Volunteerism

I'm a volunteer. I deliver library books to the homebound for Glasgow Libraries. I've been doing this for about 8 years and only took it on once I'd checked this service had not existed before, so I knew volunteers weren't taking people's jobs. I also used to volunteer at a foodbank but it's hard physical work and I'm no longer fit for it. Again, no one loses their job when people volunteer at a foodbank. I used to volunteer doing tours of the farmhouse at the Museum of Rural Life in East Kilbride. Once again, this service would not have been available if it hadn't been for volunteers.

At a 'do' held by Glasgow Life last week, the figure of 102,000 came up. This I think was the number of days put in by volunteers, although I'm not sure over what period. The Glasgow Life staff present were very proud of this figure. I spoke to a few other volunteers who were proud to take part in activities, like helping out at day centres for the elderly and people with learning difficulties. I was also pleased to see some young people had come along to the event to find out what it was about and were being welcomed and encouraged to find out more - and join in.

Then this week I read that the company organising the Edinburgh New Year celebrations are looking for volunteers. These people will not be doing what volunteers with Glasgow Life do, because the Edinburgh celebration is a business. It's not a public service: it's not run for the benefit of local residents. It's not a 'not-for-profit' organisation. It's run for the owners and shareholders of the business and it's meant to make money.

The 'volunteering' mostly seems to involve stewarding and crowd control. These are important jobs that should be paid, in my opinion. I also wonder if there's any training for the volunteers - and if they will be paid for that. Or are they going to do this volunteering for the sole rewards of getting to put it on their cv after standing around watching, not the activities, but the crowd?

Of course, people will 'volunteer' for the New Year event in Edinburgh. I'm told volunteering is now an international phenomenon, with people flying in from all over the world to offer their services at the event.

The cost of celebrating New Year in Edinburgh has been spiralling out of control in recent years: admission to the street party now costs from £59 to £106. I find myself wondering how many Edinburgh folk will be able or willing to pay this kind of cash to get to the centre of their own city. Has the Hogmanay celebration now become like the Edinburgh International Festival: something for
other people, not even for most Scots never mind Edinburgh folk, a money-maker but not for the people who live here?

It's the very definition of greed: we've reached the point where everything that can be made to make a profit is squeezed till it squeaks. A lot of the events I've described involve the arts in one way or another, and yet, ironically, the area of life most despised by money-makers is anything artistic - unless it can be made to pay.

I think we're in danger of tipping over into the state I associate with capitalists, who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

The Elephant in the Room

I watch the news on TV every day. I like a mixture of news, so I dip into Channel 4 News, Euronews, rt and Sky.

I watch the Sky press review because I like to know what the opposition are saying. Sometimes, the journalists doing a wee turn are pretty good: Kevin Maguire is good on a Monday night and on Tuesday night it was great to hear Ian Dunt (no, I don't know who he is either) laying into Melanie Philipps. Tonight was astonishing: two journalists and a presenter showed the front page of every paper published in the UK and talked about Brexit: Brexit and Northern Ireland; Brexit and Eire; Brexit and Michel Barnier; Brexit and how much it was going to cost the UK to leave the EU.

But they managed to ignore the fact that every single front page flashing in front of them had a series of photos showing a man in court in the Hague taking poison in the dock. He had been found guilty of war crimes in the Balkans. I'd heard about the poisoning on Euronews earlier and I watched in horror - and so did the judge - as this man killed himself live on TV.



But the Sky people, all of them journalists, remember, managed to ignore the incident. I can only conclude the Sky editorial staff and management are so obsessed with Brexit, nothing else counts. I'm afraid my reaction to this man's actions was: Fine, that'll cost us less. But the programme I was watching was a review of the newspapers. How do Sky manage to ignore a story like that?

Earlier on, I was emailing on the computer and the TV was on behind me. It was BBC Scotland News. All I can say in my defence is I'd had Pointless on before that. But I should know better. There's no quicker way to raise my blood pressure than to watch this steaming heap of cack. 

Every single story in the 10 minutes I listened to (before I lost my cool and turned the telly off) involved the Scottish Government and every story was bad news:

- The new bridge across the Forth has hit snagging problems.
- Police Scotland is in trouble.
- There are rumours that Roma parents in Govanhill are selling their children for sex.

On the new bridge, lanes are closed. Cars will not be able to cross at motorway speeds. But they will be able to cross. I once bought a new house and snagging took 5 months. What's the problem?

Police Scotland: Willie Rennie was on his feet in Holyrood demanding action. But am I not right in thinking that the Lib Dems and Labour and the Tories included a single police force in their Scottish manifesto, as did the SNP? Don't they want it to work?

