Does anyone disagree with Scottish restrictions?

[Torvean32]

As far as i can see the spread started in Glasgow then spread to the areas around it.
NS failed to sanction them properly.
She locked Aberdeen at 82 cases.

Cases in Grampian and the Highlands are low. We are now being unfairly sanctioned. The whole thing is a joke.

NS doesn't have the guts to fully lockdown Glasgow.

Ppl in Aberdeen have less trust in NS as this goes on.

It is boring, I agree! But an independent Scotland would have had the power to have strict border controls from the start. As we didn't , it often feels like we're p*ssing in the wind, for want of a better term.
What LA are you in *just asking as you're saying no need for restrictions.

That nice hard border with England we’ll have - will we be building walls or going for a vague tech based solution for our fantasy realm?

Even just cherry picking the border issue, are you saying the SNP (if in power in this imaginary iScotland world) would’ve immediately closed borders with England?

I’d imagine that Beijing our largest trading partner that would still have been politically difficult and we may have in reality no difference in policy.

Easy to say independence is the cure - has the rest of the world killed off covid because of their border control? It’s more complex than that.

being not Beijing! Maybe we are going for pure fantasy and our largest trading partner magically wont be England in iScotland. And anyway that super powerful new central bank would mean we can borrow oodles if cash and get ourselves into so many piles of debt our great grandkids will be paying for it whilst living with covid.

We’ve got so much macroeconomic experience to draw on in Scotland after all.

I do think it was completely crazy that the one chance the Westminster government had of closing and controlling borders, without too much criticism, they didn’t.
Normally, they harp on about too much immigration in our country.

I have down loaded the Scottish track and trace app on my phone. We are shortly to be going down to England on holiday for a week. I can't have the English app because you need to enter your postcode to register for it, and it won't work with Scottish postcodes. The Scottish app won't work outside Scotland.

There must be thousands of people moving up and down the country every day for work, to see family or on holiday. It's crazy that Wales/England/Scotland all have their own apps working separately (I can see the argument for N Ireland having a separate one, in their case it would be more sensible to link it with the Republic of Ireland app but I can also see that's politically controversial for many people).

What a mess.

@Scotslassie1

It is boring, I agree! But an independent Scotland would have had the power to have strict border controls from the start. As we didn't , it often feels like we're p*ssing in the wind, for want of a better term. What LA are you in *just asking as you're saying no need for restrictions.

An independant Scotland?

We've seen in the North how NS prefers her precious Glasgow and west coast.
Locked us up for 82cases, slandered us in the media.
When Glasgow started oh lets watch and see. Then it spreads to dumbarton etc " oh we will stop visiting other homes".

Now spread still is in the south.We have low cases. Yet she gave all of us the same restrictions.

NS popularity decreases per day. SNP will struggle to get votes up here.

I don't understand why parents or students or politicians thought it would be any different tbh.

Torvean I thought you're near Inverness, must have that wrong. There's outbreaks in Gairloch, Munlochy, Golspie to name a few local to the area.

How has she slandered you in the media? Also can't say my family and friends reflect your view!

Yes Brazenly that would make sense re the app but of course the English Gov refused to co operate as usual and wasted millions on their own failed app and now, eventually, have a semi working app.

Anon look at successful countries like South Korea - number one thing they did was strict border control. It's pretty simple, no?
And yes, we'll still trade with rUK post independence. The UK Gov ( Boris) lied to the public and the majority voted to leave tariff free trade with the EU. Scotland is the only net exporter in the UK. You really think they won't continue to trade with us? Of course they will. Where do you think they'll get the majority of the needed water, food etc?

We've seen in the North how NS prefers her precious Glasgow and west coast.

SNP love Glasgow or the Central Belt or the west. Funny how up until a few years ago their seats were mainly in the north and we would hear how they didn't represent Glasgow, Central Belt, etc.

In fact, they've always been a good national party, the only one in Scotland with even support across the country.It's actually Labour, Tories and LibDems that have been promoting regionalism over the years. Same divide and control tactics that's got you whining about Glasgow.

@Shooglywheel I don't remember actually saying that, I don't remember what I said in the deleted post (kinda difficult to have an argument if posts are vanishing like that!), but that is indeed a fact. The Scotgovt budget is only a fraction of the revenues generated in Scotland.

And Scotland has no debt. UK debt is a liability of the UK Treasury, which had repeatedly reaffirmed in statements to the market that it will continue to be liable for all UK debt in the event of Scottish independence. You might think Scotland owes a share of it, but actually it doesn't. You might make a moral case, but in fact even according to GERS Scotland was generating a huge surplus in most of the years the debt built up.

