 |
I'm a relatively easy going sort of guy. It takes a lot to get me hot under the collar about things. If a Man Utd defender hacks down Mo Salah if front of where I sit at Anfield, well fair enough: foul language will probably pour from my mouth in pretty copious quantities.
Otherwise? No. Not really.
But there is one thing which is winding me up more and more these days – the utter inability of either the Scottish Government or the Scottish media to ever point out all the areas where we do so much better than the complete shitshow playing out south of the border.
Why? I haven't a clue why.
We are acting like archetypal meek and cowed colonial subjects, scared to say anything which might in any way upset our rulers.
Sorry Baas. We didn't mean nuttin' bad, Baas. Nuttin' bad, Baas.
As a manager of a foodbank, I tend to watch lots of foodbank stories on YouTube. Of course I do. And every time I watch a video from Stoke or Barnsley or Swindon or Sunderland, the story is always the same. And these stories get a little more biblical with every passing week.
I see queues at Foodbank doors stretching for hundreds of yards. Anxious, pinched faces peering over the shoulders of those in front.
Did I get here early enough? Will there be anything left?
It's a first come, first served world. A dog eat dog world.
Demand up, donations down, walls closing in.
If you turn up too late for a decent spot in the queue you'll be walking home with empty carrier bags in your pockets
Well our foodbank is busy.
Really busy. We're as busy as we have ever been outside of the early months of the pandemic.
But we're able to keep up. We can deal with the high demand. We're not yet getting uncomfortably close to capacity. It's not biblical.
Why?
Well I can't pretend to have anything close to a definitive answer. I just know in my bones if First Base was in Carlisle we'd be close to being completely buried right now.
The only reason I can find is what I would describe as all the small differences around the edges of the crisis which are managing to keep Scotland out of the abyss.
No Bedroom Tax
No brutal rent hikes.
No evictions
No prescription charges.
Extra cash every week for struggling families with kids.
A baby box for the newest of New Scots.
None of which are game changers on their own, but when you add them all up together they seem to be making a hell of a difference.
And because none these differences are big enough on their own, they just get ignored.
Sometimes I wonder if it is just Dumfries and Galloway where things are so much better than Lancashire, where my family still lives.
If I want to see my GP, I pick up the phone and I get to see him in a couple of days.
My English family have about as much chance of picking up the phone and asking to win the lottery as they have of getting an appointment with a GP.
Maybe this is a feeling many Scots share. Everything seems OK where I live, but it must be awful everywhere else. I mean it has to be, doesn't it? After all The Daily Mail and the Telegraph and the Sun and the Daily Mail say it is.
Every single day.
I get the feeling if an editor from any of these Unionist rags was ever caught in the act of writing a positive story about Scotland they would be stood up in front of a wall and shot as a traitor.
Last summer, the 'human sewage in the sea' story was huge for a couple of weeks. The nation's privatised water companies ran ISIS a close second in the 'Organisations We Are Told To Hate' league table. And every night on the six o'clock news, we were all treated to maps. Red dots showed where human sewage was being pumped into the sea and therefore making any kind of swimming as dodgy as sharing a lollipop with someone with leprosy.
The red dots on the maps screamed out a story so blindingly obvious it seemed even the Daily Mail couldn't ignore it.
The red dots started just north of Newcastle and they ran all the way down the east coast to Dover. Then they ran all the way to Lands End. Then they ran north around Wales and they didn't stop until they reached Carlisle.
And then they stopped.
Dead.
And all around the vastness of the Scottish coastline there wasn't so much as a single red dot.
Because Scottish Water isn't privatised.
Because Scottish Water doesn't operate in the regulation free Wild West which starts the moment you pass the 'England' sign at Gretna.
England, the regulation free Wild West where it is absolutely fine and dandy to strip every last penny out of the water game and send the proceeds back to Bahrain or Malaysia our some private equity outfit in Texas.
And shit in the sea? Do any of the privatised English water companies give a shit? Of course they don't give a shit.
And neither do the politicians in Westminster who sign it all off in return for a nice two week a year Non Exec place on a corporate board once the time comes to strep off the gravy train.
Isn't this a difference so completely stark we should be able to shout it from the rooftops?
Well it seems not.
Well here's another stark difference which has got my fingers hitting the keys this morning.
Now these are cold, hard facts and figures.
As in figures which are facts.
Inescapable. Inarguable.
So here goes.
London.
It is one of the richest cities in the world with a population of just shy of nine million. It is certainly the richest area of Britain with a GDP per Capita rate of £55,000 per person per annum.
Scotland is smaller than London.
Our population is 5.5 million.
Basically we are 60% the size London.
Our GDP per capita is £30,000 per person per annum. It's the second highest in the UK, but it is still only 55% of what the good folks of London enjoy.
So let's see how this pans out in practice.
In Scotland we have 8800 homeless kids in temporary accommodation.
How should this compare with London?
Well, London has 40% more people than Scotland so I guess they should have 40% more homeless kids.
An extra 3200.
So maybe we should expect there to be 12,000 homeless kids in London.
But hang on a minute.
They are 45% richer than we are, so surely they really should have 45% less homeless kids on a like for like basis? Well, shouldn't they?
More money means less homeless, kids right?
So let's knock off 3600 kids.
Leaving 8400 homeless kids in London as compared to 8800 homeless kids in Scotland.
Has to be.
Hasn't it?
Nope.
Not even close.
The number of homeless kids in temporary accommodation in London, one of the richest cities in the world is.........
74,000.
Yup,
You read it right.
74,000
On a like for like population basis, six times worse than Scotland.
On a like for like money basis, nine times worse than Scotland.
And the why?
Well there really only can be one why.
In England they have a lousy, heartless, corrupt, right wing Government.
In Scotland we have an often flawed but essentially decent Government.
Our Government gives a damn about homeless children.
The Westminster Government?
The answer is in the figures.
Which are also the facts.
It seems about 55% of Scots now want away from these despicable shysters. I seriously wonder what on earth the 45% who want to stay with them are smoking.
No comments:
Post a Comment