Iain Duncan Smith and Michelle Mone;
Now, there’s a combination to send shivers up the spine. Putting the two of them together under a Tory banner to encourage a surge of entrepreneurship amongst the unemployed and disadvantaged, to produce a resurgence in this island’s ‘nation of shopkeepers’ is a bit like grabbing a beautiful but totally mis-sized article of Michelle’s design. You’ll end up with eye candy to admire, but something which utterly lacks any form of real support.
Before this project even starts it’s a busted flush, and whoever even thought about it when the answers are already self evident really needs to be taken behind closed doors for a damned good spanking.
It’s because the answers are so self evident, that corporal, or even capital punishment needs used here.
Now consider the announcement; effectively they want to ‘take us back to being a nation of shopkeepers’.
All you need to do instead of traipsing around the country on what is effectively a publicity exercise, each time being twanged back to Westminster faster than an overstretched knicker elastic could possibly manage, is look back to see why that situation doesn’t exist any more, and what might be needed to be done by government to recreate the conditions under which it flourished, rather than what’s being done here, which is a bit like Michelle embroidering a flower on a bra cup and waiting for it to bloom.
I can answer this, because from Germany to the Dominican Republic, I can speak of a uniformity of what makes this possible. These places do exist, but they’re as easily killed off as day long comfort when you buy Michelle’s products only for their visual impact.
These places have very few chain super-stores; in fact it’s often legislatively punitive for them to enter these markets. These countries often put different tax rates simply based on floor space. Huge stores can pay double per meter what small ones do. Such systems, or their alternatives, are quite effective in encouraging individual entrepreneurship.
Otherwise, no matter what anyone tries, you’re not going to compete. The buying power of the big franchises means they get the volume discounts – your small startup company doesn’t. If they can’t buy you out, they’ll drive you under with ‘loss leaders’ before they jack the prices back up again; you only need look to the spread of Wal-Mart throughout US cities and the demise of the “Mon n Pop” shops. If you come up with something truly innovative, you just might make it, but it’s not guaranteed. This is because the financing is all pretty much tied up in big corporate or the City, and as just another unemployed wannabe, it’s not impossible to succeed in this system, but it’s a real struggle. You could compare it to old Lord Sewell trying to properly fill out one of Michelle’s bras. He’s proven willing, but no matter how hard he tries his favourite coloured one just never seems to fit right. And so it goes with finance packages that might be offered to any would-be entrepreneur coming from the ranks of the unemployed. (NB. Westminster’s a bit kinder than calling our unfortunate masses the great unwashed these days, no matter that their actions demonstrate it is how we’re still considered).
Firstly, legislation needs to be enacted that will level the playing field between the big girls and the little girls on the block. However with vested interests, corruption and lobbying at Westminster, there’s about as much chance of that happening as a prayer to God by Ms Mone asking for all girls to be made the same size, and suddenly half the population would have identical boobs thus streamlining her manufacturing costs. Essentially then if you can’t change the fundamentals, you’re stuck with what you’ve got. What you’ve got is the system which permitted or even encouraged the demise of the entrepreneur – like different sized boobs; it’s a fact of life.
The other thing which isn’t being acknowledged because evidently this UK government is incapable of seeing it, is that while every life is special, valued and cherished, we’re not all created equally. Some will only ever be capable, or even comfortable in more basic capacities, while others will thrive in challenge. As a generality those in the second group tend not to be on the unemployment line for extended periods while the former certainly wouldn’t be there either if they could find a way out. The former tend to need the latter to help them along, the latter need the former to help them truly succeed. In other words, a society that truly integrates people of all abilities to ensure everyone benefits. The UK is like a shop window today, where only Michelle’s best selling lines are out for display, while the bargain-bin items that really didn’t fly off the shelves are like the disadvantaged in our society; they’re quietly sacrificed on a bonfire of the vanities out the back. Let's be honest, blaming the disadvantaged for their situation without allowing or creating ways for them to change it, is vain indeed.
For us Scots and especially those who voted ‘No’ last year, we can only look back and wonder why we did not grasp the thistle. We know the result was mostly founded on Project Fear, yet like one of Michelle’s broken knicker elastics, it might have be unpleasant for a bit or cause a little temporary difficulty, but resourceful people do get past problems, and we know for sure – Scots are resourceful people. We’re resourceful enough to understand that with Holyrood, we might have accountability, with Westminster, we never will.
Ask a ‘No’ voter under those circumstances, why they cast their vote that way. For by understanding ‘No’ is the only way ‘Yes’ will prevail.
Next time we need to say yes, even if it’s only to avoid the picture in our media of Lord Sewell again modeling what Michelle works to produce. For surely not one of us can point to that image and say – “Uh huh – that’s my Country, that’s my Union – I’m so glad I voted for that!”
Finally, on a serious note, ‘No’ voters should also be aware that every time there’s a suicide, a terminal patient forced back into work, either of which seem to happen numerous times on a daily basis through Westminster’s uncaring and unaccountable policies, that they too are responsible for that, and when the day comes that it’s one of their family? Well don’t moan, because it too was your choice.
Showing posts with label capitalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label capitalism. Show all posts
Tuesday, 11 August 2015
Saturday, 25 July 2015
Guest writer Steven McBrien on Yvette Cooper ... and other Labour "worthies".
I've just read that Yvette Cooper is bravely using her campaign to become leader of the "We Stand For Stuff" Party to highlight a focus on the inequality of gender in the job thus far. Out of 23 leaders, only two have been female, and neither was elected. Well, Yvette, Every Labour MP is equal as far as I'm concerned, male and female. You're all equally disgraceful, equally mendacious and equally Tory-lite, irrelevant hypocrites.
