Campbell Martin

Them and us.

2012-03-10T13:12:00.000Z

Around 20 years ago, two councillors in North Ayrshire discovered their names appeared on a list compiled by an organisation called the Economic League.

One of the councillors, a representative of the Labour Party, appeared on the list because he was a shop steward at his place of work: the name of the other councillor was there because he was a left-wing member of the SNP. The list had been leaked to a trade union and eventually found its way to branch level within North Ayrshire.

The two councillors were far from being the only local residents whose names appeared on the Economic League’s list, in fact there were over 50. What linked each individual were their political beliefs or trade union activism, and the fact their names appeared on the list meant it would be extremely difficult for them to get work with many of the UK’s largest companies.

The document leaked to the trade union was a ‘blacklist’ of individuals considered to be ‘subversives’ or ‘enemies’ of free-market capitalism. The Economic League, itself, was formed in 1919 by a group of industrialists with the objective of promoting the capitalist system and ‘weeding-out’ workers who held left-wing views. The list compiled by the organisation was consulted by businesses prior to engaging staff and, if a prospective employee’s name appeared on it, they would be deemed a potential ‘trouble-maker’ and denied work. In effect, workers on the list were ‘blacklisted’ and might never work again.

The existence of the Economic League was well known and its activities regarding the operation of a ‘blacklist’ were suspected, but the organisation denied it was involved in such practices. However, shortly after the list was leaked to a trade union, left-wing Labour MP Maria Fyfe (Glasgow Maryhill) began asking questions in the House of Commons, which led to the revelation that much of the information on which the ‘blacklist’ had been compiled was passed to the Economic League by MI5, the department of the British Secret Service tasked with counter-intelligence and security within the UK. Ultimately, MI5 answers to a body called the Joint Intelligence Committee, which is responsible for briefing the Prime Minister and his cabinet on matters of ‘national security’.

Also revealed at the time was the extent to which MI5 had infiltrated left-wing political organisations and trade unions. The Security Service Act of 1989, passed under the Thatcher Tory Government, gave the secret service strengthened legal backing to investigate individuals and organisations deemed to be ‘subversive’ and a ‘threat to the security of the nation’. The fact MI5 subsequently passed information to the Economic League indicates the blurring of ‘the national interest’ with the interests of the capitalist economic system and the millionaires who run and benefit from it.

As a consequence of the ‘blacklist’ being leaked and a public outcry following the revelation of MI5’s involvement, the Economic League was wound-up in 1994.

However, shortly after the demise of the Economic League, an organisation called the Consulting Association emerged at an unassuming office in the town of Droitwich, Worcestershire. In 2009, following a complaint from a construction worker, officers from the Information Commissioner raided the office of the Consulting Association. During their search of the premises, the Commissioner’s staff found a database containing the names of 3,200 individuals labeled as ‘left-wing’ and ‘trouble-makers’.

Last week, one of the people whose name appeared on the database - Dave Smith, a 46 year-old Engineer – took construction giant Carillion to an Industrial Tribunal over allegations that he had been victimised because he repeatedly highlighted safety issues on building sites, including the presence of asbestos. At the hearing, David Clancy, Investigations Manager at the Information Commissioner’s Office said, “There is information on the Consulting Association files that I believe could only be supplied by the police or the security services”.

Speaking to the Observer newspaper, Dave Smith summed up the reality of the situation, saying, “This is the state linking up with big business, and any decent person in a civilised society would think it is appalling. This is about human rights. I have not done anything illegal. I am a member of a trade union. I have worked in an attempt to improve health and safety on building sites and yet it appears my employers, the state, security services and the police have been conspiring against me.”

Once again, it appears the Secret Service, answerable to the UK Government, has interpreted ‘subversives’ and ‘threats to the national interest’ as including ordinary people whose actions in supporting fellow workers might negatively impact on the profits made by large private companies. Once again, it appears left-wing political organisations and trade unions are being spied on, at the taxpayers’ expense, in order to identify individuals who put the interests of people before the profit of corporations and the multi-million pound salaries of company directors.

The existence of organisations like the Economic League and the Consulting Association, funded by big business and supported by clandestine departments of the British Secret Service, clearly show whose side successive UK Governments have been on, and it’s not ours. Through Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and now Cameron and Clegg, the interests of the people have been actively undermined as the capitalist fat-cats of big business have been supported financially, including through public investment in infrastructure, low taxation levels for the super-rich and all kinds of publicly-funded incentives related to setting-up often short-lived enterprises. Now we also know the state has been colluding with big business to ‘blacklist’ and exclude from the workplace anyone who might actually stand up for their rights and support fellow workers in securing better wages and a safer working environment.

The entire capitalist system is corrupt, and the British State, both in terms of UK Governments and unelected departments, is working hand-in-hand with those who seek to exploit and control the working-class.

The case for an independent, Scottish socialist republic grows stronger and stronger.

Dear Mr Cameron,

2012-03-03T09:47:00.000Z

Last week I wrote to David Cameron, the man who considers himself to be the Prime Minister of Scotland.

Of course, under the current constitutional arrangement, where Scotland is merely a devolved region within the British Union, Cameron does indeed hold that position. Irrespective of the fact the Conservatives have just one MP in Scotland - having again been soundly rejected at the polls in 2010 - it is a Tory-led Government in London that ultimately calls the shots on crucial areas of legislation, such as the economy, tax, employment and benefits.

The Scotland Act of 1998, which established the Scottish Parliament, contains clauses that make clear the Edinburgh legislature is wholly and completely answerable to the UK Parliament in London. Westminster can overrule any decision taken by the Scottish Parliament and, in fact, can abolish Holyrood if it chose. Therefore, despite its overwhelming majority, the SNP Scottish Government answers to David Cameron’s Tories in London.

Alex Salmond will argue that last statement is nonsense, but the facts tell another story. The SNP promised they would ‘Stand Up For Scotland’, but when the Tory-led London Government imposed a cut of £1.3bn to this year’s Scottish funding, the SNP Government meekly accepted it. Not only did the SNP tug the forelock and take the financial hit, it then turned and passed the cut to local councils around the country. Ultimately, the Tories and Lib Dems are not only responsible for the savage cuts to public spending, they also – with shameful compliance from the SNP and Labour – are the source of the funding reductions being imposed on Scottish colleges and local authorities. The Tory-Lib Dem funding cut to Scotland was accepted by the SNP Scottish Government and passed to councils, which in turn led recently to councillors of all parties agreeing further budget cuts totalling £23m for North Ayrshire.

So, David Cameron, whether we like it or not, can claim to be the Prime Minister of Scotland. Only retaking our independence will change that constitutional reality and will deliver a situation where Tories can never again run and ruin Scotland.

I wrote to Mr Cameron because, on March 24th, he is scheduled to address the Scottish sub-section of the Tory Party during its Spring Conference, which this year is being held in Troon. In my letter I invited the Tory Prime Minister to travel the few extra miles and visit North Ayrshire, one of the most blood-spattered (metaphorically speaking) scenes of his crimes.

North Ayrshire consistently has the highest unemployment in Scotland. We also have the second-highest level of children growing up in severe poverty. According to figures produced by the Tory-Lib Dem UK Government, there are over 5,000 adults in North Ayrshire unemployed and claiming Jobseekers Allowance (JSA): the true figure is actually much higher, as the ‘official’ total does not include those unemployed but not in receipt of JSA, those on various schemes supposedly preparing them for work (but which usually end up with a return to the buroo), and those shunted off the dole into ‘self-employment’, which keeps them out of unemployment data for a wee while, even though the ‘self-employment’ is often unviable and ends with a return to signing-on.

In North Ayrshire, according to official UK Government figures, we also have over 1,500 people under the age of 24 without work. That figure is an absolute disgrace. Behind the statistic are 1,500 young individuals who have been robbed of the normality of being able to earn a living and begin to live independent lives. Behind the statistic are young people let down by society and, in many cases, facing a future without hope, eking out an existence on inadequate state benefits (for those who actually qualify for benefits). Behind the statistic are young people facing a choice between poverty and working for nothing, supposedly to gain work experience but actually to allow some of the most profitable private companies to make even more money.

That is why I wrote to David Cameron. I pointed out the reality of life for so many people in North Ayrshire. I pointed out how the ideology and policies of his party have caused and exacerbated the suffering of ordinary women, men and children in North Ayrshire. I also challenged the Prime Minister to come here and face-up to what he has done.

Mr Cameron talks tough about how his government’s austerity measures are absolutely necessary to save the UK economy. In reality, though, his policy means some of the poorest members of society – including here in North Ayrshire – are being forced to pay the debts of multi-millionaire bankers in the City of London. Just last week, the Royal Bank of Scotland (83% owned by UK taxpayers) announced it had lost £2bn in the last financial year but still intended to award staff bonuses totalling £785m.

In my letter, I asked the tough-talking Mr Cameron if he was brave enough to come to North Ayrshire, instead of seeking the comfort of a happy-clappy Tory audience in Troon. I even offered to personally show him North Ayrshire communities where the very fabric of society is crumbling, a situation being made worse every day by the policies of his government.

So far, I haven’t had a response to my letter...but he is a busy man, with so much unemployment, poverty and misery to create.

Profiting from the suffering of others

2012-02-25T10:11:00.001Z

In 2007 – before the current global economic crisis – Canadian author Naomi Klein published her book ‘The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism’. It’s a great read.

Klein describes in meticulously-researched detail how capitalists use ‘shocks’ – including natural disasters, wars and economic crises – to impose their ideology on whole societies, which results in multi-national corporations and financial institutions racking-up ever greater profits while ordinary citizens suffer. Typically, the Shock Doctrine involves the imposition of ‘reforms’, such as massive cuts to public spending, wage cuts for ordinary workers (but not for executives and directors), privatisation of state-owned assets, reduced levels of social benefits, privatisation of public services (with the resultant reduction of workers’ wages and conditions) – in effect, everything we are currently seeing right now in the UK and across the western world. This time, the ‘shock’ was the collapse of the capitalist system, but that hasn’t stopped the very same capitalists from imposing their doctrine in order that it is they who benefit from the crisis they caused.

Also in the ‘Shock Doctrine’, Naomi Kline describes how the capitalist elite don’t let a small matter like democracy stand in the way of their mission to exploit entire societies. Where electorates won’t vote for the draconian reforms described above, intense pressure is exerted by the international money markets, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to ensure compliance. In the current ‘shock’, we have ‘the troika’ of the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank (ECB) imposing their collective capitalist will on supposedly sovereign nations. In Greece and Italy, where elected prime ministers did not do exactly as they were told by the troika, the politicians were replaced by unelected ‘technocrats’, people who will act in the interests of international capital rather than the people of Greece and Italy.

The bottom-line of the Shock Doctrine is to swell the profits of a small capitalist elite at the expense of the rest of us – and the corrupt enterprise is alive and thriving right here in North Ayrshire.

Last week the3towns.com revealed North Ayrshire continues to have the highest level of unemployment in Scotland: officially, there are 5,368 local people without work and claiming Jobseekers Allowance (JSA), which translates to 6.3 per cent of the working age population. The same figure for Scotland is 4.1 per cent. the3towns.com also disclosed there are now 1,110 people in North Ayrshire who have been out of work for over a year: again, that is the official UK Government figure. In addition, there are 1,570 local young people, between the ages of 18 and 24, without work and claiming JSA.

The scandalously-high level of lives in North Ayrshire blighted by unemployment, and all it entails, stems jointly from the economic crisis of the 1980s, when the Thatcher Tory Government devastated the country’s manufacturing industries, and from capitalist company directors deciding to move their operations to countries where workers can be exploited even more than here in the UK, thereby further maximising profits, bonuses and shareholder dividends.

North Ayrshire had not recovered from that crisis of capitalism before being plunged into the next one, in the 1990s. Two major doses of the Shock Doctrine left North Ayrshire on its knees, then along came the current crisis, created once again by the global collapse of the corrupt capitalist system.

However, as Naomi Kline’s book explains, even in a crisis, even in areas of soaring unemployment like North Ayrshire, capitalists can still make money by exploiting ordinary men and women.

The unemployment statistics listed above are the official UK Government figures, but they only tell part of the story for North Ayrshire. The total unemployment figure does not include people shunted off the buroo and onto the Work Programme, where they have to work, supposedly to gain experience, and are paid £10.00 per week on top of their Jobseekers Allowance. In other words, they get £10.00 towards their expenses and have to work for nothing. Last week this scam was pushed into the glare of national newspaper headlines when Tesco inadvertently posted a truthful job advertisement, stating clearly the rate for the work was £10.00 plus JSA. Of course, the company later said the advert had been a mistake and was the fault of a local Jobcentre. What had been exposed, though, was the reality many people looking for a job at the big supermarkets had found – much of the work was going to the unemployed on the Work Programme, because the companies received payment from the Government (that’s taxes paid by us), which was a win-win for the likes of Tesco: they were paid to take on staff and then had people working for no pay.

Even after that ‘wee mistake’ by Tesco, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg wrote to thousands of businesses, inviting them to sign-up to the Youth Contract. Under this scheme, employers are paid £2.75 for every 18-20 year-old they take-on for ‘work experience’: the young people are not paid. Previously, such placements were restricted to two-weeks, but the Tory-Lib Dem Government has now increased them to eight-weeks. The young people, who must be in receipt of JSA, are ‘required’ to attend placements in order to continue receiving their benefits. Companies who have already taken advantage of the stream of free labour (and payments from the taxpayer) include Asda, Tesco, Wilkinsons, Poundstretcher, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Poundland, Boots, Holland and Barratt, Primark and Argos. Some of these companies are now considering their part in the exploitation of young people, not because they have suddenly discovered a sense of morality, but because they fear negative publicity surrounding the scheme may affect their profits.

There is another scam used to artificially reduce the unemployment figures, and which has resulted in one company recording a turnover last year of £234million: the firm is A4e, formerly known as Action for Employment. All of its UK income stems from contracts with the government, primarily the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), and relates to work previously done by civil servants in Jobcentres around the country. A4e’s Chief Executive, Emma Harrison – also the Tory-led Government’s ‘Back to Work Tsar’ – last year received a salary of £8.6million.

A4e is contracted to provide ‘back to work’ courses for people unemployed for more than a year. Again, Jobseekers are ‘required’ to attend the courses or face losing their benefit. Meanwhile, people who have attended the courses make clear much of their time was spent sitting in a room, doing nothing. A4e required them to sign blank ‘time sheets’, which the company filled-in later and submitted for payment by the DWP.

Crisis, what crisis? Some people are doing very nicely out of the collapse of global capitalism, all of them capitalists, of course.

Capitalist corruption V Socialist provision

2012-02-18T12:00:00.000Z

Beatrice Webb was born on January 22 1858: she died on April 30 1943. Throughout her adult life, Beatrice Webb was a socialist, an economist and a campaigner for social reform. Along with her husband, Sidney, she helped organise the Fabian Society, which in turn helped found the Labour Party. Beatrice and Sidney Webb established the London School of Economics (LSE) and co-founded the New Statesman magazine.

We can only imagine what a socialist like Beatrice Webb would think of the centre-right, pro-capitalist Labour Party of today. It is extremely unlikely she could have foreseen a time when the political party she helped form - to give a parliamentary voice to the working class – would actually support the capitalist Tory Party in implementing policies that force the poorest members of society to pay the debts of the richest.

Having said that, we can be absolutely sure of where Beatrice Webb would have stood regarding the ‘austerity measures’ - more accurately described as savage cuts to public spending and services – currently being imposed by the Tory-Lib Dem Government in London, passed-on by the SNP Government in Edinburgh and implemented by the Labour-controlled Council here in North Ayrshire. We can be absolutely sure of Beatrice Webb’s position because she kept a diary, extracts of which are now being published by the LSE, and the current collapse of global capitalism is far from being the first.

During what became known as the Great Depression, the capitalist system had failed and was being bailed-out by governments. As is the case today, private enterprise, in the shape of banks, had crashed and the debt created was re-paid using public funds. In order to raise sufficient public money to bail-out the banks, governments borrowed and slashed public expenditure to reduce outgoings. This financial operation was carried out by implementing severe ‘austerity measures’ that led to mass-unemployment, reduced public services and ordinary people being punished for a situation in which they had played no part.

In September 1931, as unemployment lines grew longer and ordinary men, women and children went hungry, Beatrice Webb wrote in her diary about the financial crisis and its social consequences: “We now know the depth of the delusion that the financial world have either the knowledge or goodwill to guard the safety of the country over whose pecuniary interests they preside.” What Webb described was the reality that private banks operate solely in the interests of shareholders: their role is to make as much profit as possible, and they have no obligation to the national interest.

Beatrice continued in her diary by referring to how the financial elite had made “an appalling mess of their own business, involving their country in a loss of business and prestige”. She then made an assertion that is as relevant to the current financial situation as it was back in the 1930s: of the bankers and capitalist politicians, she wrote they were guilty of “the most bare-faced dissimulation and political intrigue in their attempts to recover the cost of their miscalculation by hook or crook from the community as a whole”.

As has happened every time capitalism has failed, bankers and financial speculators in places like the City of London look to the public sector to bail them out. During the so-called ‘good times’, profit is privatised – pocketed by the capitalist elite – but when the ‘bad times’ inevitably emerge, the debts are ‘socialised’. In other words, during the ‘good times’ for capitalism, you and I create the wealth, which is retained by the capitalist elite: and when the ‘bad times’ come around, you and I pay the debts of the same capitalist elite.

The reason ordinary people are suffering in countries like Britain, Greece, Italy, Ireland and Portugal, is not to provide sufficient money to stabilise national economies, but to refloat the capitalist system and allow the whole corrupt practice to begin again.

Private banks should not have been bailed-out, they should have been nationalised: taken into public ownership and operated in the public interest. In Greece, where ordinary men, women and children are being forced to endure incredible hardship, the vultures of international capital continue to provide funding to service the ‘national debt’, with ever-increasing levels of interest attached, meaning the amount Greece owes as a percentage of its GDP will continue to grow. Capitalists don’t care about people, they only care about making money.

In Scotland, the four so-called ‘mainstream’ political parties are wholly committed to the capitalist economic system, which is why, at different levels of government, the Tories, Liberal Democrats, SNP and Labour are imposing savage cuts to public spending and are forcing ordinary people to pay the debts of some of the richest fat-cat bankers and financiers.

In areas like North Ayrshire – with Scotland’s highest unemployment, the second-highest level of children growing up in severe poverty, and some of the worst deprivation in the country – the local Council, with support from all political parties, just passed a budget that will cut a further £23million from services desperately needed by people in towns and communities across the district. The Council estimates 167 members of staff will also be made redundant, which is on top of 400 already axed.

