Rant time...
I promised myself a long time ago I would try never to project negative energy. I worked for a long time for bosses I loathed. Narrow-minded, ill-educated, thick though they were, I swore I would not waste my breath on them. I also promised myself I would not blaspheme. I'm not a believer so it's a bit rich for someone like me to be cursing on a god I don't believe in. My final promise to myself was to refuse to get caught up in conspiracy theories.
Man, it's hard.
O god, o god, o god, o god...I hate the Tories.
A bunch of posturing, ill-educated, entitled, wazzocks. Take your pick: Cameron, Johnson, Osborne, Duncan Smith, Gove (a Scot, god help us all). They're all cut from the same cloth. How is it possible for us to pretend to be civilised and let them go on living? And not just living but drawing salaries paid for by us, the taxpayers.
It's like these people see the UK as a game. They sit there with their joysticks, moving us about, changing the rules of the game to suit themselves. This EU referendum has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with us, the voters and taxpayers. Whether the UK stays in or leaves, will make no difference to us.
We should actually be looking at TTIP but that has hardly registered in the news. TTIP will take us even further down the road of societies ruled by the multi-nationals, responsible and answerable to no one.
What the hell is wrong with us?
I'm old but there must be young people out there worried about what is happening.
Sunday 28 February 2016
Austerity
Here's the dictionary definition of austerity:
We've got that all right. We've had that for more than 5 years now. So how's it going? Is the national debt down? Nope. Is the deficit down? Nope. The message we're getting from the UK government is this:
How long will the electorate wait before kicking out a government that can't deliver what it promised?
To be fair, I don't know why we're not out on the streets already. There are many other countries where the avenidas and boulevards would be packed with crowds chanting: Austerity out! Maybe it's to do with us, the voters. We don't see ourselves as being the ones who make the money the government needs but somehow as servants of the government who get blown about back and forth like washing on a line as the government wishes.
This government seems to have a plan to force the UK to be competitive. I say 'seems' because there's not much talk in the media about what their plan is. In the past, governments wanted us to be competitive with other developed countries: the USA, Germany, etc. This government seems to want us to compete with China and India. And that means forcing wages down to the Chinese and Indian levels.
In the end, I suspect it won't work. And here's my thinking:
If a million people have jobs earning the national average of, say, £20,000 a year, they pay - after personal allowances - about £3,500 each in income tax. Actually, that average is not true: it's reckoned by the Rountree Foundation that the average wage is closer to £13,000.* But let's go for the
But under austerity, people are losing their jobs all over the UK. Everyone who has to go on to Social Security (no, I will not call it Welfare because all these people who were working have paid national insurance contributions to make sure they would be covered if ever they weren't in work. They're not getting a handout). The government assures us every month that there are jobs out there. Plenty of jobs. A lot of these jobs are on zero-hours, part-time and minimum wage contracts. People are forced by the job centres to take these jobs, even if they demand childcare arrangements and anti-social shifts many families can't handle.
People in these jobs obviously don't pay the income tax someone on £20K a year would pay so the government has less cash coming in. Unemployed people also don't spend money in the community the way they used to: home decorating, holidays, nights out, new clothes for the kids, etc, all have to go. So less VAT is coming in to government coffers. But worse than that, the government is forced to top up people's income with tax credits because people can't live on the wages being offered. And who pays for the tax credits? Well, you and I. They come out of our income tax payments.
Of course, the government doesn't have to rely on our taxes to get money. They can borrow. And they do. They pay interest on the borrowings, of course, and recently that interest has been higher because the UK has lost its AAA rating. Who sets the ratings? The banks naturally. If you're a bank, it's called win-win. If you're a UK taxpayer, it's called getting shafted.
There is talk of a global financial crisis coming soon, with another collapse in the banking system. I can't decide if there is any truth in this warning or if it's another attempt to frighten people in the UK. Much as the so-called immigration crisis is meant to frighten us. I do know if there is another crisis, the banks and billionaires won't pay for it.
There are economists out there who have examined austerity much better than I ever could and have decided it's not working: David Blanchflower, Robert Reich, Paul Krugman. Here's Krugman's view of what's happening:
His view is worth thinking about.
* You can read about pay averages here: https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/minimum-income-standard-uk-2013
difficult economic conditions
created by government measures
to reduce public expenditure
We've got that all right. We've had that for more than 5 years now. So how's it going? Is the national debt down? Nope. Is the deficit down? Nope. The message we're getting from the UK government is this:
How long will the electorate wait before kicking out a government that can't deliver what it promised?
To be fair, I don't know why we're not out on the streets already. There are many other countries where the avenidas and boulevards would be packed with crowds chanting: Austerity out! Maybe it's to do with us, the voters. We don't see ourselves as being the ones who make the money the government needs but somehow as servants of the government who get blown about back and forth like washing on a line as the government wishes.
This government seems to have a plan to force the UK to be competitive. I say 'seems' because there's not much talk in the media about what their plan is. In the past, governments wanted us to be competitive with other developed countries: the USA, Germany, etc. This government seems to want us to compete with China and India. And that means forcing wages down to the Chinese and Indian levels.
In the end, I suspect it won't work. And here's my thinking:
If a million people have jobs earning the national average of, say, £20,000 a year, they pay - after personal allowances - about £3,500 each in income tax. Actually, that average is not true: it's reckoned by the Rountree Foundation that the average wage is closer to £13,000.* But let's go for the
£20K figure. That gives the government £3,500,000,000 in income. And that's for every million of us that are working.
But under austerity, people are losing their jobs all over the UK. Everyone who has to go on to Social Security (no, I will not call it Welfare because all these people who were working have paid national insurance contributions to make sure they would be covered if ever they weren't in work. They're not getting a handout). The government assures us every month that there are jobs out there. Plenty of jobs. A lot of these jobs are on zero-hours, part-time and minimum wage contracts. People are forced by the job centres to take these jobs, even if they demand childcare arrangements and anti-social shifts many families can't handle.
People in these jobs obviously don't pay the income tax someone on £20K a year would pay so the government has less cash coming in. Unemployed people also don't spend money in the community the way they used to: home decorating, holidays, nights out, new clothes for the kids, etc, all have to go. So less VAT is coming in to government coffers. But worse than that, the government is forced to top up people's income with tax credits because people can't live on the wages being offered. And who pays for the tax credits? Well, you and I. They come out of our income tax payments.
Of course, the government doesn't have to rely on our taxes to get money. They can borrow. And they do. They pay interest on the borrowings, of course, and recently that interest has been higher because the UK has lost its AAA rating. Who sets the ratings? The banks naturally. If you're a bank, it's called win-win. If you're a UK taxpayer, it's called getting shafted.
There is talk of a global financial crisis coming soon, with another collapse in the banking system. I can't decide if there is any truth in this warning or if it's another attempt to frighten people in the UK. Much as the so-called immigration crisis is meant to frighten us. I do know if there is another crisis, the banks and billionaires won't pay for it.
There are economists out there who have examined austerity much better than I ever could and have decided it's not working: David Blanchflower, Robert Reich, Paul Krugman. Here's Krugman's view of what's happening:
His view is worth thinking about.
* You can read about pay averages here: https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/minimum-income-standard-uk-2013
Friday 26 February 2016
Savile
All day yesterday I kept hearing reports about Jimmy Savile and how the BBC was to blame for his crimes. Today the blame is still being laid at the door of the BBC but now it's claimed the royal family, Margaret Thatcher and that strange being 'The Establishment' were to blame for covering up what he was doing.
If I thought about Savile at all in his heyday, I thought he was weird. If anything, I decided he was likely to be either an asexual mummy's boy or a closet homosexual. His TV programmes made me cringe. But that was it - and I suspect many other people thought the same and no more than that.
I am no friend of the BBC or the royal family or Thatcher or the establishment but I want to point out that the only person who should be blamed for Savile's crimes is Savile. He was a clever, devious, manipulative paedophile who got himself into a position of power so that he could abuse children and young people.