As for the Roma story in Govanhill, this has been circulating for about 5 years. Every time it appears on social media, people like me and others with experience of child protection urge people with evidence of child abuse to go to the police. So are people making allegations really concerned about the kids or looking to embarrass the Scottish Government?

What do these stories have in common? They are non-stories. Some are so weak they don't even make it on to the BBC news website.

And what do all the Sky Brexit stories and the Scottish Government non-stories have in common?

They are trivial beyond belief.

It's not only the Harry Meets Meghan story that's a diversion from what's really going on. So is this stuff. 

Channel 4 meanwhile was dealing with the man who killed himself in the dock in the Hague; home-schooling and whether it should be registered; Brexit with Vince Cable (a bit of intelligent relief from David Davis); and Trump's response to fake Britain First videos.

I know where I'll be switching on to tomorrow night and it won't be BBC Scotland or Sky.

Statesmen?

I was never a fan of the Labour government headed up by Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, but I had great respect for Robin Cook. I met him once in Inverness airport. We were all heading back to Glasgow on the same plane. He chatted to my colleagues and me a bit, asked what we'd been doing in Inverness (working) and apologised that he was a 'bit tired' because he'd been doing the same. He at least acknowledged us. It was a terrible blow when he resigned over the invasion of Iraq. He was right to do so but he was also the best hope we had of introducing something like an ethical foreign policy. 

We're not going to have an ethical problem with Boris Johnston. (Sorry there's no photo, by the way. I can't bring myself to put one up). Everything Johnston touches turns to slime. For some reason, he thinks he's entitled to be prime minister. After cocking up the Brexit campaign (remember the bus?), he has conspired with some of the other slimiest people in the UK, Rothermere of the Mail for one and Michael Gove for another, to get himself into a job he can't do and he just keeps on proving to us he can't do it. He obviously doesn't read the briefs that are sent to him by his civil servants at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and cocks up every opportunity he gets to do his job effectively, hanging about ineffectually at meetings of foreign ministers as if his private education hadn't taught him to smarm and charm, and when he does speak just saying the wrong thing. And the prime minister is so weak and ineffectual she can't get rid of him. (Not that I think she should be in the job either. It's just the Tories brought this Brexit disaster on us and some of us think they should clear it up). 

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who went back to Iran to visit her family with her little daughter, has now been in jail for 19 months on a trumped up charge. 

We should ask: What would Robin do? Well, not what Johnston has done. Cook would get out there, go to Iran, have meetings, get allies and enemies alike to put on some diplomatic pressure, make concessions if he had to. But, whatever else he did, he wouldn't stand up in Westminster and talk rubbish: 'she was training journalists'; or ask Gove (who seems to have three feet, two to walk on and the other to shove in his mouth) to help him: 'I don't know what she was doing in Iran.' Cook would realise we're talking about a young mother separated from her daughter, and allow his civil servants to get a press campaign going on the basis of that alone. But with Tories, there's always the fear we're dealing with people lacking in emotional literacy whose best position is to do nothing. 

I listened to the rally supporting Nazanin this evening. She spoke from Iran and sounded remarkably cheerful but she needs to be out of jail and home with her family. Can you imagine what it's going to take to fix the bond between Nazanin and her child after all this time? And is Johnston the person to reunite them? I hope so.  

There are online petitions about Nazanin and I would encourage everyone to sign up. The fact the UK Foreign Secretary is a fool doesn't mean the rest of us are. 

Let's talk about Edyukayshun

I want to challenge you to read this article. It's about the education of working-class and poor children in England:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/nov/21/english-class-system-shaped-in-schools

You may read this and think: this is awful, but I'm so glad it's not like that in Scotland. But I am the ranting old bag (I got told off for using that title yesterday but I'm also a bolshie ranting old bag so gerrit up ye) and I want to challenge some of our misconceptions about Scottish education.

Professor Reay's credentials are impeccable - and so are mine by the way, so here we go.

I'm sick of hearing about 'the lad o pairts' who walked to university in Scotland in the 18th century from a croft in the Highlands with a bag of oatmeal to sustain him over the year. I've never been too sure what that was about, just that it didny mean me, a wee lassie from Govan (or my parents for that matter). I went on to higher education but my sister and brother didn't and they should have: same background, same education. And the reason? Scottish education is not open to all and never has been.

'Yes, you can.' Naw, ye canny. Or rather, only sometimes you can. It all depends: you may come to nursery education aged 3 from a family that is proud of you and wants you to get on. The golden glow probably lasts till about P5, as we all watch you learn to read and write and do maths, but if you display any learning or behavioural or social difficulties, there's a good chance your parents will be discouraged, as will your teachers. From then on, your hopes of doing well in Scottish education start to drop. It's not that your teachers no longer care. They just don't have the resources to support you. That's not unique to Scotland: I've seen the same thing in Sweden (where all is good and wonderful, except when it's not).

