Do you deny that cuts are being made and some cuts are being amplified by the choices of the Holyrood administration?

The choices facing Scotland do not disappear by separating from the UK. Whether independent or not the problems exist. The debate that needs to be had IS one of right vs left. What would you raise taxes to? Where would you roll policies back? Where would you cut to maintain policies that are popular?

These choices are going to be made regardless of the constitutional arrangements. To palm this debate off with ‘independence is the answer’ is absurd.

Independence is not a silver bullet.

Take health for example. If you want to maintain universal provision of prescriptions via general taxation yet you know this is amplifying the pain within the NHS (reduction in nurse/midwives, increased complaints etc) do you keep with this choice, of cutting elsewhere to keep this policy afloat, or do you raise taxes to properly fund the policy and make the universal provision sustainable?

If neither of those options is palatable then the other option is charges for the richest in society.

The debate Labour want us all to have is one the SNP wanted until they realised it would undermine their popularity. Now some on here have poured scorn over the claim that the SNP only do these things because it makes them popular. However, can nats not see that doing the right thing, and being seen to be actively looking to do the right thing, is vitally important – possibly more improtant than just looking good.

Are SNP supporters really that happy to see a >2% budget cut being multiplied up to >5% cut to local authorities while simultaneously asking for the popular policies to be maintained?

Whether you like it or not the SNP have decided which of the three options they think are best for Scotland and they have chosen to cut in other areas to protect their popular policies. Is this what SNP supporters want? If not, should the SNP join in with the debate and decide the best way forward for the country regardless of constitutional setups?

Didn’t Glasgow Labour put in place a CT freeze (after years of more than inflation rises)

Didn’t Stirling Labour join with the Tories to enact a 5% CT CUT?

CT has a bit problem. The Tories booby trapped it. The banding is linked, so you can’t decide that the rich should pay more without hitting the poorest. Raise it for the rich, you have to raise it for the poor.

In any case nothing stops the Labour Councils increasing CT> They say the freeze is underfunded. Very well. Let them forgo THAT money, and raise it as they wish. If the extra money they get is insufficient, then surely raising it would be a more lucrative exercise.

Of course, at least in the West, we have the difficulty on who Labour Councils gice that money to, the ALEO record for example is horrifying, but that’s a dfferent question

Remember that Scotland consistently sends a majority of Labour MPs to Westminster, and voted in Tony Blair three times with large majorities, so the popularity of this policy shouldn’t surprise people.

I would be interested though, in whether the SNP policy of weighting council funding increasingly onto general taxation such as income tax, corporation tax etc might actually be more ‘progressive’ than finding the extra money via council tax rises. Council tax obviously is more progressive than the Poll tax, but not as progressive as income tax, for example.

But that’s been the MO of Labour for a while now – react, and react so slowly that the debate has moved on by the time a response has been formulated.

In short, because my granny needs that money to pay for all the other things old age brings, in order to live with dignity.

Lamont’s views run contrary to Ed Miliband’s who when questioned on universal child benefit said this:

“I’m in favour of that yes, and I’m in favour of it because it’s a cornerstone of our system to have universal benefits, and frankly there aren’t that many millionaires in this country”

If people pay in then they should be entitled to take out & frankly there aren’t that many millionaires in Scotland either.

The response from the McChatterati and nat fellow-travellers (that would be Ian and Iain) was as cliched as it was expected.

My own feeling is that while Labour are saying that everything is on the table, ultimately the real targets will be the CT freeze and a look at how we better fund higher education.

Let’s not kid ourselves here: the CT freeze is pretty much Thatcherite rate-capping dressed up as a progressive policy and the idea that we can afford to put so many of our kids through uni without looking at proper funding is not just cynical – it is irresponsible.

There has been much celebrating at SNP HQ over Ms Lamont’s speech. The SNP can’t believe their luck, it has been reported that Mr Salmond was considering taking a flight back to Scotland so that he could get a kick in at FMQs on Thursday.

Indeed in their haste to attack Labour and crow about their own achievements the SNP have now committed themselves to a further CT freeze and taken off the table any kind of examination of how we navigate through these troubled times in favour of one single, silver bullet argument: separation.

Which is fine for the 2014 referendum but if Scotland votes against separation where do the SNP go from there?