Sturgeons Forth Road Bridge Gamble that lost.

Update 29th Feb 2016 : Funding Cuts laid bare in Forth Bridge Funding Crisis. This new report shows the level of deep spending cuts continually made by the SNP to the Forth Bridges Maintenance Fund
"The figures reveal how the removal of tolls on the bridge eight years ago impacted in the slump of funding available to FETA. Then transport minister SNP MSP Stewart Stevenson said the Scottish Government would bridge the funding gap left by the scrapping of the tolls"

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14307424.Revealed__Funding_cuts_laid_bare_in_Forth_Road_Bridge_crisis/?ref=twtrec 
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 Update 27 Jan 2016 :
"For weeks the SNP government in Edinburgh told us that cuts to the maintenance budget of the Forth Road Bridge had nothing to do with the bridge's eventual closure.
"The reality is the SNP made short-sighted cuts to essential maintenance budgets which meant that an essential piece of infrastructure was shut down at a crucial time for the Scottish economy."

Read more by clicking here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-35419963
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The link below shows a video of both Sturgeon being challenged on the FRB issue by Andrew Marr and the previous FRB Senior Engineer at the Bridge failure enquiry recently, pay attention to what the body language and technical knowledge (or lack of it ) on the issue should be telling you.
https://www.facebook.com/100548780288332/videos/212076082468934/

It's not true to say "the fault could not have been foreseen", which of course is only "technically" obvious unless continuous daily inspections were in place which they were not, however " the whole area of steelwork that included the part where the fault existed was highlighted "At risk" and was on the list for full replacement as long ago as 2009, it was the fact that Sturgeon herself signed off the 58% cut in the maintenance budget meant that all the work programmed to be done more than 5-7 years ago was stopped and only the higher priority jobs on the maintenance list were attended to ie the cable end anchors and the bridge bearings...all the rest of the work was unduly delayed due to Sturgeon herself as "Infrastucture Minister" signing off the budget cut . If the work had not been delayed needlessly for 7 years due to Sturgeon's budget cut the fault would not have happened because the whole area would have been already replaced. To claim otherwise is the usual SNP spin to avoid taking any responsibility.
Salmond was warned eight years ago of stuctural issues with the Forth Road Bridge but Sturgeon as SNP Infrastructure Minister still personally cut its maintenance budget by 58% , the bridge failure was therefor a failure just waiting to happen because of the SNP's derliction of duty in maintaining the Bridge to proper safety standards.
 http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/dalyell-salmond-told-of-bridge-fears-eight-years-ago-1-3977037#ixzz40YuhJaoH
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Most Scots by now are aware of the bad news of the Forth Road Bridge closure but the real physical pain will only truly be experienced by those unlucky Commuters and Business's whose drivers are now having to sit in long tedious queues of traffic and take long multi mile detours leading to frustration, possible health stress and unavoidable extra costs. The costs of this extra travel will have to be borne by individuals themselves and to the profits of businesses already having to operate in difficult competitive market conditions. Families too will be directly affected by this in other ways, partners particularly ones with young children will see less of their loved ones because of them having to leave earlier in the mornings to get to work in time and also get Home much later after work in the dark evenings. Some working parents with younger children might not actually be at Home now to see their children get up in the morning for school or be Home in time to see them before they get put to bed in the evening throughout the whole working week.

If you know people caught up in this ..ask them how bad the experience is, how bad the queues are, how much its costing them and in what ways its affecting their family lives....and then tell others that don't yet know, because as a nation thats supposed to care about others we truly all need to understand how people are being affected by this.

It's obvious to say that this is hardly a good experience for anyone directly involved and yet the whole sorry event should never ever have happened, bridge's are inanimate objects of mechanical engineering that knowingly require regular safety inspections and preventitive maintenance. The failure of any Government to ensure the right procedures and funds to keep a bridge in safe and operational order is only its own responsibility, even if contractors have been employed to oversee the work involved it is still only the Governments responsibility when things go wrong as they themselves are ultimately for both overseeing the contractors work is to a correct standard and that funds for that work are made available. There are no excuses from this responsibility. None.

In this case though Nicola Sturgeon herself was Infrastructure Minister when Finance Minister John Swinney cut the Forth Road Bridges maintenance budget, this cut in money available for repairs meant that the Bridges maintenance contractors had then no choice but to prioritise which repairs were the most urgent from their already quite large identified list, do them first and for the other already identified issues to do lesser amounts of remedial work using the lower amount of money left available to them. Not having the full amount of funds required to do all the strengthening work work highlighted by bridge inspections in the timescales preferred by bridge engineers is what caused this failure to happen. Derek Mackay the SNP Minister for Transport and Islands has admitted that work that was planned for 2010 which was later cancelled due to budget constraints WOULD have renewed the whole area of steelwork including the part which has now failed leading to this chaos , the reason for the original reason for wanting to strengthen the whole wider area was that it was ALL identified as being overstressed and required strengthening, but because of shortage of repair funds a lesser amount of work than that originally recommended was undertaken in the interim period.

Listen carefully to what Derek Mackay says in this Interview by clicking here . His attempt at saying this faulty part could not ever have been identified that it was going to fail is at best a half truth only, while its true no-one could ever identify exactly the time and date of exact potential failure the same part HAD been identified as being at risk of failure and of requiring strengthening work previously on a documented memo.