Labour councillors, SNP councillors, Tory councillors, Lib Dem councillors all decided they would simply pass-on central government cuts rather than stand-up for local people. Only the Scottish Socialist Party lobbied and petitioned the Council budget meeting, demanding no further cuts and offering an alternative vision for North Ayrshire, the same type of socialist vision that drove people like Beatrice Webb to oppose the brutality of capitalism and, instead, to put first the interests of ordinary people.

The North Ayrshire branch of the Scottish Socialist Party put forward the alternative that councillors should oppose central government cuts, should refuse to implement them, and instead should demand back millions-of-pounds cut by governments in London and Edinburgh from money that should have come to the local area, and should set a budget that fully meets the needs of local people.

Between 1983 and 1987, socialist councillors on Liverpool City Council did just that: they refused to implement cuts demanded by a Tory Government in London and, in fact, secured additional funding for their area. For the record: during the period when socialist councillors defied the Thatcher Government, Liverpool City Council provided 6,300 houses (with front and back doors and gardens) for families who had been living in sub-standard tenements, flats and maisonettes; built an additional 4,800 new houses; improved 7,400 houses and flats; developed 25 new Housing Action Areas; built and opened 6 new nursery centres; created 17 community comprehensive schools and spent £10million on school improvements; built and opened 10 new sports centres; secured employment for 10,000 people working on Council capital programme projects; created three new parks; and froze Council rents for five years.

That is what can happen with socialist policies that put people before profit.

Labour and the SNP have allowed the Tories to devastate Scotland

2012-02-11T19:28:00.000Z

Over two days in March – Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th – the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party will hold its spring conference. They like to call themselves the ‘Scottish’ Conservative & Unionist Party but they are, in fact, the North British sub-section of the UK Conservative & Unionist Party, which looks on Scotland as England’s last colony.

There are now more giant pandas in Scotland than Tory MPs but that hasn’t stopped ‘the nasty party’ from imposing its right-wing ideology north of the border. So long as Scotland remains simply a devolved region of the UK – rather than a normal, independent nation – we will have imposed on us the government elected by the people of England.

Scotland has repeatedly rejected the Tories, including at the last UK Election in 2010, but once again we find ourselves at the mercy of a Conservative-led Government in London.

Throughout the long, brutal years of the Thatcher-led Tory Government, when entire communities were destroyed by policies that created mass-unemployment, Scotland became acutely aware of the democratic deficit that saw us wipe-out the Tories, only for them to still govern our country thanks to being returned by electors in England. Of course, the creation of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 was supposed to address that democratic deficit. In reality, though, we have now had our devolved Scottish Parliament for 13 years – we even have an SNP Government with an overall majority at Holyrood – but we find ourselves, yet again, with a Tory Government in London dictating policies on Scotland’s economy, resulting in cuts to jobs, cuts to public services, cuts to benefits, cuts to pensions, with whole communities once again being devastated, and all to pay for debts run-up by the Tories’ pals in the City of London.

Yes, I know, it’s actually a Tory-Lib Dem Coalition Government that is doing such damage to Scotland and elsewhere in the UK, and the junior partners shouldn’t escape their share of the blame, but slashing public spending, attacking the public sector and mass-unemployment are stock-in-trade Tory polices – David Cameron and his party would be implementing devastating cuts even if there was no economic recession. It is to the eternal shame of the Liberal Democrats that they have allowed the Tories to destroy so many lives. Nick Clegg and his colleagues have shown themselves to be neither liberal nor democrats, and to be very cheaply bought.

The current political situation in Scotland – Tories we rejected still managing to run and ruin our economy and our country – raises two issues that we, as Scots, must address. The first involves the Labour & Unionist Party. Okay, they don’t actually use ‘unionist’ in the party’s name but Labour is every bit as pro-British Union as the Tories or Liberal Democrats. In 2010, at the UK General Election, while England was kicking-out the Labour Party, Scotland again returned a majority of Labour MPs. For years the Labour Party in Scotland has used a very successful line at UK Elections – ‘you have to vote Labour to get (or keep) the Tories out’. Scotland fell for it again in 2010.

Scotland voted Labour to ‘keep the Tories out’ but, just like in the Thatcher years, we got the Conservatives imposed on us (along with the Lib Dems) because that is how England voted. In reality, every person in Scotland could vote Labour and we would still have the Tories imposed on us if England votes for them. The Labour & Unionist Party in Scotland has conned us for years.

The only way to ensure we get the government for which we voted, and that the Tories are never again in a position to impose their will on Scotland, is to re-take our political independence.

The second issue we must address involves the Scottish National Party. The SNP were returned to government in Edinburgh at last year’s Scottish Parliament Election, and we gave them an overwhelming majority. Alex Salmond led a campaign that told us his party would ‘Stand Up For Scotland’ and so we should elect the SNP’s ‘Scottish Champions’.

Sadly, the SNP has spectacularly failed to stand up for Scotland when it has come to the Tory-Lib Dem UK Government imposing massive cuts to public spending north of the border. Rightly, Alex Salmond has made clear he would be prepared to man the barricades to prevent David Cameron interfering in the right of the Scottish people to decide our own constitutional future in the independence referendum, but when the Tory-led Government said they would slash £1.3billion from Scotland’s funding for this year, the SNP Finance Secretary, John Swinney, meekly capitulated and promptly passed the cuts to local Councils.

It is because the SNP failed to ‘Stand Up For Scotland’ that local authorities have seen their own funding reduced. Just last week, Labour-controlled North Ayrshire Council passed a budget that will result in £23million of cuts to public services that are desperately needed by some of the most vulnerable people in local towns and communities. These cuts come on top of millions already slashed from budgets in previous years. In addition, around 167 Council workers are expected to lose their jobs, which would take the total reduction in staff over the past few years to almost 600. Councillors from all parties – Labour, SNP, Tory, Lib Dem – supported the cuts contained in North Ayrshire Council’s budget for the coming financial year.

Meanwhile, leaders of the Labour and SNP groups on the local Council have jointly written to the SNP Scottish Government to seek advice on how our local authority can best work with other Councils in attempting to further slash spending – in other words, how to make even more cuts.

The SNP conned us too: they don’t have ‘Champions’, they certainly aren’t prepared to ‘Stand Up For Scotland’ and they are happy to join with other parties in passing budgets that hurt local people.

One last point: the Scottish Tory Conference on March 23rd and 24th is to be held at the Troon Concert Hall. At some point over those two days it is expected Prime Minister David Cameron will make an appearance. Along with my colleagues from the Scottish Socialist Party, I intend to visit Troon to ensure Mr Cameron receives a very warm welcome. The SSP really is prepared to stand up for people, and to fight-back against the political parties who are punishing ordinary Scots in order to pay for the bankers’ bail-out.

Council budget cuts hurt local people

2012-02-04T13:15:00.001Z

Last Wednesday (February 1), I was part of a Scottish Socialist Party group that lobbied and petitioned the budget meeting of North Ayrshire Council.

Over the past few weeks we had carried out street stalls in Saltcoats and Irvine, where we asked members of the local public to sign a petition calling on councillors to set a ‘No Cuts’ budget and to demand back from central government in London and Edinburgh the millions-of-pounds cut from funding that should have come to North Ayrshire. Our petition demanded councillors stand up for local people and communities, rather than punish them by implementing more savage cuts to jobs and services.

In accordance with the Standing Orders of North Ayrshire Council (the rules that govern Council meetings), the SSP asked that we be allowed to submit our petition and address the budget meeting in support of the demands it contained. In response, Council Chief Executive Ms Elma Murray indicated we would be allowed to submit the petition but refused our request to address the meeting. Ms Murray did, however, agree to read out the petition’s demands at the budget meeting.

So, last Wednesday, SSP members lobbied the Council headquarters in Irvine ahead of the budget meeting. Council workers leaving the building for their lunch-break were asked to sign the petition, which many did. Sadly, though, others indicated their belief that if they signed, they would ‘get the sack’. For some reason, a large number of North Ayrshire Council employees were under the impression they are not entitled to hold and express views that might be seen as contradicting the position of elected councillors or Council management. Of course, that is not the case. In a democracy, freedom of expression is an entitlement enshrined in law by the European Convention on Human Rights. The fact so many North Ayrshire Council workers genuinely believed their employer could sack them if they expressed a view opposing further budget cuts to public services suggests there could be an unhealthy atmosphere, bordering on intimidation, within our local Council.

In total, 1,178 local people signed the SSP petition demanding there should be no more cuts in North Ayrshire and that councillors should stop punishing local communities. One party member calculated the petition was signed at a rate of around 200 per hour or roughly once every 20 seconds. That is a truly fantastic public response, which clearly showed the strength of local opinion against cuts being imposed on ordinary people in areas like North Ayrshire but to pay for debts run-up by multi-millionaire bankers in the City of London. Time after time, people signing the petition told their own stories of how the cuts were impacting on their lives: from the removal of desperately-needed support services to benefits being slashed, from jobs lost to pensioners not having enough income to heat their homes.

Residents of North Ayrshire have seen through the Tory rhetoric about us all being ‘in this together’. The people who took the time to express their anger by signing the petition know that the super-wealthy, including the bankers and financial speculators who caused the global collapse of capitalism, are still living the high-life while the very fabric of local communities is crumbling because of punishing cuts imposed by the Tory-Lib Dem Government in London, passed-on by the SNP Government in Edinburgh and implemented by the Labour administration of North Ayrshire Council.

Sadly, at its budget meeting last Wednesday, North Ayrshire Council agreed to further cuts totalling £23million over the next three years. These new cuts are in addition to those that have already caused devastation in local towns: they will mean more slashed services for local people, and potentially more job losses. The budget was passed by councillors from all political parties. In fact, the Leader of the Council, Labour’s David O’Neill, went as far as thanking all councillors, even those that are supposed to be in opposition - SNP, Tory and Lib Dem – for their co-operation in the budget-setting process.

Some of those councillors told the SSP they had no option but to pass the budget and agree to implement further cuts: they said they would be sent to jail if they didn’t, and they were not prepared for that to happen. So, let’s get one thing straight – the Scottish Socialist Party’s candidates for the North Ayrshire Council Election on May 3^rd – including me – are prepared to go to jail, if that is what it takes to protect local jobs and services, and defend local communities from the devastating consequences of massive funding cuts.

The legal obligation placed on councillors is to set and pass a ‘balanced budget’. Those of us in the SSP argue that such a budget could have been achieved in North Ayrshire without the need for any cuts. Our position is that councillors should have set the budget to meet the assessed needs of the people. Then, instead of imposing crushing cuts to bring expenditure down to a level determined by central government in London and Edinburgh – a level that fails to meet the needs of local communities – councillors should have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with their constituents to demand the return of millions-of-pounds already withheld from North Ayrshire by the Tory-Lib Dem UK Government and the SNP Scottish Government. Had North Ayrshire’s existing councillors had the interests of the people at heart, they would have been prepared to fight for them. Instead, they meekly accepted local communities will be further punished in order to fund the bankers’ bail-out. Labour, SNP, Tory and Liberal Democrat councillors decided they would rather continue to claim their expenses, paid by the people of North Ayrshire, than fight for local communities.

When the SSP petition was presented to last Wednesday’s meeting of North Ayrshire Council, the Chief Executive, as agreed, read out the demands to which 1,178 local people had signed their names. Not one councillor said a word. Not one councillor was moved to comment. Not one councillor was even prepared to defend their own position. Of course, their ‘silent treatment’ was supposed to be a sleight to the Scottish Socialist Party, but what it actually showed was contempt for the people of North Ayrshire who signed the petition to express their anger at the cuts being imposed on them and their families.

Last Wednesday North Ayrshire councillors ignored the voice of local people. On May 3^rd, at the Council Election, that voice cannot be ignored, and the people should take the opportunity to pay-back the treachery of councillors who would rather impose devastating cuts on local communities than fight for their constituents.

Reality behind a cap on benefits

2012-01-28T16:45:00.000Z

You can always rely on the Sun newspaper to play the role of Tory mouthpiece.

Last week, as the Tory-Lib Dem UK Government launched its latest attack on the poor, the Sun branded benefits claimants as “scroungers”, and ran stories where ‘ordinary working people’ told how their sponging, scrounging, benefits-claiming neighbours lived the high life with 52” flat-screen plasma televisions, expensive cars and foreign holidays. Not to forget the thousands of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers who apparently live in multi-million-pound Mayfair mansions, with the rent paid thanks to Housing Benefit funded by hard-working, honest-to-goodness, salt-of-the-earth ordinary taxpayers.

The Sun’s vilification of people who claim benefits was part of a campaign run by right-wing English newspapers in support of Tory-Lib Dem plans to cap annual benefit claims at £26,000. The Sun, Daily Mail, Telegraph and other papers that, frankly, should know better, echoed Government claims of public support for the cap: ‘Why should benefits scroungers get more money than someone who goes out to work for the average wage,’ screamed headlines. It was a well-worn and typical tactic of the ‘divide and rule’ strategy. Get the ‘ordinary working people’ to believe benefits claimants were getting something they are not; get the ‘ordinary working people’ to believe their taxes are funding a lavish lifestyle for the work-shy; get the ‘ordinary working people’ to believe payments of £26,000 are going into the pockets of benefits claimants, thereby stoking a sense of grievance and turning ‘ordinary working people’ against the already marginalised poor.

Let’s bring a few facts to the debate: if a family receives annual benefits payments of £26,000, it is because that is the amount deemed necessary to meet their basic needs. Across the entire UK, there are 67,000 households receiving this sum, more than half of whom live in London.

Prior to the election of the Thatcher Tory Government in 1979, local councils built social housing and charged affordable rents. Thatcher introduced ‘Right to Buy’ legislation, which saw a massive reduction in affordable local authority housing, and led to councils ending their involvement in house building. Right to Buy meant councils were forced to sell properties with significant discounts despite the fact homes had been built using Public Loans Board funding spread over 60 years, which meant houses were sold cheaply while councils were still servicing the debt used to build them.

The Thatcher Government also removed rent controls in the private sector housing market. Inevitably, this led to substantial rent increases for private accommodation.

So, as a result of decisions taken by Tory politicians, we then had a situation where there was, and remains, substantially-reduced availability of public sector housing and soaring rents in the private sector. While families requiring housing have to wait on Council lists, sometimes for years, they are forced to rent privately. If the adults in such families are out of work, they qualify for Housing Benefit to meet the inflated rent charged by private landlords, and that money is, more often than not, paid directly to the landlord. The benefit claimant never sees it, yet it is classed as income by Tory and Lib Dem Ministers – and right-wing newspapers – and included in the calculation that leads to lurid headlines about ‘scroungers’ receiving £26,000 in benefit payments.

The real ‘scroungers’ living off ‘handouts’ from public finances are the private landlords who inflate rents for often sub-standard housing. Of course, the Tories have other names for the landlords: they call them businessmen, entrepreneurs and Tory supporters.

It is also the case that Tory-Lib Dem Ministers, and right-wing newspapers, are not comparing like-for-like when they shriek outrage at £26,000 benefit payments. That level of benefit would only be paid to a family, while any working couple with children, jointly earning £35,000 – taking home £26,000 after tax – would also qualify for state-funded assistance, such as Child Benefit, Child Tax Credit and possibly Working Tax Credit. They would qualify for benefits because wages in this country are so low. The reality is that the state – that’s the ‘ordinary working people’ – end up subsidising private sector employers who pay poverty wages, such as the big four supermarkets – Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrison’s – who all post multi-million-pound profits.

What is happening with the Tory-Lib Dem proposal to cap benefits – a plan ‘not opposed’ by the Labour Party – is nothing more than an attack on the poorest members of our society. This is what Tories always do. It is designed to reduce public spending in order to redirect funds to cover the costs of bailing-out failed private banks, and to refloat the corrupt capitalist system.

If anyone thinks it is fair to place a cap on benefits, irrespective of a person’s identified need, consider how this might work if applied to other areas funded from the public purse. What if a cap was applied to a person’s access to the health service? Look at all those ‘health scroungers’ who receive dozens, maybe even hundreds of appointments for ailments. Then there are those who use public resources having operations to cure illness and disease. What about the ‘ordinary working people’ who fund the health service and have to watch as their benefit-claiming sick neighbours avail themselves of medical care? Bloody scroungers!

The Tories and Liberal Democrats, supported by Labour, are attacking the most vulnerable people in society. They are attempting to divide and rule the working class by using misinformation and lies to engender a culture of grievance and envy. We must not let them.

What independence means

2012-01-21T19:45:00.000Z

With the Scottish Independence Referendum being thrust into the UK media spotlight over the past week or so, the question of what an independent Scotland would look like has been posed by many people, including some London-based news outlets who appeared totally confused over what constitutional change would actually mean.

The bottom line is that, for Scotland, independence would mean the restoration of normality. Prior to 1707 Scotland operated as an independent nation. Back then, though, the Scots Parliament was far from a democratic body, comprised as it was of unelected aristocracy. History tells us that ordinary Scots had no say in the running of their country, even to the extent of whether or not Scotland should join in union with England.

From the Scots side, the decision to unite the parliaments of Scotland and England was taken solely by those unelected and unrepresentative Lords and Earls. Contemporary documents record ordinary Scots rioted in the streets in opposition to the union. It is also a matter of record that members of the Scots Parliament received payment from the English in order to sell Scotland into a British Union. Robert Burns famously referred to them as “such a parcel o’ rogues in a nation”.

Today, unionists on both sides of the border tell us Scotland and the Scots have benefitted from membership of the British Union, and that we should not destroy 300 years of history. However, when we take a closer look at how Scots have benefitted from being British, it is not something of which we can be proud. For much of our membership of the British Union, Scots have played the part of foot-soldiers invading and conquering other lands in the name of the British Empire. Once in control of those foreign lands, Britain proceeded to exploit their natural assets, with Scots again playing significant roles as administrators and clerks.

More recently, Britain has looked to young Scots whenever wars needed to be fought: in almost every conflict of the 20^th Century, the number of Scots killed in action far outstripped our percentage share of the British population. When we consider our role in the British military, the phrase ‘cannon-fodder’ comes most readily to mind.

That said, there remains a generation of Scots for whom fighting, shoulder-to-shoulder, with contemporaries from other parts of the British Isles and beyond, is rightly something of which they can be proud - defeating fascism in the second World War.

The 1707 Union of Parliaments was supposed to be a union of two equals, Scotland and England. However, the reality, from that day to this, has been very different. In just one sentence last week, a Sky News reporter managed to show both his historical ignorance and the actual English perception of the union between Scotland and England: he said, “In 1707 England annexed Scotland, which even the Romans had not been able to do.”

