fred goudie

@MikeStewart79 Not sure that would happen, both sides would need to settle on a solution which 60% would support.

@freddie124 We would forever be in limbo, just like we are here. HoC won’t pass a bill that benefits Scotland and the truth for Scotland would be too much to stomach

People keep rewriting history about 2014. We were never “in touching distance”. Even with a franchise tilted heavily towards Yes, the biggest democratic turnout Scotland has ever seen, it still wasn’t close. And the reason wasn’t emotion or media or “fear”. It was the basics: no credible answers on currency, deficit or pensions. That’s where the whole project collapsed. Everything after that was just political theatre, managed by a leadership that kept the lights on long after the fundamentals were gone. Discuss.

@StewartNial @DeanMThomson Where did it explain that in the Agreement.what

@freddie124 @DeanMThomson That was a one off, as the Edinburgh agreement explained.

62% for pro-union parties, and 38% pro independence? Struggling to see the mandate for indyref2 here.

@Malcolm_Offord Gps also get gold plated NHS pensions but they're mainly private contractors. Stop that and youll save the NHS ££s

Scotland’s GP services are under severe strain. The number of GPs has had to increase to keep up with our growing and ageing population. But at the same time they’ve been cutting back how many days they work! Although the headcount has risen, the number of whole-time equivalent GPs has fallen: from 3,735 in 2013 to 3,592 last year. Despite mounting pressures, a decrease of over 4%. Why? Because Scottish income taxes incentivise GPs to cut back their hours and retire early. Many GPs earn £100-125k per year. But with the combination of high tax rates and the withdrawal of the personal allowance, 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 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). It means that if a GP has young children and student loans to repay, then they take home more pay on £99.9k than if they earn £109k! No wonder they go part-time. No wonder the SNP has struggled to boost the number of GPs in proportion to the population’s rising healthcare needs. No wonder patient satisfaction has fallen. The fundamentals are all wrong, sapping the incentive to work. Reform UK’s approach is to fix the fundamentals: to stop punishing people for working and gaining experience. We want to get rid of the perverse incentives in the tax system and increase take-home pay across the board - not just to boost the economy, but to get our public services working again. A Reform government in Holyrood would use its first budget to save 3% of the budget spent on the SNP's ideological hang-ups and rapidly bloating bureaucracy, to cut all income taxes to below England’s across every band. And we would do everything we can over the following years to ensure that, whatever your income, for every extra £1 earned you always keep at least 50p of it. The initial tax cut alone would mean thousands of pounds more per year in extra take-home pay for all GPs, while smoothing away the punishing cliff edges would mean that they will no longer be incentivised to cut back hours – with similar effects across the whole economy. We cannot afford another five years of failing to address these fundamentals. We cannot afford 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 - all while stifling the rest of the economy as well. The only party offering to fix the fundamentals on May 7th is Reform.

@gavinpoints You won't see a GP in England if you need an urgent prescription you have to go to A&E.

Stephen missed out all doctor surgeries have a 2 - 3 week waiting list and no walk in A and E . Like all SNP mps Stephen can only highlight issues in England that has 10 X the population . He has nothing to boast about !!

@skisidjames So leaving the EU has reduced farming standards.

Farmers face a “devastating” hit from Sir Keir Starmer’s realignment with Brussels, MPs warn. EFRA chair Alistair Carmichael raises alarm at adopting new EU rules without a transition—risking an overnight ban on some farming practices. Brexit betrayal.. telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/…

@LizzieLabour @ScottishLabour National Insurance rises, frozen tax thresholds and the removal of pensioners winter fuel allowances if the UK model is to be adopted.

Tax rises or more cuts - that's all the SNP has to offer after 20 years Give @ScottishLabour 5 years and see the difference

@IainAlasdair @BorderSolution_ @JohnRentoul The point is who decides to have a referendum Scots or the PM (Farage Truss Johnson etc).

@BorderSolution_ @freddie124 @JohnRentoul You’ll be confident of another referendum then?

And John Swinney says 38% for separatist parties vs 62% for unionists is a mandate for another referendum?

@adamboultonTABB But due process was followed ?

Seems to me Starmer, Robbins etc have been « economical with the truth » rather than lying. Process was followed and a (highly unusual) decision was taken to go against the vetting. But following the vetting recommendation was not mandatory was it?

@johnadgrady @ScottishLabour The basics being ignoring security vetting.

The message I get from constituents is that they are fed up with decline in the NHS and schools, and want a focus on getting the basics right. @ScottishLabour will get the basics right and deliver the change we need.

@john4brexit And yet the Swiss Govt continues its bespoke close arrangement with the EU.

When I spoke with the Swiss gov they said stay as far away from the EU as possible as they make life v difficult for Switzerland

@paulmasonnews So before you announce in the HoC that due process was followed you would actually check the facts.

Uk Security Vetting is an necessarily apolitical process. I'm assuming that whoever overturned the refusal of DV for Mandelson was constrained by rules saying they could not inform politicians. Bizarre but the most logical explanation.

@BorderSolution_ @JohnRentoul That's what Mr Rentoul is suggesting if you exceed 50 % in an election theres no need for a referendum.

@freddie124 @JohnRentoul Nonsense, elections are not a single issue question, unless you claim that is all SNP has?

@JohnRentoul So are we running the Country on poll ratings or democratic votes. If indepedence parties get 51% of the vote in a national election is there no need for a referendum. Should Wes Streeting or Liz Truss have more power over Scots than Scots.

What I wrote in the Commons Confidential newsletter yesterday

@jruddy99 Scotlands biggest market was the EU, which the Brexiteer Unionist make harder to trade with.

Belgium has these things because it has good transport links to the major markets for those products - France, Germany and the Netherlands. Mike wants to cut Scotland off from its biggest and nearest market.

@Alison_S_Taylor @AnasSarwar @Malcolm_Offord When is Sarwar going to sue ?

This is what @AnasSarwar thinks of @Malcolm_Offord aired in #Paisley in 2025, the day he is accused of some sort of grubby deal. I know Anas and the last person on the planet he would do a deal with is Nigel Farage and Reform. John Swinney knows that as well and like in the Hamilton by -election which @DavyRussell4HLS won - is desperately trying to deflect from his record in Government and he also knows, like Hamilton, that the polls are not accurate.

@trussliz Thanks to you were also behind Malta Italy and Cyprus and shortly will be behind Poland.

This shows how much Brits have been lied to. Time to wake up.

@johnredwood @facts4eu They didn’t have net migration at 1 million a year to mask the real figures.

I set out today @facts4eu how the 4% and 8% claims of GDP loss from Brexit are both lies. UK growth has been a little better than the main EU countries since the vote.

@MeghanSCUP We have one submarine and destroyer and 5 frigates at sea. The Torys degraded our defence capacity over the last 14 years.

We are stronger and safer as part of the United Kingdom. For John Swinney to peddle independence lines when talking about defence is irresponsible.