Tuesday 5 August 2014

Scotland: Will Labour, Tories and LibDms have an identical paragraph in their 2015 Manifestos?

Will Labour, Tories and LibDms have ab identical paragraph in 2015 Manifesto?
Today's Guardian reports that ...
"David Cameron signed a three party pledge that Scotland will quickly be given new powers if there is a no vote in the referendum, in a bid to spike Alex Salmond's guns before his TV debate against Alistair Darling today.
The joint statement offering extra tax and legal powers for Scotland has also been signed by Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, in an orchestrated effort to shore up the no vote.
Their signatures on the cross-party pledge – first endorsed by Scottish leaders of the pro-UK parties in June, will be unveiled in Glasgow on Tuesday morning as Darling and Salmond prepare for their first televised debate on STV".

 Published by Darling's Better Together pro-UK campaign, the joint statement commits Labour, the Tories and Lib Dems to give Scotland more power to raise its own taxes and to control parts of the social security system, within months of next May's general election.

Once again I ask the question 

"Why should a NO vote be sens as endorsing these extra powers ?"

I now this seems odd from a Blog  which  actually backs a YES vote.

However  it is absurd that NO voters  some of who may believe  that devolution should be reversed should be counted as endorsing this.

It shows the duplicity of the NO campaign in that they believe that they can Bribe potential YES voters with a promise of more powers even if a number of  NO voters oppose this.

And then there's the  question of the other devolved "Regions" (Yuck word) If Scotland is to receive more powers what of them and what of Cornwall which has a justified claim for unique treatment.?

But the Scottish referendum  should be about a YES or NO vote about not a tacit endorsement of  as No one in Scotland will be fooled by  as the SNP put it this Westminster-led rehash of vague promises and unspecified more powers in the event of a no vote – the Tories have tried that before," 

I thought for instance the LIbDEms believed in a Federal solution and yet they join in with the Unionist Parties who offer the same thing.

In the wake It is going to look rather odd  to have all Three Major Parties having a identical paragraph in their Manifestos with regards to Scottish Powers.

But then we in Wales will probably have to struggle to find  any mention at all .

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the opening line in the newspaper say it all, it's an attempt by the NO campaign to stick it to Alex Salmond and try to trip him up, i really hope he sticks it to Alistair Darling in the debate tonight.

What the main stream paper are less keen to report about Alex Salmond is his call for an arms boycott against Israel, Scotland First Minister calls for an arms boycott, http://gazasolidarity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/scottish-government-calls-for-arms.html while all this while Wales's Labour First Minister Carwyn Jones remain silent