act) and Section 96 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

To seek to prevent racism, including racism against people from elsewhere on these islands, there's the Race Equality Scheme - http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/11/28092741/0

The One Scotland campaign -
www.scotlandagainstracism.com

I think there's more to be done yet - the recommendations of the Working Group on Hate Crime have not been fully implemented at this time, for example (I'd have to ask about to find out what the full situation is - Patrick Harvie's Bill would do some of it), and there will be plenty of other options for improvement.

Was there something more specific you were looking for?