The parameters of failure
One of Labour’s key allies in Scotland is solicitor Mike Dailly of the Govan Law Centre. Best known for his attempts to force the Scottish Government to subsidise the bedroom tax by cutting services elsewhere, he’s a venomously anti-SNP figure who rarely passes up the chance for a bit of Nat-bashing.
(It would, we’re sure, be overly cynical to suggest that Mr Dailly wants the bedroom tax propped up because if it was abolished he’d suddenly be out of the public eye.)
Today he’s published a blog angrily contesting the claim made in yesterday’s White Paper that the UK is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world.
We thought we’d take a look.
“Page 44 of the Scottish Government’s white paper tells us: “Within the UK, Scotland is part of an increasingly unequal society. The UK ranks 28th out of 34 nations in the OECD on a measure of overall inequality”. So according to the Scottish Government, the UK is the seventh most unequal OECD country.
But perhaps not. Because the statement is still purposively misleading and inaccurate.”
We like “purposively”. We might start using that.
“Let’s start with the observation that the OECD don’t measure ‘overall inequality’ with the statistic quoted; it is one of four OECD indicators in relation to income inequality. On a scale on inequality, the other three indicators place the UK in positions 9th, 10th and 12th out of the 34 OECD member states. Being in the second quartile isn’t ‘one of the most unequal’.”
Um, we don’t know where (or if) Mr Dailly learned his arithmetic, but yes it is. If one divides the OECD countries into halves, the top half being the “most unequal” states and the bottom half the “least unequal”, then clearly with rankings of 7, 9, 10 and 12 the UK is well inside the “most unequal” section in all four cases.
If on the other hand we divide them into three sections – most unequal, averagely unequal and least unequal – the UK is still in the “most unequal” sector for three out of the four, and right on the dividing line between “most unequal” and “averagely unequal” for the other. Sounds like a fair definition of “one of the most unequal” to us.
“The key issue to appreciate is that the white paper selects only one income indicator using a ‘Gini co-efficient’. This is a simple measure between 0 and 1, where 0 means everyone within a country have precisely the same disposable income and 1, which equates to the impossible scenario where just one person has all of a nation’s income, while others have none.
The misuse of quoting Gini statistics without an explanatory context should be avoided because they measure relative wealth, so for example in 2010 the Netherlands and Bangladesh had the same Gini co-efficient but it would be completely misleading to suggest Bangladesh was as equal as the Netherlands given the stark contrast in basic quality of life and economic opportunities.”
No it wouldn’t, you fat-headed clown. The Gini coefficient doesn’t set out to measure quality of life or economic opportunities. It sets out, extremely specifically, to measure equality. If everyone in a country is equally poor, they’re nevertheless still equal. Bangladesh could perfectly easily be as equal as the Netherlands, without being in any economic sense equal to the Netherlands.
It’s not supposed to be a measure of wealth, but of wealth distribution. A country with a low GC is sharing out whatever wealth it has, be that a little or a lot, as fairly as possible. The Scottish Government’s point isn’t that the UK is poor, but that its wealth is disproportionately possessed by the rich.
(Still struggling, Mike? If you give ten people a banana each, their “banana wealth” is equal but they’re not rich. If you give them a billion pounds each, they ARE rich, but they’re still equal. The levels of wealth are different in the two scenarios, but the levels of equality are exactly the same – specifically, a Gini coefficient of 0.)
“It is also important to note that even amongst OECD member states the Gini co-efficient variance between a number of countries is relatively minor.”
Is it? Is that important? Is it okay to live in a massively unequal country so long as other countries are massively unequal too? Does that make it better somehow?
“The graph below illustrates the difference in income inequality using the Gini co-efficient between EU member states – the difference between the UK, France, Italy and Spain is very small; as is the difference with the EU average.”