The British/English establishment has always looked on Scotland as an English possession, the Empire’s last colony. For the second half of the 20^th Century even basic democracy was denied to Scots within the British Union. Scotland has not voted for a Conservative & Unionist Government since 1955, but for much of the time since then we have had Tory Governments imposed on us by the electorate of England. Throughout the 1980s, as England voted for Margaret Thatcher, Scotland soundly rejected her and the right-wing policies she advocated, but she was still able to destroy our manufacturing industries and the communities that relied on them. At the last UK Election, in 2010, the Tories were returned to office, with the help of the Liberal Democrats, and are again able to impose their right-wing ideology on Scotland, despite the fact there are now more giant pandas in Scotland than there are Tory MPs.

The 1999 restoration of a Scottish Parliament was supposed to address the democratic deficit that saw Scotland receive governments for which we had not voted, but we now have an SNP administration in Edinburgh – with an overall majority provided by the Scottish electorate – being told what to do by a Tory-Lib Dem Coalition that was hammered at the polls in Scotland.

So long as Scotland remains merely a devolved region of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the London-based government elected by the people of England will claim supremacy over a Scottish Government and over Scotland. Even increasing Holyrood’s powers to ‘devo-max’ will not change that position.

Independence is the normal state of affairs in virtually every nation around the world – ask yourself, how many countries celebrate ‘Devolution Day’? With independence, the full powers necessary to govern ourselves at home and represent ourselves around the globe will be returned to Scotland, for the first time since 1707: and today the ordinary people of Scotland elect the Scottish Parliament. Only independence fully removes the democratic deficit that sees political parties we reject at the ballot box still being able to form a government and impose their will on us. Only independence guarantees the Tories will never again be in a position to wreak havoc on Scotland.

The government of an independent Scotland would have the power to remove nuclear weapons of mass destruction from Scottish soil and waters. At present, and under ‘devo-max’, the decision to house such weapons in Scotland remains with the London government, irrespective of the wishes of the Scottish people.

The government of an independent Scotland would decide if young Scots in our defence force should be sent into conflict zones. At present, and under ‘devo-max’, such decisions are taken by the London-based government for which we did not vote.

Presently, and under ‘devo-max’, the Westminster government sets the level of pension received by senior citizens in Scotland – it’s currently one of the lowest in Europe. London is also responsible for setting rates of benefits that see pensioners die needlessly in Scottish winters. In addition, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer sets the level of taxation applied to Scotland, which allows some of the wealthiest people in the country to contribute a pittance compared with the less well-off. Presently, and under ‘devo-max’, some of the most draconian anti-trade union laws in the world are applied to Scottish workers, by virtue of UK-wide legislation introduced by Margaret Thatcher and retained by the New Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and of course the current Tory-Lib Dem Coalition.

Independence for Scotland means the end of political union between our country and England – a union that, in reality, has been very uneven, with Scotland playing a subservient role. The ending of England’s political control of Scotland does not mean other links between the two countries would also terminate. The social union between Scots and English would continue and would flourish, as would business and commercial links.

Don’t believe the British Unionist scare stories, and you’ll hear plenty of them as we head towards our Independence Referendum in autumn 2014. There will be no border posts at Gretna, you will not be prevented from visiting your relations in England, and you will still be able to watch Coronation Street. If you don’t believe me, ask our cousins across the water in the independent Republic of Ireland.

Independence simply means Scotland re-taking the status of a normal nation.

A busy week in politics

2012-01-15T13:51:00.000Z

Last week saw two significant political developments. Firstly, the intervention by the Tory-Lib Dem UK Government into the issue of a referendum on Scottish independence showed the British establishment still look on Scotland as the Empire’s last colony. Secondly, the Labour Party completed its journey to becoming a clone of the Conservative and Unionist Party.

Almost completely unnoticed due to wall-to-wall media coverage of Alex Salmond running rings round David Cameron and his Westminster colleagues, Ed Miliband addressed a Labour event in London and confirmed the party originally set up to give a parliamentary voice to the working class was now committed to “building a better, more responsible capitalism.”

The Labour Party ceased to be a socialist organisation a very long time ago. It’s more than 30 years since the party, under the leadership of Neil Kinnock, expelled socialist members for actually attempting to protect public services and defend communities from devastating cuts being imposed by the Tory Government of Margaret Thatcher. Around the same time, Labour also refused to back striking Miners as they fought pit closures and pitched battles with ranks of police officers sent by Thatcher to crush what was then the UK’s biggest trade union.

John Smith followed Kinnock as Labour leader and continued the party’s movement away from its working class, socialist roots. It was under Smith that Labour also ditched its long-held opposition to nuclear weapons.

Then, on Smith’s death, along came Tony Blair, and the Labour Party’s movement to the right of the political spectrum became a mad dash. Blair couldn’t wait to ditch any remaining socialist ‘baggage’, like Clause 4 of the party’s constitution – the core principle of the Labour movement that enshrined a worker’s right to receive in payment the full worth of their labour; the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange; and the best obtainable system of administration and control of each industry and service.

What the Labour Party scrapped along with Clause 4 was its commitment to end the capitalist system that allows a tiny minority to accrue fabulous wealth by exploiting the majority. The political movement that once prided itself on being the People’s Party turned its back on ‘the people’, courted the capitalist bosses, and confirmed its transformation into the Tory Party MKII when Peter Mandelson stated ‘New’ Labour was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”.

Between them Tony Blair and Gordon Brown pandered to the capitalist ‘Masters of the Universe’ in the City of London, infamously introducing the light-touch regulation of banks and financial institutions that ultimately led to reckless gambling, toxic deals and privately-owned banks being bailed-out using public money...our money.

Ed Miliband’s statement of last week simply confirmed Labour had dropped even the pretence of being a party of the Left. The Labour Party of old, the one that did actually care about the working class, is not stunned, nor is pining for the fjords: the Labour Party for which so many people in Scotland have voted in the past is no more, it has ceased to be, it is bereft of life, it rests in peace.

On the same day that Miliband confirmed Labour was now committed to the capitalist system that actively works to make the rich even richer and the poor even poorer – UK Government Ministers were telling Scots we are so insignificant, in their eyes, that we can’t be allowed to run a referendum on the constitutional future of our own country.

Liberal Democrat MP Michael Moore, the Colonial Governor General of Scotland (oh, okay then, Secretary of State at the Scotland Office), was on his feet in the Imperial Parliament in London, telling the Jocks not to get ideas above their station. The Right Honourable Mr Moore said the democratically-elected Scottish Government did not have the right or the power to hold a referendum on whether or not Scotland should assume the status of a normal, independent nation.

While Moore was on his feet, doing the Tories’ dirty work for them, Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, sauntered in front of a BBC camera and simply said, “We’ll hold the referendum in autumn 2014.”

British Unionist parties – Tory, Liberal Democrat and Labour – say the Scotland Act 1998 places a legal bar on the Scottish Government holding a referendum on ‘the constitution’, which is an area of legislation retained by Westminster. It was British Unionist lawyers that wrote the Scotland Act, so they know there is a clause barring the SNP Government from holding such a referendum – just as there are clauses allowing the Westminster Parliament to overrule any decision taken by Holyrood, and even allowing the UK Parliament in London to abolish the Scottish Parliament, if it sees fit.

Meanwhile, Alex Salmond is confident there is nothing, in international law, to prevent the democratically-elected Scottish Government from consulting the people of Scotland on their preferred option for the constitutional future of their own country.

So, who is right? If only there was an independent and globally-acknowledged expert on such things. Actually, there is. Step forward Dr Matt Qvortrup of Cranfield University, author of ‘A Comparative Study of Referendums’.

Dr Qvortrup says, “The basic principle in international law is that the seceding country (in this case Scotland) decides whether it wants to become independent.

“To use but two examples, Montenegro did not have to ask Serbia to secede in 2006, nor did Estonia seek the Soviet Union’s permission to become independent in 1990.

“The fundamental rule is that countries become independent when they are recognised by the international community. According to the so-called Estrada Doctrine, if Scotland votes for independence (and if the government is in control of the territory) then the international community will in all likelihood recognise the new state. Just like the case of the former Soviet states in the 1990s.

“Of course, it is possible that only a narrow majority votes for independence. But this need not be fatal. When Malta voted for independence in 1965, only a little more than 50 percent voted to sever the ties with Britain, yet Westminster still accepted the outcome.”

Only by re-taking the full sovereign powers of independence can we begin to put first the interests of the Scottish people.

Autumn 2014 – when we will finally be given the opportunity to get off our knees and become a normal, independent nation...no matter what the Imperial British Parliament in London thinks.

Only one party fighting for ordinary men, women and children

2012-01-07T12:40:00.000Z

In his New Year’s message Prime Minister David Cameron said, “I get that”: he was referring to people struggling because of the ongoing economic crisis.

In truth, though, Cameron does not ‘get it’. The multi-millionaire Prime Minister does not have a clue about how people are suffering. Officially, Cameron receives a salary of £142,500 - £2,740 per week – but that does not include other allowances and perks, such as living free at Downing Street and having a ‘second home’ in his constituency funded by taxpayers. Free transport in luxury cars – again funded by you and me – and round the clock security means Mr Cameron very rarely comes into contact with anyone who is suffering because of policies his government has imposed to address a financial deficit caused by public money being used to bail-out failed private banks.

From his extremely cosseted position, David Cameron cannot even begin to imagine how someone might live on just £65.00 per week, the current rate of Jobseekers Allowance for a single person.

Of course, those of us who live in North Ayrshire don’t need to go all the way to London and the British Prime Minister for an example of a politician completely out of touch with those they are supposed to serve.

In the last financial year (2010/11), Cunninghame North’s SNP MSP Kenneth Gibson claimed £34,563 in expenses on top of his publicly-funded salary of £57,521. The constituency Mr Gibson claims to represent includes areas with some of Scotland’s highest levels of unemployment, poverty and deprivation, yet the SNP MSP charged the public £297.10 to pay his car parking bill, and £312.66 to buy his ‘evening meals’. Incredibly, Kenneth Gibson also charged the public £1.00 every time he made the journey between his home in Kilbirnie and his constituency office in Dalry: he also charged for the return journey.

North Ayrshire Council oversees the area with the country’s highest unemployment, and a recent report by the charity Save the Children found local communities now have Scotland’s second-highest level of severe poverty, but just last week the SNP Scottish Government announced North Ayrshire Council’s budget for the next financial year would be cut by almost £1million.

Such a reduction in available funds will result in more cuts to services that are desperately needed by so many local people: there could also be further job losses from within the Council. With reduced funding also having been imposed in recent years, many services have already been cut or part-privatised, while 400 Council workers have lost their jobs.

Meanwhile, the Leader of North Ayrshire Council, Cllr David O’Neill, has in the past claimed public money to cover journeys from his home to the local authority’s headquarters, a trip of just over one mile: Cllr O’Neill receives a publicly-funded salary in excess of £30,000 and a further payment of up to £10,000 for representing the Council on the board of NHS Ayrshire & Arran.

Another Labour councillor, Alan Munro (Saltcoats & Stevenston), charged the hard-pressed public of North Ayrshire for five journeys to meetings held at the Council’s Irvine headquarters. Cllr Munro pocketed the public money but did not actually attend the meetings.

People like David Cameron will never implement policies that create a fairer society: Tories have always unashamedly represented the interests of a wealthy elite, and always will. The Labour Party was created to give a parliamentary voice to the working class, but that worthy idea was abandoned long ago. The transformation of the Labour Party into a pro-capitalist, Tory Party Mark II was completed under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Today, many Labour MPs are from the same privileged backgrounds as their Tory counterparts, with some having been contemporaries at the same Oxbridge universities.

In Scotland, during the 1970s, political opponents branded the SNP ‘Tartan Tories’. At the time, the jibe was pretty accurate. Many SNP activists back then did hold centre-right political beliefs, and it was no coincidence that initially the most fertile ground for the party was Tory-held constituencies.

The SNP changed, though, and until relatively recently genuinely held a centre-left position on the political spectrum, certainly well to the left of the Labour Party. Unfortunately, under the leadership (for want of a better, more accurate word) of John Swinney, the SNP began a movement back to the right. Swinney, who represents a former Tory seat in Perthshire, argued the party moved to the centre-ground – but if you start on the left and move to the centre, you’re moving to the right. Contemporary or ‘New SNP’ is now as much a centre-right, pro-capitalist party as Labour, the Liberal Democrats and, amongst certain prominent members, even the Tories.

Only in a centre-right political party could a member lodge a parliamentary Motion praising the State of Israel, which has bombed residential areas of the Gaza Strip and continues to illegally occupy Palestinian land. Only in a centre-right political party could a member lodge a parliamentary Motion praising action taken by the military of Sri Lanka in brutally crushing the Tamil Tigers, an organisation that fought for an independent Tamil State. The two parliamentary Motions were lodged by Kenneth Gibson, MSP for the local seat of Cunninghame North.

There is only one credible political party of the left in Scotland, the Scottish Socialist Party. Between 2003 and 2007, when the SSP had six MSPs, the party introduced legislation in the Scottish Parliament to abolish Poindings and Warrant Sales, the practice where the belongings of the poor were sold-off to pay debts, usually owed to Labour-controlled Councils. The SSP also originated Bills to provide free nutritious meals for pupils in primary schools, and free prescriptions for every Scottish citizen.

In the last couple of months, here in North Ayrshire, activists from the Scottish Socialist Party have been campaigning on the streets of local towns, demanding ‘No Cuts – Tax the Rich’. Only the SSP is prepared to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with ordinary men, women and children to oppose the savage cuts being imposed by the Tory-Lib Dem Government in London, the SNP Government in Edinburgh and the Labour administration of North Ayrshire Council.

In May, at the North Ayrshire Council Election, we will have the chance to elect Socialist councillors who will represent local people, and will oppose cuts being imposed on all of us to pay the debts of millionaire and billionaire bankers and financial speculators in the City of London.

The SSP has proved itself to be the only party working in the interests of the ordinary people of North Ayrshire and Scotland.

Christmas

2011-12-30T11:08:00.000Z

It is ironic that many Christmas cards we send and receive carry images of festive scenes from the Dickensian era.

Candlelight flickering through frosted windows; a father in heavy coat and top hat, trudging through thick snow, carrying presents for his family; a horse-drawn carriage passing along snow-covered cobbles, flakes of falling snow shimmering in the yellow light cast from gas lamps. ‘Traditional’ Christmas scenes that give us a warm glow and make us feel good as we look forward to spending time with our family and friends.

The irony is that the Dickensian era, fondly depicted on Christmas cards, was actually marked by extreme poverty, a situation to which contemporary Britain is returning.

The works of Charles Dickens were set mainly during the reign of Queen Victoria, a time when a small, elite group built fabulous wealth through the exploitation of the majority. The Dickensian scenes on our festive cards depict the Christmas enjoyed by the wealthy: but for the majority of the population back then, Christmas was just another day of bitterly cold temperatures, insufficient food, grinding poverty and a future without hope.

Today, in North Ayrshire, a growing number of our fellow citizens are without work. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government in London is implementing a series of measures that will reduce the amount of benefit received by the poorest members of our communities; many claimants are forced to work for £10.00 per week on top of their benefit, a scheme the government describes as ‘work experience’, but which is actually a means of supplying large companies with a workforce that is paid a real-terms rate far below the minimum wage.

North Ayrshire has the highest unemployment in Scotland, and some of the worst deprivation in the country: a recent report by the respected charity Save the Children revealed the local area now has the second-highest level of children living in severe poverty.

In Scotland, the European Union’s biggest producer of oil, every third family is now living in ‘fuel poverty’, where they have to spend more than 10 per cent of their disposable income to heat their homes. The level of ‘extreme fuel poverty’ – spending more than 20 per cent of income on heating – is rising steeply. Lucy McTernan, cheig executive of Citizens Advice Bureau Scotland, was recently quoted saying, “There can lo longer be any doubt that fuel poverty in Scotland is approaching crisis levels.”

After generations of ocial advancement, where governments strived to achieve full employment; where safeguards were put in place to prevent people falling into poverty; where standards of housing were improved; where barriers were removed from educational and workplace attainment, the Tory Government of Margaret Thatcher was elected and set about deconstructing the ‘social contract’.

Under Thatcher, all that mattered was making money: people were expendable, workers were to be exploited once again, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Her ideology was fully embraced by her successor, John Major, and by New Labour Governments under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Now we have the Tories back in power – with the help of the Liberal Democrats – and things are going from bad to worse. The gap between the wealthy elite and the rest of us is returning o levels not seen since Charles Dickens was writing books and Jack the Ripper stalked the streets of Victorian London.

Tory Government Ministers don’t care about the plight of the poor. Of course, they won’t admit that in television interviews or in newspaper articles, but it’s true. Many of the Tory-Lib Dem Cabinet are millionaires: they are the Dickensian father in heavy coat and top hat, trudging through thick snow, carrying presents for their family. They will enjoy the warm, happy Christmas depicted on festive cards. Like the Dickensian wealthy elite, the super-rich of today can’t begin to imagine how the poor will spend Christmas, and won’t devote much time, if any, to considering how parents feel when they know they’ve failed their children, simply because they lost their job, through no fault of their own, and can’t afford what is now perceived as a ‘normal’ Christmas.

The Tory-Lib Dem Government led by David Cameron is returning us to the dark days of fabulous wealth for a tiny minority, contrasted against an unremitting life of deep poverty fro more and more of our fellow citizens. We, the people, must not allow that to happen.

Another traditional Christmas favourite shows us a shining example of a better way, a better society, and again there is an element of irony to it. The 1946 Frank Capra movie It’s A Wonderful Life – made in the USA, the most capitalist of societies – tells the story of one man’s feeling of failure, because he believes he let down his family and the people of his home town. In true Hollywood style, when the man, George Bailey, says he wishes he’d never been born and attempts to end his life by jumping into a raging river on Chrustmas Eve, his guardian angel, Clarence, saves him and goes on to show so many people’s lives would have been poorer if George had never lived.

If you get a chance over the Christmas period, watch the film. Irrespective of how many times you may have watched it before, it will still be inspirational. It’s A Wonderful Life is not just a story about one man’s troubles and how he overcomes them, it is a metaphor for a better society, a socialist society.

Each of us touch so many lives in our journey from the cradle to the grave. We can help or hinder our fellow citizens, we can decide to be selfish and look after ourselves, to the detriment of others, or we can work together to build a better life for us all.

The reality of Cameron's stand at the EU summit

2011-12-23T11:36:00.000Z

Apparently, Prime Minister David Cameron is a hero. He stood up for Britain and told those Johnnie Foreigners where to stick their new European Union treaty.

Well, that is what Cameron, the Tories and right-wing English newspapers would have us believe. We are also told Cameron’s actions have the support of the British public, but how many of the people asked their view actually knew what was proposed at last week’s European Union summit or to what, exactly, Cameron objected?