Inequality? Privilege? You want to talk about them, Yvette? Fair enough. Let's talk.
Let's talk about the people I support with learning disabilities, who spent the last year getting their housing benefit stopped and being forced onto JSA because some tinpot who gets paid thirty grand a year doesn't think they are disabled enough. Let's talk about how they then had to attend job-seekers appointments with private agencies; private agencies who then attempted to force them into 40 hour a week cleaning jobs starting at 4am every day, all for their own profit on commission, while the people in question didn't have a clue what they were being told or what they were agreeing to because they were attending these weekly appointments without support.
And why were they attending Wise Group and DEA meetings without support? Why, because their support hours have been cut due to lack of funding of course, necessitating my transfer of them from JSA onto ESA, at which point, despite WROs assuring us that it wouldn't happen, their benefits were then slashed and they were forced to withstand fourteen weeks of reduced income - which, by the way, they didn't get reinstated - before going to a benefits review to prove that they had disabilities and should receive ESA, which they had been in receipt of in the first place. For people who find answering the phone stressful, it's a far from lovely experience. And all of this while you and your husband were taking time out from fiddling your second home allowances - you know, those second home allowances that, on top of your and Ed's collective £300,000+ ministerial salaries and expenses still managed by themselves to come to about three times what they were and are living on in a year - to vote by abstention time and again for austerity, like you did, yet again, just six days ago.
Come with me then, with these men, some of whom were living in institutions in which they were subjected to physical abuse on a near-daily basis while you were taking your piano and ballet lessons, who were later shuffled out into care homes around the time that you were studying economics at Baliol. Leave your £700,000 second home and come with me, into their housing association flats, and let's use that Oxbridge economic nous of yours to find out how to do a £25 weekly shop in Lidl and Farmfoods together.
Then, after you've done all of that, feel free to come back and prate to me about inequality.
Yours egalitarianly,
McB
Inequality? Privilege? You want to talk about them, Yvette? Fair enough. Let's talk.
Let's talk about the people I support with learning disabilities, who spent the last year getting their housing benefit stopped and being forced onto JSA because some tinpot who gets paid thirty grand a year doesn't think they are disabled enough. Let's talk about how they then had to attend job-seekers appointments with private agencies; private agencies who then attempted to force them into 40 hour a week cleaning jobs starting at 4am every day, all for their own profit on commission, while the people in question didn't have a clue what they were being told or what they were agreeing to because they were attending these weekly appointments without support.
And why were they attending Wise Group and DEA meetings without support? Why, because their support hours have been cut due to lack of funding of course, necessitating my transfer of them from JSA onto ESA, at which point, despite WROs assuring us that it wouldn't happen, their benefits were then slashed and they were forced to withstand fourteen weeks of reduced income - which, by the way, they didn't get reinstated - before going to a benefits review to prove that they had disabilities and should receive ESA, which they had been in receipt of in the first place. For people who find answering the phone stressful, it's a far from lovely experience. And all of this while you and your husband were taking time out from fiddling your second home allowances - you know, those second home allowances that, on top of your and Ed's collective £300,000+ ministerial salaries and expenses still managed by themselves to come to about three times what they were and are living on in a year - to vote by abstention time and again for austerity, like you did, yet again, just six days ago.
Come with me then, with these men, some of whom were living in institutions in which they were subjected to physical abuse on a near-daily basis while you were taking your piano and ballet lessons, who were later shuffled out into care homes around the time that you were studying economics at Baliol. Leave your £700,000 second home and come with me, into their housing association flats, and let's use that Oxbridge economic nous of yours to find out how to do a £25 weekly shop in Lidl and Farmfoods together.
Then, after you've done all of that, feel free to come back and prate to me about inequality.
Yours egalitarianly,
McB
Friday, 29 November 2013
Pulling The Wool - No Credit For Tweed.
Westminster and the Institute for Financial Studies (IFS) say there is, and will continue to be, a financial black hole in Scotland’s budget. They persist in telling us we are Too Poor, our economy is a basket case, and following independence we’d be poorer than a Developing Nation on its uppers, with a financial deficit in the billions. However, the IFS has apparently taken their data from those figures which are available from Westminster; figures that are created under the auspices of London’s government and London’s rules, as such they do not always, nor indeed by all appearances ever reflect the reality of Scotland’s financial standing because of certain “quirks” on how exports etc are recorded. Some of these issues I dealt with here Hidden Wealth.
Essentially, exports are credited to the UK nation that controls the port of departure. That’s right, it’s not about where they’re made, it is from where they are shipped.
The information in the above blog resulted in me being asked on Facebook what this meant for the iconic Harris Tweed Industry. It seemed appropriate to dig a bit.
My first stop was UK Registry of Companies to discover where much of the Harris Tweed industry was registered. This would tell us whether their profits and taxes could be attributed to Scottish income. The results were interesting and varied. Many of the smaller companies associated with the Harris Tweed Industry are indeed registered in Lewis, but the main mills where by far the majority of the textiles are produced brought a mixed bag of results.
I really enjoyed this trip into an iconic Scottish industry, and I learned much, such as the Harris Tweed Authority (HTA) was set up by Act of Parliament in 1993 to help protect and promote the industry, while maintaining standards within it. I was quite surprised to discover there are only three main mills within the industry, all based in the Outer Hebrides.
