What if...?

I'm fantasising now...

Priti Patel has gone. Unfortunately she's still an MP, though how anyone can justify that I don't know.

What if Boris Johnson is sent off to Iran to sort the mess he has made there, with a charity worker now facing having her sentence by an Iranian court doubled because of his big mouth? A trip to Iran calls for diplomacy, a bit of grovelling and building bridges so you can do business with people you may not like but have to work with. He'll fluff it. We know that before he even gets on the plane. He might recite a wee colonialist poem at the Iranians or remind them of the debt they owe to the British Empah.

Then the head of the NHS in England, emboldened as he was today by the knowledge that the public are behind him and the NHS in demanding more capacity and more money to meet the needs of patients, continues to insist that the organisation must get the £350million a week extra funding promised by the Brexiteers - people like Johnson. The UK budget can't find that kind of cash, especially since it looks as if the UK will also have to pay £60 billion+ to leave the EU.

Will that be enough - finally - for Theresa May to get rid of Johnson?

And then the sex scandal simmering away in Westminster claims a few more heads - not bit players, not poor souls like the Welsh Assembly member driven to suicide yesterday, but big Tory people: ministers. There will finally be resignations. Maybe at last Theresa May will resign. Who will the Tories get to replace her? Probably some stooge will step up, just as incompetent as she is, and the Tory government will stagger on a wee while longer. But the Tory government and maybe even the Tory party are finished.

Jeremy Corbyn will play it very cool, just as he is doing now: who the hell needs to get tangled up in that nest of snakes? Or maybe Labour and Lib Dems, the SNP and the Greens, faced with another general election which the voters definitely don't want, will finally get together in all parliaments, not just Westminster, and devise a strategy to save us from the madness inflicted on us by the Tories.

It's no more unlikely - or unacceptable - than the current coalition of the Tories and the DUP.

The Lib Dems will demand that their principles be adhered to: they will seek to 'balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community ... in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.' They will present their demands to find a form of inclusion in the EU which still allows UK voters to feel in control of their future, to freeze student fees, to increase support for childcare, and to improve the representation of women and minorities in day to day government.

The SNP and the Greens will go along with these demands, although the SNP and the Scottish Greens will seek to hold another referendum for independence and insist that their own views such as the abandonment of Trident, the abolition of the house of lords and the curtailment of HS2 be considered, since the UK clearly can't afford any of it.

Well, I said it was a fantasy. But frankly, it's no worse than the chaos we're experiencing now.

The Poppy

This is my father, Bill Nisbet, who served in the Royal Navy during World War 2.

He only ever told us funny stories about his war service. He served in Gibraltar, North Africa, Freetown in West Africa and Port London in South Africa. He got in tow with some Americans in Sierra Leone and told a long (and fairly boring - when you were hearing it for the umpteenth time) story about stealing a jeep and driving it into the harbour in Freetown. But he said nothing about hauling the bodies of dead sailors out of the Atlantic Ocean. And that was one of the things he and his shipmates had to do. 

He was a fitter in Alexander Stephen's shipyard in Govan and I could never really understand why he was allowed to sign up for war service: I always thought his job would be one of the 'reserved' occupations in wartime. 

Before him, his uncles served in World War 1, including one poor soul who joined the Navy at 17 but never made it out of Portsmouth before he died of pneumonia. 

That's not to mention my mother's family: her father was a career soldier who served in Gallipoli, then in India and finally in Ireland. Her mother was a nurse in France. That's where she met my grandfather. 

Now I find myself feeling bullied over these poppies. I don't give a rat's arse about wearing a poppy. The poppy used to be advertised as being in support of the 'Earl Haig Fund', Earl Haig being one of the absolutely useless commanders of the British Army during World War 1. There was a time when I refused to wear a red poppy because his name was attached to it - with the approval of my father and grandfather, let me say - and bought a white one, the peace poppy, but then I gave up on that too. 

But every year the same nonsense comes up: you have to buy a poppy. You have to support the British Legion (do they do anything in Scotland? If they do, I've never seen it). You have to support the 'veterans' (a US term). 

Frankly, if we in the UK supported 'veterans,' they wouldn't be homeless and sleeping rough. They wouldn't be suffering from Post traumatic Stress Disorder and getting no treatment. And we wouldn't think a big parade at the Cenotaph, not to mention a Remembrance ceremony on TV, would be enough to support them. 

