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

‘You Lost – Now get over it’

The truth will out, the old saying goes. And by jings, I think we’re seeing the evidence of that now.

My-oh-my. How little they understand, it’s just that in this case, the truth will take time to permeate, to insinuate itself into the consciousness of almost every ‘NO’ voter. If the NO side or the NO voter believes there was a loser in this referendum, they are absolutely correct. The identity of the loser is very easy for them to uncover, they just require a mirror.

The cry of “You Lost - Get over it” is one I’ve seen times almost without number in the two weeks since the referendum result was announced. The truth of the matter is, although I would have been delighted with a ‘Yes’ vote, and campaigned and worked to try to gain one, I suppose deep down, I never really expected it. What I did get has exceeded almost every expectation I had. It’s a pity that those who voted ‘NO’ from either a false sense of allegiance, or I suspect more often from simple fear, will have to wait until anywhere from a day to a decade to realize it. Of course by then many who did vote ‘NO’ will no longer be among the living, but before they leave us, they’ll have been privileged to see ‘Austerity’ really bite. I just wonder if they’ll be able to admit their voting error before their personal final curtain drops.

You see, those relying on state pensions voted to perpetuate a virtually bankrupt state, as opposed to a vibrant, energised and resurrected one, one which needn’t have hamstrung their retirement, one which needn’t have continued to pay about the lowest proportional pensions in Northern Europe.

But what about those cries of ‘You Lost!’. Obviously those elderly who voted to ‘protect their pensions’ lost, because with both governments guaranteeing them, how could they not have won?

For the rest of us, here’s where those gloating, troublemaking Unionistas essentially have it backwards.

They themselves are the ones who ‘Lost’; they lost the opportunity to increase the personal value of their vote ten-fold.

They lost the opportunity for a sovereign parliament, answerable only to us, the Scots, and I include every Scot who holds nationhood dear to heart, resident, ex-pat, it’s irrelevant.

These individuals, on the face of it, have lost the opportunity for a constitution to enshrine their rights; their own personally-tailored Bill of Rights. That those self serving careerists in Westminster might be discussing a UK version is immaterial because, let’s face it, they’re even afraid of and desperate to duck the obligations of the European Human Rights court. However, I’m willing to bet their “bill” will protect both their and their bankers’ rights.

Therefore, let me examine exactly what their NO vote guarantees.

Their NO vote will guarantee more broken promises, more London centric policies.

Their NO vote will see politics as usual, Scotland and its referendum is already a footnote to Westminster’s perspective.

Their NO vote will not guarantee any significant extra powers, on the contrary, it can’t. To change things more significantly, they need an English Parliament, if they get that, the UK is over, or it becomes fully federalised with each nation demanding and having an equal say. However, when one nation controls over eighty percent of the population, they’re not going to accept that. To be in the position of having to agree with representatives of the other nations will be intolerable for them. If you doubt it, just research why ‘The West Lothian Question’ has never been resolved.

Their NO vote will guarantee increased taxes and reduced benefits as the extra income is required to pay for England’s debt. When these No voters are poorer and have seen inflation run rampant again, that’s when they will really understand what the NO vote will have won.

Their NO vote has guaranteed as part of a unitary state, the NHS in Scotland has no protection. While NHS England opens the door to privatisation, the same will come to Scotland. We simply don’t have adequate funding to protect it, unless London decides we should.

Their NO vote guaranteed you the right to have Weapons of Mass Destruction parked on your doorstep.

Their NO vote has already put your children in harms’ way again, as we walk the path back to a war in the Middle East. This time it’s the Islamic State. Last time, Iraq, before that, Aden, Palestine, Egypt; where will the next conflict drain the blood of our children into those hot unforgiving desert sands?

A NO vote lost you the immediate right to control those oil revenues, which within few days of the vote you were told had been ‘vastly underestimated’ just the week before. The only real difference, the referendum was over. Those who cared to look had known this for months or years. If that was false, you’d have seen the pound rise, not fall that week.

