[hibeejim21]

Keir Starmer, flanked by former-PM Gordon Brown, unveiled Labour’s plans for UK constitutional reform. There is a clue in that first sentence as to why it’s not going to blunt moves towards Scottish independence. This report is about Labour reclaiming its so-called ‘Red Wall’ seats from the Tories and it offers nothing new for Scotland. In fact, it confirms that Labour are committed to Brexit and therefore the power grab that goes with it. One can only add it is vague, dishonest and lacks any full commitment to do anything other than trying to fool a Scottish electorate AGAIN!!! Anything offered from a quisling named Gordon Brown (the VOW liar of 2014!!) attached to it, a shady associate of that sinister Brit govt "Union Unit" must be viewed with great suspicion and scepticism.

It's funny how labour respect its own made up mandates but not others delivered by the scottish electorate isn't it ? Especially via a plan from an unelected has been like Brown.

Whilst i agree that other parts of England should have more powers devolved to them, i can't really see either the tories or labour delivering on that. The way the UK "works" is totally down to power being held at westminster and the wealth being retained in the south.

I reckon most of it will be watered down or ditched by the time of labours next conference anyway. But the telling parts are in the small print - they see Scotland as another region of England, and England is the UK forever.

xxxx you Jockoland ... with lots of love, Labour. A party formed by a scotsman.

[0762]

Starmer has effectively "sealed Labour's fate in Scotland" although it was blootered years ago for good reason!!
Re the the British Labour Party, it has been in existence for 122 years. Since it's inception, it has for example been proposing HoL abolition, but has tellingly never gotten around to it in the total of 33 years of Labour governance spanning certain periods from 1924 to 2010. At the same time, one must point out Labour has remained committed to an all-powerful political centre, not limited in what it can do; that remains at its core -"an elective dictatorship"! Add to that, Labour believe in the elixir of winning monopoly political power on a minority of votes as the gold standard of how Labour can and should operate in govt. IMO it doesn't matter to Labour that the reality is that, since the creation of a mass franchise, Tories are more often in office than Labour, or that there are only brief episodes of Labour govt after the Tories exhaust themselves or self-destruct - that pattern holds for 1945, 1964, 1974, 1997, and maybe 2024? WHOLESALE DEMOCRATIC TRANSFORMATION IS NOT SOMETHING THE UK POLITICAL CLASSES WILL ENCOURAGE AS IT WORKS AGAINST THEIR INTERESTS. It can only come about through pressure from the ground up, by popular support, and in times of constitutional crises. Brown's report is another attempt to "tinker at the edges" with the purpose of renewing the constitutional status quo while seeing the citizens of the UK as spectators who are not the creators of their own future - massively at odds with the vision for change in Scotland btw.

[0762]

https://www.facebook.com/believeinscot/v...903734630/

This is a great video describing "Broken Britain v a prosperous independent Scotland". Support still rising for Scottish independence as more n more Scots "see the light" re the Unionist myth of being an equal partner free to choose when to leave this broken Union. Believe in Scotland and tell a friend.

[0762]

Energy has become a major issue pushing Scotland towards independence. People across Scotland can see that they are being ripped off – they pay the highest electricity bills in the world despite living in an energy-rich country.

“Scotland has the energy – it just needs the power”, new SNP parliamentary leader and MP Stephen Flynn told Westminster last week. He stated that the average bill in Scotland is not £2,500 a year as it is in the UK – it is £3,300 per year. That is despite the fact that Scotland produces six times the amount of gas we consume and that 97.4% of our gross electricity consumption comes from low-cost renewable sources 104.

In answer, PM Rishi Sunak talked about the government’s energy price cap – which is being reduced in April. There was no recognition or acknowledgment of the higher bills Scots face. There was no recognition either of the fact that England’s reliance on Scottish energy exports is increasing (up 67% since 2000), with Scotland exporting 39% of its electricity to England and Northern Ireland in 2019.

The growing anger over how Scotland is made to dance to the UK’s tune over energy policy is encouraging many Scots to feel a sense of urgency in demanding and getting independence.

The UK government has made political choices over energy.

Under current devolution arrangements, the power to regulate the energy market lies firmly with Westminster. The way they have chosen to do it has been ideologically driven and political. Arms-length bodies like Ofgem are only there to enforce the UK government’s rules. Those rules are bad for Scotland and for the Scottish people – but that doesn’t much matter to the UK government, as it is not elected by the people of Scotland. WE NEED TO CHANGE THAT ASAP!!