I think what most annoys me about the poppy business is that the people who are so determined to make people like me buy a poppy have come nowhere near war themselves. They have no relatives who have suffered in a war. They don't have to deal day to day with people injured in wars - especially the illegal, unjust and pointless wars in the Middle East. And worst of all, they seem to be the worst kind of British Nationalists: people who think anything the UK does has to be good because, well, the British Empire said so. 

So please, if you have to put your money anywhere, get the UK government to put it into a fund that would support veterans, like the VA, the support system that the USA set up a long time ago for former service people. It might not be perfect, but it's better than making people buy a poppy. 

Making a Fallon of it

I'm sorry Michael Fallon has resigned. Not because he's in any way an admirable man. For heaven's sake, he's a Tory. But his resignation over what is being called in the British press, in their usual cliched and pathetic way, 'kneegate' will change nothing for the many women (and some men) who face being offended, denigrated and - at worst - abused every working day. Fallon groped a female journalist so much at a Tory Party conference 15 years ago that she threatened to punch him. The hints being delivered online are that Fallon is guilty of other 'crimes' (moral if not legal) but for the moment he's the sacrificial lamb being offered up by the Tory government.

The trouble is that Fallon's resignation seems to confuse sex pests with workplace bullies.

In the workplace, we won't get anywhere until we accept that the UK - and not just press, TV, radio and social websites - is run by men - old white guys, I prefer to call them - and has been for a long time. And for a long time, we've all ignored what's been going on.

Thus there are guys who feel entitled to indulge their liking for 'eye candy' and want only good-looking young women to work in their organisations. And, sadly, there are a few guys who feel they are entitled to sexual favours. These are the men in many walks of life who feel entitled to rape women and young men.

Harassers - almost entirely men - do not see anything wrong with going after women and some men who are younger and less powerful than themselves. They do it in private, in their offices and online. And when challenged - which they rarely are - they have a lot of defence mechanisms: the people who complain don't understand the banter that goes on every day in the workplace, take things too seriously, need to grow up, etc.

What most worries me is that we fail to see how badly a lot of people are treated in the workplace, not just women: for example, disabled people are denied jobs or appointed to jobs way below their capability. Young women are appointed to important posts, but then their employers get mad when, having achieved job security, they get pregnant and take time off. They quite often just sack or sideline them.

Are there people who use the system to make their way in a career? I'm quite sure there are. But they shouldn't have to.

The Catalan Republic

I admit it: I like a map. Books with maps, family trees, lists of characters and all their connections - all magic stuff to me. So I wasn't surprised when I stumbled across a map entitled 'Greater Europe.'

I love the Gothic script here, not to mention the lands of the heathens, heretics and godless. I notice on this map Spain is the same shade as Africa: land of the godless.

Intrigued, I googled the reference and came up with a wiki page where I saw the following description: 

Greater Europe refers to the idea of an extended or developed Europe. This generally implies a Europe which transcends traditional boundaries, including trans-Eurasian countries,^[1] or those in close proximity with a strong European heritage.^[2]

The wiki page has a map too. I won't trouble you with that - you can google it for yourself. Suffice to say, that map has large grey areas which are excluded from Greater Europe. As far as I can see, these grey areas are Muslim. Definitely not classed as places 'with a strong European heritage.'

The western world is riven with fear of the rest of the world. After centuries of oppressing the poor of other continents, it's as if our chickens are coming home to roost in Europe and we're clinging together for dear life before we're overrun by the people we overran before. We don't want to share - not a damn thing. We want to keep what we have, even if we weren't entitled to have it to begin with.

The fear of change has made us fearful of everything. The EU, the US and the UK are deeply frightened places. It's inhibiting our sense of democracy which we, ironically, keep trying to force other countries to adopt.

I think I've read all there is to read about independence for Catalunya. I've watched the government in Madrid behave for weeks as if Franco is still alive and the Falangists still in power, fail to negotiate and make one horrible mistake after another in dealing with the government and people of Catalunya.

I've certainly heard as much as I need to of the fake indignation of the EU and the leaders of Germany, France and the UK faced with the Catalan declaration of a republic. I'm told the USA will not support 'freedom movements' in the EU because you can't compare Catalunya - or Scotland - with what happened in the American Revolution - after all, that was 200 years ago and the situations are different. I'm not sure how.

I would like answers to the following questions.