If you have a learning problem and are working class, then your chances of doing well in education in Scotland are further reduced.

And if you come from a family where your first language is not Scots English - and that includes Urdu, Pashto and Roma (but not Gaelic or Chinese where expectations are different) - well, you may start to slip down the results tables straight away, or just not ever make it on to them to begin with.

I'm referring here to the continuing obsession of Scottish education with testing. In this, I blame parents and HMI (inspectors). We have a very well educated population in Scotland. A lot of us are parents. And too many of us are caught up in the idea that you can measure from an early age how well children are learning - and that's enough. People are just not very good at working out what to do when children are not learning very well, so they blame the teachers.

Teachers train to do the job for at least 6 years: 4 years in a university + a year in training college. Then they have a probationary year. That's on the same level as architects, dentists and medics. So why do parents think they can blame schools and teachers when things go wrong? Sometimes it is the fault of the school (kids are picked on or have accidents when they're not supervised) but in terms of a child's education, the only reason we think it's okay to say a teacher's a bampot/junkie/useless (yes, I've heard them all) is that most of us have been to school so we know. Would you argue with a doctor the way I've heard parents argue with a teacher?

Add to this that education is the domain of local authorities, not the Scottish government so there's a constant act going on. The local authorities are happy when it's all going their way, but they have the option to blame central government when they're not getting their own way. And local authorities have come up with some complete heid-the-baw solutions to the education 'problem'. Are they still paying supply staff so little it's hardly worth their while leaving the house - so they don't?

What to do? I worked in education - 4 different jurisdictions in 35 years - in schools and local authorities. But I'm past it now - retired nearly 10 years. I'm told if I eat salad and stop drinking wine, I may make it to my 80s but even then I doubt if anyone is going to offer a solution to education's problems in Scotland...or will they? Pile in, folks. Bella and I await your ideas!

Brexit

Sorry...I know this is the last thing anybody wants to hear about.

The other night I switched on the TV and found myself watching a Sky News programme called The Pledge. I've no idea what it's about or why it's called after furniture polish. I only stayed long enough to realise one of the people on it was Carol Malone. She's a journalist.



She's one of the journalists who are happy to call MPs who vote against Brexit 'traitors' and accuse them of 'betraying' the Tory party.

She's also thick as a brick. Her debating technique involves talking...and talking...and talking. And if anyone else gets a word in, she talks over them. She regularly reduces Stig Abell of the Times Lit Supp to total silence on the News Review, just by talking.

This all started when the Torygraph printed pictures of 'rebel' Tory MPs - 'mutineers' against setting a firm date for leaving the EU.

If you haven't seen the front page, here it is:

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/telegraph-went-far-calling-tory-rebels-mutineers/

One of the MPs featured is Paul Masterton who 'serves' my constituency. I have to admit I was impressed: Paul is not known for so much as taking a breath without checking with Tory HQ.

So what is Carol's problem with Brexit? She and newspaper people like her have insisted that Brexit is Brexit and must go ahead. Most Remain voters have just given up trying to argue that one. So they too are reduced to silence. Brexit voters, like Carol, have completely forgotten that 48% of the people who voted in the EU referendum were against leaving the EU. They don't want to hear the Remainers' reasons and they certainly don't want to consider whether they're happy with things so far and what they might want to have happen next. As far as British democracy goes, Remain voters are out of the picture.

And we don't seem to be getting much news on the negotiations. Frankly that's unacceptable.

For one thing, it gives rise to all sorts of rumours: there will be unification of Eire and Northern Ireland to sort the border issue; Grimsby will be allowed freeport status; the City (London, of course) will be able to bring in EU workers but nobody else will. And that's just this week.

We hear all the time that print media is doomed: newspapers will soon be no more. Sooner the better, in my opinion, and the anxiety over losing newspapers is such a British thing: nothing must ever change. We must always have 37 (British) 'national' newspapers, churning out crap about the Royal Family, the dangers or benefits of statins, warning about mega-storms approaching or being knee-deep in snow, and telling made-up stories about Big Brother or that shower of chancers in the Australian jungle, depending on the season. And the circulation falls and falls.

We almost always have that great big gap in newspaper coverage: nothing about 'abroad' unless it's the USA or Zimbabwe, nothing about Catalonia, nothing about the UK economy currently tanking, no analysis of what's happening in places like Russia.

