By rogercolkett

You know that I support your untiring efforts to confront the lies obfuscations and omissions of the mainstream media that seek to show Scotland in as negative a way possible.

And I share your annoyance at the waste of resources by the UK Government on projects that provide no benefit to Scotland, it’s part of the reason that I want  Scotland to be an independent country.

The main reason, though, is that I would like to live in a Scotland that wasn’t tied to the anti-social and spurious neo-liberal Ideology that dominates the cities of London and Westminster. That ideology is anti-social because it promotes the idea of a low-tax lightly-regulated market-based political economy benefitting rich people rather than society as a whole, and it’s spurious because, as was amply demonstrated in 2007/8, markets can’t be trusted to make important decisions, and as exemplified by the Grenfell Tower tragedy, poorly enforced inadequate regulation costs lives.

But you said that Scots who work hard to pay their dues should be rightly aggravated because they contribute to the UK tax base that funds central government departments and that Scottish taxpayers fund a portion of reserved UK-wide expenditures through UK taxes.

And that is just wrong.

It isn’t tax payers money, it’s the government’s money and the government chooses what is spent; so, it’s the government’s responsibility to spend it wisely for the benefit of all its citizens.

You now say you know; so, why on earth did you repeat an unfortunately widely accepted falsehood that is part of an ideology that supports the interests of the wealthy and privileged rather than those of the poor and precarious?

The neo-liberal lie needs to refuted at every opportunity rather than unthinkingly parroted.

Roger

John - you are absolutely correct Roger. My only excuse is that I'm mirroring the claims of the tabloids - English taxpayers subsidise Scots - and, cynically, misleading Scots myself in an effort to counter Unionists misleading those same folk. I do see the problem but as I busily and at speed try to counter as much as possible every day, I'm unsure what to do.

Here's a thought - write a piece yourself for us on what the HS2 debacle actually means for Scots and I'll publish it.