TheShiningWire

@Malcolm_Offord 🔥 This is real policy for real change.

Scotland needs sensible income taxes. First Labour pledge to punish hospital consultants and GPs with children, by steepening the tax cliff edge at £100k. Now the timid Tories say that by 2031 they'd only tinker with some marginal rates – the amount you lose for every extra £1 earned. Check out the graph below, which shows the extent of their plan, and compare to what a Reform government in Holyrood would do in just our FIRST budget by cutting all Scottish income taxes below England’s. Timid tinkering just isn’t enough to get growth. Only Reform is willing to do what it takes.

@theSNP This is just pathetic empty, meaningless slogans from a failure of a party. The SNP have increased the cost of everything they touch, taxed the life out of this country and campaigned for shutting the oil industry. Hypocrisy and opportunism at its absolute worst.

High energy costs impact everything - food, drink, transport, insurance, rent and mortgages. Scotland is energy rich, but we don't control our own energy - Westminster does. If Westminster won't act, they should step aside for an SNP Government that will.

@neilcgray Doctors in Scotland are far fewer in number, far more placid and easily placated than those down south who want fairer pay. You also know that any pay rise here amounts to barely half that figure in net pay due to higher income tax rates. Con job as usual from the SNP

Not for the NHS in Scotland. We’ve respected, not attacked, our NHS staff. We negotiated and reached agreement to avoid any industrial action. We don’t take that for granted, we work for it.

@JohnSwinney The SNP will really miss all their supporters in Iran. It’s amazing how there are so many less independence supporting accounts since the Iranian regime fell.

These comments are a threat of genocide, plain and simple. The US President must not act in this way. What the world needs is the courage of diplomacy and the wisdom of de-escalation.  The UK Labour Government must act now to ensure that de-escalation takes place.

@JohnSwinney Correction, thats all down to the SNP. Yet again, there is absolutely nothing you will take responsibility for. Always deflection and blaming Westminster. What actually is the point of you and Holyrood?

Higher bills, rising costs, energy jobs disappearing. That’s the reality of Westminster control. Scotland’s energy wealth should work for people in Scotland. On May 7th, make it #BothVotesSNP.

@swedetaxedermy @HVRNL84 There is no crime, misdemeanour, failure, fraud, deviance or incompetence that a Nationalist will not turn a blind eye to or excuse the SNP for. Education is devolved. You can only do so much in a system that is actively working against and undermining you. SNP out.

@HVRNL84 @ShiningWire So you're a teacher and the results have been plummeting. 🤦 Quit while you're behind.

The numbers don’t add up! PISA uses a standardised scale (~500 = average). Yes, COVID affected results everywhere. But Scotland’s maths scores were falling before it, and haven’t recovered since. This is a long-term trend. What is happening to our once valued education system?

@afneil Could be the SNP’s flagship. Symbolic in so many ways of their stewardship of this country.

Scottish government’s Glen Sannox ferry, built and owned by the state, began serving the busy Troon-Isle of Arran route in January 2025.  It was seven years late and four times over budget.  It is now out of action with engine problems. It only returned to service last week following previous repairs to its exhaust system. It also needs new propellers as part of £3.2m repair costs, along with its equally troubled sister ship Glen Rosa.

@ukboomers She’s your daughter FFS. £35k is not a big salary after tax and basic living expenses with your grandchildren. You can expect the same treatment from her when you need something. It’s family. Not everything needs be a business transaction.

Our lovely little holiday home in Cornwall. Our daughter asked if she could stay there with the kids this summer. Honey, we'd love to but it's booked on Airbnb all through August. £400 a night. We're not a charity. She earns £35,000 a year she can find a Travelodge.

@tozdee57 Until he looks at the ‘Net pay’ section and realises that he is paying far, far more tax than if he worked down south and taking home less than his contemporaries elsewhere in the UK.

Good to see this doctor confirm loud & clear, that doctors in #Scotland are paid significantly more than in #England! #JeremyVine #politicalchoice

@ScotNational There would be no point. You are not there to debate. You are there to name call and avoid answering questions yourself. Reform are wise not to engage with you lot.

Reform UK have dropped out of our Scottish election hustings after agreeing weeks ago to take part. Editor Laura Webster says this is about one thing - avoiding scrutiny.

@JustWhenyoutht @Malcolm_Offord Vacancy rates in practice are way above what a quick google search tells you. Thank God we get funded by Westminster. We run a 12% fiscal deficit thanks to benefit frauds like you who won’t work and expect someone else to pay for you.

@Malcolm_Offord Sit down fascist balloon. Scottish NHS budgets ultimately come from and are dictated by Westminster regardless of largest HR Party. Meanwhile vacancy rates on search returns a figure of just above 6%.