When the British media reports what the British public thinks, it is fair to assume it’s actually the English media reporting what the English public thinks – and, sadly, one element that must be factored into any such outcome is nothing more than prejudice. English newspapers have long-promoted an anti-European sentiment – particularly in relation to France and Germany – and that feeling is often also articulated by large sections of the English population. In Scotland, while we are not immune to exhibiting prejudices, we don’t generally have the same feelings of animosity towards our mainland European neighbours, partly because of historic links that far pre-date our Union with England – the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France (1295-1560) being the most well known.

Unfortunately, any Englishman portrayed as having tweaked the noses of the French and Germans will be praised by a xenophobic English press and the easily-led parts of the English public. The fact many Scots now also join in is a reflection of the increasing ‘Englishing’ of Scottish newspapers, and the overall indoctrination of Scots within the British Union.

So, did Cameron stand up for Britain, and to what did he so strongly object?

Firstly, last week’s EU summit did not propose a new treaty – Cameron claimed the proposals would have amounted to ‘a treaty within a treaty’. What was proposed, and was adopted by the other 26 member states, was a legal framework enabling the EU to enforce ‘fiscal discipline’ in every country within the Euro-zone – those countries that use the Euro as their currency - with the European Commission and the European Court of Justice given the power to control national budgets.

In addition, labour market reforms were constitutionally enshrined that will overturn workers’ rights, extend working hours, and slash levels of pay and pensions. The proposals also introduce automatic sanctions, including stripping EU voting-rights from states that fail to comply, and even potentially expelling them from the Euro-zone.

None of the above are measures to which the right-wing, Conservative-led UK Government objects. On the contrary, David Cameron and the administration he leads fully support cutting public expenditure and forcing down workers’ wages, conditions and pensions. Nor would there be many Tories who have a problem with forcing right-wing, capitalist ‘fiscal discipline’ on countries like, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Ireland.

So, why did Cameron refuse to sign-up to the proposals?

The answer lies in another recommendation contained in the document presented to last week’s EU summit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. This proposal included plans for Euro-denominated financial transactions to be confined to countries within the Euro-zone. This was the ‘deal breaker’ for David Cameron and the British Government - but why? Surely it makes sense for Euro-denominated financial transactions to be handled by countries that have the Euro as their currency?

If you are a British capitalist, such as David Cameron, the answer to that question is ‘no’, not when 70 per cent of Euro derivative trading is currently carried out by the Stock Exchange in the City of London.

The sovereignty defended by David Cameron was not that of the British people, but of the capitalist traders and brokers in London financial institutions. Cameron was happy to see ordinary men, women and children suffer with the imposition of further Europe-wide cuts to jobs, wages, pensions and living standards, but he drew the line at any move that would reduce the scope for ever-greater profits to be made by the already super-rich elite of the London Stock Exchange.

Cameron made clear his actions are motivated by the interests of the spivs and speculators of ‘the markets’, the very people that caused the collapse of their own capitalist system. The British Prime Minister would have signed-up to the Merkel-Sarkozy proposals if they had just stopped at plans to punish ordinary people and take economic control away from democratically-elected governments, but cutting the salaries and bonuses of the City of London was going too far.

English newspapers backed Cameron’s actions because it allowed them to run stories pandering to their ‘Little Englander’ agendas, and because most are owned by corporations who benefit from the pro-capitalist policies of the Conservative-led Government. Meanwhile, ordinary members of the English (and Scottish) public are distracted from their own predicament – soaring unemployment, wage cuts, longer working hours, slashed public services – by stories that wrongly claim their interests were protected by a British Prime Minister standing up to foreign politicians.

One other issue highlighted by the draconian measures being imposed on ordinary men, women and children in countries across Europe, is how far the EU has moved from its original purpose.

The European Union was supposed to be a body that would implement legislation to raise the living standards of peoples across its member states. However, the organisation soon fell under the control of pro-capitalist politicians, and instead of helping ordinary people it became a vehicle that allowed rich corporations access to ‘national markets’ and drove-down workers’ wages and conditions. The contemporary European Union is nothing more than an offshoot of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation, all of which operate in the interests of global capitalism and against ordinary people.

Scotland can learn lessons from the outcome of last week’s EU summit. Firstly, we should not believe the propaganda printed by right-wing English newspapers sold in Scotland – Daily Mail, Daily Express, Telegraph, Star, Sun. Secondly, all of the so-called mainstream political parties – Tory, Lib Dem, Labour, SNP – support the capitalist system and will always put the interests of the wealthy before those of ordinary men, women and children. Thirdly, the European Union operates entirely to ensure super-rich corporations are able to exploit the peoples of Europe across national boundaries.

For Scots, the answer lies in taking control of our own country and implementing policies that put the interests of the Scottish people before those of the capitalist system. That will only happen in an independent, socialist republic operating outside of the EU.

The Strike

2011-12-17T14:56:00.000Z

Last week I was proud to march shoulder-to-shoulder with striking public sector workers.

Millionaire Tory-Boy David Cameron described the strike as ‘a damp squib’, but that was nothing more than capitalist propaganda. The day-of-action brought 25,000 people onto the streets of Glasgow in a magnificent demonstration of the power of the working class.

Across Scotland 300,000 workers took industrial action, many for the first time in their careers. The Glasgow demonstration was repeated in cities across the UK, with the total figure for those who took part in the one-day strike put at 3million.

Over the years I’ve been on quite a few demonstrations and marches, but last week’s was different. There were people protesting last week who would normally run a mile from such public action. Many of the strikers were from professions known for their lack of militancy, but everyone who took strike action, and those who demonstrated their anger in Glasgow, felt they had no option when faced with a Tory-Lib Dem Government determined to cut their wages, force them to work years longer and slash their pensions.

Those workers now look to their trade unions and the UK Government to come together and negotiate a deal that will prevent further strikes, but the reality is the Tories’ position is unlikely to change. I say the Tories’ position, but of course they are backed to the hilt by their Liberal Democrat lapdogs. The Tories would not be in government, and would not be attacking ordinary working class people, if the Lib Dems were not propping them up. Clegg and his party will pay a heavy price for their treachery.

The UK Government’s Autumn Statement, announced the day before last week’s strike, introduced a series of economic measures that will lead to the poor getting even poorer and the rich even richer. This is what the Tories always do, including Tories who masquerade as New Labour (and that includes whatever the Labour Party is calling itself today, post Blair and Brown). Tories protect their own – the wealthy tax-dodgers, the spivs and speculators of the financial markets – and hit the poor. Under Thatcher and Major the gap between the poor and the rich in the UK began to grow. It became a chasm under Blair and Brown, and now Cameron, Clegg and Osborne are determined to refloat the corrupt capitalist system by fleecing the poor and pushing more and more ordinary working people into poverty.

Make no mistake, things would be exactly the same if Labour had been returned to power in May 2010. The last Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, made clear that if his party had won the election, it would have implemented spending cuts ‘bigger and deeper’ than even those introduced under Thatcher. If there was a Labour Prime Minister in Downing Street right now, we would still be seeing attacks on the working class and policies geared towards forcing the public sector to pay for the collapse of capitalism in the UK. Ed Miliband, the current leader of the Labour Party, declined to support the strike action taken last week.

However, that did not stop Labour MSPs in Scotland from posturing and claiming to be supportive of the action taken by public sector workers. Labour MSPs did not turn up for their work on the day of the strike, citing as justification their principled decision to not cross the picket line outside the parliament in Edinburgh. The same Labour MSPs had no such principles on the previous two occasions a picket was mounted outside Holyrood; each time they happily waltzed past the strikers.

The three contenders for the leadership of the Scottish Labour Party – more accurately described as the Scottish sub-section of the English Labour Party – all took part in last week’s march through Glasgow. They were there to be seen. They all desperately want the support of trade unions in the forthcoming leadership ballot, but you can bet that once it’s over, it will be back to business as usual and the cause of the striking public sector workers will be quickly dropped.

Then there was the action of the SNP, our Scottish Government. In what is certainly the biggest blunder of the Salmond administrations (from 2007 to the present), SNP MSPs sided with the Tories and Liberal Democrats by crossing the picket line at the parliament. Turning their backs on the ordinary people of Scotland, the SNP marched shoulder-to-shoulder through the picket line with the two parties of government in London, the two parties implementing savage cuts to public spending, the two parties forcing public sector workers to pay for the debts run-up by millionaire and billionaire bankers and financial speculators. By their actions, the SNP showed whose side they are on, and it’s not ours.

With just five-months until Council elections across Scotland, the SNP publicly sided with the Tories against the people who deliver our much-needed Council services. But we shouldn’t be surprised by the SNP’s action: after all, when the Tory-Lib Dem millionaires in London told the SNP to implement savage spending cuts in Scotland, Finance Secretary John Swinney tugged his forelock and said ‘Yes Sir’. The party that claimed it would ‘Stand Up For Scotland’ has, instead, become the Tories’ little helpers, accepting a cut of £1.3billion and passing it to Councils.

I was proud to march with public sector workers last week, and I’m proud of the part played by the Scottish Socialist Party in promoting and organising the biggest demonstration of working class solidarity since 1926.

Next May, I will also be proud to represent the SSP as the North Ayrshire Council candidate for the seat of Ardrossan & Arran. The Scottish Socialist Party stands fully in support of our public sector workers as they face brutal attacks from Tories and Liberal Democrats, and betrayal from Labour and the SNP.

The fight we have to win

2011-12-10T12:54:00.002Z

Last week, in his Autumn Statement, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne revealed the Tory-Lib Dem Government is intent on waging war against the working class of Britain.

Surely, it can now be only the wilfully delusional who believe the Tory mantra of ‘we are all in this together’. The range of economic measures introduced by Osborne showed he and the Coalition Government he represents are determined the poorest should pay the debts run-up by multi-millionaire bankers and financial speculators. While those same dealers in the financial markets continue to take home six or even seven-figure salaries and bonuses running into millions of pounds, the Tory-Lib Dem UK Government announced measures that will punish the poor, including the decision to scrap a proposed rise to the Child Tax Credit, a move that will result in an additional 100,000 children being pushed into poverty.

The pro-capitalist politicians in the Tory-Lib Dem Government are content to see children go hungry in order to make financial ‘savings’ that will go towards paying the UK’s national deficit, a sum of money borrowed by the Westminster administration and used to bail-out banks that had gambled on ‘the markets’ and lost. To be fair, it was the previous Labour Government that borrowed the money to bail-out the banks, but there is no doubt the present Tory-Lib Dem administration would have taken the exact same course of action. Capitalists caused the collapse of their own economic system, but the children of working class families are being punished and made to sacrifice what little they have in order that capitalism can be re-financed and the whole corrupt system can begin all over again.

Last Wednesday, St Andrew’s Day, over 25,000 people marched through Glasgow in protest against UK Government plans to force public sector workers to pay considerably more in pension contributions, work years more than they had expected, and yet receive a much lower pension once they retire. Similar marches took place in virtually every city across the UK.

Public sector workers have every right to be very angry about the way they are being targeted by the UK Coalition Government, and those of us who work in the so-called private sector should learn from history: if we don’t support our sisters and brothers in the public sector, who will speak up when the Tories come for us? Contrary to the Tory-Lib Dem propaganda, we are not all in this together, but all of us who sell our labour to make a living – the working class – are definitely all in this fight together.

The day before the one-day strike, George Osborne’s Autumn Statement also included the news that the Tory-Lib Dem programme of savage cuts to public spending and services had resulted in higher unemployment and a stagnating national economy. So, what do the UK Government propose as Plan B? Bigger and deeper cuts, that’s what.

Previously, the government of millionaires predicted their ‘austerity measures’ would result in 310,000 public sector workers losing their jobs. Callously, that figure tripped-off Tory and Lib Dem tongues without a thought for the consequences, such as families losing income and having to exist on poverty-level benefits. Now, though, that figure for public sector redundancies has been revised...to 710,000. Notwithstanding the personal misery this will create for the workers concerned and their immediate families, we should consider those vulnerable members of communities across the country who rely on public services. Put simply, it will be impossible to continue delivering these vital services with a workforce reduced by almost three-quarters of a million.

Just for good measure, Osborne also announced that pay rises in the public sector will be capped at 1 per cent for the two years after the current pay freeze expires. With inflation running at over 5 per cent, the pay freeze and a cap at 1 per cent – in other words, a maximum pay rise of 1 per cent – means public sector workers are faced with four years of real-terms pay cuts, which could represent as much as a 16 per cent reduction in salary for some.

One of the most-quoted lines by Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs in the run-up to last week’s one-day public sector strike was that increased pension contributions were necessary because we are all living longer and therefore current pension provision is no longer affordable. That is a bare-faced lie. In general terms we are living longer, but the Hutton Report, on which the UK Government bases its current reforms, shows public sector pension payments peaked at 1.9 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – national wealth – in 2010-11, and will gradually fall over the next fifty years.

In addition, a closer look at public sector pension funds shows workers are already contributing more than is currently paid in the form of pensions. Presently, almost £300million more is paid into local government pension schemes in Scotland than is paid out to public sector pensioners. The largest scheme, the Strathclyde Pension Fund, of which most North Ayrshire Council workers are members, currently shows a surplus of £117million.

Successive UK Governments – Labour, Tory and Lib Dem – have raided these pension funds to help pay for a range of government initiatives, including rescuing the failed capitalist system.

The reality is that around three-quarters of a million public sector workers now face losing their jobs; those who remain in employment will see their wages significantly cut, and they are being told they must pay more in pension contributions, despite their retirement schemes being in surplus and the overall cost to the public purse is falling.

Like all of the other ‘austerity measures’ being imposed by the Westminster Government, the attacks on public sector workers are not necessary, they are entirely ideological. Even without the collapse of global capitalism and the ensuing economic crisis, the Tories would be attacking public sector workers and slashing public services - it’s what Tories do. This time they have the backing of the Liberal Democrats, and that party is currently receiving exactly what it deserves for its treachery: it was reduced to just four MSPs at this year’s Scottish Parliament Election and can expect to be wiped-out at next May’s Council elections.

Meanwhile, those of us who sell our labour – the working class – must stand together and fight together as we face attack after attack from an uncaring government in London, a government comprised of two political parties that we in Scotland soundly rejected at the ballot box. The capitalists may be the millionaires, but we are the millions. If we stand and fight together, they can’t beat us – and this fight is not just for our future, it is for the future of our children and grandchildren.

We are NOT all in this together

2011-12-03T13:56:00.003Z

November 30 will see the biggest withdrawal of labour since the General Strike of 1926.

The reason three-million people across the UK will take strike action centres around the Tory-Lib Dem Government’s plans for public sector pensions, but that issue is just one in a raft of proposals that constitute nothing less than an attack on the working class.

The global capitalist system has collapsed – as corrupt enterprises always will – but instead of recognising that fact and moving to a different system, such as a socialist system based on fairness and equality, the capitalist millionaires in the British Government are implementing policies that force ordinary women and men to pay-off the debts of financial spivs and speculators. Not content with that, the UK Government then expects us to also refinance the capitalist system, allowing the whole corrupt venture to begin again.

Capitalism is based on exploitation. In order to generate fabulous wealth for a very small minority, it is necessary for the capitalists to exploit the rest of us. Other than the greed and selfishness of the capitalist class, there is no reason why society could not be structured in such a way as to benefit the majority.

Of course, most media outlets are owned and operated by capitalists, so the rest of us are force-fed the line that capitalism is the only viable economic system, and that our current living standards are as good as it gets. For over 100 years the working class have been told that if they voted for socialism, their lives would be hell (*See The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressel). Have a look around: for most of us life is far from a Heavenly idyll.

A few weeks back it was revealed that directors in British FTSE-100 companies had seen their pay increase by almost 50 per cent over the last 12 months. No austerity measures or pay-restraint there. During the same period, the pay of ordinary workers has increased by an average of just 2.7 per cent. With inflation sitting at around 5 per cent, a wage increase below that level is a real-terms pay cut.

Then, last week, came the news that some senior company executives had seen their salaries rocket by a staggering 4,000 per cent since 1980. A man called John Varley, the former chief executive of Barclays Bank, was paid £4,365,636 – which works out as a rise of 4,899.4 per cent since 1980. In another example, the chief executive of Lloyds Bank, which is part-owned by the state, saw his pay increase by 3,141.6 per cent to £2,572,000 over the same period. His pay represents 75-times that of the average Lloyds employee: in 1980 it was 13.6-times the average. Remind me again, which industry was it that mainly contributed to the current economic crisis?

The above figures were contained in a report published by the High Pay Commission (HPC), which also revealed that in 1979 the top 10 per cent took home 28 per cent of national income, but by 2007 that had increased to 40 per cent. If such massive pay hikes continue, the HPC predicts that, by 2035, the top 0.1 per cent will be taking home a massive 14 per cent of the country’s national income, a disparity between rich and poor that hasn’t been seen since Jack the Ripper stalked the streets of Victorian London.

Using official Scottish Government data, the picture of inequality in Scotland is so stark it’s hard to believe the figures relate to the same country. In the most affluent parts of Scotland, life expectancy is recorded at 87.7 years. If these areas existed as a separate entity, it would have the longest life expectancy in the world – with the next nearest being Iceland (79 years), Japan (78.4 years) Sweden (77.9 years), Australia and Canada (both 77.8 years).

However, ‘rich Scotland’ shares its borders with ‘poor Scotland’ – often as very close neighbours - and in our country’s least affluent areas life expectancy drops to just 64.4 years, lower than the Gaza Strip, Iran and North Korea. In modern, capitalist Scotland, an eighth of the male population can expect to die before they reach retirement age, and that’s before the Tory-Lib Dem Government increases it as part of the proposals that have prompted the November 30 strike.

Even closer to home the disparity between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ is significant: in North Ayrshire the poorest members of the community can expect to die 14 years earlier than the richest, while almost 1-in-4 local households now officially exist in poverty.

Do us all a favour, remember the above figures the next time you hear a Tory MP or a Lib Dem MP, or a Labour MP or an SNP MP, or a banker or any other apologist for the capitalist system tell us that “we’re all in this together”. Austerity measures - or savage cuts, to give them a more accurate description - are being imposed on us to slash public spending and services in order that funds can be re-directed to provide liquidity to banks and to the capitalist markets. Far from all being in this together, it is the ordinary working class that is footing the bill of the failed capitalist system, and it is the wealthy elite who are reaping the benefit.

The capitalists, including all of the so-called mainstream political parties, are waging war against the ordinary women and men of this country. It is time we fought back, and the massive withdrawal of labour on November 30 is the opening shot.

Unless we are prepared to fight together for a decent job, a decent wage, a decent home and a decent pension, then the capitalist system will continue to prevail, the rich will get richer, and some people in North Ayrshire will continue to die in their mid-sixties for no other reason than they are poor.

The democratic British State

2011-11-26T12:38:00.002Z

In a democratic society, like ours, we can go about our lives without fearing a knock on the door and the arrival of the secret police, such as the KGB in the former Soviet Union.

The KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti or Committee for State Security) was not only a police force that operated under the radar of public accountability, it also ran thousands of spies, ordinary people who were paid or coerced into providing information about their neighbours, work colleagues and even family members. Totalitarian dictatorships feel the need to know what everyone is up to, in order that the state can control every situation, thereby ensuring the interests of the ruling elite are never challenged.

Of course, such operations directed against ordinary citizens were not restricted to the Soviet Union. Similar actions were carried out by the DINA (Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional) under the right-wing Pinochet administration in Chile. In fact, wherever an undemocratic regime assumes power, you will always find clandestine operations targeted against the people.

Thankfully, we have no such secret police in the UK. Thankfully, we are free to hold and express views contrary to those held by government. Thankfully, in Britain, the state does not spy on ordinary citizens.

Do you believe what was written in the last paragraph? If you do, you’ve almost certainly never been part of a left-wing political party, or one that supports an independent Scotland. If you have never encountered British State spying, you’ve probably never taken part in a protest against government-backed wars, or against nuclear weapons or nuclear power, or against the environmental catastrophe being caused by carbon emissions leading to climate change.

We know the British Government has a secret service, including MI5 and MI6 – the first is responsible for intelligence issues within the UK, while the second’s remit includes countering overseas actions deemed to be against Britain’s interests. It would be foolish to think countries could operate without gathering intelligence on those who might want to harm them or their citizens, but when those citizens are also being spied upon, is that acceptable in a supposed democracy?

Any political party or group that advocates change to the status quo will have been infiltrated by spies and informers. Even the SNP, which now forms the democratically-elected government of Scotland, will have card-carrying members whose real role is not advancing the cause of Scottish independence, but monitoring party activities and passing information to the British secret service.

During my time as an SNP MSP, a former colleague was convinced that a very senior member of the party was actually working on behalf of the British State, passing information to London and arguing for action that sidelined independence and maintained British control of Scottish resources, including North Sea oil reserves. When we see the direction the SNP has taken over recent years, my former colleague may have had a point.

It was also the case that during the 1984-1985 Miners strike, the British State had informers placed within the leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers, a democratic and legitimate trade union. Then Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher described ordinary Miners fighting to save their jobs as ‘the enemy within’. The British State, and all its apparatus, including the police, was used to fight an ‘enemy’ comprised of ordinary citizens.

More recently, it has been revealed that undercover police officers have penetrated many, if not all, left-wing political parties, organisations and campaign groups. This only came to light after a Metropolitan Police officer called Mark Kennedy was exposed as having worked undercover for seven-years, infiltrating left-wing environmental groups. All of the groups spied on by Kennedy are legitimate organisations whose only ‘crime’ is disagreeing with UK Government policies.

Kennedy has subsequently confirmed that the actions of undercover police officers have led to miscarriages of justice when false evidence was used in trials and police officers perjured themselves to maintain their cover. Another serving police officer, Jim Boyling, was placed undercover with the legitimate campaign group Reclaim the Streets. During a protest in London, Boyling was arrested as part of a group. When the matter went to court it is alleged that Boyling maintained his cover, even when questioned under oath. Other former secret policemen have confirmed this was a normal procedure to build-up the credibility of an undercover agent.

Still, as long as it’s just political activists they’re spying on, eh? Well, actually, it’s not just political activists – they’re also spying on you.

In the North Yorkshire countryside, near the town of Harrogate, there is an RAF base that sprawls over 545 acres. Well, that’s the official UK Government line. In fact, the base – Menwith Hill – is operated, not by the RAF but by the American National Security Agency. Menwith Hill is the world’s largest electronic eavesdropping centre.

The site contains 30 huge golfball-shaped ‘radomes’, which house satellite receivers. It is staffed by around 1,500 US personnel and 400 from the UK Ministry of Defence.

So, what does Menwith Hill do? Officially, it is part of the US missile defence system, and that is certainly part of its work. However, in reality, Menwith Hill is a major part of a US global spy system called Echelon, which is shared with Britain’s GCHQ, the Canadian Communications Security Establishment, the Australian Defence Signals Directorate and New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau.

Echelon intercepts vast amounts of telecoms traffic, including private telephone calls, emails and other communications. The system uses powerful, automated voice-recognition software that picks-up specific key words. Any telephone call, email, Facebook posting or Twitter feed that uses such words or phrases is set aside and checked by intelligence analysts, with relevant information then fed-back to the US National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland. Part of the deal allowing the US to use Britain as a spy-base involves information being shared with the British Government by way of the UK’s own spy centre at GCHQ in Cheltenham.

The UK claims to be a democracy, but any country that condones infiltrating and spying on legitimate political parties and protest groups, which listens-in to private telephone calls, reads private emails and brands ordinary workers as ‘the enemy’, is no better than the dictatorships who operate police states.

'The markets' and the November 30 strike

2011-11-21T15:13:00.000Z

Having plunged much of the world into economic crisis, the faceless money-men of ‘the markets’ are now deciding who should run individual countries.

Already they’ve engineered the demise of the democratically-elected prime minister of Greece – ‘the markets’ let it be known they would be ‘very unhappy’ if the Greek people were asked their opinion on the imposition of even more ‘austerity measures’ in order to pay debts owed to foreign banks. Then, just days later, ‘the markets’ turned their attention to Italy.

Silvio Berlusconi is an easy person to dislike, but he was democratically elected as prime minister by the Italian people. Such things don’t bother ‘the markets’. The money-men decided Berlusconi had to go, so interest rates on Italian loans were raised to ‘unsustainable’ levels, and ‘the markets’ let it be known the prime minister was the problem. If Berlusconi resigned, they argued, the rate at which Italy had to repay loans would be reduced. Otherwise, the country – the third-largest economy in Europe – could face a situation where it was unable to meet its financial obligations…to foreign banks.

So, Berlusconi announced he would step down, but that wasn’t enough for ‘the markets’. They want to be sure whoever replaces him will do exactly as they want, so the punitive interest rates charged to Italy remained in place.

‘The markets’ and those who operate them caused the economic crisis, and now they’re dictating how countries respond. The measures demanded of individual nations always include slashing public spending, throwing hundreds-of-thousands out of work; forcing-down wages, pensions and benefits, cutting public services and selling-off public assets...all to ensure private companies can infiltrate the public sector, maximizing their profits by driving-down wages, conditions and levels of service, while the bankers who operate ‘the markets’ are re-financed, allowing them to begin again their financial gambling.

Thankfully, in Scotland and across Britain, the fight-back is beginning. Many trade unions representing public sector workers have balloted members and have received a mandate to take strike action on November 30. The unions have made clear they are available – any time, any place – for talks with the UK Government, but it is unlikely the Tory-Lib Dem administration will be persuaded to end its attacks on ordinary working men and women. Even if there had been no collapse of global capitalism, the Tories would still be attacking the public sector – it’s what Tories always do. The Liberal Democrats, supporting the Tories every step of the way, will be wiped from the political map for their treachery, which is exactly what they deserve.

On November 30, in addition to the large public sector trade unions, such as UNISON and the PCS, strike action will also be taken by the Educational Institute for Scotland (EIS), which means we will see the first strike by Scottish teachers in 25 years. Although the Royal College of Nursing is not involved in the proposed action, many nurses are members of other trade unions and have supported the strike. Of course, as has been the case in the past, nurses and unions will agree levels of cover for the day of the strike to ensure no patient is put at risk.

No-one takes strike action if it can be avoided, so we can be sure those who will withdraw their labour on November 30 feel they have no option. Striking is the last resort, a very serious course of action taken in an attempt to get through to the government in London. However, the chances that the Tory-led Government will listen are not good.

The attitude of Cameron and Clegg was emphasised by the Government’s response to the unions’ mandates to strike. Immediately, Ministers attempted to split workers by announcing that those within 10 years of retiring could keep their previously-agreed pension levels, but everyone else would have to work beyond the age of 65, pay increased contributions, and receive less when they finally do retire.

The attempt won’t work, workers know this isn’t just about pension entitlement: it is about a sustained attack on the public sector and on ordinary men and women. The Government’s action is about slashing public expenditure, but not because it has to be done – the UK’s debt as a percentage of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is currently much lower than it was for the majority of the 20^th Century. Nor is it about public sector pensions being ‘unaffordable’ – the current bill is less than 2 per cent of GDP – and the current average pension paid to a local government worker is just £4,000.

The reason the UK Government is slashing public expenditure, throwing hundreds-of-thousands of people onto the dole, and is increasing the pension contributions of teachers, nurses and local government workers is to generate ‘financial savings’, which will be redirected to provide liquidity for private banks – the same banks that caused the economic crisis – and to finance ‘the markets’ operating out of the London Stock Exchange.

One final point: the UK Government and the right-wing media will attempt to split workers by telling those employed by private companies that their counterparts in the public sector are getting one over on them by having better pensions. Here is the reality: directors in the UK’s top 100 businesses currently rake-in pensions of more than £200,000 per year. The most senior executives at these firms are sitting on pension funds worth £5.2million – giving them a yearly pension of £333,400. Bosses are robbing their own workers to feather their pension nests, while the Tory-Lib Dem Government attempts to convince us that the solution is a race to the bottom, by dragging-down the pensions of public-sector workers.

The Westminster Government of Toffs – the original Cabinet after the 2010 General Election had 23 millionaires and 4 ex-bankers – is waging war on ordinary men, women and children. They are attempting to force us to pay for bailing-out their well-heeled friends in ‘the markets’ – we’ve already contributed over £1trillion.

It’s time we fought back. Support the striking workers on November 30.

Only told what they want us to know

2011-11-21T15:09:00.000Z

Broadcasters are supposed to be impartial, but night after night we are subjected to indoctrination on television news programmes.

The BBC is not the worst offender, but it does frequently take sides rather than simply reporting the facts of a news story. Supporters of Scottish independence will be aware of countless occasions over the years where the BBC has failed to impartially present the facts on issues relating to Scotland’s constitutional future.

Almost every night, in our so-called ‘national news’ broadcast from London, we hear stories about law and order, the health service and education, none of which have any relevance to Scotland. Those areas of government policy are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, yet the BBC broadcasts English news into Scottish homes.

‘National’ news bulletins on the British Broadcasting Corporation also frequently refer to something having happened in ‘the north’, but they don’t mean Ullapool or Inverness. In fact, while we have Reporting Scotland, the ‘local’ BBC news programme for a region located over 100 miles south of Ayrshire is called ‘North-West Tonight’.

For the past few months we’ve had BBC, ITN and Sky reporting from Libya on how heroic freedom-fighters were attempting to overthrow Colonel Gaddafi and his murderous thugs. We were also informed of how NATO forces, including from Britain, only became involved to prevent a bloody slaughter of civilians in Bengazi.

In reality, what recently occurred in Libya was a civil war, and while Gaddafi was without doubt a brutal dictator, his regime also retained significant levels of support amongst a large section of the Libyan population.

None of the UK-based news organisations told the true story of what was happening in Libya: instead, they reported the UK Government line. One very serious question broadcasters should be forced to answer, is why they did not report on the bloody massacre and total devastation that happened in Sirte, as rebel fighters, supported by NATO air strikes, closed in on Gaddafi. Why was it imperative to protect the ordinary people of Bengazi but not Sirte?

With the murder of Gaddafi, London-based broadcasters are now telling us that Libya is moving towards its first democratic elections in over forty-years, but what they aren’t telling us is how America and Britain are working to ensure the next government of the country – which will include former members of the Gaddafi regime – will be supportive of western interests, in particular with regard to accessing Libya’s abundant oil fields.

NATO’s involvement in Libya had nothing to do with democracy or saving human lives, it was all about securing access to oil reserves, as was the case with the illegal invasion of Iraq. However, those who rely on Britain’s London-based broadcasters for their news will have heard little of the truth.

Perhaps, though, the biggest misrepresentation of the facts by British news organisations occurs when they report on the current economic situation.

Again, the BBC, ITN and Sky News are guilty of carrying stories that portray capitalism as the only viable economic system. We are told how European governments must impose severe austerity measures in order that funding can be provided to save international banks and financial institutions. Even when acknowledging it was the banks and financial institutions that caused the economic crisis, television news reports tell us there is no alternative to a programme of refinancing them. How often have you heard news reports recently warning that ‘the markets’ will not be happy if some country or other does not impose savage cuts to public spending? These markets with such power over entire nations are the very spivs and speculators that caused the collapse of global capitalism – and let’s get that fact absolutely right: it is the corrupt capitalist system that has collapsed not individual nations.

Just the other night a BBC news reporter warned how action by the Greek Government could plunge Europe into disaster. So, what catastrophic move was planned by the administration in Athens? They planned to ask the people of Greece whether or not they agreed with an economic plan that would mean further savage cuts to public spending – resulting in more job losses and increased poverty – in order to repay loans to mainly American-owned banks.

Contrary to the BBC reporter’s dire warning, Europe would not have been plunged into disaster if the people of Greece had been asked their opinion, and had decided to put the interests of their society before those of global capitalism. The world should not be operating to make a small elite ever more wealthy, while the majority struggle to survive. Capitalism is all about exploitation: the rich exploit the poor, ‘the markets’ exploit entire nations; the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation work to increase the profits of banks and multi-national corporations, while forcing relatively poor countries to impose strict austerity measures and to privatise their publicly-owned assets, including their water supplies.

Capitalism causes inequality, poverty and ecological devastation, yet our ‘impartial’ news organisations tell us it is the only game in town. How often have you seen politicians on news bulletins given free rein to advance their argument that there is no alternative? Contrast that with how often you been allowed to see opponents of capitalism given airtime to explain the viable alternative?

Currently an anti-capitalist protest in London has received headlines because it has caused problems for St Paul’s Cathedral – but the protestors have no axe to grind with St Paul’s. They actually wanted to take their protest to the London Stock Exchange, the heart of capitalism in the City of London, but the forces of the establishment were deployed to prevent that happening. Police threw a cordon around the Stock Exchange to protect the capitalist system from the general public. How often has that been explained by our ‘impartial’ news organisations?

Meanwhile, don’t expect to hear anything about the socialist alternative to the corrupt capitalist system. Our ‘impartial’ broadcasters also practice censorship...censorship by omission.

The SNP Programme for Government

2011-11-07T15:52:00.000Z

The Programme for Government, recently announced by First Minister Alex Salmond, is remarkable mainly for one thing...its lack of ambition.

The detail of what the SNP Government plans to do in the current session of parliament is proof, if any more were needed, that the ‘party of independence’ has become very comfortable managing devolution within the British Union.

To be fair, we should acknowledge that, even with a majority in parliament, the SNP Government has very little power. For example, the devolved administration cannot introduce a progressive taxation system, under which those who earn the most would be expected to contribute their fair share. The British Government in London doesn’t allow Scotland that kind of power, and the SNP seems to have accepted that position (pending an affirmative vote in the promised Independence Referendum).

Under devolution, even with a majority SNP Government, our national parliament is also prevented from legislating on crucial areas like the economy, social security and pensions. So, against that background – and a £1.3 billion funding cut from Westminster – how can Finance Secretary John Swinney claim his budget for 2011-12 “will protect jobs, frontline services and economic recovery”?

Of course, the answer to that question is simple – Swinney is talking nonsense. He’s talking nonsense, and he knows it. As Finance Secretary in the Scottish Government, Swinney has accepted Westminster’s cuts, and he’s simply passed them on to local government. Far from the claims made in the SNP budget statement and Programme for Government, jobs continue to be lost across the country, frontline services are being savaged, and the economy remains struggling to get off the floor.

Remember when the SNP claimed to ‘Stand Up for Scotland’? Surely a party that genuinely stood up for Scotland would have told Westminster, “We’re not accepting your cuts!” Surely it would have been legitimate for the Scottish Government to have told the Tories and Lib Dems, “You have no mandate in Scotland for your cuts agenda. You were soundly rejected by the people of Scotland, so give us back our £1.3 billion!”

Sadly, the SNP is not that kind of party. Today’s ‘New SNP’ is comfortably at home as part of the establishment, playing the game by Westminster’s rules, accepting savage cuts and passing them to already struggling councils. The SNP really could have protected “jobs, frontline services and economic recovery”, but it chose, instead, to be the Tory’s little helpers in Scotland.

Instead of challenging the right of Tories and Liberal Democrats to slash our nation’s finances, the SNP Scottish Government meekly accepted what Westminster offered, which means Alex Salmond is in no position to announce an ambitious Programme for Government. Don’t get me wrong, there are proposals that will be of benefit – the Alcohol Minimum Pricing Bill and the Offensive Behaviour at Football Bill – and the SNP should be congratulated for finally addressing issues that have been allowed to fester for far too long.

However, there are also more questionable proposals, ones that reflect the SNP’s repositioning to the centre-right. I remain to be convinced that Scotland needs or will benefit from a national police force, and I doubt very much that the general public will derive a great deal from forcing Scottish Water to ‘evolve’ into an agency that generates outside income to make it ‘financially neutral’: but, of course, we’ll all sleep better at night knowing the SNP Government has found legislative time to preserve landlords sporting rights in relation to game and fishing.

What about independence? The SNP – the ‘party of independence’ remember - still appears to be in no hurry to get there, with no advance on a referendum before ‘the latter part’ of the current five-year parliamentary term.

All of which brings us to the conclusion that the SNP is now firmly settled on the centre-right of the political spectrum, embracing the capitalist system and advocating policies that put the interests of multi-national corporations before the needs of the people of Scotland. Even an independent Scotland under an SNP Government would look remarkably similar to the Labour and Tory UK Governments we’ve had over the past fifteen years.

That means the fight for a better, fairer Scotland remains to be won, but the case for an independent, Scottish socialist republic has never been stronger.

New SNP

2011-09-23T22:51:00.002+01:00

I spent 27 years in the Scottish National Party, but if I were still a member today I couldn’t look myself in the mirror.

The Spending Review announced last week by Finance Secretary John Swinney will make ordinary, working Scots much poorer, and will result in further savage cuts to public services. From a party elected last May, partly on a promise to ‘stand up for Scotland’, that is an absolute disgrace.

By their actions, Swinney and his fellow Scottish Government ministers have aligned themselves, shoulder-to-shoulder, with David Cameron, Nick Clegg and George Osborne as they attack the public sector and force ordinary workers to pay the debts of multi-millionaire bankers in London. The SNP could have stood up for Scotland, they could have told the Tory-led Westminster Government to stuff their cuts, but they didn’t. Instead, the Nationalists meekly accepted a funding reduction of £1.3billion and have announced financial plans that will see the public sector in Scotland hit with cuts totalling £39billion over the next three years. Cuts to the public sector will mean job losses and much-needed services reduced or completely withdrawn.

Independent economists predict the effect of the SNP implementing the Tories’ cuts could result in expenditure in Scotland remaining below 2010 levels for the next 15 years.