Clever, devious and manipulative are words that describe all paedophiles perfectly. Consider the case of Robert Black, the serial killer who recently did us all a favour by dying in prison. He wasn't caught after a police investigation. After who knows how many years of committing abduction, rape and murder, Black made a mistake and was caught through that. Even when he was banged up for life for 3 murders, he refused to give the families of other missing children peace of mind by confessing to his crimes. I've seen various estimates of how many other children he murdered, anywhere between 4 and 13. All the time he was active as a paedophile, I'm pretty sure his neighbours, relatives and the people he worked with thought he was strange. They would have said things like he kept himself to himself, he had no friends and no girlfriends, we knew nothing about him really.
The problem is that most of us can't imagine anyone so lacking in humanity that they would commit such crimes against innocent children. Someone told me this week that police officers who work on cyber crimes 'against the person' are sent for counselling every few months to try to counter the horror of what they are seeing on the computer screen. I'm sorry people have to do these jobs but I'm grateful that they do. What the rest of us can do to help these officers and the victims of people like Savile, Hall, Black and others is:
- accept that paedophiles exist and that they have always been there in our society
- accept that they do what they do because they think they will get away with it
- so create an atmosphere in which victims can talk freely about what has happened to them
- and believe the victims
- set up treatment not just for the victims but also for the paedophiles.
- do more research into paedophilia. I have read that only 40% of paedophiles have been abused themselves. So why do the other 60% start to offend? I don't know if we can break the cycle of offending but we owe it to our children to try.
If I thought about Savile at all in his heyday, I thought he was weird. If anything, I decided he was likely to be either an asexual mummy's boy or a closet homosexual. His TV programmes made me cringe. But that was it - and I suspect many other people thought the same and no more than that.
I am no friend of the BBC or the royal family or Thatcher or the establishment but I want to point out that the only person who should be blamed for Savile's crimes is Savile. He was a clever, devious, manipulative paedophile who got himself into a position of power so that he could abuse children and young people.
Clever, devious and manipulative are words that describe all paedophiles perfectly. Consider the case of Robert Black, the serial killer who recently did us all a favour by dying in prison. He wasn't caught after a police investigation. After who knows how many years of committing abduction, rape and murder, Black made a mistake and was caught through that. Even when he was banged up for life for 3 murders, he refused to give the families of other missing children peace of mind by confessing to his crimes. I've seen various estimates of how many other children he murdered, anywhere between 4 and 13. All the time he was active as a paedophile, I'm pretty sure his neighbours, relatives and the people he worked with thought he was strange. They would have said things like he kept himself to himself, he had no friends and no girlfriends, we knew nothing about him really.
The problem is that most of us can't imagine anyone so lacking in humanity that they would commit such crimes against innocent children. Someone told me this week that police officers who work on cyber crimes 'against the person' are sent for counselling every few months to try to counter the horror of what they are seeing on the computer screen. I'm sorry people have to do these jobs but I'm grateful that they do. What the rest of us can do to help these officers and the victims of people like Savile, Hall, Black and others is:
- accept that paedophiles exist and that they have always been there in our society
- accept that they do what they do because they think they will get away with it
- so create an atmosphere in which victims can talk freely about what has happened to them
- and believe the victims
- set up treatment not just for the victims but also for the paedophiles.
- do more research into paedophilia. I have read that only 40% of paedophiles have been abused themselves. So why do the other 60% start to offend? I don't know if we can break the cycle of offending but we owe it to our children to try.
Monday 22 February 2016
About this footballer
I don't think I've ever blogged twice in one day but I'm mad as hell tonight. I just heard a footballer on trial for having sexual relations with an underage girl trying to explain what happened.
He describes himself in terms that make you think - or are meant to make you think - that he's just a naive wee working class boy who was experimenting/didn't know what he was doing/was copying his mates on the team. This is a man of 27. Other men of that age are married with kids, holding down a job, trying to pay the rent or the mortgage and aiming to give their kids a decent life. They are not online trying to get into the pants of a 15 year old lassie.
When I was a young teacher, I know I missed at least two cases of child sex abuse. Both girls. And they have stayed with me ever since.
One girl aged 12 would come to my class and then take ill. She would drape herself over the radiator, crying and saying: 'It's terrible, I hate it.' Of course, I was concerned and tried to help. She couldn't explain what it was that was terrible and after a few days of this I passed on my concerns to the 'Lady Adviser', a job that has long disappeared from Scottish schools but which had its uses. The girl vanished. I don't know where to. The Lady Adviser hinted she had been abused by her mother's boyfriend.
The other girl was in the same school and was also about 12 but I only saw her at the Children's Panel. She had climbed out of her bedroom window two flights up and jumped. She had been locked in. Hence the escape by window. When her parents got hold of her and got her in a taxi to go to the local hospital, she jumped out on a main road. How she wasn't killed I don't know. She recognised me from school and stared at me across the table at the emergency Panel meeting where we tried to decide what was wrong and how to help her. When the Panel suggested at one point she could go home, she looked at her father sitting next to her and said quite clearly: 'No. Not with them.' Her mother was a pale, sad woman who cried throughout the hearing. The father was a wee, shilpit creature whose face was permanently stuck in a frown. In the end, the girl went to a 'place of safety'. After the hearing, we said to the lawyer that there was something bad going on there. Did he have any concerns about the father? He did, but said: How do you prove it?
You prove it by believing the victim.
Kids don't have the vocabulary to invent stories about abuse. And why would they? Adults sometimes ascribe adult motives to quite young children claiming they make allegations because they're unhappy over the divorce of their parents/because they are jealous of the new partner/because they're wicked, etc.
The footballer in this story is probably going to be convicted as a paedophile. He followed the same pattern as other paedophiles: he picked on someone young and vulnerable; he groomed her, making her feel special; he made their meeting a secret.
He knew what he was doing. He's not the victim here.
If you think kids just get over events like sexual abuse, here's one to think about: a girl of 10 is sexually abused by her older brother over several years. She finally gets help at school but her parents refuse to believe it has happened. The police are involved but the investigation is made very difficult by the family closing ranks. The girl is taken into care. By the time she is 18, she is using drugs and living a very dangerous life. She dies after an overdose, ironically - if you read the first lines of this post - at the age of 27.
He describes himself in terms that make you think - or are meant to make you think - that he's just a naive wee working class boy who was experimenting/didn't know what he was doing/was copying his mates on the team. This is a man of 27. Other men of that age are married with kids, holding down a job, trying to pay the rent or the mortgage and aiming to give their kids a decent life. They are not online trying to get into the pants of a 15 year old lassie.
When I was a young teacher, I know I missed at least two cases of child sex abuse. Both girls. And they have stayed with me ever since.
One girl aged 12 would come to my class and then take ill. She would drape herself over the radiator, crying and saying: 'It's terrible, I hate it.' Of course, I was concerned and tried to help. She couldn't explain what it was that was terrible and after a few days of this I passed on my concerns to the 'Lady Adviser', a job that has long disappeared from Scottish schools but which had its uses. The girl vanished. I don't know where to. The Lady Adviser hinted she had been abused by her mother's boyfriend.
The other girl was in the same school and was also about 12 but I only saw her at the Children's Panel. She had climbed out of her bedroom window two flights up and jumped. She had been locked in. Hence the escape by window. When her parents got hold of her and got her in a taxi to go to the local hospital, she jumped out on a main road. How she wasn't killed I don't know. She recognised me from school and stared at me across the table at the emergency Panel meeting where we tried to decide what was wrong and how to help her. When the Panel suggested at one point she could go home, she looked at her father sitting next to her and said quite clearly: 'No. Not with them.' Her mother was a pale, sad woman who cried throughout the hearing. The father was a wee, shilpit creature whose face was permanently stuck in a frown. In the end, the girl went to a 'place of safety'. After the hearing, we said to the lawyer that there was something bad going on there. Did he have any concerns about the father? He did, but said: How do you prove it?
You prove it by believing the victim.
Kids don't have the vocabulary to invent stories about abuse. And why would they? Adults sometimes ascribe adult motives to quite young children claiming they make allegations because they're unhappy over the divorce of their parents/because they are jealous of the new partner/because they're wicked, etc.
The footballer in this story is probably going to be convicted as a paedophile. He followed the same pattern as other paedophiles: he picked on someone young and vulnerable; he groomed her, making her feel special; he made their meeting a secret.
He knew what he was doing. He's not the victim here.