It's therefore untrue of anyone to try to say the area that has now failed is not the responsibility of the Scottish Government , it was the Governments responsibility not to ignore a memo stating that identifed problems not repaired due to budget cuts could lead to chaos..the Infrastructure Minister must have ignored those warnings and chosen to gamble that they would not fail before the new Forth Crossing was completed...but it was a gamble that failed.

Derek Mackay has now been accused of lying about where the crack has occurred, he also states in this interview that budgets were NOT reduced during the handover from FETA and Transport Scotland.
click here to read that article
" Mackay admitted the area where a truss cracked should have been replaced in 2010.
But he had said previously that the fault had not been in the area scheduled for repairs – which were then cancelled.The apparent contradiction came in a radio interview in which Mackay said the 2010 work would have involved “the replacement of that area and much more”.Just 24 hours before, he had told MSPs the shelved maintenance had not been in the area “where the fault has occurred"
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Read Nicola Sturgeons rebbutal of having any responsiblity for the Bridge closure here

"Nicola Sturgeon yesterday insisted she doesn’t regret slashing the Forth road bridge’s maintenance budget – despite a memo showing the SNP were warned it could lead to chaos.
The First Minister came under fire at Holyrood over the bridge’s closure, which was caused by a cracked truss end link.
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale cited documents from the former bridge operators that revealed the maintenance budget was cut by 58 per cent.
Minutes from a Forth Estuary Transport Authority meeting in 2013 said the cut would mean “a number of capital projects had to be deferred beyond 2015”.
The documents added: “That deferral of part or all of these projects does increase the risk to the long-term structural 
integrity of the bridge.”
Sturgeon was Infrastructure Secretary when the meeting took place.

The revelations came after Transport Minister Derek Mackay admitted that repair works cancelled in 2010 would have replaced the section of the bridge that forced the closure.

Kezia Dugdale said the SNP had made
 short-term decisions that came at the expense of the bridge’s long-term future.She added: “We need a Government who don’t put off essential work in the hope of saving some money. For the First Minister to try to sweep everything under the carpet just won’t wash.”
Sturgeon said: “The work that was being considered in 2010 was prompted by concern about another part of the truss end link, not the part that is now cracked.
“The opposition criticism of the
 Scottish Government appears to be that five years ago, a body that took decisions independently of the
Scottish Government decided not to fix a part of the bridge that was not broken, a part that only became broken in the last few weeks.”
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A Blog with an excellent timeline showing when the work required on the Truss Links was originally identified and the number of times and dates when the work was re-scheduled (with reasons) right up to the date of failure can be found by clicking here

This is just the latest episode of evidence of a long series of mistakes on Sturgeons part, not least her majority responsibility (almost 100%) in putting together the now known False Prospectus SNP White Paper "Scotlands Future" based on fictional Oil revenues and unlikely business growth predictions, an out and out attempt at decieving an elecorate that beleived it to be an honest and true evaluation of Scotland future...we now know it was no more than wishful thinking on the parts of the Senior SNP politicians desperate to get their way and to hell with the consequences. If there had been a YES vote Scotland would now be facing a ten year potential shortfall of £67 billion in its spending budget..just to put this into perspective it compares with a projected cost of £3.9 billion cut over ten years of Tory imposed Austerity..look at the figures ..there is no comparison and yet the SNP continue to berate the Tories for their "Austerity"policies but keep completely silence on the distruction they themselves nearly imposed on Scotland and Scottish lives. I don't ever think i've come across a more deceitful group of people in my whole life. Nicola Sturgeons own demonstratable issues of being able to make very poor judgements go right back to when she tried to get a twice convicted fraudster leniency from a prision sentence which she nearly resigned over previously and yet she still tries to avoid taking any sort of responsibility when anything goes wrong, a trick she no doubt learnt from her well practised predecessor. See the facts on these two links , notice on one where it states clearly that Sturgeon was almost completely responsible for putting together the False Prospectus White Paper.http://www.sundaypost.com/news-views/politics/holyrood/sturgeon-almost-resigned-over-defence-of-convicted-fraudster-1.848096 also see the effect the False White paper would have had on Scotland made by Sturgeon and company herehttp://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/joan-mcalpine-in-daily-record.html

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SNP Energy Spokesman admits No huge Income from Oil for Scotland ...Ever.

SNP Energy Spokesman admits No huge Income from Oil for Scotland ...Ever.