These are just some of the things those who voted NO have lost.

For myself, I think we won. No, we didn’t get the big prize, as a whole, nor did we bite the apple, but what else did we expect? Believe it; Westminster controls the media, that’s the one power it’ll never willingly give up (Media Bias During The Referendum). It might privatise the NHS, Education, the Mail, Water, Railways, Utilities, but it’ll never give up its propaganda machine. Think about it, the broadcast media are all beholden to Westminster for their licenses – at the minimum. Literally every paper in Scotland is either Union controlled or foreign owned. Glasgow/Sunday Herald/Evening Times Owners (Any thinking individual or Scotland's vaunted media - including the BBC - could easily have explained to the Scottish electorate that Westminster could no more keep the promises published in the Daily Record's "Vow" page than it could have produced rocking horse shit from thin air. Simply another example of how our media failed us.)

We won because we exposed that propaganda machine.

We won because we took that vote, which had been hovering sometimes in the 20’s, to over 50. It failed on the day, but it failed through lies and gullibility, not our efforts which will be re-doubled next time.

We won, because the politicians in England were forced to make promises that will destroy the status quo, the Union or both. It’s that or be proven liars. That they will keep those promises is unthinkable, that we would vote NO a second time is unimaginable.

We won because already, after just a few weeks, many ‘Noes’ would change their vote. While I have no sympathy, you can do so in perpetuity, a majority of independence MP’s elected to Westminster or Holyrood, with that proclaimed goal, can easily still deliver the result.

We won because the notion of a free, resurrected and resurgent Scotland is viable, it’s normalised, and it’s desired.

We won, most of all, because we realise that we’re in a world class boxing match, and against us we’ve a world class opponent, at least when it comes to the mechanics of holding others in thrall as it pursues its fading dreams of imperial glory. On the morning of September 19th, the announcement was clear, that in round one, Scotland had failed to deliver the knockout blow, but we know our enemy, for such is the only description of one that would take the food from your mouth and force you to rely on charity. 

Round two is just starting, it’ll end with the Westminster elections; if we hold the balance of power there by returning pro-independence supporting MPs we can proclaim independence. Round three, if needed, will see us at the next Holyrood Elections, again where the stated intent of the MSPs returned will and must be independence.

We must grab the thistle, we must grab it firmly, and we must protect both ourselves and those who come after from this incredible act of what is now self-harm that we call ‘The Union’.

Quite simply, we owe it to the unborn.

The Death of the NHS (Scotland)

It’s interesting how the Unionist Parties, all of them, say that the fate of the NHS in Scotland is ‘devolved’, that therefore it becomes wholly the choice of the Scottish Parliament to privatise, or not to privatise, all the while claiming that NHS spending in England is increasing, so our ‘Barnett Equivalent’ is increasing.

Perhaps some of us are stupid enough to believe that. Westminster certainly thinks we are right now, at least judging by its actions.

It’s a bit like me giving you my car, which you absolutely need but don’t have the money to run. I’ll tell you it’ll be fine, just give me your vote and everything will work out, I’ll even pay for the maintenance, I’ll pay for the roads too, the infrastructure, I just won’t tell you it’s actually your money I’m using.

I’m not going to tell you today, when I need that vote, that tomorrow, after you’ve given it to me, I’ll stop giving you the money to buy petrol,

even though I know you don’t have the ability to buy it yourself. I won’t ever actually ask for the car back, why should I? Effectively, I’ll just stop you using it so I don’t have to maintain it any longer; that means I can ignore the infrastructure too.

My car in your hands, the NHS as we know it in Westminster’s hands, both a bit useless after that vote has been used, both of little value once the currency of negotiation has been spent. Without the ability to fund its NHS being firmly in Scotland’s hands, it’s not Scotland’s NHS. It never will be, like anything else, if we can’t fund it, like a car with no petrol, it’s pointless.