We’re not quite sure why France, Italy and Spain are the examples chosen. One might wish to observe, for example, that the UK’s nearest neighbour on the graph is Greece, or that our three nearest neighbours – Greece, Italy and Spain – are three of the five “PIIGS” countries most disastrously affected by the economic crisis.
(Of those five, only Portugal and Greece are more unequal than the UK, along with a clutch of former satellite states of the old Soviet Union.)
But in any event, the narrow gaps between adjacent bars of the graph still add up. Wealthy Sweden is only 4th in the “most equal” list, with a GC of 0.25 while the UK figure is 0.33. But that’s a hefty 32% more inequality. (If you don’t think that’s a lot, ponder whether you’d be happy about your rent or mortgage going up by 32%.)
Dailly then returns to his theme of misdirection for several paragraphs, confusing inequality with wealth and a host of other factors like education, and tossing in a few sneaky curveballs of untruth like references to “the UK’s NHS” for good measure, before finally revealing his real agenda:
“The UK can do much better if a Labour Government is returned in 2015.”
Dailly isn’t quite finished bashing his straw man, though:
“In conclusion there are two key points to be made about the SNP’s claims that the UK is ‘one of the most unequal countries in the developed world’. It isn’t! Not in the developed world, and not even on the sole OECD Gini indicator it isn’t. ”
Except, as we’ve seen, it is one of the most unequal. It’s just not one of the poorest.
“The SNP, as always misrepresent and omit. And as I’ve illustrated, equality cannot be meaningfully represented by one single income indicator while ignoring all of the more positive factors that don’t fit in with the SNP’s story to sell ‘independence’ to Scots.”
So the message is that the UK’s actually doing pretty well, and the dastardly SNP are just talking Britain down for their own evil ends. We all agree with that assessment of the current state of affairs, right? Everything’s peachy here.
“Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, what have the SNP being doing to reduce income inequality in Scotland over the last six years? Has it escaped their attention they have been in Government and could have introduced their free child care policy (announced today) which would have enabled more women in Scotland to reduce income inequality by being able to work and progress in their chosen careers?”
Ah, faithful Mike, always on message with the latest Labour line. As was repeatedly noted yesterday, to enact that policy without the control of taxation and welfare that come with independence would mean hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts elsewhere. As ever, Labour’s supporters are curiously reluctant to detail where those huge cuts should fall.
“And what about replacing council tax?”
What about it? Labour currently has no suggestions for an alternative.
“What about using income tax powers?”
As far as we’re aware, the Scottish Parliament currently has no income tax powers. But even if it did, are we to assume that Labour is now calling for substantial income tax rises? We don’t remember reading about that.
“What about redistributing wealth instead of the obsession with lower corporation tax?”
Mr Dailly appears to have accidentally forgotten to include his ideas for bringing about wealth redistribution without powers over taxation or welfare or major spending like defence. We’re sure he’ll correct the oversight any minute now.
“What about using their £170m underspend? Why cut funding to Scottish colleges preventing Scots getting skilled up and into better paid jobs? What about taking some of the responsibility for once?”
It might have escaped Mr Dailly’s attention, but the SNP is currently doing everything it possibly can to “take responsibility” for Scotland. We’re sure that when it succeeds, he’ll be full of constructive suggestions.
There’s a serious point here, beyond shooting down one egocentric buffoon. Because what Mike Dailly speaks is the purest Labour tribal orthodoxy, and what it represents is the poverty of Labour’s ambitions. He thinks the UK is actually in pretty decent shape at the moment – and even if it’s not, he’s not too bothered about it as long as some other countries are a mess too.
When Labour offer an Ed Miliband government at Westminster in 2015 as the solution to Scotland’s woes, it’s worth keeping in mind what their criteria of success are.
What about Dunfermline and West Fife?
We have Labour Councillors, the re-amergance of the Provost (not had one for Yonks), a Labour MSP and a Labour MP……… and not one of them are worth the bit of paper that the electorate (not me) put a tick on.