[theo_luddite]

"We are pleased to see that the Government has announced a new Energy Price Guarantee which will replace the energy price cap. The Prime Minister’s statement confirmed that the Energy Price Guarantee would be set at £2,500 per annum from 1st October 2022 for a typical household (one that uses 12,000 kilowatt hours of gas a year, and 2,900 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, and paying both by Direct Debit). This is a decrease from the £3,549 per annum previously announced by Ofgem at the end of August."

From https://www.scottishpower.co.uk/blog/pricecap-oct22

If the "average bill" is £3300 then the average house is using more energy than the figures quoted by Scottish Power.

If I was using the same amount of energy in a house in Scotland as I use in my house in England I'd be paying exactly the same bill. You are not paying more per kWh than we do. You are further north, the ambient temperature is generally cooler all the year round, you therefore for the same size/build/insulation quality you will use more energy to maintain the same temperature inside the house and therefore pay more. The bills are NOT capped at £2500 per year, it's the price per kWh that is capped.

[0762]

Scotland should be regulating its own energy market - end of argument!! And prices would be lowered with full powers to deal with an advanced strategy to enhance our eco-energy provision far into the future.

Additionally:-

Under current devolution arrangements, the power to regulate the energy market lies firmly with Westminster. The way they have chosen to do it has been ideologically driven and political. Arms-length bodies like Ofgem are only there to enforce the UK government’s rules. Those rules are bad for Scotland and for the Scottish people – but that doesn’t much matter to the UK government, as it is not elected by the people of Scotland.

The UK government’s choices are not Scotland’s choices:

They privatised the national grid which is now owned by Transco
They gradually privatised all the UK’s publicly-owned gas and electricity boards
They created a virtually unregulated “free market” for energy companies and when 29 went bust, they decided to claw back through energy bills citizens’ money which was lost due to regulatory failure
They charge every household a levy to fund costly nuclear power, instead of investing in technologies that Scotland has world-beating expertise in, like tidal power
They have failed to set the right market conditions to support supply chains in Scotland
They have failed to set the right market conditions for energy storage, like pumped hydro, that Scotland has huge potential in
They have failed to set the right market conditions to attract investment in green manufacturing, like electric car batteries or wind turbines
They made it more lucrative for companies to import power from Europe than to build renewable facilities in Scotland
They have failed to invest in insulation and energy conservation – and as Scotland’s budget largely depends on the “Barnett consequentials” a policy designed to suit England, that affects funding for these initiatives
Energy analysts say that the lack of investment means the UK will likely miss the boat in terms of becoming a leader in the green economy
The way that the UK has managed energy policy punishes Scotland

Scotland’s consumers are charged 50 percent more in standing charges to use electricity than most of England
Scottish energy suppliers pay 10 times as much to connect to the National Grid
The National Grid has been starved of investment for decades, left configured around coal-fired power stations in the north of England
The National Grid doesn’t have enough capacity to connect renewable energy to homes in Scotland – wind turbines have to turn off power or face fines much of the time
Scotland is not allowed to operate as its own “node” which would give it the capacity to adjust consumption in a smart way through pricing, and to export energy to England at a different price from what domestic consumers pay
There is not enough capacity to store energy in ways such as pumped hydro – although Scotland used to have world-leading technology in this area
Scotland’s bills are the highest in the world btw!!!!!

[theo_luddite]

Scotland’s consumers are charged 50 percent more in standing charges to use electricity than most of England

Complete and utter bollocks

Flexible prices paid by Direct Debit



Prices paid by other methods, e.g. Standard Credit



You can download them here and likely find similar on any other suppliers website

https://octopus.energy/blog/energy-price-cap-oct-2022/

Do you seriously think these rates would be significantly better/worse than any other supplier at this moment in time?

[0762]

Heyyy!! Stop being selective in a huge list of criticisms (#826) of the management of the energy regs and skewed pricing by Westminster against an energy-rich Scotland. These figures cover the tariff amendments for 2022 (that's just a cute snapshot of a criticism that covers a lengthier period than 2022 onwards!) and also do not refer to areas throughout Scotland, some of them in the islands and other rural areas within Scotland.

Energy Action Scotland (EAS) analysed Scottish energy statistics, following the UK government’s “historic intervention” in the energy market and a pledge that average bills will not rise above £2,500 for the next two years. The analysis, making use of official Scottish energy statistics, shows that across Scotland the typical dual-fuel bill has gone up from £1,375.97 in 2021 to £3,302.45 as of October 1st 2022.