Just how does a country or a region that feels it is a country get independence? In Spain, it seems there is no mechanism: you signed up to the constitution in 1976 and you're stuck with it forever. In the case of Scotland, we need the permission of the UK even to ask the population the question. That breeds at best festering resentment and at worst civil war.

This strikes me as deeply undemocratic.

If the EU was doing its job properly, there would be a legal statute in place that allowed various levels of autonomy, self-government and independence to emerging states. And member states of the EU would have to sign up to it. Self-government should never be in the gift of the state. It should be a right.

The idea that nothing ever changes or can ever change is a pretty sad position for the EU to adopt, especially when you look at how the map of greater Europe has changed since the EU came into being.

And yet...I keep coming back to it: the EU is the best we have. It was set up by people with high moral principles. Sadly, it's now being let down by people with very small minds.

Children's rights

I live in a large-ish (well, for these days) family with 7 children aged one year to 10 and another on the way. We are all used to the two-year-old tantrums, the screams of frustration (the weans, not the parents), the threats of sanctions (no videos today, etc).

We don't hit our weans. It's not a rule. It's just the way it is.

I don't have children. I do have 35 years of experience of working with children and young people - and, more importantly, with their parents. I started work as a teacher in the 70s when parents would routinely tell me when I tried to persuade them to supervise their kids' homework or make them turn up to sit an exam: Ach, just belt him.

We had the belt in schools then. I rarely used it because I was useless at it. My first instinct was to talk to the kid who acted up but my 'superiors' (the guys that took it hardest when the belt was abolished, by the way) wanted swift and violent action. It was such a relief when the belt was banned.

Now the Scottish Government wants to ban smacking. I'm for that.

I think children have far too few rights in law anyway. Scottish law on children's rights is untenable.  End of. And I know there are readers frothing at the mouth just reading that.

But let me point out a few things.

Children are most at risk in families - physically, mentally and sexually.

A parent can remove a child from education and nobody can do a damned thing about it. It's called 'education at home' and it's a parent's right. That's how kids disappear off the radar all the time in Scotland - 31 this year removed from one school and not enrolled in another. Where are they?

School is not just about learning stuff: it's about learning to get on with other people, to be part of a group (which you are at home and will be at work for the rest of your life). It's about community - civilisation, as we teachers call it. It's a safe place, where children can and do share what's happening to them elsewhere. Later they can decide these things are not for them but parents in my opinion don't have the right to stop children developing as social beings.

I have been told when I object to things like school uniform (so much claptrap talked about that) or placing requests by middle-class parents who know nothing about their local school but have heard  the one three schools along is better - I've been told I know nothing about bringing up children, born - as I was - under a gooseberry bush and raised by wolves...

And let's look at this word 'smacking.' What is a smack to you? It might look to you like a light tap on the back of the hand but I once saw a blow that knocked a small child off his feet. I intervened and I'll be honest: I was scared - I am totally afraid of physical violence. It was a granny who did it - in a shop in a village where everyone knew her.

We had a talk - it was either that I told her or I called the police - and it occurred to me pretty soon that this poor put-upon granny childminder was totally out of her depth. Too old to handle a 3 year old but obliged to help her daughter get back to work. Of course, she loved her grandson and was good to him but she needed help. (In that village, she got it).

So let's work on the adults. If you were battered as a child, either at home or at school, surely you want your children and grandchildren to have a better - safer - experience.

It still surprises me that the authoritarian element in Scottish society is still around, while the rest of us have moved on. And by jings, they're out in force over the smacking issue - as they were over equal marriage rights, etc. These are the people who reject equal rights for all, refer to women as feminazis, reject any kind of racial integration, and want control - above all, control - of the rest of us.

We've all moved on a lot since the 70s. And we're not going back.

The Grammar Nazi is IN!

Let's deal with the word: obese. It doesn't mean fat or overweight. Obese is a medical term. There are different levels of obesity, but to be classed as obese, people have to be carrying so much extra weight, their health is at risk. People who are overweight usually don't fall into that category. But it sounds so much more awful than fat or overweight. And heaven knows, being fat, overweight or obese is the worst thing anyone can be these days - much worse than stupid or uneducated or a president called Trump.

Okay? Everybody got that? Though I doubt that the journalists and TV people who started us all off using this word are even capable of seeing the distinction..

Now for: decimate. The modern verb comes from the Latin word for ten. In Roman times, it had a quite clear military meaning:

- kill one in every ten of (a group of people, originally a mutinous Roman legion) as a punishment for the whole group.