Fifty years of Labour
The feeble fifty
Illegal wars, Trident, redundant weaponry, banking fraud, tax evasion, HMRC not fit for purpose etc, etc.
The McCrone Report Labour/Unionists kept secret for thirty years.
SNP free personal care, no university fees, free bus pass, prescriptions. Promises kept.
So Westminster is what exactly? Tory Speaker with a Tory Government and every committee and Think Tank stuffed with Tories … oh and only one Tory MP in Scotland!
Brian Monteith was bashing on about this in similar vein a few days ago in the Scotsman. He’s no very good at understanding they graphs either:
http://archive.is/faScR
Particularly this bit: Looking at reliable and respectable independent research into the relationship between the lowest and highest incomes, including benefits, we can see from the Gini coefficient that the UK is fairer and more equal than Germany, France and the Netherlands. We are even ranked better in the table than Norway, Sweden and Denmark – hardly a damning statistic that we are being told it is.
Eh?
I am sure 10 years ago when Mike Dailly drew up his 5 year career plan which had the goal “Be like Alastair Campbell” written on it he had no idea he would just end up being a total Malcolm Tucker. ( http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2009/oct/15/thick-of-it-malcolm-tucker)
Promises kept.
Precisely the problem. The SNP are bring politics into repute and must be stopped. The electorate might start expecting all elected representatives to serve the interests of the voters, and then where would democracy be?
There are times I watch TV debates, watching the commentators and politicians speak out on this or that, defend their corners or lash out at injustices. In the last decade or so, and almost to a man/woman, Labour politicians come across as utter buffoons, charlatans or thugs in ties.
The Labour Party is being betrayed by these idiots. Scotland is being betrayed by these idiots.
The purge is coming.
I think the first time I read the 4th most unequal country stat was in
Gerry Hassan’s Scotchman article: The fourth most unequal country in the world (archived)
“As many people know the UK is the fourth most unequal country in the rich world according to Danny Dorling, professor of human geography at Sheffield University. Moreover, according to Dorling on existing trends the UK is set to surpass Singapore, the US and Portugal and become the most unequal country in the entire developed world.”
And so to Danny Dorling (these days Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford): Major new study exposes hidden causes of inequality:
“The research addresses the fact that, by income, the UK is the fourth most unequal of the 25 richest countries in the world.”
Maybe an idea to put Dailly and Dorling in touch with each other…?
I have no idea why Dailly is held in such high regard by even non-Labourites. The man is so tribal it’s impossible to give any credence to his ideas. He’s worse than some of the Labour politicians he wishes he was one of.
“We’re not quite sure why France, Italy and Spain are the examples chosen.”
Cos they’re “proper” countries, with “proud histories”, unlike all those funny little countries that haven’t had the privilege of having empires and who speak languages nobody is interested in learning.
Professor Dorling, Captain Darling, Comrade Dailly. It’s all so confusing.
I think Mr Dailly needs to go out and tell the people he represents how wealthy, fairly treated and lucky they are. A kind of feedback loop for him.
Dailly is obviously a BritNat in the Labour mould. It’s one thing to be a crusader for social justice but it is another when he skews his personal beliefs to fit his political agenda. He is one of these people who believes that Labour are the only party that should concern themselves with moral and social justice. They just can’t handle the SNP, it twists them up inside until they become totally nonsensical.
Just another Unionist Labour buffoon ! What they say all day and every day is total rubbish, his blog is only one example, we see it everywhere.
What does the Govan Law Centre do? One would have thought that it spent much of it’s time standing up for people from Govan, well known as one of the poorer….er….um, wouldn’t his normal job involve railing bitterly against inequality in the UK?
It’s not like you to hurl insults, Rev. You sure you’re happy to leave the name-calling in there?
Shouldn’t Mr Dailly be focusing on his clients rather than contriving this pish?
Mr. Dailly seems to me to be bringing the legal profession into disrepute.
Should his Govan Law Centre not then be starved of funds?
o/t is the holyrood debate this afternoon on tv or online?