The chickens are finally coming home to roost for Alex Salmond and the SNP's grossly over optimistic "False Prospectus" white paper called "Scotland's Future" .   A nation might have expected it's senior Politicians to have produced an honest document for a nation to base its decision about its future direction on with perhaps a little bit of "gloss" attached but what it was actually produced was no more than a fantasy using over optimistic Oil "spot" prices, over optimistic Oil revenue growth figures and over optimistic industrial growth predictions while there really was no good economic evidence for doing so. They were produced for one reckless reason and one reckless reason only ...to try and impose the SNP's singular idealogical reason for existing... Independence. It can now clearly be seen too, if what was for all purposes merely a reckelss gamble, meant risking ruining Scotlands economy for decades and the entire whole economic wellbeing of it's people for their life terms then that for the SNP seniors clearly can be now seen to have be of little primary concern. First and foremost the SNP aim was to win Independence and therefore economic competence and responsibility was the first sacrifice thrown to the wind. Any economic fallout from failure of course wasn't going to hurt highly paid MP's, MSP's and other highly paid members of the SNP political new Scottish establishment near as much as ordinary hard working people, hard working people who with a failed SNP economic plan would have to work harder for longer and pay higher levels of income tax to help bail out the Scottish economy while supporting the SNP failed plans engineers and so called "visionaries" wages and comfortable pension plans. If the vote had been a YES and Scotland's economy and its people's livelihoods were headed like Lemmings over the cliff of financial ruin why might have Alex Salmond then said ? Well for this we may be able to look to past History because Alex Salmond did actually play more than a bit part in the ruin of the massive and powerful Royal Bank of Scotland by actively encouraging Fred Goodwins reckless behaviour during the takeover of ABN bank just prior to the financial crisis that happened in 2008 (an event strangely that SNP supporters like to blame on Labour) his words were " With Hindsight he would have done things differently" does the man have no shame ? See more here Would he perhaps have used the same phrase and simply walked away into the shadows with a shrug of his shoulders when Scotlands economy had went into meltdown after the massive fall in Oil revenues had left Scotland with a huge spending deficit to fill... its currently about £8-9 billion which if we had voted for Independence would have meant an additional 16% income tax on top of what we already pay or a 14% cut in Welfare support and other spending (including hopefully Gaelic roadsigns but with SNP priorities one never knows) or combinations of both including taking on crushing debts in the money markets for our Children and Grandchildren to have to pay for in future Generations (Think of Greece's experiences recently) This would have been the reality of a YES vote.
Thankfully because the nation voted NO..we really did "dodge a bullet" and our now precarious financial state will effectively be baled out by the larger UK government using the "pooling and sharing " arrangement that we benefit by from being part of the overall Union of the United Kingdom, this essentially means that the Westminster Government will continue to fund our over extended Scottish budget spending deficit thus saving us from hugely painful income tax rises and spending cuts that would have made anything the Tories had inflicted up till now feel like Christmas every day.
If you want to learn about the Scottish economy and how "pooling and sharing" works... watch Kevin Hagues excellent video's here http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/chokkablog-videos.html

Newspaper Article extract on this subject is below

"The SNP’s energy spokesman Callum McCaig has admitted that the Scottish Government will never see the “huge income” from oil revenues that were predicted as the cornerstone of an independent Scotland’s economy.

Aberdeen South MP, Callum McCaig, insisted the industry was still “fundamental” to the country’s fortunes, but that it was now in a “different stage”.

His comments – which will cast major doubts on the economic case for independence – came as the Chief Executive of Oil and Gas UK admitted estimates that 65,000 jobs would be lost in the sector now seemed “conservative”.

Last night, Conservative MSP Alex Johnstone said Scottish people would be “breathing a sigh of relief” that they did not vote Yes “based on the false promise of a second oil boom”."

Mr McCaig told a fringe meeting at the SNP’s conference in Aberdeen yesterday: “We are probably at a different stage in terms of taxation.

Despite admitting that tax revenues would never be what they were predicted to be, Mr McCaig said he was confident the industry would bounce back from its current downturn.

He said: “We are in a different stage in the industry now.

“The exact make-up of that is to be resolved over the coming months as the exact oil price is worked through.

In June, the Scottish Government dramatically downgraded its estimates of oil revenues, with the lowest estimate being slashed by 80% compared to pre-referendum predictions.

North East MSP Mr Johnstone said: “Everyone remembers Alex Salmond saying there was ‘little doubt’ Scotland was on the cusp of another oil boom, but the truth is, it was one of the SNP’s biggest cons during the referendum campaign.

“For months they’ve avoided publishing their own projections, because they knew they were vastly wrong and now we have one of their own MPs admit that fact.

“A huge amount has happened in the oil industry over the last year, not least the massive drop in oil price. Scotland will be breathing a sigh of relief that we didn’t vote Yes based on the false promise of a second oil boom.”

Deirdre Michie chief executive of Oil and Gas UK said: “In our report, we estimate a reduction of jobs in the sector of around 15%. Since the publication of the report we have seen more job losses and we now know that figure is likely to be a conservative one.

“It is always important to remember that these people (losing their jobs) are real people with mortgages and families to support.”

See the full article by clicking here

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Alex Salmond was also caught out lying another time during the Independence Referendum notably on the issue of having obtained "legal advice " on Scotland being able to re-join the EU...see text from article below:-

