It doesn't have to be like this. It really doesn't.
But does anyone think that people in London give a damn if Scots live in these multiply deprived areas, as long as people like Cameron can brag that Britain has the forth largest military spend in the world and is, therefore, a force to be reckoned with?
I know that instead of fighting pointless and sometimes illegal wars against countries in the Middle East, I'd rather we spend our vast income on giving Scots somewhere decent to live.
After the referendum and a positive outcome, there will be a period when the Scottish government negotiates with the UK government who gets what; who pays for what.
Then, five years after the last Scottish general election in 2011, there will be a Scottish general election.
By 2016 the Scottish branch of London Labour will have had time to break free of the policies that are designed to impress the Ukip trending, Tory voting, southern part of England.
It's unlikely that a successful party like the SNP will disappear completely, although some may rejoin the parties from whence they came. But it seems likely that we'll have at least two parties whose policies are broadly progressive.
With the Tories similarly detached from the greedy big business London City politics that they have followed since Mrs Thatcher's day we might even have a half decent right of centre party, possibly led by someone like Murdo, who was only stopped in his tracks last time round by Cameron's (strictly against the rules) interventions on behalf of his little helper, Ruth, only a few weeks into her political career.
We will have a lot of UK debt to pay off, but we will have vast resources: resources that will make us one of the top ten rich countries of the world.
We could rid ourselves of the fur coats, and buy up half of Marks & Spencer's knicker department in the first year.
This article is worth a read.
I always thought fur coats looked better on the animals to which they belonged and I understand knickers out of M&S are not what they used to be
ReplyDeleteThat said it would never do to let the poor realise that there was a better way They might get ideas above their station and stop voting Labour who use poverty like shackles were used on slaves
LOL Fairfor, I agree about the fur coats and I'm a Pierre Cardin or Primark man when it comes to underwear, although I may have had M&S when I was little!
DeleteNo. If we spent the money on making the poor's lives a little less awful, it would mean we wouldn't have enough to buy our way to the top table, and people like Ed Miliband wouldn't ever be anything any more important in the world than the Luxembourg prime minister. And that would never do.
I'd also agree with that. But I think the blame for fur obsession, fleeting 'fashion' fads (I use 'fashion' advisedly) etc is all due to the utilitarian nightmare we live in.
DeleteHappiness these days equates to a fleeting gratification or satisfaction of immediate wants/desires.
Debasing, empty, short termist.
Make everyone read Dorian Grey, then they'd learn the value of things, not merely its price.
The "fur coat" in this case of course represents the showing exterior, and the no knickers the reality of what lies underneath.
ReplyDeleteHaven't there always been people who searched happiness in fleeting moments. Some perhaps who could find no other kind.
Good though it may be, making people read The Picture of Dorian Gray sounds a bit like a Michael Gove idea (although I admit that Wilde is a lot more readable than the Dante he was insisting on).
Talking of wee Govey, totally off topic, I see he has been caught out quoting figures for surveys that are rather less than reliable.
You're taking me back to my yoof.
ReplyDeleteAs a Dundonian, i loved getting off with girls with the fur coat. :-)
The Skarn blocks where a favourite hunting ground!
Tut tut Juteman...
DeleteI had the impression you'd have been more Downfield....
Fleet rool! :-)
DeleteLOL
DeleteTris
ReplyDeleteFur coats, never had one never wanted one. Even when I lived in the cold Skarne when Juteman was oot hunting in the concrete jungle.
I agree I don't think many of the politicians and elite (if we should call them that) give a shit about what goes on up in Scotland, how people live, even if they live at all. Sadly the message about trident etc is just not getting out there yet and the SNP and the YES Campaign need to do better and should be upping the pace soon.
If opinion polls are to be trusted, I know they are not, but looking at the recent ones Labour still have a very big hold in this country, even part time MP's like Brown spouting the Brown stuff are still headline news with Nicola Sturgeon a wee add on. Not sure how we change it but it needs to change.
I had a mori guy at the door tonight doing a wee survey for the BBC and given he was poor soul and had probably heard the f word more than he cares to remember plus any chance to kick the BBC is a good thing in my books.
However, I asked him what kind of response did he get to the question on the BBC being trustworthy and he said very high yes and unbiased and he said very high yes as much as he could see but no one would really know until the full survey was complete. But that just shows that possibly a lot of people are either not hearing the arguments which is probably true and a lot don't care which is also true.
So a lot of work to be done, but if there is a positive vote in 2014 and a GE 2016 I might just go green :)
Bruce
It's amazing that a part time MP like Brown who was, after all a failure as prime minister and a failure as chancellor (gold sales, pensions ruined by him, then the end to boom), gets all the attention when he is announcing that Better Together is actually Better Apart and Nicola Sturgeon, a more senior politician, is sidelined... but hey, that's the Biased Broadcasting Corruption for you.
DeleteI think that probably what the Yes Campaign are doing is holding their powder dry yet a while.
Normally campaigns are 6 weeks, and people are sick of them at the end. This one is 2,5 years...
Really, it's the last few weeks that will count.
Of course all the opinion polls show that whatever they are called now, Labour Together is it (sounds like a communist slogan ...how's that for irony) are well ahead. Blair is being accused of being too nice to deal with the the likes of Curren et al, who seem capable of saying anything, anything at all, to get a headline. Sae in the knowledge that when it is proved to be utterly false the press and the BBC will not cover it.
I don't know. I don't want them to be negative.
They have a simple message to get across. Life can be better than this for Scots. I think it will be more effective when people are listening... the last 4 or 5 weeks. At that point law will demand that the BBC stop being partial. They will be obliged to give coverage to the Yes said.
Well, we learned one thing today. Brown has changed his nationality. He is now proud o be scottish, where once he was ashamed to be Scottish. Clearly the nationality in Brown's case is determined by the exigencies of the job.
Dundee must be a radical toon. We seem to be all over the indy movement.
ReplyDeleteSNP city Jutie... Only got that one Labour blokey, you know, the one who left the taxpayer with the HUGE legal bill to guarantee that he got his expenses for going to a Labour party meeting in Glasgow on his way to London.
DeleteCan't keep a Whitfield boy down.
ReplyDeleteYou can take the boy out of Whitfield, etc....
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