If you think kids just get over events like sexual abuse, here's one to think about: a girl of 10 is sexually abused by her older brother over several years. She finally gets help at school but her parents refuse to believe it has happened. The police are involved but the investigation is made very difficult by the family closing ranks. The girl is taken into care. By the time she is 18, she is using drugs and living a very dangerous life. She dies after an overdose, ironically - if you read the first lines of this post - at the age of 27.
The NHS is not perfect...
I usually sing the praises of the NHS whenever I can because usually the NHS people I meet and the care they offer are first class. Today I found out what happens on the fringes of the NHS.
I went to Clarkston Clinic for physio this morning. The physio department consists of one room. At one end are a set of desks where the physios and their admin back-up do their paperwork. The other half of the room consists of three cubicles, separated from each other by curtains, where the physios see their patients.
First there's the issue of privacy: nothing can be said without everyone in the room overhearing. Patients can hear phone calls taken and made by the admin staff. The admin staff can hear everything that's said between physios and patients - and the patients can hear each others' consultations.
Then there's space: each consultation area has space for a physio couch and a chair. There's nowhere to hang your coat or leave your bag. The physio has to squeeze round the bed, bumping into the person behind the curtain in the next cubicle as he or she does so. If the patient needs a pillow, the physio has to go and get one from the 'office' area because there's no storage space in the treatment area.
And there's the facility and the facilities: the building is a 1960s brutalist horror and everything inside it is from the same era. There's wheelchair access at the back door but I saw no sign of hoists or lifts for disabled patients. The inside walls of the building are peppered with tatty leaflets about everything under the sun, some of them tacked straight onto the walls, since there are very few proper noticeboards. It's noisy with traffic because the building faces on to a main road. I'd been warned before I went that parking is impossible.
I feel for what are obviously very professional staff working in conditions like this. I got good advice and every exercise I was given to do for my wonky knee (and the sciatica it is now causing) was demonstrated.
At one point when I had to ask the physio to repeat something he'd just said because of the noise around me, I commented: 'These are terrible working conditions.' He smiled, no doubt having had this conversation many times before. I believe the clinic is moving to the new poly-clinic now being built at Seres Road. That's bound to be an improvement but how awful to train for years and end up offering what is a very valuable service in slum conditions like this. I wonder how common this is.
I went to Clarkston Clinic for physio this morning. The physio department consists of one room. At one end are a set of desks where the physios and their admin back-up do their paperwork. The other half of the room consists of three cubicles, separated from each other by curtains, where the physios see their patients.
First there's the issue of privacy: nothing can be said without everyone in the room overhearing. Patients can hear phone calls taken and made by the admin staff. The admin staff can hear everything that's said between physios and patients - and the patients can hear each others' consultations.
Then there's space: each consultation area has space for a physio couch and a chair. There's nowhere to hang your coat or leave your bag. The physio has to squeeze round the bed, bumping into the person behind the curtain in the next cubicle as he or she does so. If the patient needs a pillow, the physio has to go and get one from the 'office' area because there's no storage space in the treatment area.
And there's the facility and the facilities: the building is a 1960s brutalist horror and everything inside it is from the same era. There's wheelchair access at the back door but I saw no sign of hoists or lifts for disabled patients. The inside walls of the building are peppered with tatty leaflets about everything under the sun, some of them tacked straight onto the walls, since there are very few proper noticeboards. It's noisy with traffic because the building faces on to a main road. I'd been warned before I went that parking is impossible.
I feel for what are obviously very professional staff working in conditions like this. I got good advice and every exercise I was given to do for my wonky knee (and the sciatica it is now causing) was demonstrated.
At one point when I had to ask the physio to repeat something he'd just said because of the noise around me, I commented: 'These are terrible working conditions.' He smiled, no doubt having had this conversation many times before. I believe the clinic is moving to the new poly-clinic now being built at Seres Road. That's bound to be an improvement but how awful to train for years and end up offering what is a very valuable service in slum conditions like this. I wonder how common this is.
Sunday 21 February 2016
This religion stuff...
I don't do religion. Haven't done since I was about 13. Before that I went to Sunday school because I was made to. I also went to mass with my pal Rosina because she wanted company. But soon after I started secondary I decided enough was enough. My decision may have had to do with a home economics teacher who was given my class to teach RE to. She obviously hated it - and us cocky wee sods from the 'top' class who did Latin instead of HE - and her way of making her feelings known was to force us to learn verses from the Bible off by heart, with the threat of the belt if we didn't do it. I got quite adept after that at dogging RE.
But it seems, whatever we do and despite the fact that fewer and fewer people now claim to have any interest in religion, there's no getting away from religion in Scotland.
A friend of mine, much loved and respected by me over many years, recently told me that Whole Foods was 'full of Jews.' I'd no idea what she meant. I don't look at my fellow shoppers and wonder what their religious affiliation is. I notice the customer - always a man - who has clearly never been through a checkout before in his life, doesn't know you have to have a bag or buy one there and never has his card ready to pay with. I said mildly: Well, this is an area where quite a few Jewish people live, so they're bound to be in the shops. That's not what she meant. She claimed Whole Foods is a company owned by Jews and providing jobs for Jews. I started looking at the staff in Whole Foods after that. They don't seem particularly Jewish but how can anyone tell? There is one American, seconded from the USA. The rest of the staff seem to be local.
Then I decided: I don't care. It's not my business. I don't go to Whole Foods for religion. I go to for lovely cheese, French toasts, the best avocados in the world, organic carrots and potatoes for my soup and superb free range eggs from Stewarton. Their coffee is pretty good too. And I'm pleased they are providing jobs locally.
Today, I'm reading in the Sunday Herald that 'loyalists' - presumably Protestants with long memories and a grudge - have taken exception to celebrations of the 1916 Easter Rising being held in Scotland by people of Irish descent. It seems there may be 'trouble' in the east end of Glasgow and other 'loyalist strongholds' in the Central Belt. I don't know how many people there are of Irish descent in Scotland. Quite a lot, I would think. They are surely entitled to celebrate any damn thing they like - and anyway the Easter Rising isn't about religion but about the population of a country seeking independence from another country. And Scottish people were involved on the Irish side in the rising of 1916.
I once attended an EU conference in Northern Ireland. The theme was European cooperation. We spent most of a week setting up educational projects that would bring together young people and teachers from Spain, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Eire, Poland, France, Denmark and Sweden. It was a 'high-value event' (as we said in the jargon) with lots of spin-off benefits for schools. The final night dinner reflected the importance of the conference: it was attended by Martin McGuinness and by councillors from the local area. When Martin McGuinness got up to speak, several councillors - one of them a Church of Ireland minister - got up and left. They stood in the corridor till McGuinness had finished. After dinner, we had a display of music and dance from local school kids. They were wonderful, as they always are - amazing how kids always rise to a special occasion. When the Irish dancing started (one of the boys went on to join a travelling show of Riverdance, that's how good they were), the councillors left again. Now I don't mind people insulting politicians. it comes with the territory. But see when you do it to the weans...and with their proud parents looking on...it's time to - as we say in Glasgow - take a shine to yourself and work out what is really important.
Is there any chance we in Scotland could grow up a bit? Start cultivating an attitude that says: this is not my business - I don't care - just you get on with whatever it is you want to do?
Maybe then we could have a really mature country. I don't hold out much hope for a multi-cultural, tolerant society ready to welcome people newly arrived from Syria and Afghanistan if we can't even be tolerant towards people who have lived together for hundreds of years.
But it seems, whatever we do and despite the fact that fewer and fewer people now claim to have any interest in religion, there's no getting away from religion in Scotland.
A friend of mine, much loved and respected by me over many years, recently told me that Whole Foods was 'full of Jews.' I'd no idea what she meant. I don't look at my fellow shoppers and wonder what their religious affiliation is. I notice the customer - always a man - who has clearly never been through a checkout before in his life, doesn't know you have to have a bag or buy one there and never has his card ready to pay with. I said mildly: Well, this is an area where quite a few Jewish people live, so they're bound to be in the shops. That's not what she meant. She claimed Whole Foods is a company owned by Jews and providing jobs for Jews. I started looking at the staff in Whole Foods after that. They don't seem particularly Jewish but how can anyone tell? There is one American, seconded from the USA. The rest of the staff seem to be local.