"On almost every critical point raised during the debate about Scotland’s future, Salmond was deliberately misleading. I’m not just thinking of his claim that he’d received legal advice reassuring him that an independent Scotland wouldn’t need to reapply for membership of the European Union. When the Information Commissioner ordered the Scottish government to respond to an FOI request to disclose the advice it had received, Salmond’s ministers spent £19,452.92 of public money appealing the decision, only to admit later that the ‘advice’ was a figment of Salmond’s imagination. So the First Minister misled the Scottish people on this point and spent taxpayers’ money to try to conceal the fact.Then there were the SNP’s fictitious claims about the economic impact of independence — and I’m indebted here to the blogger Kevin Hague, who has devoted years to unpicking the SNP’s rhetoric. For instance, there was the assertion that Scotland sends more money to Westminster than it gets back, thanks to North Sea oil.
If you factor in its share of oil revenue, Scotland has been a net contributor to Britain’s coffers in three of the last 15 years. For the other 12, oil hasn’t been sufficient to offset the fact that the Scottish government spends £1,450 more and raises £250 less per person than the rest of the UK. This makes Salmond’s claim, repeated ad infinitum, that ‘oil is just a bonus’ and Scotland could get along perfectly well without it, even more absurd. If you add the £1,450 and £250 together, you get a per capita gap of £1,700, which means that, without North Sea oil, its deficit would be £9.1 billion higher than it is as part of the UK. It turns out that oil revenue is critical to offsetting the deficit gap, which is presumably why Salmond wildly over-estimated it in the SNP’s white paper on Scotland’s future. In it, he claimed that revenue from North Sea oil in 2016/17 — the first year of Scotland’s independence — would be between £6.8 billion and £7.9 billion. In fact, it’s likely to be around £600 million.
If you deduct the £600 million from the £9.1 billion, that means Scotland would be facing an annual deficit gap of £8.5 billion in its first year of independence and there’s no reason to think that would change over the next ten to 15 years. In order for Scotland to be better off out of the UK, oil revenue would have to increase by several thousand per cent, or the Scottish economy would have to grow by a faster amount than the rest of the UK — around 15 per cent faster. For Scotland to wash its own face would mean massive public spending cuts. Far from imposing austerity on Scotland, the British government is saving Nicola Sturgeon from having to find Greek levels of savings. Who would have thunk it?
The SNP is, by some margin, the most dishonest party in Britain."
For whole article click here
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During the recent SNP conference Andrew Neil of the Daily Politics TV programme interviewed Stewart Hosie and asked him what the SNP would have done to fill the now existent £8-9 billion deficit gap if they had won a returned YES vote at the Independence Referendum....watch here how Stewart Hosie tries first to bodyswerve from providing any answer on this issue and when cornered produces a lie by trying to blame Westminster (yet again) for having higher Oil price prdeictions than the SNP did, this is a lie that can easily be seen by checking the SNP manifesto yourself. Watch him squirm and lie here

The well respected economist David Smith from the Economist also produced an article on "Scotland dodged a bullet" the whole article can be read by clicking here

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Four of the best webpages around for honest data, Nat meme busting and opinions on the Scottish economy.

The first of them (and the "most technical" if you choose to dig deeply) is Kevin Hagues excellent "Chokkablog" presentations of the figures on the Scottish Indy Manifesto Financials without offering any judgement or personal suggestions of how a vote should have been cast at that time. (Bear in mind this presentation was prepared some months ago so the figures given will have become worse due to the ongoing falling Oil price issues.)
His presentation starts with a quick overview video and then follows up with a more detailled
and enlightening set of presentations on the figures regarding Scotland long running fiscal deficit and how that figure would affect "FFA" (Full Fiscal Autonomy) , its affect on Independence as well as how any financial shotfall might possibly have to be dealt with and the possible potential time periods involved to balance Scotlands large financial deficit.
Clich here for the Video's Click here to start Kevin Hagues excellent video presentations

Kevin's Chokkablog Homepage can be found here http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/

The "Gers" figures which are trustworthy Scottish national statistics compiled by the Scottish Government itself are explained again here
http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/how-scotlands-economy-contributes-to-uk.html

What FFA is http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/full-fiscal-autonomy-for-dummies.html

These texts are all the work of Kevin Hague who has a very wide following from people on both sides of the Independence arguement. (see the "endorsements" tab on his Blog)

(Kevin can be followed via his Blog or via Twitter. Help to inform as many other people by highlighting Kevins videos to them too.)
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The second is Fraser Whyte's Blog https://whytepaper.wordpress.com/ which contains some great disection of SNP political doublespeak and those often repeated false Nat memes (good articles here particularly on "The Vow" and "WingsOverScotland" false information Nat memes )
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Third up is the "Live Red, White and Blue Book" written by a previous SNP voter who remarks "I was startled by the cynicism of such an obviously manipulative and deceptive ploy by the SNP, a party that I voted for at Holyrood, and I feared for the consequences of our country when false hope turned to anger and despair.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16iR4zmlaf3PyU6RiNRtt4bFQt1bQ-q-P23n2xvVQnOg/mobilebasic?pli=1#heading=h.4uqvm913hroa

Open the link and scroll down the page for the texts
Lots of good recurring subjects often used by Nats to falsely argue the case for Independence are commented on and are explained in full very well.
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Fourth but not least is https://ahdinnaeken.wordpress.com/ I have no idea who writes this but all the articles are well informed, well written, wry and guaranteed I reckon to appeal to all Unionists.
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Please share these as much as you can , the more brainwashed Nats they reach the better as there is only so much "evidence" they can continue to deny when its put before them.

"Updated 20/3/2016" The Michelle Thomson MP scandal is now rocking the SNP's too long fragile facade.

