By Mark E. Saunders of “The Scottish Minuteman” https://www.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=61575625542197
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MR JW ROBERTSON
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Wow! That Daily Record headline certainly gives the impression of a measurable exodus of Scots workers moving to England to “escape” SNP income tax.
But it is a highly questionable — if not entirely misleading — statement to make.
Where do these British tabloid newspapers pull their numbers from? That was a rhetorical question — just to preempt your answers.
The latest published migration report from HMRC actually shows that Scotland has been a net recipient of people from the rest of the UK.
For example, in the 2022–23 tax year, around 36,500 people moved from the rest of the UK to Scotland, compared with about 29,500 moving in the opposite direction — a much needed net inflow of roughly 6,500 people.
And that isn’t an isolated figure for one particular cherry-picked year.
HMRC found that Scotland had positive net migration from the rest of the UK in 10 of the 13 years covered by its analysis.
However, this doesn’t mean nobody moves from Scotland to England because of taxation. Of course some people may do just that, and for many other reasons too. That’s a free right of movement that we used to share with the rest of Europe.
But this reality rather undermines the impression created by the headline that Scotland is experiencing some great tax-driven exodus.
Then there’s another rather important detail which the Daily Record ‘infographic’ conveniently leaves out.
Most Scottish taxpayers don’t pay more income tax than their counterparts in England.
The Scottish system is progressive. This means that lower earners can pay less while higher earners pay more. The Institute for Fiscal Studies calculated that people earning below roughly £30,300 were actually paying up to £28 less in Scotland than they would elsewhere in the UK.
And there is another inconvenient truth wrapped up in all this too.
A great many higher earners in Scotland don’t regard paying a little more towards the society in which they inhabit as some form of government persecution.
They understand that roads, schools, hospitals, universities, policing, infrastructure and countless other public services don’t just magically appear.
Nor do successful businesses and high earners operate in a vacuum. They know full well that they depend upon, function within and profit from the society around them.
The idea that taxation is automatically some kind of punishment for being successful is a particularly depressing legacy of the “greed is good” mentality that became so fashionable in the ‘yuppy’ 1980s. Who could forget the “greed is good” speech given by the slimy Gordon Gecko in the movie Wall Street (1987)?
Unfortunately, that selfish and grotesque mindset still persists among the ultra-wealthy and among a certain political class.
Nevertheless, at some point, people are going to start asking why Scotland is so routinely portrayed as a failing country from which its own people are desperate to escape.
Perhaps the problem isn’t Scotland.
Perhaps it’s the storytellers who are the problem.
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MR JW ROBERTSON
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Talking-up Scotland 
Am I correct in thinking that these negative nonsense stories just circulate round what were once considered newspapers? The same story was printed in another unionist raggie before, I think.
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I retired last November and the biggest motivation to do so was the realisation that life is short. The second was to not contribute to a foreign colonial enemy state.
MY last job paid around £95k a year and from that I would pay around an extra £1600 for living in Scotland. I have absolutely no problem with that. Neither did my co-workers. We all know that extra taxation was to mitigate the utter mendacity of British rule.
If you earn £30k and under you are better off in Scotland. That’s most of us. And also most of THEM! Add in higher council tax, water bills (for shit water) and the rest, the idea of leaving Scotland for England doesn’t float.
Unless you are in a flooded house in England. Without insurance. And a student loan.
I do have sympathy for the English, but we cannot save them from themselves.
Keep it up John min! Rgds Graham.
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The decidedly NON SCOTTISH Daily Express ran this ‘tax’ story below that they thought would be received as a #SNPBAD story, but instead , as a story, it revealed something that was decidedly very very very much a #LabourBad story and also a #UKBad story as well.
(Mind you the fact that the NON SCOTTISH Daily Express also thought this story was somehow an excellent example by them to express that the SNP were bad , does then exemplify just how very very very #BAD they are as a so called ‘media’ outlet).
What was the story ?
Well according to the NON SCOTTISH Daily Express :
“GB Energy row as a third of workforce refuse to relocate to Scotland amid SNP high taxes”
“relocate to Scotland” ?
Why and from where ?
Is there no one on Scotland who could have been given these jobs and so then done these jobs ?
Seems not , as apparently currently the figures for jobs within GB Energy show that of the 132 employees in total, there is 46 – a little more than a third of the head count – who live in England, Wales or Northern Ireland rather than Scotland.
