The forgotten creed
We apologise if the results of our twin social-attitudes polls of both Scotland and the rUK have been a little depressing so far, readers.
Depending on how you choose to look at things (and where you live), this next tranche of data is going to either cheer you up a little bit or make you feel even worse.
Because in this post we’re going to talk about some of the more directly political questions we asked, and as both we and the majority of you inhabit the left-hand side of the spectrum, the findings are a bit more encouraging, at least on one level. The sting in the tail will probably become clear as we go along.
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ENERGY COMPANIES SHOULD BE NATIONALISED
Scotland
Agree: 50%
Disagree: 22%
Net agreement: 28
rUK
Agree: 52%
Disagree: 23%
Net agreement: 29
Scotland/rUK gap: 1 point
By a 2:1 margin, the people of every part of the UK want to see electricity and gas providers in public hands. Voters of every party on both sides of the border – with the exceptions of Scottish Conservatives and, weirdly, Scottish Lib Dems – agreed with the proposition convincingly, mostly by margins of 40+ points.
Young and old, middle class and working class, men and women – all want a return to the state ownership of the 1970s and 1980s. There’s nothing much else to be said about it. Britain has spoken.
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THE RAILWAYS SHOULD BE RE-NATIONALISED
Scotland
Agree: 56%
Disagree: 19%
Net agreement: 37
rUK
Agree: 56%
Disagree: 18%
Net agreement: 38
Scotland/rUK gap: 1 point
And an even more emphatic call for trains. Who’d ever have thought there’d come a day when British Rail was once again beloved of the people? This time support was even more universal, with not even the Scottish Tories or Scottish Lib Dems objecting. (In fairness the Scottish Tories were tied at 43-43, quite a distance to the right of their rUK counterparts who backed renationalisation by a resounding 48-29.)
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THE UK ELECTORAL SYSTEM SHOULD BE REFORMED TO DELIVER MORE PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
Scotland
Agree: 61%
Disagree: 15%
Net agreement: 46
rUK
Agree: 57%
Disagree: 18%
Net agreement: 39
Scotland/rUK gap: 7 points
The entire nation seems comprehensively tired of the two-party system inevitably produced by First Past The Post. Backing for a change was absolutely across the board here – the SMALLEST margin of support was +18 (rUK Conservative voters), the largest a colossal +65 (Scottish Lib Dems).
Even voters from the parties who gain the most from FPTP unequivocally wanted it replaced with something more fairly reflecting votes cast. And yet again there were no appreciable differences between age, gender or class demographic groups.
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WE SHOULD BUILD MORE WINDFARMS
Scotland
Agree: 57%
Disagree: 27%
Net agreement: 30
rUK
Agree: 60%
Disagree: 22%
Net agreement: 38
Scotland/rUK gap: 8 points
WE SHOULD BUILD MORE NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS
Scotland
Agree: 26%
Disagree: 52%
Net agreement: -26
rUK
Agree: 29%
Disagree: 43%
Net agreement: -14
Scotland/rUK gap: 12 points
Encouraging news for Greens, there. The people of the UK want more clean, renewable energy and less dangerous, dirty nuclear power. There’s more dissent than on our other questions – Tories in both Scotland and the rUK back new nuclear and Scottish ones oppose windfarms, but there’s still a sizeable overall consensus on both issues.
(Even when we loaded the questions to tempt NIMBYs, by asking if people would be prepared to have the windfarms within sight of their own homes and the nuclear stations within 20 miles, the numbers didn’t change all that much. Net windfarm support rather surprisingly went UP in Scotland – from +30 to +33, though it dropped eight points to +30 in the rUK – and net opposition to nuclear went up slightly to -32 in Scotland and more dramatically in the rUK, more than doubling to -29.)
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PRIVATE SCHOOLS SHOULD CONTINUE TO BE TREATED AS CHARITIES FOR TAX PURPOSES
Scotland
Agree: 12%
Disagree: 70%
Net agreement: -58
rUK
Agree: 16%
Disagree: 62%
Net agreement: -46
Scotland/rUK gap: 12 points
This time, opposition to the proposition was absolutely steadfast. Not a single group supported the massive tax breaks given to elite schools – the only demographic that even came close was Scottish Tory voters, where the margin was only -9 (38-47).
Everyone else wanted the concessions ended, even well-off ABC1 voters, who opposed charitable status by an “average” of -44 across the whole UK.
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THE MINIMUM WAGE (£6.50/hr) SHOULD BE INCREASED TO THE LIVING WAGE (£7.85/hr, or £9.15/hr in London)
Scotland
Agree: 84%
Disagree: 9%
Net agreement: 75
rUK
Agree: 86%
Disagree: 8%
Net agreement: 78
Scotland/rUK gap: 3 points
And finally a complete landslide. It’s no surprise that people tend to vote for wage increases for themselves, of course – but again, even Conservative voters backed a policy supposedly in conflict with their free-market ideology, and this time in huge numbers: +57 in Scotland (75-18) and +60 in the rUK.
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THE NHS SHOULD ONLY BE FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN’T AFFORD TO PAY FOR THEIR OWN MEDICAL CARE
Scotland
Agree: 16%
Disagree: 77%
Net agreement: -61
rUK
Agree: 16%
Disagree: 77%
Net agreement: -61
Scotland/rUK gap: 0 points
The only question we asked in which there was NO difference between opinion in Scotland and the rUK, not just in terms of the net score but right down to the exact component numbers. Without exception, the people of the United Kingdom want their NHS left the hell alone by idiot meddling politicians.
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The findings above represent a tidal wave of public support for political ideas that are in most cases broadly or unambiguously socialist. Labour politicians ought to be rubbing their hands in glee and preparing to be swept back into power.
Except, of course, that Labour doesn’t stand for any of them.