Shawbost is the largest mill and main producer of tweed. It is owned by Harris Tweed Hebrides Ltd and is registered in the Isle of Lewis. Interestingly, members of their board include one Ian Roper Taylor, of Vitol fame and a certain Brian Wilson, former UK Labour politician. Harris Tweed Hebrides board of directors.
The next and oldest operating mill (since 1909) belongs to the intriguingly named Harris Tweed Scotland Ltd. I say intriguingly from the viewpoint that it is actually registered as a company at Haincliffe Road, Ingrow, Keighly, West Yorkshire, BD21 5BU; Harris Tweed Scotland LTD. The company is owned by Mr Brian Haggas following a buy-out in 2006. It primarily produces tweed to be made into jackets, presumably in garment factories in the North East of England. These are then exported all over the world including sending an apparently small proportion of its finished garments back to the Islands to be sold there.
The third and smallest mill in Lewis involved in tweed production is the Carloway Mill. It’s an independent mill; however, I was unable to find any trace of registration on either of the Companies House or Company Check websites. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to why this is so. In March of this year, they entered a joint venture with the large Chinese textile company Shandong Ruyi Technological Group Ltd. Companies not registered under their own names are often held by overseas investors through shell corporations. I’m not alleging this is the case here, but would welcome information to the contrary.
There is also a network of independent weavers within the industry who can work as contractors for any of the mills or sell their cloth freelance.
While the HTA would like you to think that the Hebrides are the centre of the exporting world for tweeds, as you will be misled by this HTA World Presence web-page, this is not strictly accurate. Indeed, all the fabric is created, dyed and woven there, but the vast majority of the product, and research indicates a substantial percentage of it, leaves the Islands by road haulage by Woody's Express Parcels and ferry for a depot in Inverness.
From Inverness I am reliably informed other haulage companies, namely DHL, UPS and FED EX take the fabric on the next step of the journey, to destinations such as East Midlands Airport (DHL, UPS), Newcastle Airport (FED EX) and all ports south. Very little of this Scottish iconic fabric actually leaves via a Scottish airport or dock. From this, I can only conclude that it doesn’t count in favour of Scottish exports and adds tonnage and financial gain to English exports, as bales of Harris Tweed exit via English ports.
What we have here is an iconic Scot’s product which has the appearance of being virtually deleted from the Scottish balance of payments ledger, while simultaneously accruing to England’s. To reiterate, as per UK export law, it is the port of exit that counts when it comes to registering overseas shipping, not the country of manufacture.
Under the weirdest of all situations one could actually have the finished garments, marked ‘Harris Tweed’ counted as a Scottish import, and worsening our balance of payments. This is because almost no ‘Harris Tweed’ garments are now manufactured in Scotland, so any sold here effectively have to be re-imported from the country of manufacture.
That you can play with the base fundamentals of an economy in such a fashion is very simple indeed. Especially when almost everyone relies upon the official figures from Westminster to obtain a consensus of agreement that Scotland might just be an economic basket case with a horrible balance of payments deficit, when the reverse may well indeed prove to be a much more accurate statement. The only real way to prove Scotland’s net worth would be to do as the USA apparently does with its states, and count the country of origin or state of origin of goods, but that might not be in vested interests with a referendum in the offing.
This is obviously something that happens with startling consistency where Scotland’s exports are concerned. It is agreed by those who have actually researched the figures that Scotland is nominally responsible for somewhere around 9% of UK GDP, this does not include oil which is treated separately, yet based upon air freight, with a similar number being expected across the board, Scotland is credited only for about 2% of UK export, by weight. Air Freight tonnage. The fact that the system is set up in such a way that practically all of Scotland’s manufacturing ends up exiting the British Isles not via a local airport or freight terminal, but one which, in Stornoway’s case, may be almost 700 miles away (Stornoway-London) is both detrimental to our economy and destructive to our environment. It is also a bit of an eye-opener when you discover Kent International Airport (where?) moved more tonnage in air freight (12,744 tonnes) than Edinburgh (8,933 tonnes) in the first half of 2013. In fact Manchester Airport shifted over twice (45,831) the cargo that the whole of Scotland moved (22,731).
The reality of this situation is that if Scotland produced exports of 9 billion pounds per year, then she would be being credited for 2 billion pounds per year, while the other 7 billion pounds per year will accrue to Westminster’s ledger, and no, they’re not hard numbers, they’re example figures.
This is a dreadful under-use of Scotland’s facilities and resources from all sorts of angles, including Green Issues, but that’s another blog for another time. Far more could and should be moved through these airports from an economical point of view. Local economies and employment would benefit enormously from this.
The important aspect I got from all of this is from London’s perspective, when you spread this “port of exit” requirement across all of Scotland’s exporting industries, whether it’s tweed, electronics or shortbread, they have created a wonderful statistical tool that ‘anyone’ can use to perpetuate the ‘too poor” case for the Scots’ economy and produce ‘believable’ statistical data that might encourage a ‘NO’ vote when perpetuated by the MSM in Scotland without proper back up research.
Essentially, exports are credited to the UK nation that controls the port of departure. That’s right, it’s not about where they’re made, it is from where they are shipped.
The information in the above blog resulted in me being asked on Facebook what this meant for the iconic Harris Tweed Industry. It seemed appropriate to dig a bit.
My first stop was UK Registry of Companies to discover where much of the Harris Tweed industry was registered. This would tell us whether their profits and taxes could be attributed to Scottish income. The results were interesting and varied. Many of the smaller companies associated with the Harris Tweed Industry are indeed registered in Lewis, but the main mills where by far the majority of the textiles are produced brought a mixed bag of results.