Swinney’s Spending Review also extended for another year the pay-freeze imposed on public sector workers on salaries above £21,000. With inflation at 5-percent and rising, this will be another financial body-blow to many ordinary, working Scots. Even a ‘moderate increase’ to salaries promised for the following year would actually be a real-terms wage cut, as it would be pegged below the rate of inflation.

Non local government public sector staff will receive a ‘double-whammy’ from the SNP Government, with Swinney’s plans imposing a 50-percent increase in their pension contributions. Meanwhile, a continuation of the Council Tax freeze for another five years will restrict the ability of local councils to raise money for the services we all use, and will see millionaire mansion-owners, like Sir Fred Goodwin, pay little more than hard-working Scots living in council houses.

Throughout my time as an SNP member the party always claimed to be a broad church. Many different political views were held, but the glue that kept the party together was a belief in independence and a determination to restore that status to Scotland at the earliest possible opportunity. That, too, has changed.

So-called ‘modernisers’, like John Swinney, drove the party from its ‘broad church’, moderate centre-left position onto centre-right Tory ground. Although Swinney was eventually forced from the position of party leader, the centre-right positioning has been retained under Alex Salmond’s second term as National Convener. Salmond, himself, is instinctively left-of-centre in political outlook – he was a socialist while at St Andrews University – but many at the top of the party hold firm centre-right views.

So, what difference does it make that the SNP is now a moderate, centre-right party? The difference is that the people of Scotland, in general, remain on the left: the SNP’s change of political positioning has seen it leave the people behind. The SNP has distanced itself from the public that voted it into office and gave it a majority in parliament just six short months ago.

During the party’s drive to the right, the SNP also changed its policy on independence. While it was still a moderate centre-left party, the SNP’s position was that a majority of votes or a majority of seats achieved at a UK or Scottish parliamentary election was a mandate for independence. When either of those benchmarks was achieved, the SNP would negotiate the independence settlement with Westminster, which would then be put to the people of Scotland in a referendum.

However, that policy position was changed to the benchmarks being a mandate, not for independence but simply to hold a referendum on independence. Under the old policy, the result achieved by the SNP last May would have seen Scotland become an independent nation, but now it just means there will be a referendum on the subject, at some unspecified time in the future – and this from an organisation that still claims to be ‘the party of independence’.

Many within the leadership of ‘New SNP’ are quite content managing a devolved Scotland within the British Union. It was more important to them to get their backsides onto the backseats of ministerial Mondeos at Holyrood, rather than securing all the powers we need to deal with the problems that continue to blight Scotland, powers that only come with independence. I know of at least two very senior Nationalists, both currently in Government, who would settle for devolution. One even went public, stating that ‘the independence thing’ should be parked while the SNP Government ‘proved itself’ to the Scottish people by managing devolution (within the British Union and on behalf of the Imperial British Government in London).

Petty British unionists often criticise the SNP for ‘picking fights with Westminster’, but never has that claim been less valid (and it wasn’t very valid before). The Tory-Lib Dem Government was soundly rejected in Scotland at the 2010 UK General Election: Cameron, Clegg and Osborne have no mandate from the people of Scotland to implement their savage cuts. The government that did receive a mandate from the Scottish electorate – and an overwhelming one at that – was the SNP. The Salmond administration could have ‘stood up for Scotland’ and told the Tories and Liberal Democrats to stick their cuts where the sun don’t shine, but they didn’t. When there was a perfect reason to ‘pick a fight with Westminster’, New SNP rolled over and did nothing. In fact, worse than doing nothing, the SNP became the Tories’ little helpers and implemented cuts that will devastate Scottish public services, communities and lives.

There are many decent people still members of the SNP. Perhaps it’s time they looked for another party, one that really does stand up for the ordinary people of Scotland, and one that has never wavered in its commitment to independence.

We're bailing out millionaires, and cutting the care of vulnerable children

2011-09-10T12:05:00.000+01:00

Although the collapse of the capitalist system began more than two years ago, we, the general public, haven’t yet begun to experience its worst effects.

Yes, prices have gone up, and for those who have lost their jobs it might seem like things couldn’t be worse, but in reality we are only just beginning to feel the pain.

Last Tuesday I joined staff from local Quarriers facilities as they took strike action. They were some of the most caring and decent people I’ve met in a long time. Right-wing newspapers and Tory politicians would have us believe we are ‘all in this together’, and that it’s totally selfish to be taking strike action when so many people are suffering, but the Quarriers workers felt they had no alternative when they were faced with an employer determined to slash their pay and conditions.

The people on the picket line at Seafield School last week normally spend their days caring for vulnerable children, and that is what they would rather have been doing instead of taking strike action. Of course, despite the problems they face themselves, before they came out on strike they made sure there was enough cover in place so that the children would not be adversely affected.

These were no rabid militants, intent on sabotaging the machinery of the decadent bourgeois bosses. The Quarriers strikers were ordinary women and men driven to the point where they had to take a stand – and this is the beginning of so much more to come.

Quarriers is a social charity, set up to alleviate the suffering of vulnerable children. The work it does across the UK is mainly funded by local authorities, such as North Ayrshire Council. According to the charity’s management, it must cut workers’ pay and conditions because the funding it receives from councils has been slashed. Think about that: because bankers and financial speculators in the City of London embarked on a reckless pursuit of ever greater profits, some of the most vulnerable children in Britain now face having their care cut or removed.

The other reality behind the situation now being faced by local Quarriers workers and the children in their care, is the lie that opposition political parties are standing up to the Tory-Lib Dem Government in London as it carries out a programme of savage austerity measures. Far from protecting us from Cameron and his cabinet of millionaires, the SNP Scottish Government has meekly accepted funding cut by over £1 billion, and has simply passed on the cuts to local government. In our case, here in North Ayrshire, we have the SNP blaming the Tories and Liberal Democrats in London, and Labour councillors blaming the SNP Government in Edinburgh. Meanwhile, as politicians bicker, funding to care for vulnerable children is being cut, and the staff who look after them are faced with bosses attempting to impose pay cuts that could result in them losing as much as £400 per month.

These cuts are being carried out in order to refinance the capitalist system and allow the spivs and speculators to start gambling all over again. We have governments – in London and Edinburgh – who are giving a higher priority to the interests of bankers and stock-brokers than to the needs of the children looked after at Seafield School. That is a disgrace.

Of course, those same politicians and the loyal right-wing media tell us it cannot be any other way. We have been indoctrinated into believing capitalism is the only game in town, and we just have to refinance the banks and let it all begin again – but that is not the case.

Instead of pandering to the rich, we should be introducing a progressive system of taxation, under which they would pay their fair share. Since Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, the top level of tax has been cut from 83 percent to 40 percent. In addition, the richest 1,000 people in the UK have around £400 billion of wealth that presently goes untaxed. Meanwhile, the Tory-Lib Dem Government proposes to cut Corporation Tax to 24 percent, meaning it will have been halved since it was introduced in 1965. The SNP Scottish Government wants Corporation Tax devolved to Holyrood, so they can cut it to just 12 percent.

Then there are the twin evils of tax avoidance (which is legal) and tax evasion (which is illegal, but still happens). Together, these dodges by the richest people in the country steal around £70 billion from the public purse every year – that is £70 billion stolen from you, me, the Quarriers workers and the children in their care.

The Quarriers workers are amongst the first in this area to be forced into strike action to defend pay levels that are already pretty low. They won’t be the last, far from it. As the3towns reports this week, North Ayrshire Council’s Corporate Director (Finance and Infrastructure) has voiced the opinion that “the outlook for the foreseeable future is pretty bleak” with some economists predicting “the slump will continue for 15 years”.

Things are only bleak because we are going along with the lie that capitalism is the only game in town, and because we allow the wealthiest people in the country to avoid paying their fair share in taxation.

We need to escape the indoctrination of the ruling elite, the politicians, the newspaper and satellite television owners, the bankers, the financial speculators. We need to put people before profit, we need to introduce an economic system that operates to meet the needs of the public, rather than panders to the interests of multi-national corporations.

We need to put decent people like the Quarriers workers and the children in their care before the multi-millionaires who fund the political parties and media outlets that tell us there is no alternative to capitalism.

We need socialism.

Why I've joined the SSP

2011-09-02T21:21:00.000+01:00

I passionately believe in an independent Scotland. If we are to tackle the social problems that continue to blight our country, we need all the powers that only come with independence.

Having said that, I see no point in securing independence for Scotland only to remake our new country along the lines of the failed British model. Sadly, under the millionaire-funded SNP, that is exactly what we would get.

Even before it was elected to government, the SNP had begun to move its political positioning – some in the party argue they simply moved to the centre-ground, as did the Labour Party under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. However, by abandoning its left-of-centre position, the SNP followed Labour in moving away from the people of Scotland. The Nationalist victories in 2007 and 2011 were not endorsements of the SNP in its new centrist position, but rather were rejections of New Labour and the war-mongering, free-market, pro-big business, capitalist organisation it had become. The ‘slightly-less-to-the-right’ SNP simply benefitted from being seen as the party best-placed to beat New Labour at those elections.

The reality is, though, if the SNP delivers its Independence Referendum – and with a majority in parliament, surely it must – and if a ‘yes’ vote is secured in that referendum, the independent Scotland we would have under an SNP Government would be one remarkably similar to the Tory and Labour British Governments we have had over the past fifteen years. The SNP is now a ‘moderate centre-right’ political party, which would continue to endorse the capitalist economic system that has brought the western world to its knees. The ‘moderate centre-right’ SNP’s big idea for jobs in an independent Scotland is to reduce the taxation paid by multi-national corporations, so they could come here for a few years, take all the hand-outs going, exploit ordinary Scots men and women by paying wages so low they would still qualify for social benefits – as is the case now – and then those companies would disappear, ‘like snaw aff a dyke’, as Alex Salmond might say.

With independence, Scotland would once again become a sovereign nation, but under a government of any so-called ‘mainstream’ party – SNP, Labour, Tory, Liberal Democrat – an independent Scotland would remain answerable to the capitalist overlords of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the spivs and speculators of global financial markets.

Instead, independence should be the catalyst that allows us to tackle the bread-and-butter issues that affect every one of us, every day of our lives. With the full powers that only come with independence, we can radically transform Scottish society - putting people before profit; taking power companies into public ownership, so elderly Scots don’t needlessly die in winter because they can’t afford to heat their homes; building affordable homes for rent, creating construction jobs and addressing the massive housing waiting lists across Scotland; providing hope and opportunity to our young people through the creation of real apprenticeships; maximising the educational attainment of every child; organising national production and international trading agreements to meet the needs of Scottish society; allowing ordinary Scots to once again know the dignity of work, the pride that comes from being able to support themselves and their families; building communities where everyone is valued and where each individual, irrespective of age, has a role to play.

This is the Scotland we need if we are to meet the aspirations of ordinary Scots. Thankfully, the political party offering the policies to create that Scotland is still with us, having survived an experience that would have killed-off lesser bodies. Everyone knows how traumatic the last few years have been for the Scottish Socialist Party. Issues far removed from politics dealt a body blow to the socialist movement in Scotland, but the SSP held to its principles and has emerged stronger in its commitment to deliver a better country for all the people of Scotland.

The corner has been turned and a radical, socialist alternative for Scotland is back on the table.

All the so-called mainstream parties in Scotland are now on the right of the political spectrum, to varying degrees, and all are totally committed to the failed capitalist system. It is only the SSP that’s over there, on the left, with the people of Scotland. That’s why I’ve joined the Scottish Socialist Party, to fight for a better, fairer Scotland.

Whose side is the SNP on? Now we know.

2011-08-21T19:12:00.000+01:00

We’re in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the ‘Great Depression’ of the 1930s. The global capitalist system lies in tatters, brought down by the greed of its own practitioners.

As a result, ordinary people are being ground-down by rising unemployment, wage restraint for those still in work, increasing inflation, cuts to public spending and services, soaring food and utility bills – while those who caused the crisis have been bailed-out by governments, using public money - our money – and when that proved insufficient, by borrowing more against our names.

Capitalism has failed, yet while ordinary men and women suffer, the capitalist spivs and speculators are being refinanced by pro-capitalist political parties, including the UK Tory-Lib Dem Government. Of course, in Scotland, we’re told we have our own parliament and our own government. Not only that, we elected an SNP Government last May, and gave it a majority in parliament: so what have we to worry about? The Tories and Liberal Democrats might be right-wing capitalists, in bed with the wealthy bankers that caused the economic crisis – but in Scotland we are governed by the avowedly ‘left-of-centre’ SNP. Things, therefore, must be different north of the border.

You may think that, but you would be wrong. The reality, here in Scotland, tells a very different story.

Scots are also suffering soaring unemployment, rising inflation, cuts to public spending and services - and the SNP is powerless to do anything about it. We elected an SNP Government last May, but the Scottish Parliament has no control over the economy, taxation or social security – all of which remain reserved to Westminster.

So, you might think, If only we had our independence, then the SNP Government would protect the ordinary men and women of Scotland.

Sadly, you would be wrong again.

In the past week, the SNP announced its ‘big idea’ on the economy, which is to reduce the amount of tax paid by corporations and big business. Then, in the last couple of days, when an SNP back-bencher voiced the opinion that the well-off should pay more tax, he was ‘slapped-down’ by his own government. The Sunday Herald reported that a spokesman for the First Minister said Alex Salmond did not agree with his MSP.

There is now no escaping the fact that, while ordinary Scots continue to suffer, the SNP has declared itself to be on the side of big business and the rich. Far from being ‘left-of-centre’, the SNP now stands on the political right, ‘shoulder-to-shoulder’ with the Tories, Lib Dems and the Labour Party.

We're failing our children

2011-08-19T21:51:00.000+01:00

One of the favourite questions posed by panels at job interviews is ‘Where do you see yourself in ten-years?”

It’s probably best not to give the answer, “Well, with the quality of staff I see before me, I should think I’ll be running the company.” You might think it, you might really want to say it, but it’s almost-certainly not the answer they want to hear.

When was the last time you thought about ten years from now? Take a moment: where do you see yourself in ten-years? Will you still be in the same job? Will you still have the same friends? Will you still be living in the same house, the same town, the same country?

Now, imagine you’re a teenager growing up in North Ayrshire – yes, I know, for many of us that really does stretch our imagination to its limits. It’s a serious question, though. What must it be like for our young people growing up in the area that has Scotland’s highest unemployment?

In North Ayrshire there are very few jobs and hardly any apprenticeships. Still, if our teenagers stick-in at school there is always college or university. Well, that used to be a ‘safe’ route for continuing education after school, with a view to enhancing opportunities in the employment market. This year, though, many universities and colleges have cut courses – the result of the Tory-Lib Dem UK Government slashing public funding, which is then passed-on by the SNP Scottish Government. Some colleges have turned away hundreds of applicants for courses, which has meant schools are being all-but overwhelmed by the number of pupils returning for Fifth and Sixth Year: young adults who thought their schooldays were behind them have this week looked out their uniforms and returned to the classroom rather than do nothing, which, without a job or college place, was the option they faced.

Still, there is always next year, when they can apply for Further and Higher education courses all over again. Except that, next year, things won’t be any better economically – the Tory-led Government will still be hacking into public funding, and the SNP will still be passing-on the cuts – and next year there will be another tranche of Fourth Year pupils to add to those completing Fifth and Sixth Year.

Of course, the sons and daughters of City bankers – the spivs and speculators who caused the collapse of global capitalism – and the offspring of Tory MPs will still be able to use the cash and connections of Mummy and Daddy to secure college or university places, or job placements with prospects. Once again, it is those who had nothing to do with the corrupt capitalist system, and its implosion, that are being forced to pay the price.

Don’t believe SNP Government ministers when they say their policies are protecting Scotland from the worst ravages of cuts imposed by Westminster. Without the full powers that only come with independence – including over the economy, taxation and social security, which are all still ‘reserved’ to Westminster – the Scottish Government cannot protect us. Look at the reality right here in North Ayrshire: the highest unemployment in the country; colleges full to bursting, with eager young students turned away; social and Council services being cut across the board, hitting some of the most vulnerable in local communities; drug-addicted young people placed on Methadone programmes because rehab centres are overwhelmed and can’t cope; thousands on housing lists, waiting years for an affordable home. All of which is happening with an SNP Government in Edinburgh and SNP MSPs representing the two local constituencies.

It is Tory and Liberal Democrat politicians in London who are responsible for the savage cuts to public spending, but SNP ministers in Edinburgh are doing little more than passing-on those cuts to councils, public bodies, social companies and voluntary organisations around Scotland.

Scotland needs the powers of a normal, sovereign nation – which will only come when we retake our independence – but even after securing that status, there is no point in re-making our new country along the lines of the failed British model. Sadly, even if Alex Salmond delivers an Independence Referendum, and we vote to take control of our own lives, the SNP Government in an independent Scotland would still embrace the failed and corrupt capitalist system. An independent Scotland under the SNP would still be answerable to the faceless money-men of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the spivs and speculators of ‘the markets’ – all of which would mean little or no change to the situation faced by teenagers and young adults here in North Ayrshire.

Scotland desperately needs to retake our independence, not so we can pull down the British Union flag over Edinburgh Castle and replace it with a Saltire, but so we can go our own way economically and socially, putting people before profit, putting the needs of ordinary Scots before the interests of multi-national corporations. Independence should simply be the starting point, after which we build a better nation in which everyone pays their fair share in taxation, so that we can deliver the services our young and old need, and create sustainable, well-paid employment, providing hope and opportunity to teenagers and old-stagers alike.

As things stand, in a devolved Scotland within the British Union, we are failing our young people. Ask any of the teenagers and young adults in the Three Towns who can’t find a job or a college place, ask them where they see themselves in ten-years? Are we really going to tell them they just have to grin and bear it? Are we really saying they will have to take anything, irrespective of how hard they worked for their qualifications? Are we going to tell our own children they will have to leave the area, leave Scotland, if they want any chance of a job and a better life?

We are the people who allow a Tory-Lib Dem Government in London to impose savage cuts to public spending, despite the fact we didn’t vote for them. We are the people who believed the SNP when they said they would stand up to London and would protect us: they knew they didn’t have the powers to do that, and their pro-capitalist policies mean that, even with independence, an SNP Government would still cut public funding and services, rather than introducing a progressive taxation system where everyone paid their fair share.

It’s time we stopped blaming young people for being unemployed. It’s time we acknowledged that it is us who have created the situation where teenagers and young adults in North Ayrshire look at the future without any real hope of a better life.

Where will the young of North Ayrshire be in ten-years? If we don’t radically change our society in Scotland, those who can get out will do so, and the rest of us will be left to struggle on meagre pensions in a country that doesn’t care about its people.

