Interesting Links for 17-10-2013

[andrewducker]

• European leaders are overplaying what Scotland will need to go through if it goes independent
  (tags: scotland europe independence )
• Social mobility report: Work 'may be no route out of poverty'
  (tags: work uk money pay )
• Factcheck: Is the 'bedroom tax' responsible for tripling foodbank usage?
  (tags: uk housing food welfare )
• House Stenographer

Comments

[artkouros]

Free the masons! I'm pretty sure if I had to record everything that went on in the House I'd go crazy too.

[gonzo21]

God they're unbelievable, bringing back ID cards *again*, only this time they'll call them something different so people will be okay with them. I expect they'll probably be 'Anti-Immigrant Cards' or 'Stop The Terrorists Getting Benefits Cards'.

[danieldwilliam]

Anti-Immigrant Card, isn’t that Nigel Farage?

[gonzo21]

Certainly one of the nicer things I've heard him referred to as lately. :)

[andrewducker]

It's from the UKIP version of It's A Knockout.

Play the Anti-Immigrant Card and nobody for'n gets any points that round.

[hano]

I wonder what the stenographer would have said if the shutdown had gone on another week?

[hano]

Fuck off spammer

[a_pawson]

Everyone is looking for a legal answer to whether or not Scotland would be a member or not but the reality is the EU is a private members club and everything is up for negotiation. We are taking about an expanding organisation that is about to admit Albania and Turkey, of course they will admit an independent Scotland. However there would be negotiations so the likelihood is Scotland would enter on less favourable terms because it would lose at least part of the budget contribution rebate that Thatcher and Major negotiated in the 80s and 90s. Both sides would do well to quit all the scaremongering and arguing over legal opinions and admit as much.

[gonzo21]

Yep.

Plus I doubt the EU would let a new member state, particularly a small and insignificant one, join up without obliging them to adopt the Euro. That's pretty much a pre-requisite of membership these days isn't it?

I can understand why the EU are unwilling to comment on a maybe though, I doubt they want anything concrete set down in in black and white for other seceding regions to look at.

But I really do wish both sides would sit down and set out what is known, free from bias, so that the voters can make an informed choice.

[danieldwilliam]

Scotland is small but not enitrely insignificant if you are very, very interested in renewable energy.

Not saying the EU is that interested in renewables but I can see a trade where Scotland agrees to a genuine commitment to think really hard about joining the Euro at some point in the future and the EU recognises the unique situation of Scotland and the pound and the real deal is that the EU says we can have our own currency if we don’t take our wind away.

[gonzo21]

And if somebody ever manages to figure out a way to make tidal wave generation work on a big scale, the UK becomes suddenly really quite important. Likewise Portugal and Spain.

[del_c]

Milburn's comments are full of 'squeezed middle' logic: "we are shocked and surprised that no matter how hard we put the poor scum in the vise, respectable people still feel the pinch!"

Respectable people feel the pinch because you're putting the poor scum in the vise, and even more means testing will only make that worse. Progressive taxation, not means testing, is the answer to the question "are wealthy people having it too good?"

As with austerity logic, the depressing thing is that the right answers were worked out before the first half of the twentieth century was over. It's as if we've all gone back to miasmatism, or phlogiston.