I really enjoyed this trip into an iconic Scottish industry, and I learned much, such as the Harris Tweed Authority (HTA) was set up by Act of Parliament in 1993 to help protect and promote the industry, while maintaining standards within it. I was quite surprised to discover there are only three main mills within the industry, all based in the Outer Hebrides.
Shawbost is the largest mill and main producer of tweed. It is owned by Harris Tweed Hebrides Ltd and is registered in the Isle of Lewis. Interestingly, members of their board include one Ian Roper Taylor, of Vitol fame and a certain Brian Wilson, former UK Labour politician. Harris Tweed Hebrides board of directors.
The next and oldest operating mill (since 1909) belongs to the intriguingly named Harris Tweed Scotland Ltd. I say intriguingly from the viewpoint that it is actually registered as a company at Haincliffe Road, Ingrow, Keighly, West Yorkshire, BD21 5BU; Harris Tweed Scotland LTD. The company is owned by Mr Brian Haggas following a buy-out in 2006. It primarily produces tweed to be made into jackets, presumably in garment factories in the North East of England. These are then exported all over the world including sending an apparently small proportion of its finished garments back to the Islands to be sold there.
The third and smallest mill in Lewis involved in tweed production is the Carloway Mill. It’s an independent mill; however, I was unable to find any trace of registration on either of the Companies House or Company Check websites. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to why this is so. In March of this year, they entered a joint venture with the large Chinese textile company Shandong Ruyi Technological Group Ltd. Companies not registered under their own names are often held by overseas investors through shell corporations. I’m not alleging this is the case here, but would welcome information to the contrary.
There is also a network of independent weavers within the industry who can work as contractors for any of the mills or sell their cloth freelance.
While the HTA would like you to think that the Hebrides are the centre of the exporting world for tweeds, as you will be misled by this HTA World Presence web-page, this is not strictly accurate. Indeed, all the fabric is created, dyed and woven there, but the vast majority of the product, and research indicates a substantial percentage of it, leaves the Islands by road haulage by Woody's Express Parcels and ferry for a depot in Inverness.
From Inverness I am reliably informed other haulage companies, namely DHL, UPS and FED EX take the fabric on the next step of the journey, to destinations such as East Midlands Airport (DHL, UPS), Newcastle Airport (FED EX) and all ports south. Very little of this Scottish iconic fabric actually leaves via a Scottish airport or dock. From this, I can only conclude that it doesn’t count in favour of Scottish exports and adds tonnage and financial gain to English exports, as bales of Harris Tweed exit via English ports.
What we have here is an iconic Scot’s product which has the appearance of being virtually deleted from the Scottish balance of payments ledger, while simultaneously accruing to England’s. To reiterate, as per UK export law, it is the port of exit that counts when it comes to registering overseas shipping, not the country of manufacture.
Under the weirdest of all situations one could actually have the finished garments, marked ‘Harris Tweed’ counted as a Scottish import, and worsening our balance of payments. This is because almost no ‘Harris Tweed’ garments are now manufactured in Scotland, so any sold here effectively have to be re-imported from the country of manufacture.
That you can play with the base fundamentals of an economy in such a fashion is very simple indeed. Especially when almost everyone relies upon the official figures from Westminster to obtain a consensus of agreement that Scotland might just be an economic basket case with a horrible balance of payments deficit, when the reverse may well indeed prove to be a much more accurate statement. The only real way to prove Scotland’s net worth would be to do as the USA apparently does with its states, and count the country of origin or state of origin of goods, but that might not be in vested interests with a referendum in the offing.
This is obviously something that happens with startling consistency where Scotland’s exports are concerned. It is agreed by those who have actually researched the figures that Scotland is nominally responsible for somewhere around 9% of UK GDP, this does not include oil which is treated separately, yet based upon air freight, with a similar number being expected across the board, Scotland is credited only for about 2% of UK export, by weight. Air Freight tonnage. The fact that the system is set up in such a way that practically all of Scotland’s manufacturing ends up exiting the British Isles not via a local airport or freight terminal, but one which, in Stornoway’s case, may be almost 700 miles away (Stornoway-London) is both detrimental to our economy and destructive to our environment. It is also a bit of an eye-opener when you discover Kent International Airport (where?) moved more tonnage in air freight (12,744 tonnes) than Edinburgh (8,933 tonnes) in the first half of 2013. In fact Manchester Airport shifted over twice (45,831) the cargo that the whole of Scotland moved (22,731).
The reality of this situation is that if Scotland produced exports of 9 billion pounds per year, then she would be being credited for 2 billion pounds per year, while the other 7 billion pounds per year will accrue to Westminster’s ledger, and no, they’re not hard numbers, they’re example figures.
This is a dreadful under-use of Scotland’s facilities and resources from all sorts of angles, including Green Issues, but that’s another blog for another time. Far more could and should be moved through these airports from an economical point of view. Local economies and employment would benefit enormously from this.
The important aspect I got from all of this is from London’s perspective, when you spread this “port of exit” requirement across all of Scotland’s exporting industries, whether it’s tweed, electronics or shortbread, they have created a wonderful statistical tool that ‘anyone’ can use to perpetuate the ‘too poor” case for the Scots’ economy and produce ‘believable’ statistical data that might encourage a ‘NO’ vote when perpetuated by the MSM in Scotland without proper back up research.
Saturday, 29 September 2012
Perspectives – Something that is Lacking in Labour.