I’m still waiting to see the figures of the huge surplus...

Not sure what you are after Shoogly, but the Scottish government's budget is £40bn. No-one knows what Scotland's revenues really are, but even the GERS designed to minimise how much we are publicly credited with assigns Scotland £66 billion.

But not everything is devolved. The budget for Scotland is only for devolved issues.

www.ifs.org.uk/publications/14982
And this shows a deficit

You'll see it refers to NI and Wales having a bigger deficit than Scotland. Why? We all need to put towards whatever projects the UK Gov ( currently Tory) decide. Such as Boris' garden bridge plans which never came to more than a few pictures but cost millions. The GERS figures were created to imply to Scotland that it is a poor country when the polar opposite is true.
Malta- population smaller than Edinburgh. 1 in 3 children in poverty like the UK/ Scotland? No. Seat at the EU? Yes Deficit to surplus country in recent years? Yes.

Yes, Malta and lots of countries are running a deficit for 2020 solely due to impact of C- 19. Italy and Belgium around 10 per cent currently. Are the UN investigating levels of child poverty there and saying they're completely unacceptable like they are in the UK? No.
It's like lower to middle class American's voting for Trump ( who doesn't pay taxes). The Tories also use tax avoidance schemes- yet the rest suffer but will continue to vote for the union and have them in charge. Baroness Ruth and Boris will be quaffing the taxpayer funded champers together soon. Like Trump said- he can do anything and the ignorant will vote for him. Boris can blatantly lie and lie again yet be voted in again and again . Scotland last voted Tory over 60 years ago yet we voted in 2014 to stay with this political system and now we're allowing the complete dissolution of devolution via the internal market bill.

@MumofHunter that’s interesting about Malta. It would be interesting to know what their main areas of economy and how their society runs to get a fuller picture.

I did read from OECD that the only country to increase its GDP this year during Covid-19 pandemic was China. I do not know enough about economics to see how that relates to deficit, if at all.

I know a lot of Scottish folk who are vocal SNP supporters who use tax avoidance though, so it’s not just limited to Tory voters.

But... at the moment NS is imposing overly harsh restrictions in Scotland. I’m not saying no restrictions, but the ones that we have at the moment are unsustainable and “unduly restrictive” to use her words. I feel like the people sticking up for them are just doing so because they believe NS can do no wrong. At least the back-benchers are arguing with Boris. There’s no argument up here, just do as Nicola tells you. That’s not a future I want for Scotland.

Sturgeon would have us locked in our homes till April if she could. Her and her party are very authoritarian in instinct and she’s loving the opportunity to put these instincts into practice.

@Scotslassie1
"And yes, we'll still trade with rUK post independence"
You really believe that potentially using a different currency , a hard border and and a different mail system ( No universal Royal mail) will not adversely affect the internal market between Scotland & the rUK
These are all huge barriers to trade.
Many small businesses such as mine will probably have to leave Scotland , over 80% of my customer base is rUK

@iquitelikenormalityafterall yes I agree with you on the stance there can be no questing of party line.
I used to vote SNP, but the lack of discussion I find very detrimental to getting the best for Scotland and it’s people. Being called a loon is not going to win back my vote.
I am suspicious of the lack of transparency surrounding Nicola sturgeon and her husband who is chief executive of the SNP party; I read an article the other day likening them and their hold on power to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife! Obviously this is way over the top but it doesn’t look good. would you run a business where the chief executive and the managing director were married?
I think cases of infection amongst students will settle down. A lot have not been adhering to restrictions though; I do feel sorry for them, having their lives curtailed significantly while the older generation can go about their lives (90 year old still heads out to my gym and meals out at restaurants)
Both my dc are away at universities and with our crap rural broadband they would not have been able successfully study and attend lectures and tutorials online. From my point of view the infrastructure is not there yet.

Jodri I was actually talking about Tory MPs avoiding tax ( same as Trump).

Why no Royal Mail? Mail works across NI and Ireland easily?

@MumofHunter

Jodri I was actually talking about Tory MPs avoiding tax ( same as Trump).

Why no Royal Mail? Mail works across NI and Ireland easily?

@MumofHunter Do you really think Royal mail - a private company will want to keep a universally priced service to the highlands? , it is highly unprofitable for them Plus if there is a hard border - it would cost extra to operate any mail system- if different tariffs between countries The SNP to my knowledge have gave no indication of how the mail service would operate- I asked my MP ( SNP) a couple of times during indy ref 1 - no reply

It would be subsidised like other rural services and brought back into public ownership. Guess you didn't bother to read the white paper?