“It’s not like you to hurl insults, Rev. You sure you’re happy to leave the name-calling in there?”
I’m prepared to make an exception just this once.
Why does Govan need a Law Centre if life in the UK is so great and everyone’s doing so well? Could it be that local people there are trying to get something for nothing? If so, Mr Dailly should denounce them to his leader, Johann Lamont. She’ll sort the scroungers out. No room for scroungers in an egalitarian, prosperous country like the UK, because we’re Better Together as all the statistic (like Food Banks) show us. UKOK
I have just heard Anas Sarwar, Mike Dailly’s comrade in arms in Govan, enlist the support of the Prime Minister to denounce the White Paper. Mike Dailly can’t legitimately look both ways in defending the poor against the rich and privileged. Oops! Mistake there. He is the usual Labour clone,
“The UK can do much better if a Labour Government is returned in 2015.”…Oh deary me.
As Madness once sang…
Yesterday’s men hang on to today
To sing in the old fashioned way
It must get better in the long run
Has to get better in the long run…
Ah.. Mike Dailly – he sums up Labour and the Labour mindset perfectly:
‘Keep tacking the symptoms arising from poverty (it keeps us in a job)
But never tackle the causes of Poverty.’
@david
You’ll get the debate here … http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/newsandmediacentre/66743.aspx
Who pays for the Govan law centre, how much does it cost, what are the running expenses and is it audited?
Dailly stood and failed to get a couple of labour nominations – I think Paisley was one of them; he has made a fortune out of representing the ‘poor’ in court with the legal fees going to his private practice and not the Govan Law Centre…
All members duly elected by the constituents of Scotland. Is it their fault that they didn’t want to vote for the British Unionist and Labour Party?
The Govan Law Centre’s mission is to tackle social disadvantage, inequality, discrimination and consumer detriment.
Is Mike Dailly now claiming “Mission Accomplished”?
Who knew?
To take his Twitter statement literally – can he point us to this USSR that he speaks of where:
a) the Government was voted for by half the votes in an election where there were multiple options to choose from?
b) the USSR which had a functioning parliament which could actually hold the Government to account?
c) …oh I give up.
The best part of it is… nonentities like Dailly undoubtedly considered the USSR to be the bees knees back in the Cold War. But then, that was because it was a clientelist state, where the only qualification necessary to rise in government ranks was your oral footwear-and-or-arse cleaning skills. Much like your average West of Scotland Labour council back then.
Yep, they represent the 1% wealthiest in society. They know the price of everything and the value of nothing!
The Govan Law Centre is dependent on charitable funds.
Now that the GLC are claiming to have eliminated inequality should we stop giving?
And it is now nearly four years since the Dorling report was published, the one confirming the alarming position as 4th most unequal in the developed world.
Given everything that Westminster has done since April 2010 is Dailly confident that we’d still only be in 4th place if Dorling updated his findings today? If I recall we had Portugal then USA and Singapore in our sights then, under our last Labour Westminster mob.
I guess Dailly would put any climb up that fecund ladder down to Cameron and his coalition pals. And Labour’s plan for improving our lot is what exactly Mr Dailly?
Rather than trust to that, let’s just take the chance to re-shape our society now, eyes enviously on our Nordic neighbours, with people we know we can trust at the helm. OK there’s a risk that we might vote JoLa or her successor into power in 2016, but that’s a risk I’m prepared to take; one with pretty long odds I’m thinking.
Who pays for the Govan law centre, how much does it cost, what are the running expenses and is it audited? In part by Glasgow City Council ……I believe to the tune of 500K ….it is a” not for profit orginisation” , It is Indeed I believe a charity
however legal work is done by Dailly & Co(solicitors) of course that is not a “Not for Profit ” Company
“….we can see from the Gini coefficient that the UK is fairer and more equal than Germany, France and the Netherlands. We are even ranked better in the table than Norway, Sweden and Denmark – hardly a damning statistic that we are being told it is…..”