At the end of the day life is about perspectives. The interesting thing about perspectives is that they’re personal. It’s why we don’t always [or often] all agree, and it’s why on those rare occasions that most of us do agree it’s called a common perspective.
The common Scots political perspective is social democracy, we don’t all agree with that all the time, but it’s reasonably accurate for most of us, most of the time. It’s emphasised by our voting tendencies.
To any individual capable of thought and wishing to secure an elected position in our nation it means any policies pursued should fit into the realm of being social or democratic. Those who can tick both boxes you might just be approaching a sure thing, deliver and watch the trust build. Fail to deliver, as the Liberal-Democrats discovered, and there will be a price for the betrayal.
Johann Lamont, Labour’s latest leadership incumbent north of the border went out of her way the other night to ensure she didn’t check either box. In fact she went so far as to take a rubber and remove the options of either social or democratic from the paper itself.
This was her effective promise to us.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t actually wield a piece of paper with strikethroughs over these two words, Social and Democracy.
Collectively that’s what we perceived she did. Twitter and Facebook lit up with it, a great many column inches were dedicated to it. People in the streets, including the average committed and dedicated Labour voter are left sadly shaking their heads. Shaking their heads and for the first time for many of them, though they may not yet realise it, they are now considering a “Yes” vote.
Ms. Lamont’s Newsnight announcement of future Labour policy was announced in dictatorial fashion, like a manifesto it has been embedded in our collective consciousness. There was no consultation of Labour members we heard of, no party conference discussion, no apparently collective decision making.
It was a decidedly Stalinesque media announcement by the red party that certainly wasn’t socialist and it assuredly wasn’t democratic.
Our perspectives are now in the process of being shifted again, but this time they’re not being nudged just by a fraction, this time our perspectives are taking the full brunt of a 10’ long 2x4 beam across the forehead. And it’s not being wielded gently.
New Labour, Scotland’s traditional party will be removing social equality from our land.
Cut away the fluff, strip the dressing, and dump the salad and desert, that’s the basic statement from Labour in Scotland. The meat in the oratory was “Just like England” and “Death to social equality, death to opportunity”.
That’s as blunt as it gets, like the individual hit by the 2x4 the average Unionist Scot has to absorb the blow, overcome the pain and shock, they have to comprehend what’s happened and they have to rationalise it as part of their healing process.
That rationalisation falls into three roughly even categories, “they didn't mean it” will account for a small amount of voters, those who refuse the evidence of YouTube, the media or their own often neglected research. Fundamentally these are the deniers in any society.
Then there are the justifiers, those who will look for any reason to accept the actions just perpetrated on them, and they’ll come up with everything from “it’s really not needed” to “we just can’t afford it anyway” through “It’s really my fault, you know”.
Over the coming months as the impact is processed we can expect the deny-ers and justifiers to make up the smallest portion of these previously “secure” Union votes.
Lastly we’ll have the realists, the ones who look into what’s on offer, and they’ll see that where Scotland’s Labour Party would have them walk is down the path of social inequality, of unbridled capitalism and of relative deprivation for most individuals.
For the majority this vision will not sit well with their perception of a fair, free and socially democratic land.
These are the ones who will realise that the raft of services proposed for elimination will not only remove some fundamental and unique aspects of our culture, but they will hurt us all universally.
Consider the average taxpayer, if we have no children our taxes still go for schools, we accept that, it’s a cultural and social necessity. That’s just one example.
We all pay in to support the common good of society, those who don’t pay their fair share are criminals or sociopaths; there really are no other words for them. These individuals reap our hard bought benefits and don’t contribute. That’s abhorrent.
Now consider Johann Lamont’s proposals, they’d lead to the re-introduction of means testing on an across society basis, that would be hugely expensive, demeaning and just as abhorrent.
Ms. Lamont proposes that those who can’t afford to pay, whose means tests prove they’re poor, deprived, or otherwise “worthy” of state aid will still have free access to services.
Ms. Lamont’s just alienated the poor, just as effectively as ATOS alienates the disabled. She has erected barriers in our society.
Ms. Lamont’s also put Labour in a place of alienating the rich. She’s telling them that their extra taxes they pay on their extra income will now be used to help the poor, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but she’s also telling them they’ll be taxed again, because the benefits they’re paying their extra taxes for will not be available to them or their children. They’ll have to pay again if they want those benefits.
Not only will the rich pay more, they’ll pay twice and then some. There’s no world in which that’s a fair shake. It’s a shakedown.
Ms. Lamont’s also alienated the middle classes, because she’s introducing uncertainty. Where will elderly care go? Where will the levels be set to qualify? Will my band D home suddenly have to pay for rubbish collection while the band C is exempted? Why should I pay £10,000 more for my daughter’s education than the McDonald’s next door when I only make £2,000 a year more?
As soon as we create a society of “I get but you don’t”, we create societal fractures. In Ms. Lamont’s world the poor could get free university without encumbrances, the middle class can scrimp and save and endure decades of debt so that their children have “equal” opportunity. This policy is proving a disaster in England, why bring it here unless you've simply been ordered to?
Mundane to extreme examples perhaps, but these are perceptions that are being created.
A fair tax system is where taxes are paid universally, with an increasing but not undue or inappropriate burden on the wealthy, and all share equally in the benefits of the taxes. VAT can’t be removed from children’s shoes only if you make less than twice the average wage.
Society has arguable obligation to provide food and shelter to all, at a basic level, with some limitations that society allocates. There’s no question these should be income based provisions.
Everything else in society should be provided as it is paid for, to every citizen. That is a fair society.
