Alex Johnstone

Just more SNP failure isn’t it, turning Scotland into the UK region with the highest performing productivity 😂

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Not a Hearts fan but cheered their goals today, desperate to see anyone other than Rangers or Celtic win the league, 40 years, longer than I’ve been on this earth, is a ridiculous timeframe of dominance from two teams.

I’ve just seen “A TAKE” that says that they would rather us not qualify if we are going to stink the place out.

Take a hard look at yourself. 100% I’d take those performances in games over Greece & Belarus if you guarantee me the win.

Football doesn’t work that way though, no guarantees

I want us to play better & was one of the moaners & groaners last night at times (though I didn’t boo a win ffs) but I’m annoyed as we know we can do better & I want us to do better.

Performances have to improve in November and in Athens/home to Denmark we can’t just ride our luck but….

This is why I think the stock market in the US will crash, pretty much the majority of folk getting any use form AI right now are the utter weirdo’s and wrong-ins.

That’s not a way to build a profitable business in the long run

The B team experiment in the challenge cup isn’t going too well, while the mighty Caley Jags are romping the first phase

I wonder if this will bring benefits to the young boys of the 10 Prem sides, as they are being hammered by League One & League Two teams

Championship teams arrive next round

YouTube video by Jesse Clark But it might work for us!

Maybe he’s just channeling his inner man inside him youtu.be/Po4adxJxqZk?...

The only thing I would say in support of this that if you have to go above 32, then you should go in a multiple of 32.

The “best” third place teams getting through the group with the 48 team format doesn’t sit well with me.

Not a fan of it in the Euros either.

64 can at least can go: 32/16/8/4/2

This is a great win for the Caley Jags.

Very poor match overall but it’s a long season and these are the sort of games we have to win if we want Inverness back to where we should be, at the very least, the Scottish Championship

I think the hype afforded to any youngster showing an ounce of promise in the EPL does lead to tonnes of kids being exposed to too much scrutiny far too young

I really like that Scotland are now seeing players move to Italy allowing them develop outwith the goldfish bowl of the EPL.

Just listened to Roy Keane’s take on the Irish National team on the latest episode of Stick to Football & I just remembered a YouTube video that was recommended to me 2 years ago via the algorithm

The golden generation secret is so secret that not only do the fans don’t know, neither do the players

Or the reception Margaret Thatcher received at the 1988 Scotland Cup Final - both sets of fans loudly booked her and waved red flags at her

YouTube video by Lindsay Ellis The Unforgivable Sin of Ms Rachel

This is very long and goes into many different threads but I starting watching it yesterday and had to finish it today, expertly researched and incredibly hard hitting video essay youtu.be/QwpanShgOp4?...

Listening to Hibs on Sportscene, sounds like a great game, really invested in wanting Hibs to go through, pretty sick of Scottish glorious failure.

You could see this Hibs team getting through the league stage if they win tonight.

David Gray has done some job

That’s not considering that different policy choices & the requirement to operate more “cannily” as a small independent state, would see a divergence of the structure of the current Scottish economy under the UK in the event of independence.

But the fiscal position is not insurmountable

Debt ran up by the British state, which is a state that has been badly mismanaged & defence spending - £13.6billion that are the two main drivers of the notional deficit of Scotland - take these two out and it’s broadly a country that can tax its citizens to afford the standard of spending as now

The only comparable example of a section of the British state leaving was the Republic of Ireland, politics & defence considerations directly affected the level of actual debt paid by the state, with the continuation state being the ultimate debtor publisher-prod65.cliffordchance.com/content/dam/...

This deal would involve Scotland not becoming a member of NATO, nor committing to spend at the current proportion of its revenue on defence.

Switzerland spends 0.76% of GDP on defence, that would be around £700 million for an independent Scotland, a notional deficit reduction of £4.4 billion!

Scotland “owns” a proportional percentage of the assets of the British state, such as militarily equipment. We’d likely forego assets such as these in return for a deal over debt.

This would also likely see the continuation of the Faslane as a “leased” base for a generation.

The reserved function categories though clearly would not have the level of spending afforded to them if Scotland was independent.

Scotland could not afford to pay £5.1 billion on defence.

In fact, it would be likely that a political deal would be done with rUK over the assets of the British state

Take this section in particular.

If you add in the oddly bolder capital spending section “missed out” you get a total social security & capital spend of 94.4 billion versus revenues of 94.1 billion - a ‘deficit’ here then of £300 million

GERS: deficit widens due to higher devolved spending | FAI The estimates of Scotland’s net fiscal balance are out for 2024-25. As we previewed on Friday, there was deterioration of the fiscal balance…

The latest GERS report coverage by The Fraser of Allander institute is good fraserofallander.org/gers-reactio...

I do always think that the key to understanding Scotland’s fiscal position now is the acknowledgement that policy choices can (and would change) in the advent of independence

I did love the part when the woman at the end that they could of just chopped down any other tree in Cumbria, so she’s not against tree chopping in general, just this particular tree. People have lost their collective minds. 4 years in prison is utter lunacy

I find it odd that in 3 out of the 4 countries of the UK there exists nationalist movements yet in the largest country there exists little political expression of “Englishness” even though by the figures produced by the govt the removal of the Celtic fringe would reap tangible financial benefits

Government Expenditure & Revenue Scotland 2023-24 An Accredited Official Statistics Publication for Scotland.

Scotland’s apparent budget deficit for 2023/2024 is £22.7billion www.gov.scot/news/governm... so by just allowing Scotland to become independent this would lower the deficit to a level higher than any wealth tax would take in.

I do find it odd that no English politician argues this point.

So weird that Reform may potentially form the official opposition at Holyrood in less than a year and yet I wouldn’t be able to tell you the name of (or even if they have one?) the Reform Scottish leader.

I do think the one man band of Farage is a wrecking ball that may tear down Labour’s hopes

Seems insane this was 1 year ago today.

It was such an anti-climax. I’m still a bit shocked that Clarke survived in the role tbh.

Slicker
Johnston Souttar McKenna Doig
Miller Gilmour
Ferguson
Wilson Conway Bowie

Slicker came though the Man Coty academy and apparently is rated at Ipswich - he was good for the Under 21s too - we should not write him off now but after tonight, he should be told he needs to get 50 first team appearances at Championship level before he’s back in the squad. He needs games.

In goal, clearly Slicker had a shocker but if it’s too soon for him it’s too soon for Callan McKenna & Doohan isn’t good enough.

So I’d start Slicker, hope he gets a clean sheet in a quiet night, gets the horror of Friday out of his system