There was a budget, a Scottish budget.....

I admire Derek Mackay for his brass neck in the budget he managed to get through the Scottish Parliament yesterday.  Though I don’t think much of the content of it.      

On one hand one applauds him as he will increase the starter and basic rate income tax thresholds by inflation in a move he believes will help the lowest paid.      

On the other hand, as economists are fond of saying, with the Scottish higher rate threshold being frozen - unlike in the rest of the UK where the threshold will go up to £50,000 from April - Mr Mackay said his budget would raise an extra £68m in revenue.   Sounds good does it not?

One could and indeed should ask, for whom is he raising it?      

Let’s put this very simply.  If you have £100 in your pocket and I take away £10 today, how much have you left to spend?  £90.  So yesterday you would have been able to spend that in a shop.  Now you will only have £90 to spend.  So the shop keeper will have £10 less income.   

What will that mean?  Well, with less income it means the shop will have to look at what they spend as a business.  Some things will have to give.  So they try and cut their outgoings.  Result?  Redundancies.  Try and make do with fewer staff.   

So the lowest paid Mr Mackay says he wants to help will be out of a job.  Being out of a job  means relying on the government for money.  So the government will have to raise more taxes to help fund the people who are now unemployed.  And as for the business, it will make less profit.  Less profit means less money for the government as taxes are levied on profit.   

What bit of this economic cycle does Mr Mackay and his ilk not understand?

Don't hurt yourself laughing. Or crying.

Perhaps Ms Allen, given her Damascus Road conversion to having a second referendum relating to the EU, she should follow her own advice and call a by-election.   

It is also a little amusing they have chosen the Independent Group as their title given if we stay in the EU we will be anything but.

No deal? No such thing.

Today’s big scare story?  Ford warns no-deal Brexit would be 'catastrophic'.  We know that because the BBC web site trumpets the news.   

And of course they are right.  If there was no deal then we would be in a bit of a pickle.  But the truth is, there is no such thing as no deal.  If we don’t have a deal with the EU, we will automatically have a WTO deal.  And with that comes the opportunity to be free from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. 

There is no such thing as no deal.

The tide is high, I'm moving on.

Good news everybody.  Not only will you still be able to roam with your mobile phone in the rEU (remainder of the EU) after we leave, some businesses are positively licking their lips about business opportunities.   

Take Bristol Port.  65% of its imports already come from outside the EU, the majority under World Trade Organisation rules that Remainers don’t seem to understand.   

The Port says it does not expect any problems if we leave the EU on a WTO deal.   

Bristol, of course, is no different from other ports across the UK, says Tim Morris from the UK Major Ports Group.  Ports across the country have been working to ensure trade from Europe continues to flow under a WTO deal.  “We can't be complacent about this as there's a great deal of detail that's involved in these processes but one of the jobs at ports all around the UK including the port of Bristol that they've been doing, been working very hard with their customers and potential customers to ensure that the systems they have in place right now for non EU trade can be applied to EU trade, so there is a great deal of work going on with that and it’s been a real focus of a lot of the efforts of ports.”   

Bristol Port's offer of help is of course all about it looking after Number One.  It has capacity.  And the systems in place.  It is already working on WTO rules. So why not go and get work from ports that are not prepared.   Unprepared rival ports should be worried.   

But here’s the thing, if businesses like Bristol Port have done the preparation and are ready to leave the EU on a WTO deal, what were Mrs May (Prime Minister, Mr Hammond (Chancellor) and Ms Rudd (the then Home Secretary) doing since the people voted to leave the EU?  Clearly not preparing.  

I think that is criminal.

Mobile roaming charges.

3 has no plans to bring them back in, regardless of how Brexit negotiations resolve themselves.    

Vodafone says it currently had no plans to change its roaming charges.   

EE also said it had no plans to introduce the charges.    

And O2 said: "We currently have no plans to change our roaming services across Europe." 

So why did the BBC ask “Will these charges return after Brexit?  If the UK leaves the EU having agreed a version of Theresa May's withdrawal agreement, any changes will not happen immediately.” when it knew full well that they wouldn't and will not.

Why didn’t they just have a headline saying “Big Four mobile companies will not be changing current roaming tariffs after we leave the EU.  And have no plans to do.”   

But of course, where’s the story in that?

Theology.

I am not too sure of the theology behind the statement, so obviously carefully prepared and rehearsed by Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, that “Hell would have a special circle for Brexiteers who had no plan for our departure from Europe”.  

I am also intrigued as to who he thinks he was referring.  This whole nonsense that Leavers didn’t have a plan is palpable rubbish.  Take for example the 1030 page tome that sits on my desk by Business for Britain.  Change, or Go makes more than a compelling case for how the UK would gain influence and prosper outside an unreformed EU.   

Published before Mr Cameron’s fateful trip and return from Brussels that completely failed to being even a scintilla of reform, quite the reverse in fact, he arrived back in the UK with nothing more than a fig leaf to cover the embarrassment of the treatment and rejection he received.  

And this volume details everything from the sort of political relationship a newly energised UK outside the EU could have with the remains of the European Union and details a full plan for Financial services, Migration, Agriculture and Fisheries, Human Rights, the Environment, Energy, Transport, Education, Technology and Research.  They are all in this serious piece of work.   

So for Mr Tusk to suggest there was no plan is either demonstrating his ignorance or a disingenuousness that is rather unpleasant.