An unfair society will expect the folk in the band D house to pay more tax, to support charity, to invest in their children’s future as they also have to save for that education while being taxed for another child’s school.
Members of a fair society should simply expect severely unfair treatment to cause these supporting individuals to move. It’s like any relationship, if we perceive we are being treated inappropriately, we first tend to try to work out the issues, but if irreconcilable differences are there then we’ll tend to leave the relationship.
Scottish Labour just gave every appearance of reaching the “irreconcilable differences” point with many of their supporters; it will spill over into the referendum vote and future elections.
Labour achieved “irreconcilable differences” through proposing severely unfair treatment across Scotland’s franchise. The visit to the “decree absolute” stage may take time for many, but it is road they will travel. Even Tory London didn’t dare go so far so quickly.
Even Tory London would be aware that if just 1/3 of Scotland’s defence under-spend was used in Scotland then all these programs could not just be maintained, but increased, and we’re not even touching the savings through scrapping Trident.
Even Tory London would be aware that not only could these programs be expanded by doing this but that we’d be able to increase our military substantially, reversing London’s cuts.
Tory London also knows that even after all that was achieved there’d be money remaining to invest in either infrastructure or begin a sovereign wealth fund. Just from the defence under-spend.
Tory London appears to know something that formerly Labour Scotland doesn't and that’s why Labour in Scotland is working so hard to alienate all social levels of Scots society. Then again perhaps they have also been left wondering where that 2x4 came from, because it certainly doesn’t seem to have helped the “Better Together” cause at all.
“Better Together” is now severely compromised, because no matter the future damage control, no matter the policy or leadership changes in the next two years, the memory of the words uttered by Johann Lamont will remain fixed in the perception of many an average Scot.
The average non-politically inclined Scot now knows fully what’s on offer from the Union, and judging from the media and street reaction, they don’t like what they perceive at all.
The common Scots political perspective is social democracy, we don’t all agree with that all the time, but it’s reasonably accurate for most of us, most of the time. It’s emphasised by our voting tendencies.
To any individual capable of thought and wishing to secure an elected position in our nation it means any policies pursued should fit into the realm of being social or democratic. Those who can tick both boxes you might just be approaching a sure thing, deliver and watch the trust build. Fail to deliver, as the Liberal-Democrats discovered, and there will be a price for the betrayal.
Johann Lamont, Labour’s latest leadership incumbent north of the border went out of her way the other night to ensure she didn’t check either box. In fact she went so far as to take a rubber and remove the options of either social or democratic from the paper itself.
This was her effective promise to us.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t actually wield a piece of paper with strikethroughs over these two words, Social and Democracy.
Collectively that’s what we perceived she did. Twitter and Facebook lit up with it, a great many column inches were dedicated to it. People in the streets, including the average committed and dedicated Labour voter are left sadly shaking their heads. Shaking their heads and for the first time for many of them, though they may not yet realise it, they are now considering a “Yes” vote.
Ms. Lamont’s Newsnight announcement of future Labour policy was announced in dictatorial fashion, like a manifesto it has been embedded in our collective consciousness. There was no consultation of Labour members we heard of, no party conference discussion, no apparently collective decision making.
It was a decidedly Stalinesque media announcement by the red party that certainly wasn’t socialist and it assuredly wasn’t democratic.
Our perspectives are now in the process of being shifted again, but this time they’re not being nudged just by a fraction, this time our perspectives are taking the full brunt of a 10’ long 2x4 beam across the forehead. And it’s not being wielded gently.
New Labour, Scotland’s traditional party will be removing social equality from our land.
Cut away the fluff, strip the dressing, and dump the salad and desert, that’s the basic statement from Labour in Scotland. The meat in the oratory was “Just like England” and “Death to social equality, death to opportunity”.
That’s as blunt as it gets, like the individual hit by the 2x4 the average Unionist Scot has to absorb the blow, overcome the pain and shock, they have to comprehend what’s happened and they have to rationalise it as part of their healing process.
That rationalisation falls into three roughly even categories, “they didn't mean it” will account for a small amount of voters, those who refuse the evidence of YouTube, the media or their own often neglected research. Fundamentally these are the deniers in any society.
Then there are the justifiers, those who will look for any reason to accept the actions just perpetrated on them, and they’ll come up with everything from “it’s really not needed” to “we just can’t afford it anyway” through “It’s really my fault, you know”.
Over the coming months as the impact is processed we can expect the deny-ers and justifiers to make up the smallest portion of these previously “secure” Union votes.
Lastly we’ll have the realists, the ones who look into what’s on offer, and they’ll see that where Scotland’s Labour Party would have them walk is down the path of social inequality, of unbridled capitalism and of relative deprivation for most individuals.
For the majority this vision will not sit well with their perception of a fair, free and socially democratic land.
These are the ones who will realise that the raft of services proposed for elimination will not only remove some fundamental and unique aspects of our culture, but they will hurt us all universally.
Consider the average taxpayer, if we have no children our taxes still go for schools, we accept that, it’s a cultural and social necessity. That’s just one example.
We all pay in to support the common good of society, those who don’t pay their fair share are criminals or sociopaths; there really are no other words for them. These individuals reap our hard bought benefits and don’t contribute. That’s abhorrent.
Now consider Johann Lamont’s proposals, they’d lead to the re-introduction of means testing on an across society basis, that would be hugely expensive, demeaning and just as abhorrent.
Ms. Lamont proposes that those who can’t afford to pay, whose means tests prove they’re poor, deprived, or otherwise “worthy” of state aid will still have free access to services.