Then I decided: I don't care. It's not my business. I don't go to Whole Foods for religion. I go to for lovely cheese, French toasts, the best avocados in the world, organic carrots and potatoes for my soup and superb free range eggs from Stewarton. Their coffee is pretty good too. And I'm pleased they are providing jobs locally.
Today, I'm reading in the Sunday Herald that 'loyalists' - presumably Protestants with long memories and a grudge - have taken exception to celebrations of the 1916 Easter Rising being held in Scotland by people of Irish descent. It seems there may be 'trouble' in the east end of Glasgow and other 'loyalist strongholds' in the Central Belt. I don't know how many people there are of Irish descent in Scotland. Quite a lot, I would think. They are surely entitled to celebrate any damn thing they like - and anyway the Easter Rising isn't about religion but about the population of a country seeking independence from another country. And Scottish people were involved on the Irish side in the rising of 1916.
I once attended an EU conference in Northern Ireland. The theme was European cooperation. We spent most of a week setting up educational projects that would bring together young people and teachers from Spain, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Eire, Poland, France, Denmark and Sweden. It was a 'high-value event' (as we said in the jargon) with lots of spin-off benefits for schools. The final night dinner reflected the importance of the conference: it was attended by Martin McGuinness and by councillors from the local area. When Martin McGuinness got up to speak, several councillors - one of them a Church of Ireland minister - got up and left. They stood in the corridor till McGuinness had finished. After dinner, we had a display of music and dance from local school kids. They were wonderful, as they always are - amazing how kids always rise to a special occasion. When the Irish dancing started (one of the boys went on to join a travelling show of Riverdance, that's how good they were), the councillors left again. Now I don't mind people insulting politicians. it comes with the territory. But see when you do it to the weans...and with their proud parents looking on...it's time to - as we say in Glasgow - take a shine to yourself and work out what is really important.
Is there any chance we in Scotland could grow up a bit? Start cultivating an attitude that says: this is not my business - I don't care - just you get on with whatever it is you want to do?
Maybe then we could have a really mature country. I don't hold out much hope for a multi-cultural, tolerant society ready to welcome people newly arrived from Syria and Afghanistan if we can't even be tolerant towards people who have lived together for hundreds of years.
Thursday 18 February 2016
The Look
I was walking into a shopping centre recently when I became aware of a group of 3 boys, aged about 10, hanging around the car park. One of them was on his knees beside the front offside tyre of a BMW. Now I'm no fan of BMW drivers, especially since they seem to be able to do anything with their cars except park them between white lines, but vandalism is vandalism whether it's being done to a Fiat 500 or a BMW. I went back a couple of steps and fixed the boy with The Look. He said: 'Whit?' I said: 'What are you doing?' He said: 'Nuffin.' I said: 'Fine - now go and do it somewhere else.' And off he slouched with his mates.
In the doctors' surgery today, there was boy of about four climbing the walls or at least the partition that separates the reception desk from the waiting room. His mother said: 'Come down from there, please, Oliver' a few times and then gave up. I tried to ignore it. It wasn't Oliver's fault: his doctor was running 35 minutes late and Oliver was like a wee Tasmanian Devil. It was pure boredom. When he started climbing on chairs and jumping off them, I gave up all pretence of not noticing and gave him The Look. He went and got a car out of the toy box. I wasn't planning to batter Oliver. I just
thought some adult was going to come and sit where Oliver's feet had been and I wasn't happy.
It's quite alarming to discover I still have The Look. After all, I haven't been in a classroom since 1990. But it is reassuring to notice that kids still know what The Look means. Most kids know when they're pushing their luck. Call it testing the grown-ups if you like. And they know when they've gone too far and will mostly back off when they get The Look. It's the ones who don't respond that we have to worry about as parents, teachers and communities.
The use of the word 'please' by parents worries me a lot. I don't remember adults using that word to me very often. Even the blessed Joyce Grenfell only said: 'George, don't do that.' Sure, there are plenty of times when you can slip in a please - eat your broccoli, please - but when a child is doing something that is unacceptable, inappropriate, wrong in fact, if the grown ups around them don't tell them to stop, who will?
I think what most bothers me is that in my opinion (and not so humble either) children should know who runs the show and it's not them. Grown ups make the rules and enforce them. Mostly the rules are reasonable.
Now that I've written this, I realise I probably come over as some sort of fascist. That's not my intention: I believe kids need rules and those can only come from adults. Setting rules and boundaries doesn't make a grown up a baddie. It makes them responsible. And we all are, parents, grandparents, members of the community.
In the doctors' surgery today, there was boy of about four climbing the walls or at least the partition that separates the reception desk from the waiting room. His mother said: 'Come down from there, please, Oliver' a few times and then gave up. I tried to ignore it. It wasn't Oliver's fault: his doctor was running 35 minutes late and Oliver was like a wee Tasmanian Devil. It was pure boredom. When he started climbing on chairs and jumping off them, I gave up all pretence of not noticing and gave him The Look. He went and got a car out of the toy box. I wasn't planning to batter Oliver. I just
thought some adult was going to come and sit where Oliver's feet had been and I wasn't happy.
It's quite alarming to discover I still have The Look. After all, I haven't been in a classroom since 1990. But it is reassuring to notice that kids still know what The Look means. Most kids know when they're pushing their luck. Call it testing the grown-ups if you like. And they know when they've gone too far and will mostly back off when they get The Look. It's the ones who don't respond that we have to worry about as parents, teachers and communities.
The use of the word 'please' by parents worries me a lot. I don't remember adults using that word to me very often. Even the blessed Joyce Grenfell only said: 'George, don't do that.' Sure, there are plenty of times when you can slip in a please - eat your broccoli, please - but when a child is doing something that is unacceptable, inappropriate, wrong in fact, if the grown ups around them don't tell them to stop, who will?
I think what most bothers me is that in my opinion (and not so humble either) children should know who runs the show and it's not them. Grown ups make the rules and enforce them. Mostly the rules are reasonable.
Now that I've written this, I realise I probably come over as some sort of fascist. That's not my intention: I believe kids need rules and those can only come from adults. Setting rules and boundaries doesn't make a grown up a baddie. It makes them responsible. And we all are, parents, grandparents, members of the community.
Wednesday 17 February 2016
Gie's a Job
Bombardier has announced today that 1 in 5 of the jobs it currently offers in Northern Ireland - a thousand jobs altogether - will disappear over the next two years. (I'm sure you will have noticed we only hear from Northern Ireland when there's bad news: The Troubles or problems in the NI assembly).
Cue BBC commentator, who presumably has some expertise in economics: the community is glad that 4 out of 5 jobs will still be there.
I have no expertise in economics but I know that losing 1,000 jobs in a marginal community is a disaster. Every time we worry about losing the last shipbuilding jobs in Scotland right here in Glasgow, it is pointed out that 1,000 breadwinners losing their jobs can mean plunging 4,000 people into poverty in a family: no mortgage payments, no holidays booked, no new clothes, no nights out, no takeaways, no taxis. All this affects local businesses: from the local businesses who provide skilled tradesmen to maintain the yard's facilities, right down to the folk who provide the newspapers and fags at the corner shops and the vans that sell snacks outside the yard...
The same BBC commentator also managed one of those links that have me chucking stuff at the telly: elsewhere, it seems, the news on jobs is much more upbeat.
Elsewhere? Now where would that be? South Wales? The Central Belt of Scotland, the North-east and North-west of England, East Midlands, Northern Ireland? Well, who knows? The BBC news doesn't do analysis any more, although the statistics on new jobs being created are undoubtedly available to anyone who asks for them. But no, the BBC goes for the 'broad sweep' - usually presented to us by people speaking from the South-east of England where there is a huge skill shortage in manufacturing but loadsa jobs if you want to work in an office. So that's all right then.
It's no secret I want independence for Scotland. I don't have any tartan and haggis fantasies. I'm not a nationalist. But I want to live in a country where the most important thing is the health and well-being of the people who live here. And right now, I can only see independence offering any hope.
Cue BBC commentator, who presumably has some expertise in economics: the community is glad that 4 out of 5 jobs will still be there.