Don’t you hate it when you find out you’ve been holding the chart upside down.
A contender for the ‘Most Pathetic’ Tweet of the year award.
i would love to know what mr dailly earnes a year from this charity?
Of course Mike Daily’s argument is based on “we have to tackle inequality in England, Wales, N Ireland, the EU, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Rockall before it can be tackled in Scotland”.
That is the flawed internationalist view that has failed all the world’s poor by ignoring poverty on your own doorstep.
The guy looked into one of the claims in the white paper and came to a different (and rather bitter) conclusion than we did. The good Rev has laid out each point above. Job’s a good’un.
So let’s have none of this ‘cut the GLC funding’ nonsense or other rancour, please. Leave the poison to the No side.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/27/cameron-and-pmqs-and-reaction-to-curb-on-benefits-for-migrants-politics-live-blog
The Guardian is covering the Commons debate on EU migration……want guess who made this contribution……
“says he did not support New Labour’s immigration policies. And he says he is concerned that, from January, anyone with a Romanian or Bulgarian passport, or anyone able to get one, will be able to come to the UK.”
A foaming at the mouth mad Europhobic Tory…..
Nah your friend and mine (and presumably Mike Dailly’s)
….Ian Davidson MP
Also Anas has remembered where the chamber is and made this telling contribution during PMQ’s…
“Labour’s Anas Sarwar asks if the lack of a currency plan B in the Scottish government’s white paper shows that it was a failure.
Cameron agrees. The Scots would have to pay £1,000 each as the price of separation.”
Keir Hardie would have died of shame if he saw what had become of the Party he founded….
“Promises kept.
Precisely the problem. The SNP are bring politics into repute and must be stopped. The electorate might start expecting all elected representatives to serve the interests of the voters, and then where would democracy be?”
This.
I’m going to offer some advice to the No Campaign here:
Find me some campaign promises that the SNP failed to follow up on. Give me some past behaviour to justify your stance that they’re too ambitious in their goals, that they aim higher than they can achieve. Remind me of how they’ve broken promises in the past. Provide solid examples backed up with real evidence (campaign leaflets would be nice). Because, at the moment, I’m not seeing it.
Well said Rev.
Mr Dailly should think before he opens his mouth an lets hot air out, what a windbag of a man.
Here’s the Economists view of the OECD’s reports on inequality in the UK, and around the world, it paints a not so pretty picture.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2011/12/rising-inequality
The Legatum Index for 2013 shows the UK has slipped from 13th to 16th place. [http://www.prosperity.com/#!/]
The Human Development Indix (HDI) for 2012 has the UK in 26th place.
[http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR2013_EN_Statistics.pdf]
Mr Dailly, with his expertise, will no doubt manage to find fault with their figures. Anyway, they’re probably stuffed full of Jock Nats desperate to talk the UK down.
Better Together!?
Also breaking news from Westminister……..
CAMERON AGREES DARLING SHOULD DEBATE CANAVAN
Pete Wishart, the SNP MP, accuses Cameron of not having the “guts” to debate Scottish independence with Alex Salmond.
Cameron says there should be a debate, but it should be between the leader of the yes campaign and the leader of the no campaign.”
According to company accounts the Govan Law Centre has a turnover of £8 Million pounds and people wonder why he doesn’t want a fairer, socially just Scotland. Pure self interest that’s why. The poor need to stay poor for him to make money.
£1000 eh? Bargain. Where do I send the cheque? And when is it due? is it 2016, 2032, 2063 – I think we should be told.
I agree with the exception re name-calling for this guy. My pals who are ‘names’ in the Scottish mediacracy told me to lay off Dailly on Twitter, that he had done a lot of valuable work and that he was a force for good. I argued with them that he just seemed like a bad example of a SLab drone/bulldog, and a chancer – and everything I’ve seen/heard of him since has confirmed my initial assessment.
