Vince Cable - Lazy-Minded MP, Repeats Old Claptrap About The Poll Tax...

Vince Cable - Liberal Democrat MP

It always galls us to stand up for Margaret Thatcher on this blog. But when lazy-minded politicians like Vince Cable roll out old and hate-fuelling untruths, word for word, well, we really have to say something!

Momentum built up in the Eighties, especially when Mrs Thatcher made Scots the guinea pigs for the Poll Tax

Poll Tax "Guinea pigs"? Not again?! Thatcher didn't make Scots "guinea pigs" for the Tax. We couldn't stick Mrs T, but it was George Younger, Scottish Secretary of State, who asked for the Tax a year early in Scotland because he didn't think the Scots should have to wait for the English!

Read more here.

Several of us involved with this blog were actually members of English "STOP THE POLL TAX" campaigns from 1988 onwards - and costly preparations were already well underway for the planned introduction of the Tax in England and Wales.

Now, surely, if the Scots were to be used as "guinea pigs" for the Poll Tax, the preparations in England and Wales would have been put on hold, and surely it would take rather more than one year to prove the Tax's worth or otherwise? Wouldn't there be various wrinkles to be ironed out? Wouldn't introducing the Tax in Scotland in 1989 and holding off on any decision regarding England and Wales until around 1992 have been more logical if the "guinea pig" scenario was true?

AND the Poll Tax was the brainchild of a Scotsman - Douglas Mason.

Vince Cable's Daily Mail article is a very shoddy piece of writing. Simply recycling old 'victimhood' claptrap is a bore.

The Scots are always so innocent, aren't they?

And England comes nowhere in Mr Cable's deliberations, as usual.

Indeed, at the end of the article, there is a list of relevant people and places:

People:
Alex Salmond,
Gordon Brown,
Vince Cable,
David Cameron,
Fred Goodwin
Places:
Edinburgh,
London,
Glasgow,
Wales,
Canada,
Germany,
Libya,
Scotland,
Northern Ireland,
United Kingdom
Organisations:
Scottish Parliament

But no sign of England.

Of course.

The 25th British Social Attitudes Report - More Cooked Up Nonsense To Make The English Look Happy With Inequality In The UK...

The 25th British Social Attudes report is, like other recent examples, apparently largely cobbled together to keep the people of England squarely under the undemocratic cosh of the UK Government.

Would we rather be governed by a "new" English Parliament OR by Westminster? Er, I'd like to be governed by an English Parliament AT Westminster, it's the traditional location of English Government. But the phrasing of the BSA report carries hints that a new building will have to be forked out for if an English Parliament were established! Once more the bogus, "cost" issue is vaguely wafted about. It's all in the word "new" - new usually costs!

And then there is a very undemocratic tick box response to the question:

With all the changes going on in the way different parts of Great Britain are run, which of the following do you think would be best for England?

There are three options, and the second one is:

b) Each region of England should have its own regional assembly that runs services like health

But we shouldn't HAVE regions - the North East, the only area allowed a referendum, voted 78% NO to them!

Some of the questions are carefully phrased, water muddying is going on as per usual, but one finding stands out a mile and cannot be disguised: 61% of those surveyed think that Scots MPs should not be allowed to vote on English issues!

I must go to bed now, work looms in about seven hours - but Gareth has lots more on the BSA Report - I strongly recommend a visit to Toque.

Goodnight!