It proposes a pitiful increase in the minimum wage that’ll be extremely lucky if it keeps pace with the cost of living. It makes vague, unspecified pledges to do something about energy companies and railways, fiddling around the edges a million miles short of renationalisation. It doggedly advocates nuclear power and spent the entire referendum campaign rubbishing Scotland’s boundless renewables potential. It has no plans to do anything about the massive taxpayer subsidy of education for the privileged, and is terrified of electoral reform.
Time and time again in this poll, we find the public at odds with politicians. Policies backed by clear majorities of the electorate across party and social boundaries find no champions at the ballot box. There is nobody – certainly in the rUK – that people can vote for to pursue these goals with any hope of success. An entire nation has been disenfranchised, left with only a sham of democratic choice.
The people of the UK remain essentially economically socialist. (As we saw with the crime questions, they’re still pretty socially conservative.) The same applies only more so in Scotland, though mostly by fairly modest margins.
The perception that the difference is greater than it really is arises, we suspect, because social democracy is still a part of Scottish political debate in a way it isn’t in the rest of the UK. Put simply, in Scotland the SNP and Labour compete with each other to be seen as the most left-wing, while south of the border the main parties have been engaged in a 20-year race to the right in search of the votes of Middle England and more recently UKIP Man.
We can see no end in sight for this exceptionally troubling phenomenon south of Carlisle. A hugely right-wing media combined with the straitjacket of FPTP will ensure the continued rightward drift of Westminster politics for the discernible future. Almost half of Scotland, though, is still determinedly eyeing an exit door that’s tantalisingly in sight, but which it didn’t quite manage to grab in September 2014.
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*Our poll sampled 1007 respondents in Scotland and 1031 across the rest of the UK. Fieldwork 9-14 Jan 2015. Full data tables will be available on the Panelbase website.
I wonder how long before some of the conclusions from this poll start to be embroidered into Jim Murphy’s photo-ops, sound bites, interviews, meaningless declarations and policy whatabootery?
That parvenu would say anything, do anything, to get closer to the throne of his birthright.
I think there is a very special one waiting for him, made by Shanks.
Encouraging stuff.
I would also renationalise, the telecoms industry. The tax payer was royally screwed when these industries were sold off, for ideological reasons.
The utility companies, rake in billions, year on year, how much would that reduce the deficit and debt.
Excellent insights Rev. I’m thoroughly enjoying these posts!
Until Scotland gets fiscal autonomy/Independence Westminster will keep on ripping Scotland off. With illegal wars, tax evasion and banking fraud. Unionist Parties are funded by Hedge Funds.
Tbe SNP is funded by it’s members. Scotland should have a £220Billion Oil Fund.
Westminster covers up it’s criminality, secrecy and lies, by the Official Secrets Act.
it seems the Labour Party left Tory voters behind in its sprint to American.
“New Labour” is still alive and well.
Douglass Alexander is still pushing a right wing agenda, Jim Murphy is unchanged in his political right wing dogma.
Don’t listen to the misleading words of Labour politicians – look at their actions. Labour align with the Tory policies time and time again.
is it worthwhile pointing out that nationalising any industry is absolutely verboten by the ruling superstate of corporate takeover and destruction of democracy known as the EU and that they are currently negotiating in secret to hand over the little that remains of the powers of national governments to serve in the interest of the Common Weal in the face of multinational corporations to corporate lawers sitting in a corporate lawyers court with the power to sue any national government for the loss of earnings in thwarting their will, via the trans atlantic trade treaty in which we have no say?
to say nothing of the supremacy of EU law meaning the end of habaeus corpus, the end of our common law and the presumption of innocence and right to trial by a jury of our peers if accused of some transgression by any jobsworth with a grudge and the power to issue a European arrest warrant?
.
thought not.
You’re right.
That’s a bit cheerier. 🙂
Thanks Rev , these recent posts have been very good value and fantastic .
Hopefully others like me will take a proper peek at the full version of the results in the next wee while.
10/10 as always .
Interesting results Stuart, indicating on balance that the rUK respondents were slightly more left wing than those living in Scotland. I think this demonstrates the power of the right-wing press to manipulate public voting intentions, especially south of the border where only the Greens have anything approaching a socialist agenda.
Some of this stuff – most notably the railways – has been well-known for a long time. It’s kind of amazing that no party has thought of jumping on it. Lots of people use trains, especially middle-class commuters in the south-east of England. It would be nearly certain to win votes, never mind the benefits it could bring to the efficiency of the network. For a party like Labour, it could help head off some of the Green advance too.
What are they so afraid of?
A higher living wage in London?
Yeah let’s subsidise London even more than we do already.
:/
On the topic of nationalisation, perhaps we should do what Jersey does with electricity and telecoms, the state has a 51% share ownership but let’s the companies run as private companies taking half of the dividends and only getting involved if it’s for the betterment of the islanders.
“Policies backed by clear majorities of the electorate across party and social boundaries find no champions at the ballot box. There is nobody – certainly in the rUK – that people can vote for to pursue these goals with any hope of success.”
Hold on Stu, what about the Lib Dems?
*Collapses on the floor, laughing*
Aye, the problem is that most (all ?) of these areas of policy are reserved to Westminster. So while the SNP can promote them it could only actually action them if we (eventually) gain independence.
Of course, an even bigger problem is that Labour in Scotland can also make the right noises about these policies but with no possibility or even intention of them being enacted by the controlling share of the party elsewhere in the UK.
The current (and Smith proposed) devolution really is a mess.
Surprising that, in a generally more left leaning Scotland, our conservatives seem to be pushing to the right with far more vigour. A backlash effect of having a socialist (devolved) government that actually adopts socialist policies?
Its unsurprising that only Scottish tories support the continuing elitisim of private schools.
The fudal system is alive and well !!!!!!
At least according to the landed gentry.
As a lifelong socalist I am appalled that sucessive labour governments have supported and maintained their tax free (i.e. state support)status…..Would this be because their own offspring attend these institutions???????
Again the boundaries are becoming blurred between blue tory and red tory……..