The Scottish NHS has a hospital consultant vacancy rate of 16.8%, with well over a thousand posts unfilled according to BMA Scotland. Why? Faced with excessive income taxes, doctors are incentivised to cut back their hours and retire early. Many hospital consultants earn a gross salary of £100k-125k a year, which because of the combination of high tax rates and the withdrawal of the personal allowance means they get to keep less than 31p of every extra £1 they earn – and less than 22p if they still have student loans to repay. It’s even worse if they have young children, because by becoming a hospital consultant at all, and so getting a raise above the £100k threshold, they immediately lose all entitlement to tax-free childcare – £2,000 a year per child (£4,000 if the child is disabled). In other words, a doctor with young children on £99.9k actually takes home more pay than a hospital consultant with a gross salary of £106k, or even £109k if they still have a student loan to repay. Is it any wonder we have such a high vacancy rate for hospital consultants when getting a promotion perversely loses them money? When this cliff edge was introduced in 2007 by Labour, hardly anyone earned over £100k, so it did not have as much of an impact. But after two decades of inflation without any change to the threshold, it now affects more and more experienced workers across the NHS and the public sector as a whole, gradually making our public services worse. This is damaging enough as it is, but Labour’s uncosted manifesto pledge is to increase the tax-free childcare allowance to £3,000 (and £6,000 for disabled children) without changing the threshold – which means that under Anas Sarwar, a hospital consultant with children would need a salary of over £110k (or £114k with a student loan) in order to take home more pay than a doctor on £99.9k. And they would make it even worse for hospital consultants with disabled children. In other words, Labour has pledged a policy that would only hasten the hollowing out of experience in the Scottish NHS, exacerbating the already serious crisis in recruitment and retention, and leaving even more wards understaffed and theatres empty while waiting lists continue to grow. As is so typical of Holyrood’s failure to think for even a second about incentives or the consequences of their uncosted pledges for more spending, Labour’s inattention to detail would be disastrous. Reform UK’s approach is to instead address the fundamentals: to stop punishing people for working hard and gaining experience across the economy as a whole, getting rid of the perverse incentives in the tax system, increasing take-home pay across the board, and ensuring that those with experience are rewarded for staying in work. To do this, a Reform government in Holyrood would use its first budget to cut all income taxes to below England’s, across every band, for which we will need to find savings of £2bn, or just 3% of Holyrood’s budget – savings that will come from cutting the devolved civil service’s rapidly bloating bureaucracy, which has seen its headcount swell by 72% in just the last ten years. And a Reform government would do everything it can over the following years to ensure that, whatever your income, for every extra £1 earned you always keep at least 50p of it. To illustrate what that means, the tax cut alone would immediately mean an extra £5,200 per year in extra take-home pay for a hospital consultant with a year’s experience, while smoothing away the punishing cliff edges would mean that they will no longer be forced to cut back hours – with similar effects across the entirety of the public and private sectors too. We cannot afford another five years of the other parties failing to address these fundamentals, and giving us the same old story: of having to increase spending for public sector raises, of raising income taxes to pay for it, and so of taxing it back off those very same workers while failing to fix the underlying problem. With the private sector stifled in the process as well. The only party offering a fundamental change on May 7th – of sensible taxes and a more productive public sector – is Reform UK.

@Sconethemorra @Malcolm_Offord By reducing income tax rates you might actually incentivise people to come here. Surely there’s no better way of getting one over Westminster by attracting highly skilled, highly qualified and highly paid staff from England?

@Malcolm_Offord "The Scottish NHS has a hospital consultant vacancy rate of 16.8%," Which is broadly similar to that of England then, so Scotland isn't the outlier you're desperately trying to imply! Scotland - 6-7% official, 10-15% real. England -8-9% official, 12-15% real. UKGOV PROBLEM.

@Sconethemorra @Malcolm_Offord NHS in Scotland is fully devolved. It’s Scotland’s problem.

@Malcolm_Offord 🎯

@Guiseppim @MailOnlineScot Come on then genius, tell us what’s changed. Educate us all. In the real world it’s blindingly obvious your isolationist fantasy is economic suicide. The only thing that has changed is that your delusion has become even more entrenched.

@ShiningWire @MailOnlineScot "Nothing has changed" Are you a complete idiot, or just pretending?

STEPHEN DAISLEY: Sorry, Mr Swinney, but you ARE the cost of living crisis Visit our homepage at dailymail.co.uk/scotland dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…

@Guiseppim @MailOnlineScot We did decide in 2014. Nothing has changed. It just that tinfoil hat wearing rabid Nationalists who hate the English and blame them for all their numerous failings can’t accept it.

@ShiningWire @MailOnlineScot Easy solution. Let democracy take its course. WM should STOP blocking another indyref. Now is the time for England to get rid of the deadweight known as Scotland/Wales. English MPs should not campaign or interfere this time. The BBC should remain schtum. Let Scotland decide...

@AngusRobertson Left wing extremists and champagne socialists like you are ruining the country. It is not ‘far right’ to expect controlled immigration, responsible government spending, safe streets, lower taxes and a pro-business and pro-wealth creation environment. You offer none of that.

⚠️ Progressive and younger voters are worried about the rise of Nigel Farage and Reform UK. 🟡 I defeated the Tories in Edinburgh Central in 2021. 🗳️ To lock them and the far right out, vote SNP and Angus Robertson on May 7th.

@GraceMurphy2 Any improvement in waiting times within the past year is due to funding by the UK government, which the SNP were forced to use, to pay NHS staff overtime to work evening and weekends to increase capacity. That funding has ended and waiting lists are going to go into reverse.

Labour run England and Wales. The SNP run NHS in Scotland and it continues to be the best performing across the UK!