It doesn’t have to be like that, though. In a democracy we can radically change society, we only have to vote for it. We have to vote so that Scotland re-takes its independence, meaning that never again will we have a Tory Government imposed on us by the electorate of another country, and we need to vote for a socialist agenda that puts people before profit. Otherwise, don’t expect life to get any better for the young people of North Ayrshire.

David Cameron's 'big ideas'

2011-08-15T15:35:00.000+01:00

Prime Minister David Cameron has outlined his ‘big ideas’ for reforming society, so that there is no repeat of last week’s riots. His plan is to introduce compulsory ‘national service’ for all 16 year-olds, and to stop benefits and remove tenancies from anyone convicted of ‘anti-social’ crimes.

The ‘national service’ is to be non-military, and would involve all 16 year-olds having to attend three-week courses in abseiling, canoeing or some other ‘outdoor activity’. The teenagers would also be expected to take part in a ‘community project’. So, in reality, Britain’s young people are to be forced onto outward-bound schemes, and are then to work, for no pay, on tasks that otherwise would be done by workers receiving a wage.

What is to happen if a 16 year-old decides canoeing or hanging-off a rope somewhere is not for them, or what if a teenager understandably objects to being forced to work for nothing? Will there be sanctions? Will parents be punished if their 16 year-olds – adults in the eyes of the law – decide not to take part in Cameron’s jolly wheeze?

Where are the qualified and vetted instructors going to come from in sufficient numbers to provide outward-bound courses for every 16 year-old in Britain? Where will these courses be run? How much will taxpayers have to fork-out to pay for them?

This is the big idea of the man who is running our country. Seriously?

Notwithstanding the fact that Cameron’s scheme does not take account of the very different circumstances of each 16 year-old in Britain, there is the small matter of how abseiling or canoeing is supposed to stop disadvantaged and marginalised teenagers from reacting angrily to the reality imposed on them by distant and out-of-touch politicians.

Then there is the plan to stop offenders’ Social Security benefits, and to terminate the tenancies of anyone who has a family member convicted of an ‘anti-social’ crime. Are we really being asked to believe that the prime minister of this country thinks putting people out on the street with no money will transform them, and their families, into model citizens?

The problems that have created so-called ‘feral’ youths and marginalised communities started under the Tory Government of Margaret Thatcher. They continued under New Labour – the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown oversaw a rapid expansion of the gap between the rich and the poor in Britain – and are getting worse under the present UK administration. For 32 years successive British Governments have considered ordinary working class men and women to be expendable. When young people see no jobs, no opportunities and no hope of a better life, is it any wonder they are angry? Is it any wonder they react against ‘the establishment’, the politicians and the ruling elite who have created a society that has designated them as worthless?

Removing Benefits and throwing entire families onto the street will only make things worse. Compulsory outward-bound courses and forcing teenagers to work for nothing will benefit very few, other than the private companies running the courses and ‘community projects’.

If we want to create a society where everyone adheres to the laid-down social ‘norms’, then we need to allow everyone to live a ‘normal’ life. Living a normal life means having a job, being able to support yourself and your family, knowing the dignity of work, having a pride in your community and your part of it. Living a normal life for our young people should be seeing opportunity ahead, knowing they are a valued and respected member of the community and of society – but that is not the life Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and Clegg have created for our teenagers and young adults.

Only when we put people before profit, only when we structure society to meet the needs of ordinary men and women rather than the profit-driven interests of multi-national corporations, will we get back to a national situation where everyone is valued, where no-one is written-off and marginalised, and where no-one feels so alienated they believe they have to riot to get their voices heard.

SNP MSP's homophobic views

2011-08-14T16:36:00.000+01:00

It’s been a while since I had any contact with grass roots members of the SNP, but I don’t think the composition of the party will have changed all that much.

Yes, of course, membership has gone up as the party’s fortunes have soared – there are always people who only want to support the winning team – and that can mean new members who might not totally agree with the party’s policies, as determined by National Conference and National Council.

That dislocation of certain members with the party nationally appears also to be affecting the SNP Parliamentary Group at Holyrood. Immediately after the Scottish Parliament Election last May, where the SNP won a majority of seats, I cautioned friends who are still party members to be wary of some new MSPs. When a party sees its parliamentary intake increase as dramatically as the SNP’s did, it is always going to prove difficult to control – and political parties in parliament must exert some degree of control over members in order to function as a group.

The SNP’s success last May meant candidates who were not meant to get elected found themselves as MSPs. There are SNP MSPs whom few in the party had heard of before the election: there are some who have not been in the party all that long. With such a large group, and a significant number of inexperienced members, there was always the potential for MSPs expressing opinions that do not reflect party policy or even the general feeling of members.

Although the SNP still styles itself as a ‘moderate left-of-centre’ party, there are a considerable number of members who hold right-wing views. Some of those members are now MSPs. One such individual appears to be Bill Walker, the man who snatched the previously rock-solid Labour constituency of Dunfermline – securing a majority of just 630 over Gordon Brown’s former Election Agent.

Mr Walker supported a recent Parliamentary Motion tabled by John Mason, the new SNP MSP for Shettleston, which voiced the opinion that no-one should be “forced to be involved in or approve of” same-sex marriages. Following this, every SNP MSP was contacted by a pro-independence equalities campaigner, who asked them to support gay and lesbian Scots. Bill Walker responded to the campaigner in an e-mail containing just one word – “Rubbish!”

Mr Walker then branded the equalities group’s logo as “ludicrous” – it shows the word ‘homophobia’ with ‘X’ through it – and told the Sunday Herald newspaper it had reminded him of “pre-war Nazi-type stuff”. The MSP then outlined his belief that relationships between two men or two women were “just not the same” as those between a man and a woman.

There is no way to describe the views of Bill Walker other than homophobia. Rightly, the SNP leadership has required him to withdraw his remarks, which simply means he won’t repeat them in public, but the likelihood is that he still holds them.

While Mr Walker’s comments and opinions may be out of step with those held by the party leadership, and almost certainly most members, the SNP can’t legitimately call itself “Scotland’s Party” when it has elected MSPs who hold homophobic views and who consider gay and lesbian Scots as less equal than others.

Riots

2011-08-13T11:01:00.000+01:00

The scenes of rioting in the past week, firstly in London and then across other major cities in England, will have shocked many. At first glance there appears no legitimate reason for such destruction to property, with associated violence and theft, but many of those responsible feel their actions are justified.

So, how can that be: what possible justification can be made for the lawlessness we have all seen on nightly news bulletins? Actually, there is no justification, but if we fail to understand why some individuals firmly believe their actions are legitimate, then we will continue to produce a level of society that sees rioting as a valid expression of its anger.

Recently I took part in a discussion about poverty. One of those also taking part was a journalist from the BBC and, nice man though he was, his input starkly illustrated how out of touch with reality he, and so many others, remain. In well-paid, full-time employment, the man from the BBC thought living on benefits meant ‘tightening your belt’ and ‘having to go without some of life’s luxuries’. The discussion took place at West Kilbride public hall and I invited the BBC journalist to go with me to Asda in Ardrossan, where he would see a queue at the ‘marked down’ section, with people desperately trying to snap-up items reduced in price because they were about to pass their ‘sell by’ date.

Living on benefits doesn’t mean ‘tightening your belt’, it means not being able to afford a belt. Living on benefits doesn’t mean ‘having to go without life’s luxuries’, it means having to go without food. Living on benefits means not being able to buy shoes; it means hoping the washing machine doesn’t pack-in; it means not being able to afford clothes – even Primark’s low-cost range; it means eating until the money runs out and then living on whatever food is left and hoping it will see you through to the next benefit payment. Living on benefits is an existence, not a life.

When you are on benefits the only way to buy high-cost items, like televisions, washing machines, cookers, laptops and mobile phones, is by borrowing money – and the only people that will lend you money are those that charge the highest interest. If you are on benefits, banks won’t even consider offering you a loan, so you have to turn to those who will, such as Wonga.com with its APR rate of over 4000-percent, club books where prices are two and three-times those of shops, and illegal money-lenders, where interest rates are sky-high and failure to make a repayment brings a little more than an angry letter in the post.

Living on benefits means living in poverty, and living in poverty places you on the margins of society. On the margins you become isolated and totally disenfranchised. You cannot take part in ‘normal’ social activities. Going for a social drink is out of the question; the cinema is way beyond your reach; running a car, no chance; going to the football, even a Junior game with an entrance fee of £4.00 is beyond your reach. Then there are the necessities: new clothes for kids going back to school; paying gas and electricity bills; trying to give children nutritious meals – all to be achieved from benefits that can be as low as less than £10.00 per day.

Of course, anyone ‘feckless’ enough to be unemployed should just get off their lazy backsides and get a job, shouldn’t they? In North Ayrshire, at the last official count, there were 27 Jobseekers for every vacancy, and that doesn’t take into account the skilled nature of some of the vacancies. It doesn’t take very long on the buroo to eat into someone’s self-confidence: see how worthless and isolated you feel when job application after job application is unsuccessful, and when prospective employers don’t even deem you worthy of a reply.

With your hopes and aspirations smashed, with the knowledge that you are a failure for not being able to support yourself and your family; with no money; little food; holes in your shoes; and no positive role in society, how do you get your voice heard?

One of the criticisms levelled at rioters in English cities is that they are smashing-up their own communities, but that is not the case. The areas being attacked are town centres and shops – parts of towns that the dispossessed rarely visit. Looters are helping themselves to the things ‘normal’ people buy from shops but they, as sub-normal, can’t afford. The rioting is an expression of the anger felt by those our society has placed on the margins.

London, where the rioting started, has an additional racial element. A young black man in London is seven-times more likely to be subjected to ‘stop and search’ by the Metropolitan Police than a white man of the same age. Compound the anger of being placed on the margins with the belief that you are being targeted by those who police the society that has discarded you, and a volatile mix is created, just waiting to be ignited. Last week’s shooting-dead of Mark Duggin by police officers in Tottenham was the spark that lit the flame.

The immediate reaction of politicians has been to call for tough action against those who have rioted: water-cannons, plastic bullets and long jail sentences are just some of the initial proposals, but none of the highly-paid MPs and Government ministers has stopped to question what lies behind people taking to the streets and violently expressing their anger. Put quite simply, happy people don’t riot, and the reason so many people are extremely angry is because of the society created by politicians.

The young men and women who have rioted over the past week did not create their own unemployment, they did not put in place the capitalist economic system that has all-but bankrupted the Western world; they did not create the consumer society, where credit has financed purchases of ‘must have’ high-cost items; they did not build sub-standard housing; they did not waste billions of pounds on unusable nuclear missiles and on illegal foreign wars; they did not create a society of the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’; they did not allow the marginalisation of entire communities. These things are the result of policies put in place and carried out by politicians.

No-one should attempt to justify violent disorder and lawlessness, but we do need to understand why people are angry, and why they feel that rioting is the only expression of anger to which politicians take any note. Sadly, rather than addressing the issues that have created the anger, politicians seem intent on cracking-down even further on society’s marginalised communities, thereby making the problem even worse.

Fascists hounded out of North Ayrshire

2011-07-31T19:11:00.001+01:00

For the previous week the knuckle-draggers of the Scottish Defence League (SDL) had been posting their perverted, bigoted bile on far-right web sites, promising to descend on Irvine. The date for the SDL ‘protest’ in North Ayrshire was last Saturday (July 30) and, on the day, around 40 intellectual and social inadequates managed to find their way to the Bridgegate, outside the shopping mall in Irvine.

Once there, the small group attempted to hand out their leaflets of hate, but few of the North Ayrshire public wanted anything to do with them. In fact, as he refused a leaflet , one Irvine man loudly said, “If that’s the master race, God help us!”

The SDL claims to be defending Scotland from Islam - they apparently believe we are in danger of sleepwalking into an Islamist State governed by Sharia law – and they target their hate-filled campaigns at areas of high unemployment and poverty, hoping to persuade locals that their fate is the fault of some all-powerful Islamist conspiracy, rather than because of the capitalist economic policies pursued by successive British governments.

The SDL is an offshoot of the English Defence League, and both populate the far-right of the political spectrum – they even hate the British National Party (BNP) for being too ‘namby-pamby’.

Put quite simply, these people are fascists. They are racists, bigots and too stupid to understand why ordinary, decent human-beings find them totally repulsive.

In Irvine, the SDL was outnumbered by three-times as many anti-racism protestors, and by officers from Strathclyde Police. Then, after being shunned by the people of North Ayrshire, the right-wing troglodytes scuttled away, back to their hate-filled, inadequate wee lives.

They can now add North Ayrshire to the areas of Scotland that have rejected them and their perverted message.

Funding local government

2011-07-23T15:01:00.000+01:00

The Poll Tax was ended because ordinary people would not tolerate its unfairness.

It speaks volumes about the Tories that they considered it a ‘principle’ that ‘we all receive the same local services, so we should all pay the same for them’, which was how they attempted to justify the flat-rate system of the Community Charge, to give the tax its proper name.

Tories believed – and probably still believe – that a Lord in his mansion should pay no more towards the provision of local government services than the amount also paid by his butler or gardener. The fact ordinary workers were paying a much larger percentage of their disposable income was acceptable to the Tories.

However, ordinary people saw through Tory propaganda: it was clear the Poll Tax did not take into account a person’s ability to pay, and was, therefore, unfair. The greater burden of local taxation had been transferred to those who could least afford to pay, which prompted protests, direct action and, eventually, riots.

Opponents of the Tories in ‘mainstream’ political parties still claim they brought down the Poll Tax but, in reality, it was the power of ordinary people that secured its demise.

To be fair, some parties did play a role in making the Poll Tax unworkable – for example, the SNP was at the forefront of the “Can Pay, Won’t Pay” campaign in North Ayrshire, where some activists put themselves between ordinary people and the Sheriff Officers sent out by the local Labour-controlled council to collect the Tory tax.

For those SNP activists, defending the poorest members of local communities wasn’t just a theory, they put it into practice by physically preventing Sheriff Officers from gaining access to people’s homes in order to carry out a poinding – the action where household items were sold-off, at rock-bottom prices, to raise a few pounds towards a person’s Poll Tax arrears.

Of course, that was in the days when the SNP was still a left-of-centre political party. None of the SNP activists who took on the Sheriff Officers in North Ayrshire are still members of the party.

Today, the SNP is in government and is the architect of the ‘Council Tax Freeze’, which is portrayed as saving money for ordinary people through there having been no rise, since 2003, in the tax that funds local government services.

On the face of it, the ‘Council Tax Freeze’ appears to do what it says on the tin – Council Tax has been frozen – and the policy is seen as a vote winner, which is why the Labour Party abandoned its own position and adopted the ‘Freeze’ ahead of last May’s Scottish Parliament Election. However, there is more to the SNP flagship policy than meets the eye.

It’s certainly true that individual households have ‘saved’ money, on the assumption that councils would have raised Council Tax levels each year since 2003, but those savings have to be seen against local authorities having less money with which to provide the services we all use. The SNP Government has provided councils with additional funding to ‘compensate’ for revenue lost by local government being unable to increase the Council Tax, but the amount provided does not take into account the specific needs and spending requirements of particular areas. So, notional savings can be more than wiped-out by councils having to cut services and staff numbers, which impact on all of us.

Another issue with the SNP’s ‘Council Tax Freeze’ is the way in which it diminishes the ability of individual councils to raise as much revenue as they require to deliver services in their areas, and to account to the public for those actions. What we have with the ‘Freeze’ is central government telling local government how to run its budgets, and essentially bribing council administrations into keeping down Council Tax levels.

The reality is that the ‘Council Tax Freeze’ cannot go on for ever. We cannot expect to be paying 2003-levels of tax and yet receive local government services that meet our 2011 needs. Given a free-hand, most council administrations, of whatever political complexion, would raise the Council Tax. They would take that action, not because they want to hit the public for more money, but because without increased funding, councils’ failure to meet our expectations will continue. Councillors, like politicians at every level, need to be able to make their own decisions and fund their policies: they also have to be wholly responsible for their actions, and face the public at the ballot box on that basis.

However, the SNP’s success in presenting the ‘Council Tax Freeze’ as a good thing hides another significant problem – the fact that the tax is also unfair.

The Council Tax was the Thatcher Government’s compromise, introduced when their first choice, the Poll Tax, was discredited and finally defeated. The Poll Tax itself had replaced the ‘rates’, a system where the amount you paid in local taxation depended on the rateable value of your property. Under the rates, the differential between the highest and lowest bills was 14 to 1: under the Council Tax it’s just 3 to 1. This cap on payments made by the richest members of communities has recently seen multi-millionaire banker Sir Fred Goodwin pay £2,338 in Council Tax for his Edinburgh mansion, while a registered nurse living in a council house paid £1,160. The nurse, as a percentage of her income, paid 120-times more than Goodwin.

For a tax to be fair it has to take into account a person’s ability to pay. One such system is the Scottish Service Tax proposed by the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP).

Under the Scottish Service Tax, and using the UK Government’s latest full-year financial figures, the Scottish Government would be able to raise an additional £1.5-billion a year. This could be achieved by utilising the tax’s sliding-scale of payments, which the SSP has set-out at:

Under £10,000 – zero

£10,000 - £30,000 – 4.5%

£30,000 - £50,000 – 10%

£50,000 - £75,000 – 15%

£70,000 - £100,000 – 18%

Over £100,000 – 20%.

As an example of how this would work, someone earning £25,000 would pay an annual Scottish Service Tax bill of £675 – the first £10,000 of their income would be exempt, and the remainder would be taxed at 4.5-percent.

No-one likes paying tax, but it is through this system that we fund the services we all want and need. Therefore, if local government is to meet our requirements, we need to abandon the falsehood that freezing the Council Tax is ‘saving’ us money – ultimately it is costing us more. However, we must also ensure fairness is introduced to the funding of local government , by changing to a system that factors-in a person’s ability to pay, and ensures the wealthiest in local communities pay their dues in full.

How we can really tackle Scotland's spiralling fuel poverty

2011-07-09T19:29:00.000+01:00

Scotland is an energy-rich country. We are the European Union’s biggest producer of oil, yet latest informed projections estimate as many as one-million Scottish households will be living in fuel poverty in the near future.

Already, hundreds-of-thousands of Scots struggle to pay gas and electricity bills, and that’s before the latest disgraceful price rises take effect. The two biggest retail suppliers, Scottish Power and British Gas, have hiked their charges by 19% and 18% respectively for Gas, and by 10% and 16% for electricity.

The companies say this is necessary because the wholesale price has risen, that’s the price they pay on the global market – but none of them lowered their prices when the wholesale cost of fuel dropped. They kept their charges high, fleeced their customers and pocketed massive profits.

It’s also a misrepresentation for power companies to suggest wholesale costs are rising. In fact, the current price on the global market is a third lower than it was in 2008.

