Can we? Are you sure?

There was a visitor by the name of "Aye We Can" (no indication of what, exactly, they can - beans, perhaps?) who left some comments on an earlier post. He or she or they appear to be suffering from Coprolalia, so I've tidied the comments up below (where the spaces are). I would normally just delete them but there's a point or two of clarification which is worth making (I didn't bother correcting the spelling):

Change this mince record calum
There is no cut - look at your own budget.
Campre the block now with the block next year - its up!
And it will be up even more - by a billion or more after Darling's april budget
Attack real isues - and there are buckets of them. Dont fall for this statistically provablly wrong garbage, spun from your Treasury team and wee EcKs office
Your Government ______ up on LIT ( and a good few other things) . Dont let them compound their own mistakes with this drivel
Scotland deserves and needs better.
Honesty is the best policy. And facts dont lie

Alistair Darling, of course, has already indicated that he will be cutting resources across all of the spending departments which he oversees - which includes Scotland.


Unless the mysterious commenter is a senior Treasury Civil Servant, of course, he or she or they cannot tell us what will happen in April's budget. Even the senior Treasury Civil Servants could only, at the moment, give you a rough idea of where it might be headed (if you could induce them to talk at all). Even Mr Darling would not be able to provide the actualite at the moment, I think, since he'll still be wrestling with the ramifications of his recent interventions.

Attacking issues is never a good idea, addressing them might be - which is why John Swinney addressed the problems with Local Income Tax and deferred its implementation meantime. The SNP believes in the principle of progressive taxation and will continue to press for it at all levels. In the meantime we're stuck with a regressive property tax, but at least JS has decided to seek to freeze it for the whole life of this Parliament.

Facts, I'm afraid are not the verities that Aye thinks - ask a physicist, especially one of those strange ones who study particle physics. Or, indeed, ask a politician, or a statistician, or an accountant, or a police officer, or a census taker, or me - yup, ask me, that's always the best thing to do.

What with this pre moderation stuff - how new labour have you guys got in my absence?
Even the Scotsman and Tom Harris dont pre moderate. I thought Id left thing _____ behind when I left the parly - George Reid's parly!

I think Aye has demonstrated the importance of comment moderation in one respect. There is also the law of defamation to consider - anything that goes up on my blog is published by me and any defamatory remarks therefore leave me liable (a point that all bloggers should bear in mind) and I'm not prepared to leave myself open to that. I'm not against defaming people altogether but if there's any defaming to be done on my blog I'll be the one doing it and I'm not particularly concerned with how the Scotsman or Tom Harris run their affairs. Have at you sir!



My blog is personal, it doesn't belong to Parliament - it's mine I tell you, all mine! Parliament doesn't belong to George Reid either, it belongs to the people of Scotland - who are, I understand, massively grateful to Mr Reid for the excellent service he rendered our country as Presiding Officer, making sure that Parliament became an institution respected domestically and internationally. He's a fine wee chap.

I think I should make it clear that I don't have the first scoobie-dan-doo who Aye We Can is.

I think that covers it - time for a cup of tea. Mind how you go!