"Latest Update. Michelle Thomson puts two properties up for sale , including her own Edinburgh Home ...."
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/scotland/article1680513.ece

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That facade being the one that the SNP is a knowledgeable and powerful force to be reckoned with on "Business" matters and therefore is a competent place in which the nation can put it's  trust.
Well last week that lie previously fostered by SNP policy mandarins has been completely blown to pieces.
Michelle Thomson was put on a  pedestal by the SNP hierarchy, who previously was Managing Director  of the hugely ambitiously named "Business for Scotland"  (a group that liked to portray itself as the Scottish version of the CBI , although in reality it was a mere tiddler of an organisation with  membership of around 30 individuals none of which are major players in Scottish Industry or Business. More information on "Business for Scotland"  later. )
Michelle only became active in the SNP after the Independence Referendum and then shortly after being elected was given a top role representing Scottish Businesses, it has to be asked now though considering the texts present on her own business website showing  her "Thatcherite" views , how good the SNP's often quoted "Rigorous Vetting" of prospective MP's actually was ? I suspect this will not be the only issue like this that will arise in the future, considering the vow of SNP MP's not having second jobs has already been exposed with at least 15 of them breaking the SNP "higher moral vow " on this made by Pete Wishart MP.
This extracts of the text below give the gist of the story so far.
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INVESTIGATION Greed, vanity and crooked deals that helped build £1.7million property empire for SNP’s ‘business expert’

 

EARLY last month, Michelle Thomson gave an interview in which she dredged up a painful memory from primary school. The Nationalist MP appeared to be describing the difficult birth of her social conscience.

 Were Michelle T Thomson’s property deals on the rig right side of the law? ‘When I was ten, I asked the teacher why the Queen had so many houses when other people had none at all,’ she revealed. ‘The teacher, for my troubles, took me out and belted me. I remember thinking, “I don’t want to be told how to think”.’
In the light of the £1.7million property empire Mrs Thomson now controls, and the dubious means by which it was built, it was an extraordinary story to offer an interviewer who had simply asked what she had wanted to be when she was a child.
Anyone taking the trouble to check the Parliamentary register of members’ interests would find Mrs Thomson now has rather more in common with the Queen than those with no houses at all. She lists nine Scottish properties which she either owns or part-owns.
More detailed records held at the Land Registry show the MP and her husband Peter’s portfolio actually extends to 17 – many let out for between £600 and £800 a month, providing a very tidy extra income for the working couple, even after monthly mortgage repayments are subtracted.
What self- destructive impulse would drive the SNP’s business spokesman to raise the issue of multiple home ownership, t he very area where she was most vulnerable to attack?
And what would possess her to do so in the full knowledge that her solicitor Christopher Hales had been struck off for professional misconduct for his role in building her empire?
These are questions both Mrs Thomson and the SNP may reflect upon at length as they look back on her first – and possibly only – year in politics.
Both may wonder also what this wannabe property mogul, preying on the most desperate house-sellers to feather her own nest, thought she was doing representing the anti-austerity SNP at Westminster at all. For, notwithstanding her support for independence, it is abundantly clear that she and the party were not on the same page.
On the website for her firm Your Property Shop former council houses were described as ‘our favourites’ and there were boasts that English investors found them particularly attractive.
This, of course, was the local authority housing stock which was sold to council tenants under the right to buy legislation of Margaret Thatcher – a policy, and a Prime Minister, despised by the SNP.
Yet Mrs Thomson’s website celebrated the money-making opportunity the policy brought, declaring: ‘With the advent of right to buy during the Thatcher era, many Scots took advantage of the policy and bought their council home for a knock-down price.
‘Many of these same homeowners find themselves now with huge equity in their homes and are able to sell at hugely discounted rates and still pocket a handsome profit. So a “win-win” for both the vendor and the investor. Yippee!!’
But then, that decision was made very recently indeed – only a few months, in fact, before s he f ound herself in Westminster.
There she was immediately handed a frontbench brief and was trumpeted hubristically as one of the new breed of serious professionals, rich in hinterland, swelling the modern SNP’s elected ranks.
She j oined Standard Life, working in IT for 14 years before moving to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), just before chief executive Fred Goodwin’s disastrous purchase of the Dutch Bank ABN Amro, which almost sank RBS and was one of the triggers for the financial crisis. She left her role as programme manager there just months before t he bank announced the largest annual loss in UK corporate history.
No matter, for Mrs Thomson now planned to work for herself – reaping the benefits of the very disaster her f ormer employer had helped bring about.
‘ I took advantage of the property dip to build my own portfolio of buy-to-let and holiday rental properties,’ she wrote on one social media profile.
But how was it possible to build such an extensive portfolio so quickly? Where was the money coming from?

