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.