Here: “Dailly resigns from Law Society, accuses President of killing free speech, says tiny elite run undemocratic Scots legal profession” is an example of him in SLab-esque bulldog ‘action’, with some classic pseudo-internationalist bombast in the middle of his pompous havering:
“I regret to advise I have no confidence in you or Council. At a time when the hunger for democracy and free speech has spread across North Africa and the Middle East like a fire, I am ashamed to say, you and most members of Council (the majority of whom are unelected) would prefer to kill free speech and extinguish the fire of democratic accountability and freedom.
O/T White paper debate going on now at Hollyrood starts soon sorry no link
MochaChoca said: Don’t you hate it when you find out you’ve been holding the chart upside down.
That’s exactly what I thought. Odd though, that Mike Dailly and Brian Monteith, although allegedly on opposite ends of the political spectrum, may well be singing from the same (topsy-turvy) briefing sheet. Curious.
“The UK can do much better if a Labour Government is returned in 2015.”
“….we can see from the Gini coefficient that the UK is fairer and more equal than Germany, France and the Netherlands. We are even ranked better in the table than Norway, Sweden and Denmark – hardly a damning statistic that we are being told it is…..”
Is Dailly secretly against Miliband getting elected?
You’d think that if he really wanted to promote the election of Miliband as PM in 2015, he’d have been better reading the graph the right way up and telling the voters how unequal the UK actually is under this present UK government.
According to Dailly, as things stand right now the UK is doing just fine – He’s portraying things as pretty good. So, why on earth would people want to vote Labour when he’s telling us that the UK’s better than Germany, France, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark under a Tory led government?
I sometimes struggle to comprehend the intellect of Scotland’s Labourites.
The Labour Flock from the Church of Denial continues to sing out loud and proud..
Interviewed on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme, Johann Lamont said: “Issues like childcare are not just about women sitting at home unable work, but about people who are in work juggling childcare pressures. so there’s not a direct simple ‘we will invest in childcare and that means more people will be in work’.”
Feckin politics Scotland just cut out Salmonds response to Lamont to go over to PMQs recording.
Go to Business for Scotland website NOW!!! Value of UK assets.
Govan Law Centre £8Million. How much are some members raking in. Troughing Labour/Unionists benefiting from poverty.
Scots who can afford it, paying £1000 more to benefit their country? Nae problem.
The rest of the UK will have to pay even more. Raise more taxes and cut spending.
Sorry to go off topic, but I have just thrown a hissy with the complaints department at the BBC over the Politics Scotland coverage of the live debate at Holyrood being cut into.
First we had the Worlds leading polling expert cutting in and spouting the same old pish we’ve heard a thousand times before and then after Jolo’s rambling diatribe, we did not get to hear Alex Salmonds response. Absolutely outrageous and suffice it to say, the BBC now know what I think of them. Don’t worry, I was polite and I think fairly to the point, but I left them in no doubt about what I thought of their behaviour.
Raging and even more determined to convert don’t knows to Yesses.
The same Mike Dailly whose team hijack victims of the bedroom tax and coerces them to sign an anti SNP petition,supposedly to defeat the bedroom tax. Meanwhile he gets legal aid and the tenants/victims get a false sense of support. Govan Labour Centre more like, seriously undermining the fight against Westminster and the Bedroom Tax. Their funding should be investigated. They should at least declare their ideals to clients.
Watch it (debate) now or every day without interruption on
http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/scotland/
Cutting Trident, and a tax on cheap drink will raise £3Billion
University research funding is worldwide. Good research attracts funding.
Scotland surplus in energy, exports 25% and pays a higher cost in the UK because it is colder. One reason there is higher public spending – heating public buildings, hospitals and schools etc. Scotland could tax or sell the excess energy.