The Scottish Solicitor’s Discipline Tribunal which struck off Mrs Thomson’s lawyer Christopher Hales last year gives an idea how the empire could be built without substantial capital.
Simply, she found ways to receive loans amounting to 100 per cent, or sometimes more, of the actual sum changing hands for the properties. It involved a lawyer prepared to break the rules and deceive the mortgage lender, which is why Mr Hales is out of a job.
There were two schemes to induce mortgage companies to lend more than they usually would f or t he properties. The first was ‘cashback transactions’ which required the cooperation of the seller.
In the case of a property in High Street, Jedburgh, Mrs Thomson’s solicitor offered the house seller £90,000, with the proviso that £27,000 of this sum was to be repaid to the buyer, Mrs Thomson’s company M&F Property Solutions, after settlement. That made the net purchase price £63,000. But the £67,465 loan from the mortgage
company, Birmingham Midshire, was predicated on the £90,000 figure. She had just bought a house without a deposit.
The second scheme is ‘ back to back transactions’, a manoeuvre requiring two buyers in league with each other and a crooked lawyer. Crucially, the seller’s collusion is not required.
One example was the sale of 10 MacDonald Drive in Stirling. Here Mrs Thomson’s business partner Frank Gilbride made an offer of £64,000 to the house seller Sarah Capper. But on the date of settlement he sold the property on to Mrs Thomson for £95,000.
She had received a mortgage loan of £75,855 based on that £95,000 figure and had transferred the balance to her solicitor. He then paid off the £64,000 owed to Mrs Capper and returned the proceeds to Mrs Thomson. Once again, she had bought a house without investing any capital.
The tribunal findings detail a total of 13 transactions in which Mr Hales duped mortgage lenders. In some cases the vendors, often selling their properties in desperate circumstances, were duped too.
Mrs Capper was reported to have been ‘livid’, saying: ‘My daughterin-law had told me not to accept the offer, but I had to do it. I sold it to get back to England and see my family. I had cancer and I had no one to fall back on. I could have got a lot more money if I’d gone to an estate agent.’
A former tabloid journalist, Mr Gilbride became i ncreasingly involved in the property business after his press agency Newsflash folded. While keeping a foothold in journalism, he teamed up with Mrs Thomson first in M&F Property Solutions and later in Your Property Shop.
It was in 2011, the year before Mrs Thomson became a founder member of the pro-independence group Business for Scotland, that Mr Hales was suspended from his job with Edinburgh law firm Grigor Hales after routine checks by the Law Society.
Even as she took her first tentative steps in public life, the scandal was in the pipeline, the wheels were already in motion.
She became one of the go-to spokesmen for broadcasters seeking business figures in favour of a Yes vote in the referendum – although it was never clear just how substantial a roster of big businesses was on board.
An investigation by economics blogger Kevin Hague found very few of the figures i nvolved in Business for Scotland were major company directors. Most ran tiny firms and some did not appear to be in business at all.
According to Mrs Thomson, it was only at the tail- end of 2014, and in the light of the No vote, that she decided to run for Westminster, and only in January that she was selected. With almost indecent haste a career in politics was born and, on the tidal wave of support which won the Nationalists all but three of the 59 Scottish seats, she was elected to Westminster.
Perhaps, back in January, neither she nor her party had believed she had any reasonable chance of taking Edinburgh West from the Lib Dems. But as the May election day drew closer, both must have realised she stood an excellent chance of becoming an MP. And she, surely, must have known of the storm blowing steadily in her direction.
The revelation weeks ago that her email address had been published along with millions of customers of the adultery website Ashley Madison was merely the first rumble. That, she could claim quite believably, was part of a smear campaign. But the revelations of the deceptions used by her lawyer to build her property empire by preying on vulnerable homeowners – described in his disciplinary tribunal as ‘distressed sellers – could not be dismissed so lightly.
They shine a devastatingly harsh light on the business methods of the Nationalist MP who was chosen to hold the business brief.

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The investigation mentioned in the text done by "economics blogger Kevin Hague " can be found on his own Blog here :-

http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/who-do-business-for-scotland-represent.html 

 

and also his scrutiny of a video "Scotland for Business" made for the Indy Referendum here  :-

http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/response-to-independence-and-economy.html

 

Kevin also produced a presentation on the Indy "White paper" and the data they used  here :-

 http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/chokkablog-videos.html

He can also be followed on Twitter ....  see his blog.
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 This story might well yet escalate quickly as the Police enquiry deepens :-
"The Law Society of  Scotland is facing intense pressure over a year-long delay in alerting prosecutors to a case of suspected mortgage fraud linked to Scottish National party MP Michelle Thomson."
"As further questions emerged about the role of another Law Society official who knew Thomson and was also a nationalist campaigner, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon made clear that the MP faced
being drummed out of the party over the affair as she faced a barrage of questions at Holyrood."
See more on this link http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/01/law-society-of-scotland-under-pressure-over-mps-suspected-mortgage?CMP=share_btn_tw 

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Sunday 4th October 2015   The Sunday Herald reveals infighting within multiple members of Business for Scotland that led to Michelle Thomson no longer being paid for "consultancy services " but yet let her continue to be called the "Managing Director" for months till the Indy referendum to help avoid further problems and bad press for Business for Scotland itself.
Read the whole article by CLICKING HERE

Sunday 4th October 2015   The vetting  process that has come under scrutiny  in the Michelle Thomson situation has now also raised questions about the suitablity of Paul Monaghan too for selection as  SNP Candidate too. There are details of serious issues at his fathers previous Nursing home and also of when he worked at the Northern Constabulary.
Read the whole article by CLICKING  HERE 

To end this Blog and have a few seconds to think about the SNP's troubles CLICK ON HERE



 

The best presentation I have ever seen on the SNP Manifesto Document " Scotlands Future"

So here we are , nearly one year on from the Scottish Independence referendum vote, for myself I made my decsion back then on how to vote based on more than 25 years of following the UK Business financial markets and some reasonable  knowledge of how volatile the Oil markets are and their outurn effects on the overall UK economy.  For me it was Job done and I duly voted "No" based purely on what I think was a pretty well informed financial opinion on Scotlands prospects. For me the head always has to rule the heart, commonsense has to prevail over rushing in blindly into someone else's Political Ideology based on "Hope without Facts."

So nearly a year later , with the benefit  of hindsight ....do I think I made the right decision for me , for Scotland and the nations future ?