It's enough to drive you to internet news - and it does! A lot of us are pretty clued-in these days about online news. We treat it all with a pinch of salt, just as we do with print media.

The mainstream media's response is to become even more right wing (apart from the Guardian and the Mirror) and more outrageous in its stories and presentation. Frankly, if newspapers die in the next few years, hell whack it intae them.

PS Thank you to Bella Caledonia readers for your support for my blog. It took me about 7 years to pluck up the courage to post a blog - and I only recently started to share it to Bella. I enjoy reading your views, even when I don't necessarily agree...but that's the nature of the big discussion we're engaged in - and the big journey Scotland is on. There are more original ideas on Bella than in the whole of mainstream media!

Labour - or should that be labour?

Well, he's off to a good start.



Within a day of being elected leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, Richard Leonard has managed to send a tweet that suggests the Scottish government had to be forced into discussions to save bifab jobs, when what really happened was the First Minister flew back from a meeting abroad to take charge of the discussions and came up with a solution. He also tried to make it look as if Labour was somehow involved in the discussions and thus responsible for the outcome - and that's just not the case. Even the GMB has gone online to thank the Scottish government for their support.

However, Richard has now had his knuckles rapped by the real boss, Jeremy Corbyn (and I'll pause while you have a wee snigger at that), for suggesting Kezia Dugdale should be disciplined for zooming off overseas - and on a school night as it were - to appear in a TV reality show for losers that I for one didn't even know was still on.

Welcome to the world of Scottish Labour, Richard. I hope things get better for you from now on. Not because I support Labour in any way - Blair and Brown finished my 30 year membership of the Labour party - but because I have many friends who are sincere and decent supporters of the Labour cause. Some of them are in favour of independence and some are not, but they all believe in the basic principles of the Labour party and must watch the behaviour of Labour in both Holyrood and Westminster with a feeling of despair.

Maybe it's time for the Labour party in Scotland to get back to the day job: working to eliminate poverty, improve education, save the NHS - and offer a decent opposition in both parliaments in the face of Tory complacency and arrogance. Because while Labour have been looking in the other direction (mostly up their own arse) for the past wee while, the Tories have turned into something that most of us could only imagine in a nightmare. Thus, we're out of the EU and all opposition to brexit is dismissed as 'treachery' by the Tory press, which right now seems to be setting the agenda. The UK has handed its children's futures to a bunch of millionaires with no understanding of what it means to be poor or disabled or in need of benefits. Maybe Labour in Scotland could stop sniping at the SNP, especially Nicolas Sturgeon and, oh man how they hate him, Alex Salmond, and start offering ideas for the future of the country.

But I'll no hold ma breath...

rt

That's what the TV channel is called. It's not Russia Today. And whatever Andrew Neil of the BBC may think, it's not the Russian government.




You know the channel I mean: it's the one that's currently broadcasting every Thursday a half hour politics programme fronted by Alex Salmond.



Take away the 3 minutes of ads before it starts, the 4 minute ad break in the middle and the 3 minutes of ads after the programme. That leaves the programme with roughly 20 minutes to feature whatever the producer and director decide to show. They decide. The editorial control is not with rt. All rt have bought are the rights to show the programmes.

This, I have to say, is 20 minutes a week more than someone like Alex Salmond - or Carles Puigdemont for that matter - is allowed on terrestrial TV channels.


Well, have you seen any interviews with (legally-elected) Puigdemont since he was forced into exile with some of his (legally-elected) ministers, threatened with 30 years in jail for sedition, treason, etc, leaving politicians and police chiefs behind in Catalonia actually in jail as I write? No. The Spanish government, the EU - and the UK media - have made sure of that. Salmond called Puigdemont 'Mr President' in the interview on the first show. And he is, although the Spanish, EU and UK media won't give him that title.



Have you ever heard of Helena Kennedy getting airtime to talk about how to balance the representation of men and women in politics? She even got a plug in for the Women's Equality Party. First time I've heard it mentioned on TV.



Or Tory MP Crispin Blunt getting time to talk about how LGBT people are represented (including in Russia)?

And all of these people allowed to express their views without being shouted down, interrupted or talked over. It was a breath of fresh air. Do I need to mention the gender balance? Alex Salmond interviewing Helena Kennedy. Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh delivering the piece about LGBT issues.


So why all the excitement? Honestly, I think it's because in the UK at least we allow ourselves to be led by the nose by the media. Privately owned, responsible to no one, in cahoots with government. It's as if we've all agreed as citizens and voters we're so stupid we can't decide for ourselves what kind of government we want. So when a politician like Salmond steps out of line, it's seen as a real challenge to the state.

And d'you know what? I'm not even SNP and I like this!