An independent Scotland would be able to generate sufficient energy to ensure costs were driven down to affordable levels, which would allow Scots to keep warm through our harsh Scottish winters – but that could only happen if we elect a government committed to taking the power companies back into public ownership.

That’s not SNP policy, and even if Alex Salmond secured Scotland’s independence, he would leave our nation’s households at the mercy of mainly foreign-owned power companies, all of whom exist, not to meet the fuel needs of Scotland, but to maximise profits for their shareholders.

Only the Scottish Socialist Party puts people before profit, and only the SSP is committed to renationalising the power companies.

All the so-called ‘mainstream’ political parties – SNP, Labour, Tory, Liberal Democrats – are now on the right of the political spectrum, embracing the free-market Capitalist system that has brought world economies to the brink of bankruptcy. It’s just the SSP that’s over there on the left, with the people of Scotland.

The Capitalist parties will do nothing to reign-in the power company profiteers, with the result that more and more Scots will have to choose between heating and eating when winter comes back around. The SSP, however, will renationalise the power companies, so that they are once again owned by the people, generating and supplying energy to meet the needs of the people, at prices the people can afford.

In the meantime, the Scottish Socialist Party demands that the UK Government steps-in and immediately caps gas and electricity prices, and we demand power companies are prosecuted if they are found guilty of profiteering.

As for the SNP Government’s pledge to eradicate fuel poverty in Scotland by 2014...well, that looks like another broken promise.

News of the World

2011-07-09T13:13:00.000+01:00

The News of the World died as it had lived....destroying people’s lives.

As a member of the National Union of Journalists, I’m appalled that so many reporters and newspaper production staff have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. It was not rank-and-file Journalists or sub-editors or printers who hacked into people’s phones, including those of murder victims and members of their immediate family. The senior editors and executives who sanctioned such heinous acts are still in their jobs, but around 400 dedicated staff members have been given their P45s, without consultation or just cause.

Rupert Murdoch, the arch-Capitalist who runs News Corporation, the News of the World’s parent company, took the decision to close the tabloid newspaper because of the general public’s reaction to how its bosses had behaved. People were shocked and angry. Businesses pulled their advertising. Murdoch looked at the situation and decided to close down the News of the World before it affected other parts of his global news corporation. The action had nothing to do with any contrition or feeling of having done wrong by Rupert Murdoch and his senior managers: the motivation was financial. Murdoch wanted to safeguard his profit margins, and staff members who had nothing to do with the scandal that engulfed the News of the World were considered to be expendable and paid with their jobs.

Already there is speculation that Murdoch saw an opportunity to reduce staff numbers and production costs by closing the News of the World and rescheduling working-time rotas at the Sun, moving that paper to seven-day publishing and introducing a ‘Sun on Sunday’ to replace the News of the World. It would seem that, when you are a money-grabbing Capitalist rogue like Rupert Murdoch, even dark clouds cast by your company being caught hacking into the phones of murdered schoolgirls and dead soldiers can have a financial silver lining.

Of course, I’m biased in this matter. I’m a Journalist and a socialist. I stand on the side of ethical journalism. I stand on the side of the people’s right to know and of full disclosure.

Readers have to be able to trust a newspaper’s content and know that reporters have secured information on a legitimate basis.

However, the News of the World appears to think ethics is a county in England. Along with its sister title - the Sun - the News of the World was most responsible for the low esteem in which tabloid journalists are held by much of the public. Yet even those who already despised the newspaper and its gutter content must have been shocked at the latest revelations regarding the phone-hacking scandal.

What started as a run-of-the-mill story about a private investigator working for the News of the World and listening into the voicemail messages of Z-list celebrities and wannabes, suddenly became extremely serious. Allegations that News of the World bosses sanctioned the hacking of mobile phones belonging to murder victims and their immediate families took the paper to new, previously unimaginable depths.

It’s also been common knowledge that certain newspapers will pay for a story, but disclosure that the News of the World broke the law by paying serving police officers for information about live investigations raised issues of corruption at the heart of an organisation the public must be able to trust. The demise of the News of the World leaves unanswered questions, such as, who was calling the shots in these investigations, and to which paymaster were police officers answering?

In addition to the latest revelations, the News of the World had a long history of what it liked to call ‘stings’, where covert recordings were made of celebrities or public figures making unguarded or tactless comments. Another word for what the paper did is entrapment.

Meanwhile, at the time of writing, it was being speculated that the former editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson – who was subsequently head of the prime minister’s press office – might be facing arrest. Certainly, evidence now exists that suggests Coulson perjured himself at the Tommy Sheridan perjury trial. It would seem Mr Coulson doesn’t do irony.

When asked by Tommy Sheridan if the News of the World had ever paid corrupt police officers, Andy Coulson replied, under oath, “Not to my knowledge.” Unfortunately for him, though, the News of the World had apparently retained copies of e-mails that record Mr Coulson as the senior official at the newspaper who signed-off payments to individual police officers. Perhaps the former Downing Street spin-doctor will argue he gave an honest answer to Tommy’s question, on the basis that when he authorised the payments the police were not corrupt, but they were when they pocketed the paper’s money.

Journalists need to cultivate sources, and must be prepared to protect those who speak-out and reveal issues that are of public interest. However, there is a world of difference between legitimate sources providing information to substantiate a story, and what the News of the World did – which apparently included manufacturing stories, corrupting officials, illegally intercepting personal phone messages and even possibly misleading investigating police officers and grieving parents. Nothing can condone or legitimise the News of the World’s actions, and Murdoch’s decision to sack the workers, while retaining the bosses behind the phone hacking and bribing of police, simply compounds the disgrace.

Few will mourn the passing of the News of the World – but the wrong people are paying the price of Rupert Murdoch’s greed and the malicious and unforgivable behaviour of his senior executives.

Scots need the SSP

2011-06-30T11:22:00.001+01:00

The reaction of so-called ‘mainstream’ politicians to strike action taken by public sector workers shows why it is vitally important the Scottish Socialist Party puts behind it the devastation of the past few years and rebuilds a strong political organisation that puts people before profit and supports the interests of ordinary men and women in Scotland.

Only the SSP has supported the workers as they attempt to defend themselves – and us – from the savage austerity measures being imposed by the Tory-Lib Dem Government in London. The main reason public sector employees have withdrawn their labour is to protest against government measures that will force them to work longer, pay more in pension contributions but receive less when they finally do retire. Of course, the politicians imposing this new deal would not accept a reduction in their own pension entitlement, nor would it be accepted by the bankers and financial speculators who caused the global collapse of capitalism.

Tories, and their Lib Dem lapdogs, have condemned the workers, but there is no surprise there. Sadly, the fact Ed Miliband has also spoken out against the workers’ cause is simply one more example of how far to the right of the political spectrum the Labour Party has moved over the last 15 years. For me, though, on a personal level, what causes more sadness is the SNP position.

The Scottish National Party, once a moderate, left-of-centre political party, has also sided with the bosses, the bankers and the London Tory Government. Referring to the withdrawal of labour by public sector workers, SNP Finance Secretary John Swinney said, “Such action will only damage the delivery of public services on which the people of Scotland depend.”

Swinney was always on the right of the SNP, comfortable with the gradual movement of the party towards the centre-ground. However, his statement on the strike betrays his Tory leanings. The independent Scotland favoured by John Swinney, and a number of others in the SNP, would be a pro-capitalist, pro-big business replica of the British State that is prepared to see ordinary men and women forced to pay the price of an economic crash caused, not by them, but by the capitalist system Swinney, Cameron, Clegg and Miliband all enthusiastically support.

Contrary to Swinney’s right-wing stance, the strike by Scottish public sector workers won’t “damage the delivery of public services”, it is being taken to safeguard those services.

Once again we are returned to the position of the early 20^th Century, when workers had no parliamentary representation - a situation that led to the creation of the Labour Party. But that body now exists in name only, having abandoned its principles and its core reason for existence.

Ordinary men and women need a voice in parliament, articulating their needs and aspirations, and defending their position against attacks from the pro-capitalist parties and their millionaire funders. The Scottish Socialist Party can, and must fill that void.

Unionists working together against Scotland

2011-06-26T13:49:00.000+01:00

In May’s Scottish Parliament Election, the Liberal Democrats got what they deserved – next to nothing!

This is the party that eagerly jumped into bed with the Tories and signed-up to the most savage public spending cuts since Thatcher’s attack on ordinary men and women in the 1980s. So keen were the Lib Dems to get their backsides on the backseats of ministerial motors that they happily ditched their principles and policies, including the commitment to not raise student tuition fees in England.

Also, we should not forget that through their coalition deal with the Tories, the Liberal Democrats ensured Scotland would be governed from London by parties that finished third and fourth, in terms of votes cast in Scotland.

Reduced to just five MSPs after May’s election – five too many – the Lib Dems had to seek a new leader in Scotland. They didn’t exactly have a lot to choose from, which probably goes a long way to explaining how someone called Willie Rennie came to replace Tavish Scott.

Willie who? Willie Rennie. He lost his Westminster seat at the 2010 UK Election – having won Dunfermline & West Fife at a by-election in 2006. He then managed to scrape into the Scottish Parliament this year, despite polling just 5.9% in the Mid-Scotland & Fife Regional vote.

Now Mr Rennie has decided he will defend the British Union and has taken it upon himself to ‘warn’ the people of Scotland that, “Because Alex Salmond is crafty, he may well get people over the edge before they know it.”

Apparently, Rennie is talking about independence and the proposed SNP Government referendum on the subject. He, as a British Unionist, is against the Scots being allowed to govern themselves, and makes his position clear in a Sunday Herald interview when he says, “Our vote and the Tory vote are quite against independence.” So, not only are they in bed with the Conservatives in London, the Lib Dems have also now fully signed-up to the Tory’s anti-Scottish agenda and will work with them in attempting to stop Scotland from becoming a normal, independent nation.

Labour MP's 'fascists' attack on the SNP

2011-06-23T11:36:00.002+01:00

As Labour MPs go, Ian Davidson is not the worst. Yes, I know, hardly a ringing endorsement, but it really is incredibly difficult to find anything positive to say about representatives of the Labour Party.

Ian Davidson is one of the few in Labour ranks who can still claim to believe in a left-wing ideology, although being part of the contemporary Labour Party means he has long ago left behind any claims to being a socialist. The Labour Party now sits comfortably to the centre-right of the political spectrum, edging ever closer to the Conservatives, even as that party repositions itself further right, once again embracing the ‘there is no such thing as society’ brand of Thatcherism.

So, with Davidson coming from what remains of the Labour Left, and therefore one of the party’s more intelligent members, it is all the more disappointing that during debate on the Scotland Bill he branded SNP MPs as “neo-fascists”.

The SNP, like the Labour Party, has moved along the political spectrum in a rightward direction over the last twenty-years, but “neo-fascists”? Certainly not!

I can understand where Ian Davidson was going with his thinking – Fascists were notorious for forcibly suppressing opposition – but to equate a despicable strain of right-wing politics with the moderate, centrist SNP, simply because a couple of Nationalist MPs heckled him while he was speaking in the Commons, is entirely wrong and completely unacceptable.

Heckling is part of political debate, and experienced politicians like Ian Davidson should be able to handle it. If he can’t, then maybe it’s time he took early retirement.

New anti-sectarian laws

2011-06-23T11:13:00.003+01:00

The SNP is to be congratulated for acting quickly to introduce further anti-sectarian legislation.

Typically, though, there have been calls from some quarters – including Rangers and Celtic – for the process to be slowed-down. Other bodies, including two Christian organisations, have also claimed there should be more time for debate before tougher laws are introduced.

What’s to debate? Sectarianism is unacceptable and those who sing, shout or even write offensive material should be prosecuted. Of course, it’s true we can’t use legislation to entirely remove entrenched hatreds, born of ignorance, but tougher laws are required to rid our society of those who take their sectarian bile into the public domain.

The SNP Government wants the new laws introduced before the start of the football season, and that is the right timescale. Yes, further debate is needed on the causes of sectarianism in Scotland – including the core issue, the poisonous legacy of England’s historic domination of its neighbours, Ireland and Scotland – but that requirement should not delay implementation of laws to tackle the immediate problems.

The legislation will introduce two new offences on football-related behaviour regarded as offensive and threatening. One deals with disorder inside football grounds, and extends to those travelling to and from stadiums – as well as fans watching games in pubs or on big screens outdoors.

The second offence deals with more serious threats, including those made on the internet, such as posts on sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as fans’ websites.

Both offences will carry a maximum sentence of five years in jail.

No Team GB!

2011-06-22T12:59:00.001+01:00

The announcement from the British Olympic Association (BOA) that it had reached an “historic agreement” with the football associations of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales regarding the fielding of a Great Britain team at next year’s London Olympics was a classic illustration of the problem with a Union of nations where the largest dominates the others.

Britain is not, never has been, and never will be a nation. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a union of nations, just like the EU is a union of nations. Part of the indoctrination Scots have endured over 300 years within the British Union has been the instruction that our nationality is ‘British’. It isn’t! We belong to the nation of Scotland, which means our nationality is ‘Scottish’. Saying your nationality is British is as daft as claiming you belong to a nation called Europe and your nationality is ‘European’.

The BOA’s “historic agreement” also came as a shock to the football associations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, all of whom immediately issued press statements making clear they had reached no such agreement. In fact, the three associations have consistently stated they would have nothing to do with a Great Britain football team at the Olympics. The reality was that the British Olympic Association had decided to overrule them and attempted to bounce them into allowing Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh footballers to play as Great Britain.

Football is one of the areas where Scotland is recognised as a nation. However, FIFA, world football’s governing body, has a number of members who resent the fact that Britain is allowed four separate ‘national’ teams. A number of FIFA delegate countries have made clear their belief that if Britain is a nation, then it should have only one national football team.

The action of the football associations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, in not taking part in a Great Britain team, is to safeguard the footballing independence of each nation.

So, what is the answer? It certainly isn’t to allow Scots to play football for a fabricated, pretendy nation called Britain. Scotland is recognised as an independent nation in terms of international football, we should have the same status in terms of Olympic participation.

Team Scotland for the Olympics!

Downfall: The Tommy Sheridan Story

2011-06-21T18:04:00.001+01:00

Between 1998 and 2004 the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) went from little more than a left-wing protest movement to Europe’s most successful socialist political party.

Building from one MSP elected in 1999 – just a year after the party was formed – the SSP surged into Holyrood in 2003 with six members, having received the support of over 150,000 people at the ballot box.

To many of the general public the SSP was Tommy Sheridan, the party’s charismatic convener, but the reality was five other extremely hard-working MSPs, their equally committed staff and thousands of party members the length and breadth of Scotland. Tommy was undoubtedly the high-profile frontman of the cause, but the SSP’s success was built on foundations created by so many other members who worked in the background, away from the limelight.

In reality, though, Tommy Sheridan’s impact on the SSP and on the public perception of the party was such that, were he to fall, the resultant crash would be of sufficient strength to severely weaken even the strongest foundations.

Of course, Tommy did fall, in spectacular fashion, and the resultant damage to the SSP was almost fatal.

Much has been written about the ‘Sheridan trials’ – first when Tommy sued the News of the World, then when he was prosecuted for perjury arising from the first trial – and most people will have formed an opinion as to who was right and who was wrong. Was Tommy right to take on the News of the World and the Murdoch empire over their salacious stories about his private life? Were members of the SSP leadership right to refuse to lie in court? Ultimately, who was responsible for actions that seriously damaged the cause of socialism?

One man who was at the centre of the devastation that befell the SSP in 2004 was Alan McCombes, a friend and political ally of Tommy Sheridan for twenty-years and formerly the party’s national policy and press co-ordinator. In ‘Downfall: The Tommy Sheridan Story’, Alan McCombes sets out in detail what happened at SSP meetings and describes the two trials and their impact on those involved and on the socialist movement in Scotland. It’s a fascinating story.

I was an MSP through much of the time described in ‘Downfall’ and was relatively close to SSP MSPs on both sides of the divide that emerged in the party. I, too, had formed opinions about what happened, but Alan McCombes’ book reveals just how little I actually knew.

It’s well worth a read.

Downfall: The Tommy Sheridan Story

Alan McCombes

Birlinn

ISBN:9781841587592

A modern democratic Scotland

2011-06-21T16:10:00.000+01:00

This may be jumping the gun just a wee bit - given that we have yet to negotiate the Indpendence Referendum and a campaign that will see the British State unleash every dirty trick in the book to keep control of our country’s resources - but we really should start thinking about the kind of Scotland we want to see after we have retaken our independence.

Independence is the normal status for a nation. It will give Scots the power and the right to govern our country in our interests, and not before time. For over three-hundred years we have been a very subordinate partner in a British Union that removed power from Scotland and handed it to a ruling elite in London. Don’t be taken-in by the facade of democracy that allows us to vote for Members of the British Parliament – the so-called United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is run by, and operated in the interests of the British Establishment, at the head of which sits the English monarch. No amount of devolution will change that fact.

Within the current constitutional settlement we have a devolved parliament in Edinburgh, but that legislative body is entirely subservient to both the British/English parliament in London and the English monarch, Queen Elizabeth II (she’s the first Elizabeth Scotland’s ever had, so how come she’s Elizabeth II). Every Member of the Scottish Parliament – democratically-elected by the people of Scotland – must swear allegiance to “Her Majesty the Queen, her heirs and successors” before they are allowed to take their seats. Should any MSP decline to take such an oath, they would not be allowed to sit in the Scottish Parliament. So much for a modern democracy!

Once we retake our independence and the right to govern ourselves, we really should drag Scotland into the 21^st Century. In a modern democracy there can be no place for unelected heads of state who live opulent and privileged lifestyles, paid for from the taxes of men and women, many of whom struggle to survive from day to day. Today, if anyone tried to sell that idea from scratch, they would be told in no uncertain terms where to go. Can you imagine: “Right, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll pick this one family and we’ll all chip-in so they can live in a palace, maybe even two or three palaces. Then we’ll give them an income that makes them amongst the richest people in the world, so they will never have to worry about a bill or how their children will be looked after.” Aye, right!

In an independent Scotland we also need to put in place a social and political structure that prevents unscrupulous capitalists from gaining control of the nation’s economy – they would only bankrupt us again. Take a look at history: the current collapse of capitalism is far from being the first. Every time the capitalist system has crashed, ordinary working men and women have had to bail them out. The lesson we should take into our modern Scottish democracy is that capitalism doesn’t work.

So, we definitely need to take control of our own country, and to do that we need to vote for independence when the SNP Government gives us the chance in its Referendum, probably around 2014. But, when the dawn breaks on Independence Day, let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past. There is no point in establishing an independent Scotland just to build a Scottish version of the failed British model.

Our modern, democratic Scotland should be a fair and equitable society that puts people before profit. Our new country for the 21^st Century should be a democratic Scottish, socialist republic.