Well since the time of  the Referendum Vote the Oil price per barrel of Crude Oil has fallen rapidly from over  $100 to around $45 per barrel as I type and its also pretty obvious that the SNP led administration had made deliberately optimistic  predictions for the future Oil Price in the Manifesto Document ,well above the figures used by the "Office for Budget Responsibility's" own predictions.... clearly to try to deliberately influence the outurn of the Vote in its own favour.  Looking back, this to me appears to have been wholly reckless and clearly "not very responsible at all " and  not what I'd expect from  any Government asking a nation to make such a large important decision on its future. It's my own clear personal view now that the SNP are simply idealogically driven  without morals and no longer financially trustworthy to be trusted with managing Scotlands long term future for the nations best result.

I'd  have some real difficulty personally trying to explain the complex financial figures  contained in the Independence manifesto  (and so do some members of the current SNP Government it would appear) so therefore I was very lucky to come across Kevin Hagues online blog (chokkablog)  very recently which even with the knowledge I had was a real eye opener and undeniably backs up my own view that Scotland as a nation managed to dodge a very large bullet back in September 2014.

I'd urge everyone  who may not  have fully understood the Indy Manifesto fully last year to watch
Kevins excellent presentation of the figures alone without offering any judgement or personal direction of how a vote should have been cast at that time.

His presentation starts with a very quick overview video and then follows up with a more indepth
and enlightening set of presentations  on the figures regarding Scotland long running fiscal deficit and how that figure would affect "FFA" (Full Fiscal Autonomy)  , its affect on Independence as well as how any financial shotfall might possibly have to be dealt with and the possible potential time periods involved to balance Scotlands large financial deficit. (More than scary !)

Clich here for the Video's   Click here to start Kevin Hagues excellent video presentations 

Kevin's Chokkablog Homepage can be found here http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/ 

The "Gers" figures which are trustworthy Scottish national statistics compiled by the Scottish Government itself are explained again here
http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/how-scotlands-economy-contributes-to-uk.html

What FFA is http://chokkablog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/full-fiscal-autonomy-for-dummies.html

These texts are all the work of Kevin Hague who has a very wide following from people on both sides of the Independence arguement. (see the "endorsements" tab on his Blog)

I hope you find them all as useful and informing as i did. (Kevin can be followed via his Blog or via Twitter.  Help inform other people by highlighting Kevins videos to them too.
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With Oil down at around $48 per barrel I am expecting at some point to see more figures to compound  a continuing worsening of the Scottish Financial position as i do not expect the World Crude Oil price to rise in the markets greatly anytime soon. I still can't beleive the deliberate deception in the Indy Manifesto by the SNP party Seniors in both using "old" data and then further using wholly over optimistic predictions on that old data to produce a fradulent picture of the "potential of Scotland's future". Kevins presentations show that SNP over optimistic promises of future prosperity were simply  a demonstrable lie.  How the SNP leaders have the gall to continue to rant on about the same issues and another Indy referendum is astounding as their niave childishness in blaming everyone but themselves for the last defeat. A flawed Ideology in Denial.

I wonder how people that voted Yes feel when they can clearly see that the SNP financial arguement for Independence was so weak that the Party  had decided to manipulate the figures to make them look so much better than they actually were ? The SNP clearly must think the Scottish electorate are fools that can't be trusted to make good clear decision on the real  facts and  so decided to use over optimistic  data that made the future of Scotland look far rosier that it actually was.  Wouldn't  that nornmally be called "fraud" ? 
There is an old saying we should never forget "Once a liar always a liar" the SNP have tarred themselves with their own brush.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11481010/SNPs-whopping-exaggeration-on-oil-revenues-laid-bare.html



















































































































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#BBCScotland

Sturgeon attempts to takeover BBC Scotland as the SNP Cult's propaganda machine.

Despite the SNP apparently not enjoying too much being compared to the Facists of the past the SNP's leader Sturgeon today made another jackbooted step forwards in trying to exert absolute control of the SNP's hoped for Single Party State in Scotland despite the Nation itself voting a clear NO in the Independence Referendum in September 2014.
.
The "Dear Leader" (not) of the SNP cult seperatist political party today tried  to make out she is speaking for all of the Scots nation when attempting to wrest control of BBC Scotland and its assets away from National control and into the SNP's grubby interfering, indoctrinising and controlling hands. 

As with most Dictators she too  knows that control over a countries media would allow you to brainwash, indocrinate and run roughshod over the will of a nation, whether or not the controlling Political Party ever won a mandate to do so or not at the Ballot box.  This must be stopped for sake of Scotland and its nation, enough is enough, there are enough failures within Scottish Government alreadly without allowing this too happen as well.

SNP Seperatist Party Control of the BBC Scotland must be avoided at all costs ..why is it that Political Parties that don't like being called Fascists behave like...well Fascists really ?  Have they become so blinded by their own ideaology that they can't see what their own actions actually is the real behaviour of ?

This is yet another example of the SNP attacking something it loathes to try to gain power and control over something whenever it doesn't get it's own political free will, the SNP bullied, blamed ,attacked and criticised the BBC and its Journalists throughout both the whole Independence and General Election Campaign's. Just because  BBC Scotland doesn't become your puppet and agree with and publicise the SNP parties political propaganda for its own ends doesn't mean that it is the enemy to be worked over until submission to be used as a Seperatist Party Political tool.
Just because the SNP  Seperatist Political Party tries to assert that the BBC is biased against it,  that does not mean that it is actually fact !  The SNP has an obvious  self interest in trying to spread this accusation for its own political ends.