Chairman Jurgen Maier lives in Manchester, and earns a salary of £114,400 for a two-day per week role.
Scotland (only) gets the nameplate in having GB Energy’s (supposed) HQ in Aberdeen , but they do not get either the Chairman based there nor it seems the majority of workers either.
(i.e. Two years after the General Election the number of employees is down massively on the promised “1,000 or more jobs” when GB Energy was first announced, with only “132 workers currently registered” – of the 132 there are only 53 that are permanent, 31 are short term staff and 48 are on secondment).
Keir Starmer promised that GB Energy would be led by the “talent and skills of the working people in the Granite City“.
Of course the NON SCOTTISH Daily Express published their above story on behalf of the NON SCOTTISH Tories in a combined political attack to target both the SNP and Labour.
However both the NON SCOTTISH Daily Express and the NON SCOTTISH Tories seem to forget these facts below as communicated in October 2021 via the SNP website :
“In 2014, the (Tory/Lib Dem coalition) UK government promised to make Scotland a world leader in carbon capture technology – committing funding for a new carbon capture and storage plant in Scotland”.
“Now (2021), it’s revealed as a yet another Westminster broken promise”.
“The (Tory) UK government chose to reject funding or the Scottish Acorn project, diverting money to England instead”.
“In 2014, UK Energy Secretary, Ed Davey (yellow Tory) confirmed Peterhead as the location for the world’s first gas fired carbon capture and (CCS)N storage facility -backed up by a £100 million UK government investment”.
“Ed Davey said an independent Scotland would find it “more difficult to proceed” with the project, and insisted it was not a bribe to get Scots to vote ‘No’ in the independence referendum”.
“The Scottish CCS project would have captured emissions from Grangemouth and St Fergus, plus a new power station at Peterhead – and would be a crucial component in meeting our world-leading net zero targets”.
However, the (Tory) UK government has recently (2021) announced that the Scottish Acorn cluster will not receive funding – despite being said to be shovel ready – (and) the most advanced and cost-effective out of all options”.
“In 2015, days before the UN climate change conference in Paris, the (Tory) UK government has cancelled its £1 billion investment for carbon capture and storage technology – snubbing the leading project in Peterhead”.
“In 2021 Boris Johnson , went on Scottish radio to suggest that the Scottish carbon capture and storage project was about to receive (Tory) UK government investment”
“Also in 2021 (Tory) UK Energy minister Greg Hands visited Aberdeen to talk about the potential for carbon capture and storage”.
“The Scottish project was considered crucial in Scotland’s journey towards Net Zero, and offered workers in the North East an opportunity of just transition into an alternative, greener industry – creating up to 15,000 jobs over the next three decades”
“However, the (Tory) UK government has decided to sideline Scotland once again”.
An SNP post in 2021 on Twitter stated that “They diverted funds to England again” (“they” being the Tory UK government).
The above via the SNP website is yet another inconvenient truth that both the NON SCOTTISH Daily Express and the NON SCOTTISH Tories wilfully neglect to mention (or remember) , as that then would expose them both as being #very-very-very-BAD for Scotland and also kind of inappropriate for them to assume that they can criticise others when much much worse has been done to Scotland by the both of them. (as a newspaper and as a political party/Tory UK government).
NB: I added (Tory) and (Yellow Tory) onto the above info via the SNP webiste.
Liz S
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It is not just The Daily Record who act against Scotland as a media, but we all know that there are others within the media who are also a part of these active operations, that is in them promoting anyone willing to pile (negativity and attacks) upon the SNP , all to try to thwart Scottish independence ever happening.
The Sunday Herald has this headline today:
“Scot Gov accused of ‘breakdown in accountability’ over £20 billion” ( leading financier demands ‘proper scrutiny of NHS).
Who is this leading financier ?
It’s someone called Sir Ewan Brown.
Now would that be the same Sir Ewan Brown who had written , on 28 November 2023, an article in the (not so independent but very much) Labour think tank website Enlighten, that as a think tank is chaired by Jack McConnell the current Labour Lord and also former Labour FM , this think tank was renamed Enlighten.
(Formerly it was called “Reform Scotland” but for obvious reasons the name apparently had to be changed Ha Ha – though the similarity between Labour and Reform UK made it somewhat unnecessary really – also Ha Ha).
The article in question on the (now renamed) Enlighten website as written by Sir Ewan Brown was this:
“Governance of NHS Scotland – Sir Ewan Brown”
In the article he argues that “If nothing is done to address the over-complex/dysfunctional structure and weak governance of NHS Scotland, the situation is very likely to get worse.”
