What New Powers Should we Demand by St Andrews Night?

We need to get together and decide what new powers we should demand for Scotland.

There is an increase in income tax raising power of about 2% scheduled for 2015 I think anyway but currently the Barnett formula, I believe, delivers a favourable amount to Scotland.

• We take more from the UK, partly because of dealing with our increased land area eg with regards to railways etc,  but 
• We also give more to the UK eg oil revenues and net exporter of electricity partly because of our renewables.

So, where does this leave us ? Currently its tax raising powers which are being talked about, eg increasing power over Corporation Tax. If this was reduced then you can encourage businesses to invest in our country by building factories etc. here.

However, what I would like to see is more power also with regards to our own natural resources. We should get the revenue from our natural resources such as the oil and from our seas with regards to fishing and from our wind, waves and sun when it comes to electricity.

Lord Kelvin has been tasked with leading a commission into this and it is to be called the Smith Commission - here is news of the members of the commission so far as at 6th October 2014 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29479442

I will gather in this particular post any useful references and see if it is possible to come to some decision about what powers we should ask for - I will set a deadline of St Andrews Night which is when the political parties have to come up with this as well.

Also, I would like to see the SNP involved in this - there is no point in Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem excluding all that expertise from the discussions.  Come on MSPs - do the Best for Scotland !

References 

More powers could mean more pain says Institute of Government Director Peter Riddell
http://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/scotland/more-powers-more-pain-analyst-1.613278

EU - Did You vote ?

Well we have had some time now to get used to the European election results.
I was away for the weekend in a highland cottage so only managed to pick up the results bit by bit via radio announcements !

The first thing is we have lost an experienced LibDem MEP George Lyon who had served the Scottish farming community well I believe.  And we have gained a UKIP MEP !
I wonder if UKIP expected that. Had their party machine detected their candidate was likely to get in?
The UK are one of only four countries in the EU to vote regionally rather than nationally.
If we had been voting nationally then all the votes for the Greens would have led to more MEPs.
If the vote had been national and seats decided nationally then this would have been the result, which would have better reflected voters intentions :

UK-WIDE
UKIP - 27.49% of vote - actual seats : 24   if voting nationally : 19.2

Labour - 25.4% of vote - got 20 seats but if voting nationally : about 18

Conservative 23.93% - got 19 seats if voting nationally : 17.5

Green - 7.87% - got 3 seats but if voting nationally : 5.5

LibDems - 6.87% - got 1 seat but if voting nationally : 4.8

SNP - 2.46% - got 2 seats but if voting nationally : 1.82

BNP - 1.14% - got 0 seats but if voting nationally would have : 0.8

PC - 0.71% - got 1 seat but if voting nationally : 0.5

I imagine the reason the MEPs are divided into regions is so that they can represent those regions at EU meetings. I wonder if they have been doing this well.... must find out if we can find out more about their voting records etc.

For SCOTLAND alone this seems to be the final results based on numbers voting for each party :

BRITAIN FIRST, 13,639 (1.0%)
BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY, 10,216 (0.8%)
CONSERVATIVE PARTY, 231,330 (17.2%)
LABOUR PARTY, 348,219 (25.9%)
LIBERAL DEMOCRATS, 95,319 (7.1%)
NO2EU, 6,418 (0.5%)
SCOTTISH GREEN PARTY, 108,305 (8.0%)
SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY (SNP), 389,503 (28.9%)
UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY (UKIP), 140,534 (10.4%)

Rejected papers 2,184 (0.2%)
Total votes cast 1,345,667
Electorate 4,016,735

Turnout 33.5% 

To see a breakdown of your own region have a look at :

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2014/may/25/eu-election-results-live

Most are fairly predictable eg SNP and Conservative fighting it out in Aberdeenshire, and Labour winning Glasgow. The LibDems are still popular in rural areas and the SNP are popular in the heartlands of Perthshire and Stirling etc.

The turnout was disappointing at around 33% and even in Scotland, where we are all supposed to be enthused about the future of our country, the turnout was 33.5% (Ref :  http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/news/article/1560/scottish_results_of_european_elections_announced)

Edinburgh has reported a turnout of 41.6% -  The final official vote for Scotland will not be declared until Monday lunchtime, when the Western Isles vote is counted. It is not counted on a Sunday for religious reasons. 

This guide from the BBC shows where in the UK people voted for particular parties : 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27576104

and the Guardian had results from across Europe analysed as they came in at :http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2014/may/25/eu-election-results-live