I have no expertise in economics but I know that losing 1,000 jobs in a marginal community is a disaster. Every time we worry about losing the last shipbuilding jobs in Scotland right here in Glasgow, it is pointed out that 1,000 breadwinners losing their jobs can mean plunging 4,000 people into poverty in a family: no mortgage payments, no holidays booked, no new clothes, no nights out, no takeaways, no taxis. All this affects local businesses: from the local businesses who provide skilled tradesmen to maintain the yard's facilities, right down to the folk who provide the newspapers and fags at the corner shops and the vans that sell snacks outside the yard...
The same BBC commentator also managed one of those links that have me chucking stuff at the telly: elsewhere, it seems, the news on jobs is much more upbeat.
Elsewhere? Now where would that be? South Wales? The Central Belt of Scotland, the North-east and North-west of England, East Midlands, Northern Ireland? Well, who knows? The BBC news doesn't do analysis any more, although the statistics on new jobs being created are undoubtedly available to anyone who asks for them. But no, the BBC goes for the 'broad sweep' - usually presented to us by people speaking from the South-east of England where there is a huge skill shortage in manufacturing but loadsa jobs if you want to work in an office. So that's all right then.
It's no secret I want independence for Scotland. I don't have any tartan and haggis fantasies. I'm not a nationalist. But I want to live in a country where the most important thing is the health and well-being of the people who live here. And right now, I can only see independence offering any hope.
Sunday 14 February 2016
Life, lies and things like that
I watched Albert Nobbs last night. It's not a great movie but it is memorable for some great performances, especially by Glenn Close and Helen McTeer. I notice John Banville wrote the screenplay. He is one of the great Irish writers of our time. And Glenn Close was a producer. A thousand blessings on their heads.
The film brought back lots of memories to me. Not so much about 19th century Ireland, when the film is set - just a teeny bit before my time - but it looked pretty brutal and absolutely believable where the lives of working class people are concerned.
There's an anti-abortion demo going on outside the new Southern General hospital in Glasgow during Lent. It seems it's small-scale, peaceful, silent and aimed at making women looking for an abortion think again.
When I look back on my life in working class Glasgow in the 1950s and early 60s, I'm mad at how people were manipulated. The greatest fear then for any teenage couple then was the girl getting pregnant. Contraception in pre-pill days wasn't so easy. In fact, I remember a friend of mine being told by her GP in the late 1970s to come back with her mother if she wanted to discuss birth control.
There was a rumour in my school, which was filled with high-achieving women teachers and students, that one girl had got pregnant and had had an abortion. Abortion was illegal then. Even if the rumour wasn't true, this girl's life and that of her boyfriend were pretty well determined at the age of 17: if she was pregnant, they would 'have to get married' according to the morality of the time. If she had an abortion (assuming she could get one), she would never live it down. I can't imagine how many couples were pressured into marrying by their families and I wonder how many actually stayed together. The potential for being sucked (or suckered) into the misery of a loveless marriage - because divorce was also pretty well unobtainable then - may have kept a lot of young people on the 'straight and narrow' that is, alone. For a while at least. Poor souls.
Let me remind you, this was just 50 years ago.
I don't give a rat's arse what the people on the demo outside the new Southern stand for. The state, or the law or whatever it wants to call itself these days, should feck off and let people get on with their lives.
The film brought back lots of memories to me. Not so much about 19th century Ireland, when the film is set - just a teeny bit before my time - but it looked pretty brutal and absolutely believable where the lives of working class people are concerned.
There's an anti-abortion demo going on outside the new Southern General hospital in Glasgow during Lent. It seems it's small-scale, peaceful, silent and aimed at making women looking for an abortion think again.
When I look back on my life in working class Glasgow in the 1950s and early 60s, I'm mad at how people were manipulated. The greatest fear then for any teenage couple then was the girl getting pregnant. Contraception in pre-pill days wasn't so easy. In fact, I remember a friend of mine being told by her GP in the late 1970s to come back with her mother if she wanted to discuss birth control.
There was a rumour in my school, which was filled with high-achieving women teachers and students, that one girl had got pregnant and had had an abortion. Abortion was illegal then. Even if the rumour wasn't true, this girl's life and that of her boyfriend were pretty well determined at the age of 17: if she was pregnant, they would 'have to get married' according to the morality of the time. If she had an abortion (assuming she could get one), she would never live it down. I can't imagine how many couples were pressured into marrying by their families and I wonder how many actually stayed together. The potential for being sucked (or suckered) into the misery of a loveless marriage - because divorce was also pretty well unobtainable then - may have kept a lot of young people on the 'straight and narrow' that is, alone. For a while at least. Poor souls.
Let me remind you, this was just 50 years ago.
I don't give a rat's arse what the people on the demo outside the new Southern stand for. The state, or the law or whatever it wants to call itself these days, should feck off and let people get on with their lives.
Friday 12 February 2016
Thick
I have postviral fatigue. I'm kinda used to it now. I had Guillain-Barré Syndrome 20 years ago - google it - and landed up in hospital, unable to walk very far or carry things without them dropping from my lifeless fingers. It's a surprising condition and very rare, in which the immune system attacks the nervous system, specifically the myelin sheaths round the peripheral motor nerves. There are, I believe, about 10 cases a year in Scotland. Sufferers mostly make a good recovery over a period of a few months, but ever since, I've had this tendency to be very 'no weel' after a dose of the flu or even a really bad cold caused by a virus.
The past couple of weeks, I've been mostly asleep, after having a cold that turned into bronchitis, but when I surface and switch on the telly, I find some quite amazing stuff has been going on while I've been out of it.
Here I need your opinion: Is Cameron a bit thick? I know he went to a 'good' school and got a degree from a 'good' university. But he wrote a letter to his local council complaining about cuts in local government spending, almost as if he didn't realise the cuts we are all suffering from are down to the government he heads up.
His entire cabinet seems to be made up of people just like him.
In between lying about the state of the UK economy, Osborne has done a deal with google over their tax debt in the UK. Yes, debt - that's what it is, folks. Is he at all embarrassed at the paltry amount he has managed to get out of google? Not at all. He proclaims it as a major triumph.
Jeremy Hunt has the same problem. It's as if these bloody NHS doctors had picked a fight with him and were pushing him to the brink. He started off by telling the public he wanted a 7 day a week NHS. Now he doesn't even bother with that. He just hammers on about how lucky these people will be to be working in the NHS with this new contract. I've seen some figures that suggest junior doctors will be earning £8.45 an hour. So many years of training and you end up earning less than a checkout person in Aldi. Makes you proud, huh?
When I was in P6 in my Glasgow primary school, I did an IQ test that showed I had an IQ of 140+. Later on, I did other tests and it seems my IQ was 151. I don't set great store by these tests but I would love to know the IQ scores of people like Cameron, Osborne and Hunt. Not to mention the people who voted for them last May.
The past couple of weeks, I've been mostly asleep, after having a cold that turned into bronchitis, but when I surface and switch on the telly, I find some quite amazing stuff has been going on while I've been out of it.
Here I need your opinion: Is Cameron a bit thick? I know he went to a 'good' school and got a degree from a 'good' university. But he wrote a letter to his local council complaining about cuts in local government spending, almost as if he didn't realise the cuts we are all suffering from are down to the government he heads up.
His entire cabinet seems to be made up of people just like him.
In between lying about the state of the UK economy, Osborne has done a deal with google over their tax debt in the UK. Yes, debt - that's what it is, folks. Is he at all embarrassed at the paltry amount he has managed to get out of google? Not at all. He proclaims it as a major triumph.
Jeremy Hunt has the same problem. It's as if these bloody NHS doctors had picked a fight with him and were pushing him to the brink. He started off by telling the public he wanted a 7 day a week NHS. Now he doesn't even bother with that. He just hammers on about how lucky these people will be to be working in the NHS with this new contract. I've seen some figures that suggest junior doctors will be earning £8.45 an hour. So many years of training and you end up earning less than a checkout person in Aldi. Makes you proud, huh?
When I was in P6 in my Glasgow primary school, I did an IQ test that showed I had an IQ of 140+. Later on, I did other tests and it seems my IQ was 151. I don't set great store by these tests but I would love to know the IQ scores of people like Cameron, Osborne and Hunt. Not to mention the people who voted for them last May.