Ms. Lamont’s just alienated the poor, just as effectively as ATOS alienates the disabled. She has erected barriers in our society.
Ms. Lamont’s also put Labour in a place of alienating the rich. She’s telling them that their extra taxes they pay on their extra income will now be used to help the poor, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but she’s also telling them they’ll be taxed again, because the benefits they’re paying their extra taxes for will not be available to them or their children. They’ll have to pay again if they want those benefits.
Not only will the rich pay more, they’ll pay twice and then some. There’s no world in which that’s a fair shake. It’s a shakedown.
Ms. Lamont’s also alienated the middle classes, because she’s introducing uncertainty. Where will elderly care go? Where will the levels be set to qualify? Will my band D home suddenly have to pay for rubbish collection while the band C is exempted? Why should I pay £10,000 more for my daughter’s education than the McDonald’s next door when I only make £2,000 a year more?
As soon as we create a society of “I get but you don’t”, we create societal fractures. In Ms. Lamont’s world the poor could get free university without encumbrances, the middle class can scrimp and save and endure decades of debt so that their children have “equal” opportunity. This policy is proving a disaster in England, why bring it here unless you've simply been ordered to?
Mundane to extreme examples perhaps, but these are perceptions that are being created.
A fair tax system is where taxes are paid universally, with an increasing but not undue or inappropriate burden on the wealthy, and all share equally in the benefits of the taxes. VAT can’t be removed from children’s shoes only if you make less than twice the average wage.
Society has arguable obligation to provide food and shelter to all, at a basic level, with some limitations that society allocates. There’s no question these should be income based provisions.
Everything else in society should be provided as it is paid for, to every citizen. That is a fair society.
An unfair society will expect the folk in the band D house to pay more tax, to support charity, to invest in their children’s future as they also have to save for that education while being taxed for another child’s school.
Members of a fair society should simply expect severely unfair treatment to cause these supporting individuals to move. It’s like any relationship, if we perceive we are being treated inappropriately, we first tend to try to work out the issues, but if irreconcilable differences are there then we’ll tend to leave the relationship.
Scottish Labour just gave every appearance of reaching the “irreconcilable differences” point with many of their supporters; it will spill over into the referendum vote and future elections.
Labour achieved “irreconcilable differences” through proposing severely unfair treatment across Scotland’s franchise. The visit to the “decree absolute” stage may take time for many, but it is road they will travel. Even Tory London didn’t dare go so far so quickly.
Even Tory London would be aware that if just 1/3 of Scotland’s defence under-spend was used in Scotland then all these programs could not just be maintained, but increased, and we’re not even touching the savings through scrapping Trident.
Even Tory London would be aware that not only could these programs be expanded by doing this but that we’d be able to increase our military substantially, reversing London’s cuts.
Tory London also knows that even after all that was achieved there’d be money remaining to invest in either infrastructure or begin a sovereign wealth fund. Just from the defence under-spend.
Tory London appears to know something that formerly Labour Scotland doesn't and that’s why Labour in Scotland is working so hard to alienate all social levels of Scots society. Then again perhaps they have also been left wondering where that 2x4 came from, because it certainly doesn’t seem to have helped the “Better Together” cause at all.
“Better Together” is now severely compromised, because no matter the future damage control, no matter the policy or leadership changes in the next two years, the memory of the words uttered by Johann Lamont will remain fixed in the perception of many an average Scot.
The average non-politically inclined Scot now knows fully what’s on offer from the Union, and judging from the media and street reaction, they don’t like what they perceive at all.
Sunday, 16 September 2012
What about the children?
At times it is worth a visit to the twilight zone, a look into an alternative reality whereby our politicians only did what is right, what is in the best interests of our society, what is good for the children. Not what is often simply in their own self serving interest.
It is surprising, very surprising that no one in any political movement has examined this issue, more precisely “is it good for the children?”
A simple suggestion indeed, but what if it became our guiding legislative principle, we are, after all only caretakers for the next generation, and caretakers can be good or bad. Westminster is a stark example of bad caretaking with rising, soaring child poverty.
Take for example NHS privatisation, service cuts and PPI/PFI. As these issues continue to impoverish and dismantle our social contract by an exponentially soaring debt burden that has transferred to the unborn, can we honestly argue that this is good for the children?
Consider also that the UK is at the forefront of the world’s list of most unequal nations, and consider if that can possibly be good for the children.
Imagine an updated proposed or implemented Scottish constitution, one that is yet to be written, but one that the current Holyrood government guarantees will include nothing that negatively impacts our children. Holyrood could pass such legislation in this or next year’s sessions.
Holyrood could guarantee to set up an independent body of perhaps a dozen randomly selected citizens from a pool of volunteers to examine each and every article of legislation passed or enforced in Scotland. If it is viewed as good for the children, neutral or wouldn’t affect them it continues the legislative process. Alternatively Holyrood could simply propose an act whereby legislation perceived as not good for the children could be challenged and struck.
This is the only principle that Holyrood need propose for inclusion into a future restored Scottish state, the only big bazooka as the financial gurus would call it that is likely to grab a nation’s attention.
Enshrine the sovereignty of the individual by protecting tomorrow’s citizens.
It will do so because such a proposal is almost unique, certainly in our modern western civilizations.
It will do so because virtually everyone will agree that if it isn’t good for the children, and we can demonstrate that it isn’t good for the children, then we shouldn’t be doing it, proposing it, or allowing it.
It will do so because it will shift the independence debate away from the SNP; from the same old, same old arguments, from the bickering, from the internecine party warfare to where the debate should be, what kind of Scotland we want for tomorrow, what kind of Scotland we want for our children.