“I have previously written about governance in both the private and public sectors. My concerns about NHS Scotland’s structure and governance stem from Humza Yousaf’s Parliamentary statement in November 2022, “that because of leadership, governance and cultural failures, NHS Forth Valley has been put under Scottish Government control”.
“The NHS Scotland crisis is clearly much more than failures of leadership, governance and culture in regional boards – but weak governance and concerns around culture are frequently warning signs that “all is not well in the state of Denmark”.
He also stated in this article “I have no political affiliation” yet he seems , within his article, to be overly disparaging of the Scottish government , as run by the SNP, when stating within this article “weak governance of NHS Scotland” and “leadership, governance and cultural failures“.
He also states “It is therefore as a political innocent that I would love to see Scotland showing the world what could be achieved by its political leaders laying down their partisan positions and coming together around a cross-party forum charged with redesigning and reforming NHS Scotland for the 21st century”.
“by its political leaders laying down their partisan positions and coming together around a cross-party forum” ?
Clearly he, Sir Ewan Brown, has not heard of the “Bain principle” as adopted by the Labour party against the SNP. Nor indeed can he be so “politically innocent” to not know that all of the pro UK political parties will never ever “lay down their partisan positions” and “come together” with the SNP as a Scottish government. (as I suspect that he also will not do so in his critique of the Scottish NHS under the Scottish government as ran by the SNP).
This enlighten article written by him ends with the website stating that:
“Ewan Brown, who has served on the boards of listed and private companies, universities and charities, is the author of Corporate Ego. His book describes the spectacular fall from grace of seven prestigious Scottish companies – Burmah Oil, Ivory & Sime, Lilley, HBOS, RBS, Johnston Press and Standard Life; and he identifies major failings in governance as the common cause. Ewan contends that governance in the public sector, and NHS Scotland in particular, is not fit for purpose”.
Really so is that critique not a tad “partisan” of him.
Also that the noted “failures” in his article that he identifies seems to be written by someone who seems decidedly very “politically affiliated” to some other party other than the SNP.
(I mean if he, Brown, chooses to write an article in a pro UK and Labour based think tank chaired by a Labour Lord who was also once a former Labour FM , well then some people might not think that you are as “non affiliated to a political party” as you state ).
Pity that Sir Ewan Brown in both his 2023 Enlighten piece and also in today’s Sunday Herald article has not touched upon (focused a lot upon) the scandal and disaster of PFI ( now that was a true failure and weakness in pro UK governance for the NHS in Scotland , that as an action, was not instigated and proceeded with by the SNP but was an action that was done by the Tories and the Labour party).
“The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) was launched in 1992 by John Major’s Conservative government and massively expanded by Tony Blair’s Labour government to build public infrastructure like schools and hospitals using private money. In Scotland, these legacy deals continue to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds every year“.
Another inconvenient truth that all of the opposition parties, the pro UK media, the pro UK thinks tanks and all of those who write articles for the pro UK media and for these pro UK think tanks all (too) conveniently omit to mention as a salient fact in respect to the finances of the Scottish NHS.
Liz S
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I too was reading Enlighten recently. An October 2024 article by Stuart Paton titled Grangemouth No More.
Grangemouth no more ….? – Enlighten
So Jack McConnell’s Enlighten is just a tool for bashing the SNP while all the relevant decisions are reserved to Westminster.
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“So Jack McConnell’s Enlighten is just a tool for bashing the SNP while all the relevant decisions are reserved to Westminster”.
Indeed.
To suggest otherwise blatantly misrepresents their true purpose.
As well as Stuart Paton , as an associate within Enlighten , producing articles there was (is) also Keir Bloomer – Chair – Commission on school reform producing articles as well.
One of those article in September 2025 was entitled:
“Time for a change in how Scotland is run”
Guess what this was about ?
He stated in the article “Devolution recognised Scotland’s distinctive status within the UK by setting up the Scottish Parliament. However, this was also intended to bring decision-making nearer to the people affected by it. It might have been expected that continuing decentralisation and local empowerment might have been a feature of the new parliament’s actions. Quite the reverse has been the case”
“Local authorities have seen their powers reduced with ever-tighter central government direction of services. Financial constraints have further reduced councils’ capacity for independent action. Furthermore, no attempt has been made to reform a structure seen from the outset as haphazard and ineffective”
“To conclude, Devolution has not led to the kind of thriving grassroots democracy that many people hoped for. Decision making power has moved to Edinburgh, not only from London as was intended but also from Scotland’s local communities. The time is right for a reconsideration of how Scotland is run below the level of the Parliament. This should involve much more than another reorganisation of local government – although there is a good case for that – but also a discussion of how services such as health, police and transport should be run with the twin aims of improving service and increasing popular influence over matters of great significance to everyone”
Then he ends with “Politicians of all parties should be pressing for action” .