Which is why I will never vote labour again……
Colin Tomasson: “is it worthwhile pointing out that nationalising any industry is absolutely verboten by the ruling superstate of corporate takeover and destruction of democracy known as the EU”
I dunno, is it worthwhile pointing out that most countries in the EU still operate state-owned railways? (Deutsche Bahn in Germany, SNCF in France, ABN Anbro in Netherlands, Renfe Operadora in Spain, SJ in Sweden, DSB in Denmark, and so on.)
The UK is almost completely on its own in having privatised its rail operations. However, it suits Labour and the Tories to have people believe their hands were forced.
The opportunionist, Jim Murphy, will be announcing all these poll findings as policy before the week is out.
MochaChoca: “Aye, the problem is that most (all ?) of these areas of policy are reserved to Westminster. So while the SNP can promote them it could only actually action them if we (eventually) gain independence.”
Let’s be honest here though, can we truly say the SNP were saying independence would lead to renationalisation of rail and energy? I don’t remember reading anything like that in the White Paper, most likely because it would have gone against the “don’t scare the horses” strategy.
Who knows, maybe if we had, more people would have been attracted to the proposition. After all, there’s no way Cameron, Miliband or Brown would have come up here saying “vote No and we promise to renationalise energy companies!”
The tax breaks private schools get are certainly under the Scottish Government’s remit, and it’s long overdue. But maybe we can get it adopted as policy, since it seems to have become a bit of a news story of late.
Taking the word ‘Creed’ as a starting point, as an anarcho-socialist-Christian!, I find these results heartening compared to yesterday’s social attitudes. Nevertheless, in terms of social justice I find far more secularists are actually more ‘Christian’ in their political views than Christians themselves who in the main, I have found to display a surprising and depressing amount of narrow-minded, bigoted and unionist racist views that would place them firmly in the camp of UKIP. Someone, somewhere, should take heed and make of this undoubted phenomena what they will. Just sayin…
The response to the nuclear power proposition is depressing, and even you, Rev, simply state flatly that it is dangerous and dirty. It seems we have a long way to go before people realise that there is currently only one game in town if we want not to choke the planet to death.
Renewables in general and windfarms in particular are all well and good, and I have no major opposition to them other than they are a giant waste of money and are not the panacea so many would dearly have us believe. The main problem however is that we need to drastically cut our carbon consumption, and NOT JUST IN THE REALM OF THE DISTRACTINGLY OBVIOUS – i.e. electricity generation – which, let’s not forget, represents something like only 12% of the UK’s total hydrocarbon use.
For the amount of energy we actually get from coal, oil and gas which is used for heating, transport and industry, to be somehow replaced by renewable electricity in the timescale we need to complete the switch, is – bluntly – impossible. The sad thing is that in nuclear we already have a solution yet are busy tinkering with and throwing effort and money away on massively inefficient and environmentally costly solutions like windfarms.
The numbers coming back from your survey show that a great deal of education is required to banish the nuclear “dangerous and dirty” bogeyman. Empirically, and in comparison to all other methods of power generation, nuclear is anything but dangerous and dirty – and that’s just for historical reactor designs. That the opposite of everything before our eyes is simply accepted as truth by those who should know better, is thoroughly depressing.
Other than that, the results reaffirm my faith in the people of this supposedly fractured country.
If the Green Party got the coverage they deserve, on both sides of the border, perhaps people would wake up to realise that actually, there is a better choice to make?
All good stuff, Stu is presenting here. Not the sort of crucial opinion which polls in the MSM expose.
Also…
“ in Scotland the SNP and Labour compete with each other to be seen as the most left-wing, while south of the border the main parties have been engaged in a 20-year race to the right ”
And, as we all know there is only one Labour Party. Murphy and pals will try to pretend they are one thing in Scotland and another in England. This deceit must be highlighted at every opportunity. The gullible need to be educated that Labour in Scotland is just plain race to the right Labour.
@paul gerard mccormack – religion is not a precondition for having morals and ethics and believing in kindness, fairness, equality, justice and compassion.
Likewise secularism is not a precondition for greed, selfishness, bigotry, intolerance, racism, homophobia, mysogyny, etc.
It’s really about individual people and how they view the world from their own internal paradigm.
I think being nuanced about nationalization is utterly the best way to go. What I mean by this is to allow the state to compete in the market say 20% to start with. This avoids several traps, firstly it is much cheaper to achieve, secondly it refutes the competition argument. Without competition a state monopoly can become a bloated bureaucratic nightmare, with competition you have the free market to benchmark yourself against. Lothian buses are a great example of this process. But better still with the private sector will have to compete with state run companies. Public enterprises whose main purpose is the social good rather than returns to the board and shareholder will effect the market by driving margins down and we will get cheaper goods and services. We could even allow these state owned companies to offer their services abroad and multiply their benefits to us. Returning to the Lothian buses their pay and conditions are the best it the industry, but imagine what there competitors would be paying if they were not setting this example and competing for labour. Conversely not having a state monopoly stops labour getting a sense of entitlement and getting too greedy. I think partial privatization is the best cheapest and most nuanced way to go.
O/T however BBC breakfast major propaganda exercise
This morning as regards ” all the benefits” of not retiring and
Working on “until you drop”.Obviously with full backing from
Westminster who will no doubt continue to raise the retirement age
And eventually “means test” the state pension.
Thanks again “better together no voters”
Doug Daniel -well said re. UK privatised rail. Equally the UK is almost on it’s own in having a completely privatised energy market, including the grid. Almost every other European nation has a mixture of private an state owned. Again other state owned (or having substantially state owned stake) energy companies, notably from France (EDF) and Spain are major players in the UK’s privatised energy market.
Will our enemies notice and respond (in words if not action)?
If the Red Tories get hold of these results, tomorrow morning, Jim Murphy will be on the BBC expressing his support for the nationalisation of energy companies and the railways, saying that he waters the UK electoral system to be reformed, and more wind farms. He is all for removing charitable status for private schools and believes in a minimum wage. And of course, he would like the whole world to be free of nuclear power stations.