Imagine the effect if this is put before Holyrood, as an overriding aspect of future Scots law.
The Union parties would have to vote for it, or against it. Expect their backers to want it to be killed. Big chemical, big pharmaceutical, big oil will all see drawbacks to a law protecting children. The City certainly would not support it because the fees and charges our pension pots currently suffer under as we stagger through crisis after financial crisis would need to be capped or moderated if proposed for future amendment. Parents requiring support from their children through usurious finance charges, is not good for the children.
The principle is simple; the objectors will be many, for today’s adults cannot be asset stripped unless it is deemed “good for the children”.
Imagine the cleft stick that Holyrood could place the Union supporters in. London will be unable to insist on legislation that could be deemed detrimental to the children. If it insisted it is not impossible that Westminster governments might fall.
The Union parties would have to oppose the proposal; they are likely to be ordered to do so. However, if the Union parties do oppose the proposal, it would strip their veneer, it would lay them bare to every citizen of these islands, and they would be perpetually seen as the parties who don’t care about children.
The effect would ripple right through Scots society, it would galvanise Scots as they realise this referendum isn’t about the SNP, it isn’t about Labour, or their more minor partners, the Tories. It would help people forget the irrelevance that is the Liberal Democrats.
It would, more than anything else conceivable, bring the focus sharply back onto the real purpose of this referendum.
That it is about nothing more or less than Scotland’s future, and the ability of Scots to shape it directly without any disastrous dilution of their democracy.
It will remind folk, or shock them into acknowledgement for the first time, that a vote which is diluted by over 90% is a worthless vote when it comes to writing your own story, to choosing the path that you need to choose.
It will do all these things and more simply because it is in the best interests of the children, and who among us except the predatory, the depraved and the simply evil wouldn’t put the good of the children first.
It is surprising, very surprising that no one in any political movement has examined this issue, more precisely “is it good for the children?”
A simple suggestion indeed, but what if it became our guiding legislative principle, we are, after all only caretakers for the next generation, and caretakers can be good or bad. Westminster is a stark example of bad caretaking with rising, soaring child poverty.
Take for example NHS privatisation, service cuts and PPI/PFI. As these issues continue to impoverish and dismantle our social contract by an exponentially soaring debt burden that has transferred to the unborn, can we honestly argue that this is good for the children?
Consider also that the UK is at the forefront of the world’s list of most unequal nations, and consider if that can possibly be good for the children.
Imagine an updated proposed or implemented Scottish constitution, one that is yet to be written, but one that the current Holyrood government guarantees will include nothing that negatively impacts our children. Holyrood could pass such legislation in this or next year’s sessions.
Holyrood could guarantee to set up an independent body of perhaps a dozen randomly selected citizens from a pool of volunteers to examine each and every article of legislation passed or enforced in Scotland. If it is viewed as good for the children, neutral or wouldn’t affect them it continues the legislative process. Alternatively Holyrood could simply propose an act whereby legislation perceived as not good for the children could be challenged and struck.
This is the only principle that Holyrood need propose for inclusion into a future restored Scottish state, the only big bazooka as the financial gurus would call it that is likely to grab a nation’s attention.
Enshrine the sovereignty of the individual by protecting tomorrow’s citizens.
It will do so because such a proposal is almost unique, certainly in our modern western civilizations.
It will do so because virtually everyone will agree that if it isn’t good for the children, and we can demonstrate that it isn’t good for the children, then we shouldn’t be doing it, proposing it, or allowing it.
It will do so because it will shift the independence debate away from the SNP; from the same old, same old arguments, from the bickering, from the internecine party warfare to where the debate should be, what kind of Scotland we want for tomorrow, what kind of Scotland we want for our children.
Imagine the effect if this is put before Holyrood, as an overriding aspect of future Scots law.
The Union parties would have to vote for it, or against it. Expect their backers to want it to be killed. Big chemical, big pharmaceutical, big oil will all see drawbacks to a law protecting children. The City certainly would not support it because the fees and charges our pension pots currently suffer under as we stagger through crisis after financial crisis would need to be capped or moderated if proposed for future amendment. Parents requiring support from their children through usurious finance charges, is not good for the children.
The principle is simple; the objectors will be many, for today’s adults cannot be asset stripped unless it is deemed “good for the children”.
Imagine the cleft stick that Holyrood could place the Union supporters in. London will be unable to insist on legislation that could be deemed detrimental to the children. If it insisted it is not impossible that Westminster governments might fall.
The Union parties would have to oppose the proposal; they are likely to be ordered to do so. However, if the Union parties do oppose the proposal, it would strip their veneer, it would lay them bare to every citizen of these islands, and they would be perpetually seen as the parties who don’t care about children.
The effect would ripple right through Scots society, it would galvanise Scots as they realise this referendum isn’t about the SNP, it isn’t about Labour, or their more minor partners, the Tories. It would help people forget the irrelevance that is the Liberal Democrats.
It would, more than anything else conceivable, bring the focus sharply back onto the real purpose of this referendum.
That it is about nothing more or less than Scotland’s future, and the ability of Scots to shape it directly without any disastrous dilution of their democracy.
It will remind folk, or shock them into acknowledgement for the first time, that a vote which is diluted by over 90% is a worthless vote when it comes to writing your own story, to choosing the path that you need to choose.
It will do all these things and more simply because it is in the best interests of the children, and who among us except the predatory, the depraved and the simply evil wouldn’t put the good of the children first.
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