A very extreme punishment, you'll agree. Certainly a radical way to 'encourager les autres.' Now it's just slung around, used as if it means the same as destroy, devastate or annihilate. It's misused so much now that we have journalists writing even more nonsense than ever: the battalion was decimated, I read in one newspaper article recently. But a battalion in the UK army is 300-800 soldiers and it turned out the casualties in this case numbered 2.

I always come back to communication: I don't get hysterical if I see typos or words misused unless the meaning is obscured. The whole point of language is to make matters clear.

As I hope this is!

Crime Waves

A few years back, I met a couple of pals in a Scottish city (not Glasgow) for lunch. We'd all come from working class backgrounds ourselves in the 50s and 60s, attended 'scheme' schools and worked in similar schools as teachers. We had all noticed the link between having a job and a decent income, support for communities from police and other public services and the steady fall in crime in Scotland over a generation, but we also agreed on the state of devastation Thatcherism had caused in communities all over Scotland in the 80s and 90s, from which many communities have never recovered, so that crime was a constant fear. And we decided that in the mid-2000s, after the collapse of UK and US capitalism, it was all about to happen again.

I'll be honest: poor people who assault, rob and steal from other poor people are the lowest of the low.

I don't care how badly off you are, you don't attack your own folk. But our 'communities' - what's left of them after Thatcherism and almost a decade of 'austerity' following the bank bail-out, cuts in public services and in social security support - well, not many feel any kind of solidarity, as far as I can see. That's what Thatcherism set out to do: the UK was to become a community of individuals where the motto was 'man, mind thyself' - take care of yourself - because nobody else will do it.

Tonight on the Channel 4 news, people were complaining about crime waves in London: knife- and gun-carrying and -assaults are rife, moped robberies are the latest thing and now people are facing acid attacks in the street. The indignant people protesting against the rise in crime didn't seem to see a connection with government policy. It goes like this:

* cut the level of community policing - in some cases by 20% - by reducing public sector budgets where workers have had next to no pay rises for 9 years and then complain about lack of support from emergency services
* cut social security payments to make it harder for people to get state support, especially young people
* make it near enough impossible to find affordable housing if you're young, and make homelessness a major issue, with young homeless people not only victims of crime but more likely to commit crime to survive
* introduce a bedroom tax (oh yes, it's still there) so that poor people are penalised for living in houses they can't move out of because there are no other houses available, councils having been banned from building the houses we need
* knock the arse out of wages, especially the wages of the unskilled so that you create an 'underclass' of poor people and then blame them when they react badly to being excluded from the world of the 'haves.'
 * sanction anyone who can't work their way through the jungle of social security rules
* find people to blame. How about immigrants?

Sure as fate, on the same news programme tonight, there was a Frenchwoman (married to a UK citizen, lived and worked here for 20 years, paid her taxes, etc) complaining about not feeling secure here any more. A total stranger in the cafe she and the news reporter were meeting in interrupted to suggest British workers were 'insecure' in their jobs because of people like the Frenchwoman, a complete misreading of the situation, widely peddled by people like UKIP and Boris (PM in waiting) Johnson.

There's no point blaming the police for a spike in lawlessness. And no point in the police blaming communities. No point blaming local authorities for not supporting elderly people in need of home care or children and teenagers in need of mental health care. No point lamenting the lack of decent housing when the government refuses to sanction house-building. No point letting the Tories carry on with the myth that Britain is a world power and ignoring 2 trillion quids' worth of debt so they can buy the new Trident and invest in a railway that goes nowhere and that nobody really needs.

Meanwhile on Sky News Review, there was a UKIP guy who runs a website and has no children, describing the Scottish Government's decision to ban smacking as 'preposterous.' You know the argument: I got the occasional slap...never did me any harm...To be honest, I'm not sure if this is a real problem in Scotland but I support the ban because although I grew up in a non-violent household I am myself pretty scared of violence. I'm delighted to say the other presenter agreed with me: setting a tone where violence is the answer can never be right. Where children are concerned I have strong views about defending their rights.

And on every news channel every night, there's another programme about Brexit. I promise you, 10 years from now, we'll be asking: What happened? How did we let these people lead us out of the biggest trading union in the world, negotiate a disastrous settlement (though there's no negotiation as far as I can say, just years of economic failure to come) because the UK elected a Tory government which is too scared to tell the truth: this is a disaster - and they are too incompetent to do anything to repair the damage.