Learn to listen, Labour, and we will come back to you.
The death of the LABOUR Party (sorry about being OT) A great watch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yw10xAvzXI
The suggestion that higher wages be paid in London is wrong.
The justification for this suggestion is the higher costs to live in London.
A lot of the reason for higher costs to live in London is in fact the higher wages which fuel the higher costs. It’s called market forces. The market takes what it can get.
Half the wages of the high paid in London and the rents etc will drop shortly afterwards
Ghengis DMidges says
“A higher living wage in London?
Yeah let’s subsidise London even more than we do already.”
We need to ensure that London is not totally populated by yuppies and mega rich , the true Londoners have been getting squeezed out since Thatcher,
Average terraced houses in the suburbs are going for £500 thousand pounds,
if you were a bus driver in London do you think you could afford to live there?
I have heard some real horror stories from customers of my company being turfed out of their house with no notice (yes I know its illegal but it does happen) so the landlord can sell the property for a huge profit,
meanwhile a young mother with 3 kids is left homeless, while the local council is powerless to do anything other than stick them in a B&B (true story)
If we stand back and do nothing we risk turning London into a ghetto for the super rich.
I do find these results to be very comforting. The knowledge that in spite of media borne perceptions that a higher percentage of rUK do still harbour some smattering of socialist outlook is a message to be very clearly adhered to by all the WM parties.
Will it alter party dogma? Doubtful.
A quick line here, a soundbite acknowledgement there. As we have been all too aware, FPTP power offers the victor complete arrogance with respect to answerability.
Being a former member of the Labour Party (note…Labour, NOT New Labour) and still very much socialist in my own personal outlook, I cannot help feel that Scottish aspirations being loudly aired in respect of our own particular, and yet judging by these poll results, not unique grievances, will be picked up by the masses in the rUK as very much the common path being denied us by the powerful, yet minority neoliberal WM agenda.
At long last, the Thatcherite bird is finally coming home to roost…Raphus cucullatus
OT,
Oh dear, more Labour infighting, after Labour sack one of their own councillors because he tried to expose corruption in the party!
What will (honest) Jim Murphy do about it?
Useful information to be archived for use nearer to the GE. Thanks
@Dave McEwan Hill – agree 100%. The cost of living in rural Scotland is up to 40% higher in some areas; fod prices are substantially higer (in some cases twice as much); public transport fares are exorbitant; housing is expensive and hard to find; jobs are seasonal, insecure and poorly paid, etc. But there is no “remote rural weighting allowance” other than 5p of a litre of petrol in some parts.
@steveasaneilean – You are right of course regarding not having a monopoly and that obviously it goes both ways, but – as a small but important point – I wasn’t talking about religion, I was talking about Christians – and there is a world of a difference there. I am not a religious ‘churchian’ and neither are a lot of Christians. Yes, I agree it is down to individuals (Tolstoy – the gospel in brief) and that should they chose to act corporately, then they should do so, girding their loins, as it were.
@ John King
“If we stand back and do nothing we risk turning London into a ghetto for the super rich.”
I suggest that is exactly what we must do as, according to classical economic theory, supply and demand will regulate more efficiently.
The problem that we have here is that this is not a perfect market and people outside London are subsiding, overtly and covertly, the disequilibrium of the market in London and thus encouraging its development leading to more problems.
Withdraw all subsidies for London and it will sort itself out quite naturally. The problem is that London is so pumped up on this steroid of subsidy that it needs more and more each fix to stay upright.
What was it that Monckton called the subsidy junkies of Scotland? Right analysis wrong target.
The north of England and Scotland don’t have a proper rail service. The cities in the north of England have no proper connected services and the rail line from the central belt to the north in Scotland hasn’t even been electrified. Yet Westminster is planning to fund HS2 without any guaranteed market or business case. Another subsidised White elephant. London has been over subsided for years, with the Oil revenues spent there. Westminster Illegal wars, tax evasion and banking fraud.
The latest scandal at Labour held North Lanarkshire was told in all its gory detail on the BBC Scotland news website at 0830 this morning but a check a short time ago shows that it has disappeared entirely from the website – now I wonder why that would be?
Another clone of a Bank of England chairman, who can’t count. Thatcher and the Chairman of the Bank of England. ‘Unemployment in the North, was a price worth paying for prosperity and jobs in London S/E.’
Mad that the poll shows folk are in favour of re-nationalising the utilities and the railways.
Westminster are in favour of a behemoth of a Nuclear Power Station at Hinkley Point with EDF being involved – a State owned French Company.
The Scotrail Franchise has been won by Abellio – a Dutch State Owned Company (they also have their finger in a few transport pies round the country)
There will be more examples I’m sure but those are the only two I can think of the now.
Doug Daniel,
The Dutch rail company is NS – Nederlandse Spoorwegen.
ABN Amro is a bank.
@ Marian
Spill the beans sister, I missed it.
🙂
Great work. Just look at the teamGB books which are so bad its insanity on stilts as one more Westminster chancer roughly says about change in Scotland for example.
If there is one great unifying ethos among the good people of England it’s, “I don’t vote because it makes no difference and they are all the same” AND same LabConDem freakshow went UKOK batshit crazy trying to close down democratic change in Scotland, via BBC etc.
I say “went” but ofcourse Project Fear 2.0 is ongoing. Make Scotland scared, anxious, concerned, terrified, poor, that’ll save the teamGB day.
Latest Project Fear frightener, Scots oil is doomed, its all AlocSmin’s fault, and all because BP say they’re laying off 300. They do this all the time. Its part of the industry but BBC etc go UKOK berserk.
Funny that.
cearc – that’s what I get for trying to do two things at once! ABN Amro is state-owned anyway, mind.