Wednesday 10 February 2016
This is Joshua
Joshua is 23. He lives in the USA. A few months ago, Joshua persuaded an alligator to get in the back of his truck and then drove to a drive-through. Here are Joshua and the alligator.
Joshua placed his order and then threw the alligator through the window of the drive-through, into the area where the staff work.
Joshua's mother called this a 'stupid prank.' Stupid isn't the word I'd apply to the prank, although it definitely describes Joshua to a T.
The word 'prank' has been taken over in the USA, turned into a verb on the way, and is used to describe all sorts of reckless and downright dangerous behaviour. 'Pranks' have their own tv programmes although they don't usually show anything as wild as this. But there's always one moron who just can't help himself or, as they say in Chewin The Fat...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD89wjUQZCw
Joshua placed his order and then threw the alligator through the window of the drive-through, into the area where the staff work.
Joshua's mother called this a 'stupid prank.' Stupid isn't the word I'd apply to the prank, although it definitely describes Joshua to a T.
The word 'prank' has been taken over in the USA, turned into a verb on the way, and is used to describe all sorts of reckless and downright dangerous behaviour. 'Pranks' have their own tv programmes although they don't usually show anything as wild as this. But there's always one moron who just can't help himself or, as they say in Chewin The Fat...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD89wjUQZCw
Tuesday 9 February 2016
About this Brexit stuff
I voted against the UK joining the Common Market in - when was it? - 1973? That brought me a bit of grief, as you can imagine: 'Ho, ho', colleagues said, 'She's happy to teach their languages and have her holidays there but she doesn't want to join the rest of Europe.' In fact, of course, my reasons for voting against joining were quite different. I'd lived in France just a few years before. I'd visited most of western Europe while I was there and since my return to the UK, I could see the gulf in attitudes between the UK and the Common Market and I wasn't convinced the Brits understood what this Common Market thing was all about.
For a start, the Brits really didn't understand the reasons for having an EU.
Firstly, it was to avoid having another European war, like the two they'd already had, which left millions of people in mainland Europe dead, displaced and homeless. Left every national economy in debt, mostly to the USA. And left a legacy of hate and distrust that was going to be hard to recover from. The UK haven't been invaded and taken over since 1066 and we can't grasp the horror of watching a foreign army march into your country to set about commandeering your factories and houses, stealing your food and deporting your able-bodied people to slave in factories and mines elsewhere.
Secondly, after 1945, the European economies were only going to recover if they worked together. Yes, Europe got 'help' from the USA, largely in the form of loans and leases. Despite our claims that the USA was our friend, US industrialists and financiers did very well out of the second world war and payments on their loans left most of Europe in desperate straits. Real recovery could only come if Europe pooled resources via trade deals that reduced the costs of raw materials and manufactured goods. And they did it. There was a wee element of jealousy involved: I can remember people coming back from visits to Germany in the 60s asking 'So who won the war then?' Well, the Allies won the war, but in economic terms the Germans won the peace.
Thirdly, there's the matter of empire. France, Spain and, to a lesser extent, Germany all had empires and had to discard them, sometimes at the point of a gun. But only the Brits saw themselves - and I'm afraid for some Brits this is still the case - as top dogs, entitled to special treatment because they used to have an empire. People who leave the UK to live and work in other parts of the EU are not migrants, according to us: they are ex pats, decent people all, pretty rich and unlikely to be benefit scroungers in whichever country of the EU they settle in. But people who come here, especially the Poles and the Romanians and citizens of the Baltic states, are seen as being inferior to native Brits and they are definitely on the scrounge.
The UK wasn't a team player in 1973 and it still isn't. We still think of ourselves far too often as leader of the family of the Commonwealth, ignoring the fact that some ex-colonies hate us and more and more are toying with the idea of ditching the monarchy and the Union Flag.
We also see ourselves as having a 'special relationship' with the USA, the last superpower in the world, whereas the reality is that the UK is just an aircraft carrier for the USA and NATO. The UK (in particular, Prestwick) is where US planes flying kidnapped, untried prisoners to Guantanamo on 'extraordinary rendition' could - and did - stop to re-fuel. A sad comment on a country that fought so hard for the law of habeas corpus. The UK apes everything the USA does: the USA swings to the right politically - we follow; capitalism goes wild over there, ending in a financial meltdown - it does here too; social democracy is described as some form of communism over there so 'welfare' is attacked - same here.
I'm not looking forward to the EU referendum campaign. Those of us in Scotland have already been through this. We have the most rightwing press and tv news services in the world and the lies and distortions we saw in the Scottish referendum have already begun to litter the pages of the so-called 'free' press. The Tory party is tearing itself apart; Labour is a mess; who knows where the Lib Dems stand? The SNP and the Greens are powerless in Westminster. Scotland may find itself leaving the EU because the campaign to stay in won't be able to organise itself in time. And it matters to Scotland: we are still a trading nation - 60% of all our trade is with the EU.
For a start, the Brits really didn't understand the reasons for having an EU.
Firstly, it was to avoid having another European war, like the two they'd already had, which left millions of people in mainland Europe dead, displaced and homeless. Left every national economy in debt, mostly to the USA. And left a legacy of hate and distrust that was going to be hard to recover from. The UK haven't been invaded and taken over since 1066 and we can't grasp the horror of watching a foreign army march into your country to set about commandeering your factories and houses, stealing your food and deporting your able-bodied people to slave in factories and mines elsewhere.
Secondly, after 1945, the European economies were only going to recover if they worked together. Yes, Europe got 'help' from the USA, largely in the form of loans and leases. Despite our claims that the USA was our friend, US industrialists and financiers did very well out of the second world war and payments on their loans left most of Europe in desperate straits. Real recovery could only come if Europe pooled resources via trade deals that reduced the costs of raw materials and manufactured goods. And they did it. There was a wee element of jealousy involved: I can remember people coming back from visits to Germany in the 60s asking 'So who won the war then?' Well, the Allies won the war, but in economic terms the Germans won the peace.
Thirdly, there's the matter of empire. France, Spain and, to a lesser extent, Germany all had empires and had to discard them, sometimes at the point of a gun. But only the Brits saw themselves - and I'm afraid for some Brits this is still the case - as top dogs, entitled to special treatment because they used to have an empire. People who leave the UK to live and work in other parts of the EU are not migrants, according to us: they are ex pats, decent people all, pretty rich and unlikely to be benefit scroungers in whichever country of the EU they settle in. But people who come here, especially the Poles and the Romanians and citizens of the Baltic states, are seen as being inferior to native Brits and they are definitely on the scrounge.
The UK wasn't a team player in 1973 and it still isn't. We still think of ourselves far too often as leader of the family of the Commonwealth, ignoring the fact that some ex-colonies hate us and more and more are toying with the idea of ditching the monarchy and the Union Flag.
We also see ourselves as having a 'special relationship' with the USA, the last superpower in the world, whereas the reality is that the UK is just an aircraft carrier for the USA and NATO. The UK (in particular, Prestwick) is where US planes flying kidnapped, untried prisoners to Guantanamo on 'extraordinary rendition' could - and did - stop to re-fuel. A sad comment on a country that fought so hard for the law of habeas corpus. The UK apes everything the USA does: the USA swings to the right politically - we follow; capitalism goes wild over there, ending in a financial meltdown - it does here too; social democracy is described as some form of communism over there so 'welfare' is attacked - same here.
I'm not looking forward to the EU referendum campaign. Those of us in Scotland have already been through this. We have the most rightwing press and tv news services in the world and the lies and distortions we saw in the Scottish referendum have already begun to litter the pages of the so-called 'free' press. The Tory party is tearing itself apart; Labour is a mess; who knows where the Lib Dems stand? The SNP and the Greens are powerless in Westminster. Scotland may find itself leaving the EU because the campaign to stay in won't be able to organise itself in time. And it matters to Scotland: we are still a trading nation - 60% of all our trade is with the EU.
Sunday 7 February 2016
The Tax Man Cometh
I saw this headline on the BBC news website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-35502939
It seems - and we know this because of a freedom of information request from the BBC - that Dumfries & Galloway Council:
<< has achieved nearly £100m in cumulative savings by allowing hundreds of staff to retire early.