Rural areas are worst hit – as they don’t have access to the gas network which is priced more cheaply. Argyll and Bute face the highest costs of the 32 local authority areas in Scotland with average annual dual-fuel bills soaring from £1,842.06 in April 2021 to £4,421.49 in Nov 2022. Residents of Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, the council that covers the Western Isles, face the second highest rises with average prices soaring from £1,754.80 in 2021 to £4,212.57 now. Even in the cheapest area Glasgow City, the least expensive local authority area for bills in Scotland, the average bill will be £2,672.47.

Note the Scottish First Minister met Rishi Sunak for the first time today to discuss various pressing issues (and hopefully come to an amicable consensus!) with one of the main issues unsurprisingly being the ongoing energy probs!!

An international comparison shows a growing gulf between the UK and other countries.

A study released in Nov 2022 looked at Government data on electricity and gas prices from the past five years to analyse the impact of the worsening cost of living crisis and discover which countries have had the biggest year-on-year increase in energy prices. The data, compiled by BOXT, was released when UK’s energy price cap was recently raised from 28p to 34p per kWh.

The Republic of Ireland has the second highest electricity cost, paying 18.99p per kWh. That’s 53 per cent more expensive than the average of these 24 countries. However, prices are slightly more affordable when it comes to gas in Ireland, which stands at 5.21p per kWh.

The countries with the highest electricity prices

Rank Country Price – pence per kWh
1 United Kingdom 19.31
2 Ireland 18.99
3 Spain 18.51
3 Belgium 16.34
3 Japan 15.64
6 Australia 14.01
7 Switzerland 14.00
8 Netherlands 13.98
9 Germany 13.58
10 Czech Republic 12.69


But Kwh is not a guide to what people pay. Most European countries are providing a great deal more help than the UK government is.  For example, the Norwegian government launched a power bill support scheme earlier this year, which covers 80% of the portion of the electricity price that exceeds NOK 0.70 (6p) per kWh. From October to December of 2022, that percentage will jump to 90%.

In Germany, from January, gas and electricity bills were capped. Government subsidies allow households and small businesses to pay a lower rate for 80% of the gas they use and 70% of their electricity consumption.

Conclusion

Scotland is literally powerless to do anything about the way that Westminster decides to plan and regulate the UK’s energy sector. The UK government does that in line with political choices that are very different from the ones Scots make time after time at the ballot box. It will be very difficult for Scotland to rebuild the kind of capacity it lost through privatisation in the Thatcher years  – and it is not something that can realistically be tackled without independence.

Anger over the way Scotland’s energy potential is being squandered is fuelling a drive towards independence. People can see how Norway benefited from oil and gas and where it is now, economically, compared to Scotland. Scotland was fooled once – it doesn’t want to be fooled twice.

Scotland should operate as its own node within the UK. The Scottish government should be able to control and regulate the energy market, including the national grid. It should be able to set the right market incentives for the kind of technologies Scotland needs and which will help the country to achieve ambitious net-zero targets. 

The only way to achieve those powers is through independence!

[0762]

Catching up on the first Scottish Questions of 2023 at Westminster and what a pathologically challenged man the Sec of State for Scotland is - confirmed again, Alistair Jack, a neo-imperialist autocrat commented that, "There is no desire in Scotland to re-join the EU"????????????? That was a blatant lie by this charlatan of a man who continues to pledge support for the failed Brexit project!!!!! Why is there no mechanism to hold MPs to account when they are deliberately misleading parliament and the public?? The evidence is significant enough to say, "You are a liar and a cad Mr Jack"!!! A shameless liar in full view, he also trotted out the old lies about currency, pensions and Scotland's deficit (i.e. UK deficit!!!!) being impediments to stop the EU accepting membership of an independent Scotland. As ever, the plan is to use Project Fear. And I thought the pantomine season was over - not so!! Jack and the Bampots will be with us all year, unfortunately!! The use of "no desire" is stating that nobody in Scotland supports re-joining and that is simply untrue; he must know that. Does he honestly think we'll all change our minds because he tells us this shit??? What a contemptuous prat!!

[0762]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/companie...98c6971abb

Another Tory, the Sec of State for Scotland, with vested interest exposed in a mini version of the Baroness Mone scandal!! I'd love to bring this anti-Scotland charlatan down and "get rid" of him for good. However, in reality, all we'll get is another Tory clone of this moron.