Marian says:
16 January, 2015 at 10:16 am
The latest scandal at Labour held North Lanarkshire was told in all its gory detail on the BBC Scotland news website at 0830 this morning but a check a short time ago shows that it has disappeared entirely from the website – now I wonder why that would be?
An angry phone call from McTernan.
On the subject of London and wealth transfer..
http://www.positivemoney.org/issues/inequality/
Erm, the Green Party are offering ALL of these things – and a whole lot more!? What about an article on the fact that the Greens are now larger than UKIP and the LibDems across the UK? They are the only credible left of centre party – who completely oppose fracking. Please take a look at their policies Stu!
The Red tories must have a hot line to their BBC chums. A wee red phone in the director’s office at Pacific Quay. If anything they don’t want broadcast gets through the union filter (special agents and sympathisers), then an angry call from Labour HQ quickly sorts things out.
It’s the only explanation.
This is left on the the BBC live news feed from earlier (with a link to the original Herald (paysite) story), but no sign of any actual article on the BBC site:
“Labour ‘war’ in heartlands
Labour is waging a civil war in its heartlands after sacking a councillor who investigated a multi-million-pound public contract.
The party’s ruling North Lanarkshire group has ousted veteran Tommy Morgan from his position as council watchdog after he questioned proposals to rewrite a housing repair deal. The move has sparked a split that threatens to sour party relations right across western Scotland.
Mr Morgan, who until December was convener of audit and governance, had been for months querying the local authority’s £30 million-a-year contract with Mears Scotland – run by Willie Docherty, husband of Glasgow Lord Provost Sadie Docherty.”
We all know what the best solution is for all this yet we don’t yet know how to implement it. While our political parties are privately funded we will always have politicians whose interests serve those who are funding them. Mainly, the corporate elite and the super rich.
The only way to change this is to change the way they are funded. Either by putting a cap on the amount any individual can pay for either a membership or a donation, or to fund them straight from the treasury based on party numbers.
I truly believe that the best way to start political reform is to change the way the parties are funded. But how do we go about it?
“Mr Morgan, who until December was convener of audit and governance, had been for months querying the local authority’s £30 million-a-year contract with Mears Scotland – run by Willie Docherty, husband of Glasgow Lord Provost Sadie Docherty.”
-enough said. I’ve seen that name many times and once Docherty was on the BBC Daily Politics show introduced as a neutral businessman worried about Independence.
OT sorry! Regarding North Lanarkshire and their corruption it has echoes of Monklandsgate. Nothing new under the Labour sun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monklandsgate
BtP says
“I suggest that is exactly what we must do as, according to classical economic theory, supply and demand will regulate more efficiently.”
We do that Jim it makes us no better than the people who now sit and pontificate about the feckless workshy layabouts who only respond with sanctions that will either force them off their lazy arses of starve them to death, win win
We do that Jim and one of the worlds great cities dies because it will lose its life blood, the people who for generations lived worked and died in the Docklands and the east end,
we lose a population who stood against the might of the luftwaffe and suffered more than almost any other part of the UK,
do they really deserve to swept aside while the markets assert themselves?
We do that Jim and we close the Book on Attlee’s dream forever because we have become THEM and we’re better than that , aren’t we?
two wrongs don’t make a right Jim
@ Mocha Choca et al
from the Herald article
David Miles, the chief executive of Mears which owns two-thirds of Mears Scotland, said: “Anyone who chooses to look at our record of service delivery and investment into North Lanarkshire can see that Mears has complete confidence in the future of this contract.”
Did Johann Lamont have a hand in drafting that last quotation?
@Marcia and MochaChoca.
Thanks for that. Pity we need to wait till 2017 for a local council clearout.
🙁
The councillor tale is on the Herald’s website.
Labour corruption cover up.
You can bypass herald paywall if using Chrome browser by right clicking link and open in incognito window
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/councillor-axing-leads-to-split-in-labours-ranks.1421392997
Labour may not represent the widespread views CLAIMED by the public, but that same public voted Tory anyway!
@ John King,
Maybe I should have put up a wee irony avatar.
What I was trying to say is that , London, this great bastion of unfettered capitalism is a fraud.
They claim to produce wealth but that has been shown to be hollow when the banks went down. Who bailed them out, the capitalist shareholders? No the great unwashed.
Does London pay for its infrastructure? No it does not and leeches off the main body opf the island; hidden of course.
Privatise profit and socialise losses and expenses.
🙂 the nearest thing I can do an ironical wee face.
“What was it that Monckton called the subsidy junkies of Scotland? Right analysis wrong target.”
Monctons comment no matter whether it was true of Scotland or indeed London was asinine.
When you pump money/drugs into a population it is hardly surprising to hear them wail like a trampled bagpipe when you withdraw it, and one can hardly blame the people for the actions of their politicians,
I’ve spoken to several working class Londoners who truly believe THEY support the rest of the country because that’s what they have been told.
Kenny G says
“I truly believe that the best way to start political reform is to change the way the parties are funded. But how do we go about it?”
I would say publicly funded on he basis of support, higher the level of support higher the funding.
There was a bit on the BBC Scotland Live section on What The Papers Say about Labour/North Lanarkshire. Just checked – it has now gone. Is that real!!!
Has anyone ever considered a mass rent/mortgage strike across London by public sector workers? If all the nurses, binmen, police and so on all refused to pay for their over-priced accommodation, how long would it take to have an impact? What if they also refused to pay their over-priced council tax?
@Marcia
@Marian.
I put a post up some time ago about High Salary people people taking early retirement from Glasgow City Council, with big payouts & being re-employed within Nth Lanarkshire Council again on high salarys & in positions to award or influence awarding of contracts.
Labour Councils throughout Scotland are Corrupt,as is the Information exchange for local authorities COSLA.
O/T
Folk are wondering about the funny stuff that is falling across parts of Scotland today.Its like wee hailstanes (or even haufstanes). Well it’s no
Its called graupel and its wee snowflakes which happen in an airstream somewhere up above of below -40C.
