You can also include Scottish Independence in that, although you are in for a hard task to get Nationalists to believe in both cases, because they are fooled by the lies sold by their side to see the reality for what it is.

Shh Phil, you'll spoil their fun.

Wait, they won't listen anyway, Independence supporters are very selective about their 'truths', they only believe the ones that are positive and supportive of their Independence dream.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politic...geon-1-4266379

"May unveils new forum to defuse Brexit stalemate with Sturgeon"

No.. it's not DS's "SNP watch" Buried at the end of the article is..

"A report today by the Institute for Government (IfG) said the four governments should agree the “core planks” of the UK’s negotiating position before the Prime Minister triggers Article 50, or face a “full blown constitutional crisis.”"

Apart from the fact they have pinched this latest idea from the Greens

http://www.pressreader.com

How on earth could Scotland afford it?

Afford what? All you've provided is a link to a website that shows a conglomeration of news articles.

Surely the SNP are too far to the right of the Greens, too close to the Tories in values and ideology to pinch anything from a left wing party like the Greens?

Unless they're sucking up to the Greens for their votes in Holyrood. Couldn't be could it. How gullible are the Greens in Scotland. It's not as though the HoL spiked green energy projects in Scotland or anything. Westminster aren't forcing fracking on places in England either. They definitely didn't remove funding for carbon capture technology.

The SNP is a broad Church containing many differing points of view that might not survive contact with actual independence.

They copied the Tory Council Tax policy in spite of the Greens protest and so this might be a small hint at a giveback. The SNP wont actually implement it though. I do believe they have also vowed not to change the Tory Tax policy for the life of the Parliament and copied great chunks from Labour Manifestos at the last UK GE.

Would you not admit that a lot of their policies appeal to both Tory and Labour voters as well? Now its the Greens turn as they need the Greens on board.

Is your complaint now that the SNP is becoming too popular because it has policies people like?

Sorry, it was a story about an SNP MP called Blackford who gave a speech advocating the Greens citizens wage policy. £20000 per citizen.

Think the Greens stole that from some country on the continent. It's kind of like the way things are done on the continent, The idea is simply that rather than view benefits as some kind of stigma and on the assumption that working tax credits are a thing you simply formalise it so everyone gets at least a minimum. Apparently if you do it right it cuts down on a lot of administration and actually saves money.

Finland.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a6931846.html

Also the only reference to 20,000 I could find was in here, https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/ass...on%20Paper.pdf in an example of the cost of borrowing.

The level they actually advocate is £80 per week or just over £4,000 per year.

I think wires have been crossed somewhere.

I was listening to BBC Radio Scotland this morning. It had a one hour phone-in on peoples experience of NHS Scotland. It was in connection with a publication of Audit Scotland's annual survey on NHS Scotland today. The programme had just one complaint.

http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/rep...-scotland-2016

The truth is that the NHS is continuing to face real difficulties and we need to prioritise this within Government.

The NHS does not feature in the priorities of the SNP who made Education there main priority.

The report highlights areas for real concern moving forwards

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...sing-demand-a/

One of these areas will undoubtedly be staffing numbers and another will be rising costs with a rising ageing population.

At some point a Government is going to have to consider moving from a totally free universal system to one in which more folk will have Health Insurance. This will be especially true if Scotland were to move more towards independence.

I actually think the SNP have done some work towards this in the last few years but certainly they need to look objectively at a service that has staffing problems and takes up 40% of the Budget, there will be only so far they can take year on year efficiency savings.

There are somethings that are politically too difficult and while the NHS has problems we should take some comfort that they aren't as bad as in the rest of the UK which has free health care as well or in Ireland which has health insurance but many problems with their health. Insurance isn't fix all solution either.

Not if they first tackle the ongoing privatisation of health care that's been foisted on us by Westminster. Notably the rise in private health companies supplying care in the community. The rise in bed blocking in particular isn't just about an increase in age. It's also to do with delays in transferring between hospital, funded by the various NHS boards, to local services.

As to the last part, without a context there's little to say but some of the problems are due to mistaken attempts at employing the minimum possible number of staff. That leads to situations where cover for illness and holidays has to come from agency workers which in turn leads to cash going in to the hands of private companies.

Given that the NHS is and has always been a completely devolved area in Scotland, how is Westminster foisting privatisation on us?

The NHS England outsourcing is reducing the budget given to Scotland by handing firms like Virgin Care, Care UK and Bupa contacts that diverts public money as not being counted towards the devolved nations budgets.

For example Virgin Care group was awarded £126m contract for hospital services, home visits and community hospital care in Kent that money would now not be included in NHS health spending figures which indirectly reduces the percentage given towards Scotland's block grant with every privatisation deal NHS England concludes.

The overall budget isn't going down though... even if it was, it doesn't explain why privatisation is being foisted on us?

I agree it's not a fix all solution to have insurance but many of these aspects have to be considered. It's not doing anyone any good to dismiss ideas and options just because they might not be the optimum solution.

Given that the NHS budget has actually increased together with the fact that the Scottish NHS isn't linked to Westminster then I have no idea why you are deflecting to what's going on in England.

Do you have any links to show that private contracts do not come out of NHS budgets in England?

The SNP wants Scotland in the EU which may well mean being tied in to CETA and perhaps TTIP which includes that Canadian/American companies can bid for NHS work and that privatisation is one way direction of travel only.

Even governments could be taken to special courts (Investment Court System) if they pass laws that multinationals feel discriminates against them or reduces their profits.

Many people are opposed to CETA and TTIP but the EU is determined to ratify it and if Scotland was by then a member the SNHS could soon see very significant levels of privatisation.

Interesting and duly noted...

George Kerevan SNP MP also suggested to build up currency reserves, we would need to monetise state assets, i.e. privatisation.

I thought both CETA and TTIP were dead?

The French won't ratify TTIP and the Walloons CETA.

CETA seems to have Green light.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7382851.html