Is Mike Daily the new Arthur Midwinter or Alf Young? You know the old MSM tactic of getting tribal SLAB figures from outwith politics, and pretending that they are impartial observers. It is a disgraceful ploy, one that has been used for decades. Lorraine Davidson is another one. By contrast, Ewan Crawford, ex spin doctor to John Swinney, is always introduced to the electorate as someone who has worked for the SNP! Verging on the corrupt if you ask me…
@Juan Pablo
Mike Dailly? Govan Law Centre? What are these ideals of which you speak?
Are all Labour folk just dead nice and want to make us smile….first Iain Gray and his “Oil Fund money” gag yesterday, and now James the Joker today :
Labour MSP James Kelly says there is a housing crisis in Scotland. He says the SNP is not building any and has no plans to do so. The SNP housing minister Margaret Burgess interjects and says her party has had a tough budget and yet has still built more houses than the last Labour government. “That’s not the point,” says James Kelly, to much derision from the other side of the chamber.
O/T I’ve just had a YouGov survey which suggests the media and naws will be leaping on the white paper’s immigration proposals as the next piece of propaganda. Entirely predictable and something I’m surprised they haven’t done already. Question about “increasing immigration by lowering minimum salary levels for entry” with no context or explanation about current UK policy and salary levels. (I have a screen shot of the question if it’s needed).
@Mosstrooper
I missed oot ” ”
The ideals of IDS dae come tae mind.
9 million people in serious debt across Britain. Must be Labour’s ambition to have everyone in poverty before they recognise that inequality is an issue.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25108891
We are safe with the union aren’t we? NOT!!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/11/21/uk-borrowing-_n_4316084.html?utm_hp_ref=uk-business
It has been my experience that lawyers are the most spectacularly innumerate people I have come across (apart from fees where they have an almost homing rat instinct for the most attractive percentage)
No harm to rats like
Fair point a number of people have made. Mike thinks Tory Britain is one of the most fair and equal societies in the world. The great irony of the Bitter Traitors. They will say and think anything if it contradicts anything said by the SNP even if it is in direct contradiction to everything they work for and purport to believe. Utterly amazing!
In the graph it looks like Portugal and Greece are more unequal than the UK (2 of the 5 PIIGS). Your point still stands though, Labour don’t mind the UK being unequal as long as there are others PIIGS in the same, sinking, boat.
Don’t think anyone else picked this up, but it appears that the Scottish Government in fact provides significant funding to the GLC. Those dastardly separatist bastards!
From its own website: http://govanlc.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-glc.html
“GLC’s national Education Law Unit (Lagh-sgoile) is funded by the Scottish Government. Our Govanhill Law Centre is funded by the Scottish Government, and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. GLC’s Parliamentary & Social Policy Unit is self-funding.”
Mike’s politics are one thing (not a good thing) but his legal work and the work of his colleagues at Govan Law Centre is generally beyond reproach. Every community law centre does work in the name of its principal solicitor … doesn’t mean they are working for private profit, it’s just the rules. WingsoverScotland has demolished his argument but don’t threaten the funding of a really valuable community law centre. He’s entitled to his personal views.
‘Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.’
Sir Winston Churchill
Their lies and ineptitude in government and in opposition is now coming home to roost!
Vote Yes as there is no positive alternative!
Jimmy Black – Agreed. Was just saying.
I can’t imagine going to him and asking for help with housing with a bedroomtax demand in my hand. Really. I’d feel I’d have to pretend to believe all this nonsense for fear of destitution. I’d head to CAB elsewhere in the city just to avoid even a hint of any more nonsense. He may very well be decent to those he helps, but given his tribalism, I’d not bother finding out how helpful or not he really is, not personally.
If you think this is bad, check out the latest Daily Mail article trying to stir up animosity between the Scottish and English published yesterday: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2514695/The-dishonest-Mr-Salmonds-proposals-great-All-cares-limousines-red-carpets-writes-STEPHEN-GLOVER.html You may want to cover this on WAS but I’m not sure such dishonesty and non seqitur argument should even be debated 😉