Thought you’d all like to know that.
Westminster is held to be the Mother of all Parliaments.
With the coming of neo-Liberalism via Mgt. Thatcher, and the commercialisation of democracy, Westminster has become the bitch whore of representative politics.
If ever a mother deserved euthanising then it’s Westminster.
Roll on May 7.
Isn’t it about time that the simple fact is established that Scotland as its budget doesn’t get and never has had oil revenues and only gets per capita exactly the same benefit from oil revenues as the rest of the UK.
It’s the UK economy that will take any hit on low oil prices, not the Scottish budget.
“Erm, the Green Party are offering ALL of these things – and a whole lot more!? What about an article on the fact that the Greens are now larger than UKIP and the LibDems across the UK? They are the only credible left of centre party”
They are NOT electorally “credible” in the UK. They’ll do well to hold onto their single seat in May.
“The numbers coming back from your survey show that a great deal of education is required to banish the nuclear “dangerous and dirty” bogeyman.”
Yeah, start in Fukushima. They’ll be all ears.
According to Greenpeace, Cameron is trying to fast track fracking legislation for England through Parliament.
The Greedy Elite are once again in a hurry to get their hands on National assets.
It may have been interesting to hear views regarding privatisation of Scottish Water. Some unionists cant wait to get their grubby hands on it.
A bit O/T, so apologies Stu, but has anyone ever read or watched anything about the Irish Oil Industry in the British Media. The Irish oilfields are in the Atlantic Margins – which extend all the way up Scotland’s West Coast – a region where our nuclear subs play with their atomic toys.
I just want to thank Dave Cameron and his crew for keeping that information out of the British Media and, as a result, rendering it non-existent for the majority of the Scottish population.
Dave says, ‘why on earth would the Scots bother their shirt about another massive oil and gas bonanza in Scottish Waters. It all belongs to the UK – which means us, in London’
In a way this lack of difference cheers me up.
Independence was never up just leaving rUK for me. It was about leaving increasingly out of touch Westminster and its homogenised political parties and all that went with them.
Based on the above the SNP get my vote.
Oh and it was and is also about responsibility.
The way I see it in Scotland at least only the SNP are worth voting for. Right wing Blairite Murphy can swing for it.
Peace
The Greens collude with (Unionist) wealthy feudal landowners, often funded by them, against the public interest.
Scotland raises £53Billion in taxes. Plus corp tax etc going through London HQ’s for commercial activity in Scotland. The rest of the UK raises £437Billion, but borrows and spends £100Billion more. Pro rata £10Billion more. Scotland could save £3Billion+ and not pay £4Billion in debt repayments.
Scotland can’t control it’s own spending, Westminster does. Trident/illegal wars, bank fraud and tax evasion. 80%+ tax on Oil sector. Whisky Companies tax evade.
@donnywho
“We could even allow these state owned companies to offer their services abroad and multiply their benefits to us.”
I believe Scottish water already tenders for work abroad.
http://www.scottishwater.co.uk/business/international
“Westminster are in favour of a behemoth of a Nuclear Power Station at Hinkley Point with EDF being involved – a State owned French Company.”
The French are world leaders in nuclear energy and the EPR is reckoned to be relatively safe. However, the pricing contract makes that project a French Farce with an agreed strike price of around 95 quid per megaWatt. At around twice the agreed cost of similar EPRs being built in China and Finland it is the ordinary leccy bill payers who will pick up the bill (industry will tell them to get stuffed at that price or move elsewhere if coercion is used).
So in this farce it is the audience which will end up with their pants down.
Entertaining stuff especially the proportional vote poll. It’s less than five years since the vote AGAINST reform was 2:1.
If the poll is accurate then it indicates the danger of “no-way-back” referenda.
Sorry O/T. I have just been listening to Fergus Ewing deal with Jo Cockburn on the Daily Politics show and I have to say that despite being in command of his brief, he comes across as pompous and arrogant, simply because he talks over everybody else. Please Fergus, take a breath and let other people have their say. That is what we expect in a debate! You do the independists a disservice.
The Man in the Jar,
Some unionists cant wait to get their grubby hands on it.
Indeed in particular the Lib dems! but as they now have nae chance of ever getting any power again, it would be one of the first things to go if Labour in its present state were allowed free reign at Holyrood again..
As far as i know ( and i do have some knowledge of the industry) SNP have catagorically stated that they will never privatise Scottish Water.
wasn’t there a time when the SNiPs were not a credible party in the UK Stu? Maybe you could ask Winnie Ewing about that? And as a long time follower & supporter of Wings I’d have thought that you guys would be much more inclusive? Rather than dismissing us as not credible why not devote more time to finding out why most people want the same policies (as in your article!) as the Greens have been putting forward for years…
And Ken500 – Please check your facts before you post about imagined Green Party collusion; The Greens have not, and will not, ever take donations from big business – that’s why we rely heavily on financial support from our members – this means that when we do eventually form a government we won’t be subject to lobbying from private interests – and as for land reform we have been working closely with Andy Wightman on devolving power back to the people and we were serious about land reform a long time before it became headline news:
http://bit.ly/14I29qe
WRT the hanging question, this could just be about reminiscing about the days when punishment was seen to fit the crime, the “Good Old Days”. If it was brought back, wait for the first few miscarriages of justice, where the wrong person is found guilty and they will be baying to get it stopped again!
Kenny
There’s a programme on BBC 2 – the super rich ( Jacques Perretti) which started last week . I know , I know it’s BBC but it goes right back over the last 40 years and the deliberate policies of both the Tories and Labour to get us to where we are now.
From changing the rules for the big Greek shipping magnates in the 60s ( non dom) to Citigroup cynically putting a report together to target the top 1% and the bottom 1 % ( to keep the top 1 % in the style accustomed to)
Anyway, they also interview ordinary residents of London, who are being forced out their homes , have been to their MP ( Labour) and was basically told if you can’t afford to stay there, you can’t stay there, so withholding a rent or mortgage would actually play right into the developers hands because as the scene cuts to the promo for luxury flats ( 6 mill each) they interviewed a planner and the rich investors can’t get enough land to build on, even if their show piece sits empty.
