yip Al, its kinda hard to gauge unless you know your starting point. we also have more people living in rural locations making it more expensive to implement. we can look at the figures tho. police numbers maintained.Crime down. nurses and doctor numbers maintained. most NHS targets up there with the best or better despite the higher costs associated with rural locations. more affordable houses being built. universal benefits, Prescriptions, Tolls education. the list is long. none of this is intended as a gloatfest. just examples of what can be done without borrowing powers and different spending choices being made. i personally think your country as a whole is being shafted.
To be fair, public transport in London is nothing other than phenomenal. I wait no more that an 8 minutes on a Sunday for a bus. The tube and rail networks also great. I can get a train to Waterloo every 8 minutes. Tubes every 2 minutes. But then it is subsidised to the tune of £6k per head excluding the cost of Cross Rail, HS1 etc NHS bits that I use are good. The level of privatisation though is massive in comparison to Scotland
You are probably correct. Perhaps there’s a way of measuring it all by density of population and other factors, I don’t know. From what you describe it sounds like you have it better up there than it is in the SE.
aye, you do here on the radio a fair bit on how pish our gov is because there aint a general hospital in Strontian or a regular bus to auchtermuchty.
on the whole yes, i think we do and i genuinely believe we get value for our money in the areas within our control. it does tend to shine a negative light on the similar areas within the control of tory run england and labour run Wales. so, i guess thats part of the issue with the press, one supports labour, the other supports the Conservatives. is easy to compare the performances across the UK as they are all run by different Partys. its harder to get the press to accept the starting point. (poorest country with the most violent city in the western world 2005). if they where to acknowledge and write about where we where. it would mean exposing their own bias, the partys they have traditionally defended and support.
On first reading, that seems to make sense and be a good idea I’ll have to think it through further. It’s actually so simple Imsurprised it hasn’t been mooted before. Mind you, I’m sure the DUP and/or other factions will find fault with it
According to continental drift theory, it is likely the England with rejoin Europe no matter how we vote. As usual, no one knows what's going on with Scottydogland. Probably end up in Greentrumpland.
Melton Mowbray pork pie makers and No 10 clash over Johnson claim https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49470831 Perhaps BoJo means Iceland the shop, and Tie Rack
It would be great to find a way out of this mess but........ It’s a criminal offence to use horse meat in lasagne and pass it off as beef, but it still happened. Cocaine, heroine etc all cross borders illegally and they can’t stop that 100% and that’s before we get to guns, bombs etc