In the past five years nearly 700 employees have taken early retirement or voluntary severance.>>
(A brief aside: if you've ever wondered why the costs of running a local council just keep on rising, you might want to ponder this: every time new legislation appears affecting local councils, whether it's from Holyrood or Westminster or the EU, someone has to do the job of making sure the council complies with the legislation. That means a salary which is expensive. And it's not always costed in the legislation. And that includes freedom of information requests).
Well, b*gger me, I thought, Dumgal have done well. The council tax payers will be pleased at these savings. Then I wondered: hang about, who's paying the pensions of the people who have been allowed to retire early?
Now, economics is not my thing. You don't employ a teacher of French and Russian to work out sums, certainly not hard sums like this. But maybe I can bring a wee bit of common sense to the problem.
People don't necessarily live longer just because they retire early. We've all known people who 'went' a mere six months after they got the retirement package. And quite a few who didn't even make it to the retirement package. But those who survive to enjoy retirement have to get their money from somewhere.
And that's where you and I come in. Usually when asked where money comes from people say: the government. Let me be the first to tell you: the government has no money. We - you and I, the tax payers of this fine nation - we have the money. Government is, if you like, our dependent.
I speak with some authority here. I am the tax man's best friend: worked from age 15 to age 60, paid tax on PAYE, my only concession being my membership of a 'professional association' - and I even had to fight for that for two years. Now that I have retired (not early, I might add), I still pay tax. Last year, I paid tax on my state and occupational pensions that was equivalent to my state pension. That must just about cover my £200 winter fuel allowance and the free bus pass I rarely use.
I once told someone that I had paid for my state pension through tax and national insurance for 45 years. He was quite scathing: 'It's not a bank, you know. You don't pay in and then expect to draw out in old age.' I'll tell you what I told him: 'Why not?' The argument seems to be that people who have retired depend on those who are working to pay their state pensions, and they in turn will depend on the next generation to pay their pensions. There is a flaw in this argument, which I'm sure you've spotted: if councils, which in some areas of Scotland are the major employers, reduce the number of jobs - and why else would they be 'shedding' staff? - there will be fewer people earning in future to pay anyone's pension.
Then there are the occupational pensions. Paid into by employers and employees over long periods of time. A few years ago, it sounded like those of us who worked in the public sector were getting something for nothing. We were, it seemed, costing 'the government' a lot of money. This, according to the (Tory) Chancellor could not continue. When I heard this, I did a wee bit of investigating and discovered that, not only was my public sector pension fund not costing anybody a penny, except the employees and employers who had paid into it, but in fact it had produced a surplus in 11 of the previous 12 years. I also found out that the government, which has no money of its own (see above), has been raiding pension funds for decades. Gordon Brown did it when he was Chancellor and I have every reason to believe the current occupant of the post will be doing the same to pay off the huge debt the Tories have managed to build up in just 6 years. If he doesn't, it won't be out of principle but because the stock market crash of 2008 has reduced the amount of money worth stealing. Sorry, I mean 'redistributing.'
All in all, I suspect that what Dumgal has done - and they are not alone among local councils - is pass the financial problem on to someone else. And that someone is you and me as tax payers - and the next few generations. Not the government. Given their track record, I wouldn't trust them to organise a 'menoj.'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-35502939
It seems - and we know this because of a freedom of information request from the BBC - that Dumfries & Galloway Council:
<< has achieved nearly £100m in cumulative savings by allowing hundreds of staff to retire early.
In the past five years nearly 700 employees have taken early retirement or voluntary severance.>>
(A brief aside: if you've ever wondered why the costs of running a local council just keep on rising, you might want to ponder this: every time new legislation appears affecting local councils, whether it's from Holyrood or Westminster or the EU, someone has to do the job of making sure the council complies with the legislation. That means a salary which is expensive. And it's not always costed in the legislation. And that includes freedom of information requests).
Well, b*gger me, I thought, Dumgal have done well. The council tax payers will be pleased at these savings. Then I wondered: hang about, who's paying the pensions of the people who have been allowed to retire early?
Now, economics is not my thing. You don't employ a teacher of French and Russian to work out sums, certainly not hard sums like this. But maybe I can bring a wee bit of common sense to the problem.
People don't necessarily live longer just because they retire early. We've all known people who 'went' a mere six months after they got the retirement package. And quite a few who didn't even make it to the retirement package. But those who survive to enjoy retirement have to get their money from somewhere.
And that's where you and I come in. Usually when asked where money comes from people say: the government. Let me be the first to tell you: the government has no money. We - you and I, the tax payers of this fine nation - we have the money. Government is, if you like, our dependent.
I speak with some authority here. I am the tax man's best friend: worked from age 15 to age 60, paid tax on PAYE, my only concession being my membership of a 'professional association' - and I even had to fight for that for two years. Now that I have retired (not early, I might add), I still pay tax. Last year, I paid tax on my state and occupational pensions that was equivalent to my state pension. That must just about cover my £200 winter fuel allowance and the free bus pass I rarely use.
I once told someone that I had paid for my state pension through tax and national insurance for 45 years. He was quite scathing: 'It's not a bank, you know. You don't pay in and then expect to draw out in old age.' I'll tell you what I told him: 'Why not?' The argument seems to be that people who have retired depend on those who are working to pay their state pensions, and they in turn will depend on the next generation to pay their pensions. There is a flaw in this argument, which I'm sure you've spotted: if councils, which in some areas of Scotland are the major employers, reduce the number of jobs - and why else would they be 'shedding' staff? - there will be fewer people earning in future to pay anyone's pension.
Then there are the occupational pensions. Paid into by employers and employees over long periods of time. A few years ago, it sounded like those of us who worked in the public sector were getting something for nothing. We were, it seemed, costing 'the government' a lot of money. This, according to the (Tory) Chancellor could not continue. When I heard this, I did a wee bit of investigating and discovered that, not only was my public sector pension fund not costing anybody a penny, except the employees and employers who had paid into it, but in fact it had produced a surplus in 11 of the previous 12 years. I also found out that the government, which has no money of its own (see above), has been raiding pension funds for decades. Gordon Brown did it when he was Chancellor and I have every reason to believe the current occupant of the post will be doing the same to pay off the huge debt the Tories have managed to build up in just 6 years. If he doesn't, it won't be out of principle but because the stock market crash of 2008 has reduced the amount of money worth stealing. Sorry, I mean 'redistributing.'
All in all, I suspect that what Dumgal has done - and they are not alone among local councils - is pass the financial problem on to someone else. And that someone is you and me as tax payers - and the next few generations. Not the government. Given their track record, I wouldn't trust them to organise a 'menoj.'
Wednesday 3 February 2016
Stop - just stop
I can't keep ranting like this. Well, in fact, I can. Just watch me. I've got excellent blood pressure pills and a good set of medics at Giffnock Medical Centre to keep me going, at least till they move out of the area - but that's a post for another time. But it probably isn't good for me to be provoked so often. And, heaven help me, provocation is a daily event these days.
First there's the proposal that people like me (68 next birthday) should have to re-take our driving test at age 70 and every five years thereafter. What can I tell you? Except that us pensioners are not the problem on the roads. If we have a fault, it's that we drive too slowly. The real problem are the arrogant 40+ bastards driving too fast in Audis, white van men and Skoda taxi drivers, all of whom seem to think they've bought the frickin road along with their car insurance - assuming they have any.
Then there's the idea that what Scotland needs, in spite of low wages and poor pensions - is a 1% extra tax on income, as proposed by the Labour party. Serves you right, you un-enterprising sods for not going off with your hankie tied to a stick containing all your worldly possessions to seek your fortune in Lahndan. This will, of course, penalise the poorly paid and pensioners who are just about getting by. Has anyone thought this through? Probably not. It's election year in Scotland, so political parties can float any kind of half-arsed idea. And they do. I can't even be bothered trying to remember what Willie Rennie last said on behalf of the LibDems. Something stupid, I'll be bound. What a tool that man is.