It’s all about the money daaaahling.
The Herald today carries the NorthLan Mears/Doherty story but the comments section is where the details and the history are exposed.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/councillor-axing-leads-to-split-in-labours-ranks.1421392997
The history of Labour in Scotland as a corrupt self-serving crony based empire is well documented but is accepted as
‘that’s how things work’.
It’s a simple fact of life, that honest people have no place in politics at this level. It is a world of petty criminals, a black economy, permanent corruption and Mafia Bosses – all dipping the taxpayer.
These are the same people who are responsible for administering elections. Need I say more.
Thank you big time Stu.
I love these polls and the comments give me hope that we Scots are slowly getting there. We have had our eyes open a while now.
Someone should point the English in the right direction. They see only two choices, Lab or Tory. When are they going to start questioning these parties? They polls show what they want but they do little to bring them about.
Wonder how long Skeletor will wait to come out with promises for us if we vote for the ("Tractor" - Ed)ous shits.
Roll on May when we can say cheerio to those corrupt so and so’s.
MochaChoca
Just tapped in Willie Doherty’s name into Google and comes up with a whole plethora of nastiness
I think someone should start joining up the the various lines in this web of Labour filth that somehow the MSM is reluctant to expose despite the fact that its online to anyone with the time to (literally)plough through!
Such as “The Sunday Express understands Willie Docherty, head of cash-strapped Scottish council’s arm’s-length firm, is in line to receive a staggering £615,000 when he steps down next year” http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/283451/Council-in-record-pay-off-scandal
The same Willie Doherty , according to his ‘LinkedIn’ page that’s CEO of The Royal Scottish Corporation, except that he isn’t mentioned on Scotcare’s page
Thank God, or the Universe, or chance and your mum and dad, that you are there, doing this stuff. The worst poverty we suffer is the poverty of understanding what actually happens in politics. Thank you, thank you, thank you Stu for doing this work, for offering insight based on evidence.
I am at a loss to understand how anyone in their right mind would want nuclear power it is lethal look at all the accidents that have happened with it ,how many people have lost their lives because of it .? And they still not know where to bury the waste that they have ,never mind creating more they want to keep puting us all at risk for their nuclear weapons to me it is sheer madness
You’re a very bright laddie,Stu. For the hundredth time: thanks.
Fascinated with the North Lan story, living in the area, and being active in the anti fracking group.
I just received an email yesterday ‘re. McCabe being on holiday, so that bit is consistent!
The CEO of the Council, who has been there for awhile must be bricking it, he has responsibility for ensuring this kind of crap can’t happen with our money.
Timing is great tho!
Should have been megaWatt hour @ 12:45pm. Lazy.
@ James Caithness 9.38
Great film. Thanks for the link. Dick Gaughan’s singing of A Handful of Earth was brilliant too.
It was so very sad to see what has become of Labour. The archive footage was very apt and many of these issues could be expanded. I hope the news team will produce more like that.
Lets not forget that nationalized industries tend to be less than efficient. The idea that we’ll somehow be raking in billions in profit is a little far fetched, however much we like to imagine it.
As far as the railways are concerned, I’m fairly sure that all the EU required was the technical separation of accounting for infrastucture and train operations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=EU_Directive_91/440&redirect=no
That way private operators would have a ‘transparent’ and ‘fair’ pricing structure for access to the rails should they want to compete. This can be seen in France where the trains are largely run by SNCF, and the infrastructure by RFF, both still state owned.
I don’t believe there was ever any requirement on national governments to privatise. Of course our idiot blue Tories went ahead and did so, choosing the worst possible structure and resulting in the vast waste of money that continues even now. The red Tories did almost nothing, save the somewhat limited ‘not-for-dividend’ rescue of the abysmal Railtrack to form Network Rail, and so it goes on.
I also cannot understand the reluctance to take back the franchises into the public sector (clearly a vote winner) other than the usual vested interests that infest everything associated with Westminster.
We won’t even mention the farce of red tory Scotland branch criticising the Scottish Government for failing to take the ScotRail farnchise into public hands (a power they don’t have) then neglecting to request that self-same power from the Smith Commission. Oh dear, I have just mentioned it…..
we should all make sure that our no voting friends see this ( yes we all have them )
Re North Lanarkshire-this is what politicians are doing UK wide not just local councils but WM as well. Nepotism & croneyism is rife not just in Scotland but throughout rUK.
If you read ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist’ it describes in detail the 1920’s when it was the Tories & Liberals at it & also how local councillors colluded to line their own pockets. It hasn’t changed one iota.
It’s about time we had prosecutions for fraud for those in public office but just like the bankers, their transgressions will be swept under the carpet because it’s the taxpayers that will pay the bill. This is also why people don’t become whistleblowers -they know they won’t get anywhere with their revelations or that their lives will be destroyed.
At some point a government has to show some balls & say enough is enough & clean up WM & local govt but it is never going to be any of the three tory parties which benefit from this ripping off the taxpayers. And I haven’t even started on the lords & so called aristocracy! Only problem is that such a government will never be elected because we are all kept in the dark & fed on s**t so we don’t know about it most of the time until it’s much too late to do something about it.
It maybe Labour in this instance but Tories & LibDems are just as bad. Let’s not forget how many MP’s have board positions with healthcare, security, IT companies etc providing advice & a word in the right ear to get contracts.
Throught the international world the UK is known for its corruption.
The ones who aren’t involved in nepotism & croneyism are the exception not the rule.
Hi Stewart,
The poll on nuclear power stations, I think might be misconstrued, and some people think and related to nuclear weapons of mass destruction, this is not the case, nuclear power is one of the cheapest and safest and environmentally friendly powers that we can have next to wind power.
