Slimy Tory toff
A couple of days after his disgraceful and dodgy intervention in the Scottish Independence debate, the Chancer of the Exchequer has announced that international athletes competing in the Glasgow Diamond League meeting in July will be given exemption from UK income tax.
Leaving aside the very live issues of whether this is a bribe, and whether it discriminates unfairly against British athletes, George Osborne’s timing is crude to say the least.
This stuff may be delighting the London tabloids, but it’s all going to backfire in the final stages of the debate.
Yes for Scotland
Quintin Jardine's blog 
Excuse me Quintin do you think someone should inform Better Together that their masters have decided the Honeymoon Period is over and we’re back to the Abuse and Threats
http://bettertogether.net/blog/entry/this-valentines-day-dont-break-up-with-us-we-love-scotland
There is only a minority of people both sides of the border that take anything the Daily Mail says as the truth. That said what is the truth, where can I find unbiased facts about the pros and cons of the splitting of the union. Your pro stance comes over as very anti English stand point, and to be honest when I read some of your comments my initial reaction is a three word reply with the last two being off then.
You want independence but want to keep the pound, surely you must see the irony in that. I’ve said this before be careful what you wish for. I have always voted, I believe we all should, people who disenfranchise themselves, really annoy me. That said in Scotland at the moment who would anyone vote for. Seriously Salmond and his lackeys, make our mob and I include all parties, (yes even Millipeed) look like world leaders.
So come on Quinten, why independence – give us some positive reasons – not English bashing, actual positive pro Scottish reasons to break from the union
Chris, as my dad used to say, I haven’t laughed as much since the day Granny caught her tits in the mangle.
I don’t have a ‘pro stance’, I have a Scottish stance. I knew fifty years ago how I’d vote in a referendum, but I didn’t believe until three years ago that I’d ever have the chance. I don’t want to break from the United Kingdom, for I’m a monarchist, but I do want to repeal the Act of Union. I don’t have to give reasons for, or justify, being Scottish, and for believing that my nation is perfectly capable of running a successful economy and of managing its own social infrastructure, foreign relations, defence etc.
As for my attitude to the English, if I really was bashing them you would know, trust me, but it isn’t going to happen. My beef is with the Westminster government, which has treated Scotland as little more than a colony since it gained mastery over our affairs.
I am not anti-English, any more than I’m anti- any other nation. I find the suggestion more than a little offensive, since my wife had the good fortune to be born in South Shields, and many of my close circle of friends hail from Yorkshire, Newcastle, Manchester and points south.
Many of them will vote in the referendum, an opportunity denied to Scots who have moved south of the border to follow job opportunities made scarce in their homeland by three centuries of Westminster domination. I should object to that situation but I don’t. Those who take part in the referendum will have to live with the consequences of the result. If the Yes campaign can’t persuade enough of them of the advantage of living in a new, vibrant, economically strong, socially responsible, left of centre nation, then it will have failed.
You expose yourself, rather indecently I’m afraid, by prefacing your tirade against our First Minister and his colleagues with the word ‘Seriously’. All i can offer to that is the McEnroe response. I would suggest to you that if Alex Salmond was a Unionist he’d be the leader of whichever major party he had chosen to join, and would be Prime Minister today.
For the last twenty years, the pygmies who have formed and led successive Westminster Governments have shown a sad inability to run a whelk stall, far less preside over one of the largest global economies. Under their stewardship, our economy has gone down the crapper, we have been dragged into bloody, unjustifiable and shameful foreign wars, which have killed many of our finest and mutilated even more, and we have seen social and racial divisions deepen. If that’s your notion of world leadership, carry on, but don’t take it too hard if Scotland chooses to opt out.
Yes for Scotland.
Quinten, thanks for your reply, please allow me to defend myself, if you think my comments about Mr Salmond exposes me as anti Scottish, nothing could be further from the truth, half my relatives are Scottish, I now appreciate you are anti Government not anti English.
With regard to the muppet’s in Westminster, I’m not surprised Millipeed wants to keep Scotland in the union, a significant number of Labour seats come from there. The Tories are unionist by definition , I’m surprised by the Liberals though I for a party that expound proportional representation and wants to govern by referendum they at least would be behind the vote. Personally I think it’s right there is going to be a referendum. And if Scotland vote for Independence then so be it.
I like your whelk stall comment I doubt Mr Salmond would know how to open a Whelk let alone run a stall, mind you if someone was opening a Whelk, and there was a hint of a camera, he’d be in the background waving the Saltire.
Anyway to good luck to you I hope you get what you want, a free and independent Scotland, just get someone with a bit about them to run the country.
In defence of Salmond; when the Scottish Parliament was set up by Blair and Donald Dewar, it was given a PR electoral system. Demographically it was reckoned to be impossible for there to be a majority Government but equally that Labour would be pretty much locked in as the permanent majority party.
This was the case for eight years, until 2007, when Salmond’s SNP became the largest party, and Kim Jong-Eck formed a minority administration. Four years later he swept everyone into the sea.
You do not do that without being able to open and retail every crustacean know to man.
That’s all.
I may be displaying my ignorance of the workings of the inland revenue but surely most international non-british athletes will be taxed in their own country and will probably not spend more than a few days in the UK
Do they all get paid even if they lose and is that normally taxed here?
It’s been an issue, it seems. Bolt and other top boys have not been keen on appearing in Britain because HMRC wants some of the money.