Really ?
Does he mean in what was already being suggested by the Tory party, both HQ and branch offices.
In December 2025 it was noted that :
“The Scottish Conservatives have proposed shifting financial resources and decision-making authority away from the central Scottish Government in Holyrood and toward local authorities. Their proposals aim to combat what they describe as years of centralisation and underfunding of Scotland’s 32 councils”.
Then we also had in 2022 (three years before Bloomer’s article) a report that “the previous Conservative UK government used initiatives like the Levelling Up Fund and the UK Shared Prosperity Fund to allocate money directly to Scottish local authorities, bypassing Holyrood (which then would also shift decision making away from central government in Scotland)”.( source insider.co.uk)
Then Labour as a UK government under Keir Starmer “defended the practice of allocating certain regeneration and local growth funds directly to Scottish local authorities, rather than routing the money through the Scottish Government in Edinburgh” (source BBC March 2026)
Now with Andy Burnham as Labour UK PM there are plans “to “push out” or decentralise powers from Holyrood to local Scottish councils, with figures like Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander arguing that Scottish local authorities have been over-centralised and underfunded by the SNP administration” (July 2026 BBC article).
So who was Keir Bloomer from the Enlighten think tank helping in his article on “Time for a change in how Scotland is run” ?
Seems to me he was preaching on behalf of pro UK parties who, like him , seem to be intent on ripping apart devolution and ultimately letting the UK government decide on what and who gets funded in Scotland – thus making it a “change” too far.
Also Burnham’s vision was promoted as “aiming to take power “deeper down”, suggesting functions like employment support could be handed to local grassroots organizations” – source BBC June 2026,.
Funnily enough, “grassroots” were noted in Keir Bloomer’s above 2025 article when he stated that “Devolution has not led to the kind of thriving grassroots democracy that many people hoped for” – is this yet another prime example of ‘not so great’ minds thinking alike.
Honestly Enlighten , and how it is promoted as supposedly being an independent think tank, must take us the public for fools, surely they know that , as a fact, is only applicable to a certain gullible and cut from the same cloth minority within Scotland.
Liz S
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I think they act as “compradors” which is a Portuguese term meaning buyer. In politics it means a local spin merchant who helps a foreign power to exploit the colony’s resources and thus become wealthy and important themselves – i.e. Lords. The local economy becomes increasingly dependent on the imperial power and impoverished.
Michael Gove – sorry, Lord Michael Gove – is another. He introduced the unified market and the so called “Green Ports” where local planning is banned and critical infrastructure is sold to foreign powers to exploit at will e.g. Ardersier port.
Demolishing democratic decision making is essential to stop interfering locals from preventing wholesale looting.
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Indeed.
“Demolishing democratic decision making is essential to stop interfering locals from preventing wholesale looting”
Spot on.
Liz S
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Scottish population remained the same since 1900 and before. 5million. A dip in 1950’s. (War). Until Devolution 2000. The population increased to 5.400million. Now the population is 5.5Million+. The highest it has ever been.
Scotland is one of the least densely populated countries. Scotland needs people.
The Westminster Gov policies depopulated Scotland. The Treaty of Union 1707. The Javobite rebellions 1715 & 1745. The Clearances. Many had to migrate. Westminster policies meant higher unemployment in Scotland. The £10 passage to Australia for a better life. Migration to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and America.
Thatcher’s scorch earth policies. Higher unemployment. Westminster’s lies and secrecy. The McCrone report. The Oil revenues taken and wasted. The banking crash. UK banks imploded because of lack of collateral. Westminster (Thatcher) cut the leverage.
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@anonymous @ 10.44am
Unfortunately facts and information bypasses too many people within Scotland.
To be replaced , in many instances, by ignorance and apathy.
So one does wonder on what do they , as voters, base their voting decisions upon in any UK elections ?
Actually some others will argue that the UK is best for scotland, which prompts me to think of the quote that states:
“Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience”.
Liz S
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