There’re two things we all need to be aware of when it comes to funding.

Firstly, Barnett’s on the way out. No Westminster party has pledged to maintain it; mind you, after the student loans debacle, amongst others, those promises wouldn’t be worth much even if they were made.

Secondly, NHS spending in England has increased, but a significant part of that increase now funds shareholder profits, not patient care. It’s still ‘government spending’ they argue in London Town, so Scotland benefits. They’re right as well, but only for today.

After you spend that vote on Thursday, if you spend it foolishly, if you vote ‘No’, here’s what will happen to your NHS, amongst other cherished institutions.

The main English parties have all said they are committed to Austerity. In actual fact, they’ve no choice; they spend so much on servicing a debt created by their economic mismanagement that it’s possibly their only true option.

UK Debt payments, just for interest, already equal four times the cost of Scotland’s NHS, by 2020 they’re going to be close to outstripping the cost of the entire UK’s health care system. That money has to be ‘found’ from somewhere, and they can’t indenture Scottish Oil or sell off the Royal Mail again.

The money will be found from the same place it’s always found, our taxes. In this case, stealth taxes once more. Just like the pensions raids, except now it’ll be an NHS raid.

The NHS in England is largely privately run these days; we just pay the bills and the profits on top. It’s ripe for shifting from the public books.

As that shifting process initiates, expect co-pays to be introduced in England, the think tanks and committees are already sounding them out, the responses they’re getting are positive.

The next stage will be a supplemental ‘tax’ or extra NI contribution, after that employer funded insurance will become de-rigueur. Each small step not that big of a deal alone, each small step so singularly significant moving that £100 billion plus from the government books to our own. Each small step contributing to City profits, even as the square mile contributes to the party coffers.

Expect, over the course of several years, the NHS to go from ‘universal entitlement’ to a ‘needs based benefit’.

As this all happens, even at just a twenty pound co-pay per visit, and three visits a year, that’s 3.6 billion shaved from the public budget in England. That’s about 1/3 of Scotland’s NHS costs, and that proportionate allocation won’t come north anymore, even in the unlikely event Barnett survives. That twenty pound co-pay is only half what Labour’s proposing mind you, Red-Ed is on record at £120 per person a year, with other’s in Westminster’s circles suggesting a tenner a month a head ‘access fee’ per user, so that’d be over seven billion, it’ll cover a bit more mismanagement then?

Typically it can be expected that any tests and procedures will also come with their individual co-pays, and all this will happen, because folk are only too willing to ‘pay a co-pay to save their NHS’, not realizing that even although the staff in front of them might be wearing NHS insignias, they actually aren’t NHS employees. The public doesn’t realize that what ‘they’re paying to save’ is already effectively dead, in England.

Once these conditions become the norm, its reasonable, based upon past trends, to expect those still using the NHS to become vilified as are the public health recipients in America by the US right wing media, they’ll be just another round of ‘benefits scroungers’.

When it’s all done, just remember, you cast that vote, and with an opportunity to truly change the way folk get treated in these Islands, throughout the entirety of these islands, if you cast it with poor judgement, you’ll have used up all your currency, and Westminster certainly isn’t going to call for free critical care or life support for a cause which it views as simply creating wasteful constitutional crises. If Westminster can stop it, there’ll be no more ‘wasteful’ constitutional amendments, otherwise known as devolution.

Remember too, on some future day, when you personally need that life support, from the birth of a child to major surgery, or even simply your elderly care in the years to come, as it is in England already, you’d better be prepared to pay.

There you have it, it’s quite simple really, David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Alistair Darling, Ed Miliband or the man who helped start the sell-off of the NHS, and raided your pensions, Gordon Brown. Would you buy a used car from them under any conditions, not just these conditions? How about a soon to be very underfunded NHS Perhaps the promise of a scandal free Westminster works for you?

If you wouldn’t do any of these, why would you buy a Union?