[Closed] Do Southerners subsidies Northerner?

Gonefishing - no its not as regards the oil. Teh profit and tax on the oil is generated in part in Scotland - but not credited to it - the opposite. You also miss my point - these figures can be manipulated to show what you want. I clearly said that earlier on. I wsa not critising any area - just pointing out that there are different ways of looking at the figures that give very differnt results.

Capt Jon - you don't answer the question. Why should UK wide profits reported in London be credited to London when they are generated UK wide?

Dunno about this subsidizing stuff, but having just looked out the window, i think we're borrowing your crap weather. Sunny Saarf my ar**!

Did the sunny south solely subsidise the sickening £62 BILLION safety net for FAILED adventure in extreme capitalistic ideoLOLogy this year?

I think not.

Yeah, the South subsidises the North and it's really grim up here, stay down there and feel superior, it's much better down south.

/Snicker! Look, they're buying it. Sssshhhhh!!

Capt Jon - you don't answer the question. Why should UK wide profits reported in London be credited to London when they are generated UK wide?

Because you have to draw a line somewhere and it is simpler to work out where profits are reported than where they are made.

So actually your figures are fairly meaningless then - and certainly biased towards showing London as contributing more than it does and spending less than it does?

Very useful

Stoner to the forum please. Stoner to the forum!

If you actually bother to look at the tables backing up the figures you will see that Petroleum Revenue Tax, the essential tax on oil exploration, is fully credited to Scotland. Second, there does not seem to that much skew to corporate tax receipts because of HQ in London and the South East. London & SE Corporation Tax/Total Corporation Tax tax is 35.46%, London & SE Total Tax/Total tax is 33.3% so Corporation Tax seem to be allocated in more or less the same proportion as other taxes. Corporation Tax is also a pretty small part of the total tax take - 7%.

Where's RBS headquartered? How much profit did they make again? Who bailed them out? Do you think it should have been Scotland as a whole who stumped up, or just the good folk of Edinburgh?

TJ, by your argument, your figures are also meaningless. 🙂

Vinney, Scotland can do no wrong and everything is perfect there. Well, if you listen to TJ that is. 😉

The Cock-er-ney economy is surely going to struggle now anyway. Now that Chas and Dave have called it a day. London's greatest cultural export

vinnyeh - Member

TJ, by your argument, your figures are also meaningless.

Yup - absolutly. Thats one of the issues with this sort of analysis and I said said that in an earlier post. These figures can be manipulated to show whatever you want them to by what you include or not. The SNP have an analysis that shows every scot subsidised England £800 each per year.

I think Northerners should think about some cockney gift aid.
Just one pot of jellied eels can feed a family of cheeky cockneys for a almost a week.
A handful of sequins could make all the difference for a pearly king and queen.

Do quote Geldof's lyrics
"And there won't be snow in Stepney this christmas time,
Do they know it's Christmas time at all"

Powerful stuff.

But you said

Oh - and thene- there is the oil of course - all the profits from the oil are not shown in the scots tax revenue - infact much of it is reported as London Tax revenue as the companies report the profits asnd pay the tax in London

You also said

One of the inaccurate things that usually present in these stats is that UK wide companies that have their head office in London any profits are shown as originating in London rather than where they are generated

Finally why do you need the formula, the Barnett formula for allocating expenditure if you have actual figures for expenditure.

TandemJeremy - Member

There are many ways of looking at the figures. You can show almost anything you want ..........................................

Or you can point out why figures are wrong and meaningless, and then when further delving shows that the holes in the figures you point out don't exist, you say then you can do anything with figures.

TandemJeremy - Member

There are many ways of looking at the figures. You can show almost anything you want .........................

According to that well know statistician Vic Reeves, 67.3% of facts and figures are made up on the spot.

CaptJon - Member

"Capt Jon - you don't answer the question. Why should UK wide profits reported in London be credited to London when they are generated UK wide?"

Because you have to draw a line somewhere and it is simpler to work out where profits are reported than where they are made.

Capt Jon - admits that hole in the figures. There are others - some of what I posted rather stretched the point I admit - but any comparison done like this using such poor methodology are meaningless as I have repeatedly stated.

I could point out many other holes.

If he admits that hole in the figures he is wrong because it is not there. In fact Scotland corporate tax allocation is also proportionately slightly greatly that their total tax allocation.

I could point out many other holes.

As all the holes you believe you have pointed out don't exist, is there any point?

Another thing to consider is the overall internal migration in the country.

Do more people move north or south to work ?

I would guess a lot more people are brought up in the north/midlands move to the south east to earn a bit of money then move back again later.

I'd guess these people wouldnt mind if some (most) of their tax money was spent in their home areas.

I'm from the Midland originally and work in London, I guess on my earning is counted on being in London. However I live in Reading and would rather my income tax was spent on either the Midlands or the Reading area as I spend as little time as possible in London.

Move the Royal Family to Middlesbrough, and it'll all even out.

Wait for the next hot summer and we might sell you some water from Kielder at a reasonable price...

... just don't mention Northern Rock!

TJ

So, essentially you're stats aren't perfect. Well duhhh! Of course they aren't, i'm not saying they are (and most statisticians would admit that too). They are aggregations and estimations and depicted at various scales. Anyone with an ounce of insght into stats knows this, and understands they can be manipulated. And again, they aren't my stats, just my depiction of stats produced by the Office of National Statistics and Oxford Economics. It is their methodology.

Just because there are problems with the collection and interpretation of the data doesn't mean they can or should be dismissed as meaningless.

I'd be interested to hear your solution to capturing these themes that gets over issues of aggregation, travel to work area overlaps, productivity levels, output values, tax levels, tax evasion, benefit fraud, the economic value of social reproduction of the labour market, miscalculations, mistakes etc...

Capt jon - on that one you have me beat. Its far easier to pick holes in methodology and to deconstruct than it is to construct.

sorry.

IMO the best bet is to look at a whole range of figures with biases from different directions and say " the truth is probably in the middle somewhere" Hardly valid!

With the analysis of regional tax and spending it depends very much on what you include and what you don't and how you apportion national spending and taxation. Whatever methodology you pick there will be bias and inaccuracy.

National infra structure spending and the economic activity generated by that will have a noticeable effect I would have thought. The second will be included in in the year you look at, but the former would have happened many years earlier. Also I suspect looking at a single year at a time when I think the financial sector was still booming might not be the best barometer of what is actually going on. Therefore I would contend that you need to look at it over a longer timeframe.

That said with the exception of Wales and Northern Ireland I'm actually surprised how level it is - particularly given that I know how much more I would earn (and therefore how much more tax I would pay) if I moved south - but I like hills.

Back to the OP, its interesting when you read these stats that Scotland income and expenditure are about equal, there has always been a general belief down south that it subsidises the Scottish economy. But as a general indication it appears not true from these figures.

As said before the problem with statistics is there are lies, damn lies, then statistics (apologies for what is surely a misquote)..

Good post.