Enough is enough ...Leave BBC Scotland alone !!!  
Scots who have finally had enough of  the SNP's attempted takeover of the Media and meddling in the same by the backdoor really need to take action by making their feelings on the subject known by returning feedback on the matter to the BBC as soon as possible. Failure to repsond to this may mean another national government asset falls into he hands of the SNP seperatists for their own future propaganda use.

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The BBC article is here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-34070202

"Nicola Sturgeon will call for the BBC in Scotland to have more power, more money and its own TV channel, when she addresses the Edinburgh TV Festival.

Scotland's first minister will call for "bold and ambitious" reforms to the way the corporation operates.
Ms Sturgeon will say she accepts the BBC will continue to serve the whole UK, after Scotland voted against independence last year.
But she will propose it adopts a federal structure.
She wants to see a separate board for each home nation - Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - under a UK-wide board.
Ms Sturgeon said the current structure no longer reflected the realities of the UK

Size and scope
The Scottish first minister is to become the first British politician to deliver the Alternative MacTaggart lecture when she goes head-to-head with the Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner at the Edinburgh International Television Festival.
The first minister will say she wants BBC Scotland to have a bigger share of licence fee cash to set up its own dedicated TV channel and a sister station for Radio Scotland.
She will say this is about catching up with the consequences of devolution.
At the Guardian Edinburgh Television Festival on Wednesday, the UK Culture Secretary John Whittingdale stressed that the BBC was a "British" institution.
The UK government is currently consulting on the corporation's future size, scope and governance.

The BBC is expected to publish its own proposals in the next fortnight. A new Royal Charter will underpin how the BBC operates until 2027.
A BBC Scotland spokesman said: "Audiences across Scotland get great value from the licence fee, and are some of the highest users of BBC services.
"The licence fee funds much loved services across the UK - like BBC One and Radio Two - but also specific services, like Radio Scotland and BBC Alba. Services for smaller audiences clearly cost more to provide, and that is why we spend more in the nations per head than the rest of the UK - that's the right thing to do.
"We recognise that there is audience demand for greater representation and portrayal of Scottish audiences on all BBC services and we want this to be part of our response in Charter Review.
"The BBC's funding has now been set for the next five years and this will mean cuts across the BBC - we will have to balance our investment on pan-UK services with dedicated services in the nations. We will aim to protect spending in the Nations so that content investment is cut less than in other parts of the BBC."
Meanwhile, comedy writer Armando Iannucci has called for a defence of the BBC and British programme-makers, from across the entertainment industry.

Speaking at the annual MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival, he said: "It's more important than ever that we have strong, popular channels... that act as beacons, drawing audiences to the best content."

Nicola Sturgeon must take the elecorate for fools if she thinks they cannot see through her transparent wrapping on her speech as we have seen the SNP mobs "call to arms " before.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/brian-wilson-sturgeon-s-dangerous-plan-for-bbc-1-3872059
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Some examples of why the SNP must never be allowed to interfere or gain control of the BBC in Scotland

Lord Steel of Aikenwood said broadcasters have told him that “SNP heavies” contact them so regularly trying to influence their coverage that it is verging on “intimidation”.

He said he has also been informed the Nationalists make more complaints to journalist news rooms than all the other political parties combined.

The former Liberal leader and Scottish Parliament presiding officer delivered the extraordinary attack during a House of Lords debate on the Government’s plans to devolve new powers to Holyrood.
more info see.... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9111652/Lord-Steel-compares-Scotland-to-SNP-totalitarian-state.html 
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Scotland's previous First Minister Alex Salmond compared Ric Bailey, the corporation's chief political adviser (CPA) in London, to a Nazi bureaucrat for vetoing an appearance as a pundit ahead of the Calcutta Cup rugby match on February 4 in which England beat Scotland.

He complained he had been booked by Carl Hicks, editor of BBC TV Sport, but the corporation made it clear that the first contact came from the First Minister.

The SNP leader had also tried to feature in BBC Scotland’s rugby coverage and to set up an interview for himself on Radio Five Live.

The BBC said it rejected all three offers as the match was “not an appropriate setting” for Mr Salmond to appear if the corporation was to retain its neutrality, especially given the current debate over independence.

Mr Salmond called Mr Bailey a "gauleiter", a Nazi Party regional leader, and accused the corporation of acting like a “tinpot dictatorship”.
A similar suggestion that the First Minister might take part in BBC Radio Scotland's rugby coverage had already been declined. Radio Five Live also turned down the offer of an interview with the First Minister following advice from the CPA.”
Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, said: "So, now it appears that the BBC is a 'tinpot dictatorship' populated by 'gauleiters' simply for saying no to the First Minister as he shamelessly hawks himself from programme to programme demanding unfettered access to the nation's airwaves."
John Park, Labour MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, said: "The SNP had us believe that an invitation from the BBC had been withdrawn. Now it transpires that it was actually Alex Salmond who demanded to get his face on the TV in the first place.Our national broadcaster is not there to give him free publicity.”  For more information see  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/9071523/Alex-Salmond-tried-three-times-to-gatecrash-BBCs-Six-Nations-party.html 
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