There's also the decision by HM government to refuse visas to people from outwith the EU unless they can prove they will be able to earn over 35K a year. Yes, 35K. Who do you know that earns that amount? Nobody working in the public sector, I'll bet. This will include a young US friend who did her masters degree at Glasgow University and wants to do a PhD here (both degrees paid for by her), but who has been shipped off back to the US of A because her visa ran out. And another Scottish-born friend who wants to bring her husband (an Aussie) and children home to an island village where they are promised a house and jobs and places in the local school for the kids (where they are badly needed in order to keep the school open) but where they can't promise they will find work that brings in 35K each. Yes, you read that right. The Tories can't do a damn thing about EU migration, whatever concessions they may claim to have got this week, but they can totally screw up people's lives - and that's just what's happening.
If this was France or Spain or Greece or Germany, we'd be out protesting on the streets. What will it take to get the Brits agitated? Obviously not injustice,stupidity or bullying. Are we really so spineless we just roll over and say to the Tories: do to us what you will?
Tell me it's not so.
First there's the proposal that people like me (68 next birthday) should have to re-take our driving test at age 70 and every five years thereafter. What can I tell you? Except that us pensioners are not the problem on the roads. If we have a fault, it's that we drive too slowly. The real problem are the arrogant 40+ bastards driving too fast in Audis, white van men and Skoda taxi drivers, all of whom seem to think they've bought the frickin road along with their car insurance - assuming they have any.
Then there's the idea that what Scotland needs, in spite of low wages and poor pensions - is a 1% extra tax on income, as proposed by the Labour party. Serves you right, you un-enterprising sods for not going off with your hankie tied to a stick containing all your worldly possessions to seek your fortune in Lahndan. This will, of course, penalise the poorly paid and pensioners who are just about getting by. Has anyone thought this through? Probably not. It's election year in Scotland, so political parties can float any kind of half-arsed idea. And they do. I can't even be bothered trying to remember what Willie Rennie last said on behalf of the LibDems. Something stupid, I'll be bound. What a tool that man is.
There's also the decision by HM government to refuse visas to people from outwith the EU unless they can prove they will be able to earn over 35K a year. Yes, 35K. Who do you know that earns that amount? Nobody working in the public sector, I'll bet. This will include a young US friend who did her masters degree at Glasgow University and wants to do a PhD here (both degrees paid for by her), but who has been shipped off back to the US of A because her visa ran out. And another Scottish-born friend who wants to bring her husband (an Aussie) and children home to an island village where they are promised a house and jobs and places in the local school for the kids (where they are badly needed in order to keep the school open) but where they can't promise they will find work that brings in 35K each. Yes, you read that right. The Tories can't do a damn thing about EU migration, whatever concessions they may claim to have got this week, but they can totally screw up people's lives - and that's just what's happening.
If this was France or Spain or Greece or Germany, we'd be out protesting on the streets. What will it take to get the Brits agitated? Obviously not injustice,stupidity or bullying. Are we really so spineless we just roll over and say to the Tories: do to us what you will?
Tell me it's not so.
Tuesday 2 February 2016
Get ready for a rant
I hear there's a crisis in staffing Scottish schools. There aren't enough teachers, it seems.
Now would that be the crisis caused by the councils who have cut back the number of teachers in schools?
Or the crisis caused by Westminster which, in the name of austerity, has cut back the amount of money going to local authorities so they can't employ teachers?
Or the the crisis caused by the Scottish Government which agreed to remove the ring-fencing around education that used to ensure we had enough money to staff our schools?
Whatever the case, the suggestion now is that, in order to staff our schools, we should reduce the qualifications needed to become a teacher.
It's hard to believe we're back where we were 50 years ago. Then we had schools staffed by people with no qualifications at all but who had maybe been in the army during the second world war and therefore came from the 'university of life.' Excuse me while I spit. Me too, I have been through the university of life. The only difference is I didn't think that was enough of a qualification to let me loose on the young people of this country, so I went on to study. Two degrees and a teaching diploma later, I was in a classroom and still finding the job pretty tough.
Thatcher started all this. She couldn't understand why primary teachers needed a degree for doing what women did naturally when raising children. Not that Maggie did any of that stuff - she had a nanny.
It's awful how qualifications are now denigrated. Four years at art school gets you an invitation to 'showcase' your talents (for nothing) in an exhibition. The same time gets you a degree in business admin and the chance of an 'internship' - which you will have to pay for, of course. You can spend years studying languages and end up being offered laughable sums of money for translation work. You can pursue a career in biochemistry, get a good degree and find yourself doing drone work in a lab. For the rest of your life.
Now the message seems to be that you don't really need a university qualification. I see a publisher is now taking people straight from school. Fair enough. But please, can we hold on to the idea that we need properly educated teachers?
Now would that be the crisis caused by the councils who have cut back the number of teachers in schools?
Or the crisis caused by Westminster which, in the name of austerity, has cut back the amount of money going to local authorities so they can't employ teachers?
Or the the crisis caused by the Scottish Government which agreed to remove the ring-fencing around education that used to ensure we had enough money to staff our schools?
Whatever the case, the suggestion now is that, in order to staff our schools, we should reduce the qualifications needed to become a teacher.
It's hard to believe we're back where we were 50 years ago. Then we had schools staffed by people with no qualifications at all but who had maybe been in the army during the second world war and therefore came from the 'university of life.' Excuse me while I spit. Me too, I have been through the university of life. The only difference is I didn't think that was enough of a qualification to let me loose on the young people of this country, so I went on to study. Two degrees and a teaching diploma later, I was in a classroom and still finding the job pretty tough.
Thatcher started all this. She couldn't understand why primary teachers needed a degree for doing what women did naturally when raising children. Not that Maggie did any of that stuff - she had a nanny.
It's awful how qualifications are now denigrated. Four years at art school gets you an invitation to 'showcase' your talents (for nothing) in an exhibition. The same time gets you a degree in business admin and the chance of an 'internship' - which you will have to pay for, of course. You can spend years studying languages and end up being offered laughable sums of money for translation work. You can pursue a career in biochemistry, get a good degree and find yourself doing drone work in a lab. For the rest of your life.
Now the message seems to be that you don't really need a university qualification. I see a publisher is now taking people straight from school. Fair enough. But please, can we hold on to the idea that we need properly educated teachers?
Monday 1 February 2016
War is hell
I don't expect to sleep tonight. I've watched several episodes of War and Peace back to back and I am wide awake.
I started off sure I would hate the whole thing, now showing on the BBC, and right enough, I hate a lot of the characters. Cardboard cut-outs most of them. But that's due to Tolstoy.
Natasha is a right pain. Does everything wrong but expects to get away with it - and she will, mark my words. Andrei is also annoying - stiff and a bit thick. As for Pierre - not thick but o dear, lacking in moral fibre. As for Marya - get a grip, girl. What the hell have you got to greet about?
Most irritating of all: why am I watching this at all? I've read most of the book. Not all - I want to shake the hand of anyone who has read it all. I've been to Moscow. I've seen Borodino - or at least seen the diorama.
Here's why. The BBC adaptation is wonderful. The acting is superb. I was sure the accents and the pronunciation would be awful but no, the French people have real French accents and the actors playing Russians mostly pronounce the names correctly. The countryside and the country houses are just as I know them to be. The battle scenes are convincing.
There are so many things the BBC does well.
If their managers would just stick to this kind of thing - education and entertainment, as they appear in the BBC charter - and avoid the politics, I'd be happy.
I started off sure I would hate the whole thing, now showing on the BBC, and right enough, I hate a lot of the characters. Cardboard cut-outs most of them. But that's due to Tolstoy.
Natasha is a right pain. Does everything wrong but expects to get away with it - and she will, mark my words. Andrei is also annoying - stiff and a bit thick. As for Pierre - not thick but o dear, lacking in moral fibre. As for Marya - get a grip, girl. What the hell have you got to greet about?
Most irritating of all: why am I watching this at all? I've read most of the book. Not all - I want to shake the hand of anyone who has read it all. I've been to Moscow. I've seen Borodino - or at least seen the diorama.
Here's why. The BBC adaptation is wonderful. The acting is superb. I was sure the accents and the pronunciation would be awful but no, the French people have real French accents and the actors playing Russians mostly pronounce the names correctly. The countryside and the country houses are just as I know them to be. The battle scenes are convincing.
There are so many things the BBC does well.
If their managers would just stick to this kind of thing - education and entertainment, as they appear in the BBC charter - and avoid the politics, I'd be happy.
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