“Hi Stewart,”
INSTA-BAN.
“Yeah, start in Fukushima. They’ll be all ears.”
Come on Stuart, I realise you’re a busy man and don’t really have the time to issue a proper rebuttal to a random commentard such as myself, but that’s just waving the nuclear bogeyman around.
Read between the hysterical lines of reporting and find the evidence. To be blunt: show me the dead people. Show me the dying people. Show me hard evidence that proves Fukushima will have had an actual measurable effect on population health in decades to come. If Fukushima was truthfully the utter catastrophe it has been made out to be (and let’s not forget that, short of Godzilla smashing it to bits, everything that could go wrong there did) then, with the knowledge of the effects of radiation poisoning we have amassed over the decades, that evidence will be absurdly easy to find. All you’d need to do is find a record of the additional dose absorbed by the people of Fukushima and/or further afield as a result of the meltdown. The individual effects of any dose are already extremely well known, and it’s generally agreed that the population effects can be accurately modelled because there is, as everyone knows, a handful of intensely-studied historical incidents available for correlation.
In bringing up Fukushima you are however right in one respect: the majority of people there and indeed everywhere else would doubtless disagree strongly with what I’ve said. The results of your poll only serve to prove it, but that is all it proves. People have been scared out of their wits by a criminal lack of truth when it comes to nuclear, hence my original comment that we need education and a sane appraisal of humanity’s options for cutting carbon output quickly enough and by the volume necessary to avoid a REAL catastrophe.
In short, those options are:
1) Stop using so much energy (i.e. go back to the stone age, or somehow reduce our population by 90%)
2) Quickly decide and implement a method by which we can replace the vast majority of fossil fuel combustion with a non-carbon source.
Even festooning the planet with a deployment three orders of magnitude above current capacity, renewables can’t do it right now. No doubt much more efficient/practical solutions will eventually be available but they’re not even on the horizon right now, so it follows that they won’t be around in time to avert climate disaster, no matter how much we might wish for that to be the case.
Nuclear OTOH can easily, quickly and comparatively safely* replace our fossil fuel use, but through decades of fearmongering (the cold war has so, so much to answer for) we have hamstrung ourselves into believing nuke-u-lar is so unutterably evil that it can have no place in human society; a position so wrong-headed that, if not addressed and soon, will ultimately – and with the bitterest irony – be the death of us.
* Obviously it would be foolish to pretend any method of energy release is perfectly safe but, even on an absurdly optimistic assessment, fossil fuels are already killing people and wildlife by the thousands and are having a huge impact on the health of the living, so nuclear would have to be many, many times LESS safe than it demonstrably is to come close to matching that body count.
Wow, sorry, that response didn’t look so long in Notepad!
Proof, if any were needed, that the ‘main’ parties no longer represent public opinion. They don’t wish to represent the public, they want to achieve and retain power.
“Yeah, start in Fukushima. They’ll be all ears.”
Also, I only just got the joke. Derp.
Interesting seeing the harder line on nationalisation amongst Tories and LibDems in Scotland. Willie Rennie is on record as saying privatise water and get £1.5 billion into the coffers, and perhaps regarding rail, we’re generally more happy with our services than the rest of the UK. Scotrail isn’t bad, and it did used to be a lot worse. Perhaps the Tory and LibDem voters think it’s not worth the risk with renationalising.
Ken500 – Please check your facts before you post about imagined Green Party collusion; The Greens have not, and will not, ever take donations from big business – that’s why we rely heavily on financial support from our members – this means that when we do eventually form a government we won’t be subject to lobbying fromprivate interests – and as for land reform we have been working closely with Andy Wightman on devolving power back to the people and we were serious about land reform a long time before it became headline news:
http://bit.ly/14I29qe
p.s. we’ve just passed the 50k membership mark – across the UK – does that make us any more, or less, credible, Stu? 😉
Good post Stuart, but do the SNP have a policy of renationalising the energy companies? Or the railways? No, they don’t. Or of raising the Mimum Wage to the Living Wage? No. Only the Greens and the SSP do.
Ken500 wrote “The Greens collude with (Unionist) wealthy feudal landowners, often funded by them, against the public interest.”
Any evidence or examples to back up that claim Ken? If you don’t it’s going to look very made up
Interesting survey.Look at how similar the percentages are between Scotland and the rest of the kingdom.This shows us how broadly similar we all really are and how pointless it would be to divide our peoples(unless of course we, in Scotland, turn our backs on everyone else because we think we can be better off on our own)We need to stick together and fight for a representative Labour Party.We need to boycott the right wing press.We all need to do whatever we can to thwart the greedy corporations and their power in our parliament.
“This shows us how broadly similar we all really are and how pointless it would be to divide our peoples(unless of course we, in Scotland, turn our backs on everyone else because we think we can be better off on our own)”
Yes, that’s exactly what we think. You really don’t get it, do you?
In the UK, Scotland regularly – more than half the time – gets governments it didn’t vote for. You’re a Labour supporter, apparently, yet six years in every 10 you’re governed by Tory governments your country overwhelmingly rejected at the ballot box. England is perfectly capable of electing Labour governments for itself if it wants them, it doesn’t need our help. So why can’t we elect our government and let them elect theirs? If the two happen to be the same all well and good, and if they don’t then at least everyone got what they voted for.
In terms of greener energy, a Scottish firm has just won an award for a significantly more efficient ‘engine’ which can deliver huge cost savings and energy boosts to wind turbines.
Awarded a prize by Duke of Edinburgh in London on 17 July 2015, found out about it from a USA colleague.
Royal Academy of Engineers Award Edinburgh based Artemis Intelligent Power wins MacRobert Award – UK’s premier engineering prize
Why are the ‘papers’ sleeping inside the M25 as well!?
Typical caveman mentality. We should be invading more countries and continue to make the rich more wealthier at the expense of the poor.