Earlier today we reported the Edinburgh Evening News’ coverage of a study by Sheffield Hallam University which found that households across Edinburgh would lose an average of £780 each thanks to the coalition’s welfare cuts, with the worst-affected area – Craigmillar – likely to take an annual hit of £1,240 per household.
Today’s edition of the Daily Record has a prominent feature on the same survey, but chooses to focus on Glasgow rather than Edinburgh, and finds that things are even worse. Households in the poorest part of Glasgow – Calton, infamous for its low male life expectancies – stand to see a shocking £1,760 a year ripped out of their budget.
The Record being the Record, of course, it characterises the cuts – quite correctly – as being the responsibility of the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition. But then, weirdly, it asks a Labour MSP to comment on them.
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Tags: hypocrisylizards
Category
scottish politics, stats
The Edinburgh Evening News, today:
“Families across the Capital are facing a £780 cut to their annual income following a shake-up of the benefits system, new research has revealed.
Welfare reforms being brought in at Westminster are set to suck £130 million out of the city’s economy – equivalent to £390 for every working-age adult.
The study – produced by experts at Sheffield Hallam University – reveals parents collecting child benefit are most likely to see cuts in their payments while those on incapacity benefit will see the steepest yearly reductions of up to £145. And it has emerged that some of Edinburgh’s poorest areas will suffer the most.
The average family in Craigmillar – the worst-hit neighbourhood in Edinburgh – will lose out on £1240 per year once the full range of reforms are introduced.
But significant losses will be felt even in the city’s most affluent districts, with each family in the Meadows-Morningside ward set to shoulder an average annual hit of £440.”
Well, as long as the poor people are suffering three times as much as the rich people, and the disabled are being hit hardest of all, clearly coalition policy is working as intended. Of course, if Labour get in, it’ll be different – they plan even MORE welfare cuts than the Tories, and they’re proud of it. If you can’t work, you’re dead weight.
We didn’t quite grasp the meaning of the phrase “we’re all in this together” when David Cameron said it before, but we think we’ve got it now.
Tags: lizardsqft
Category
scottish politics, uk politics
On the eve of Wings Over Scotland’s 2000th post, we thought we’d celebrate.
Because today we learned something strange.
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Tags: and finallylizards
Category
comment, disturbing, uk politics
Switch the phrase “a Scottish Assembly” in the speech below for “an independent Scotland” and Alistair Darling could pretty much have made it word-for-word yesterday.
But can you tell which leader of the opposition actually did?
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Tags: lizards
Category
history, scottish politics, uk politics
Welcome to another glorious new dawn in the Union.
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Tags: lizards
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comment, culture, disturbing, uk politics
Whatever your political views, this is a very important year. The commentators, the politicians and the so-called experts will all be heard ad nauseam – but ultimately it’s you and me, the ‘ordinary’ people of Scotland, who will decide our nation’s future.
But however Scotland votes in September, what is even more important is that the people of this country seize this opportunity to take our democracy back. For whether we’re governed from Westminster or Holyrood is almost irrelevant unless democracy – real democracy – is reawakened.
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Tags: David Pickeringlizardsperspectives
Category
comment, scottish politics, uk politics
The Daily Record, 13 December 2013:
But phew – luckily, in the UK there’s always an alternative.
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Tags: lizards
Category
comment, uk politics
Imagine working for a trade union; one which is formidable and respected, one forever being sought by Radio 4. An indomitable body of professionals who never resort to strikes and scuffles, braziers and megaphones, because they’re so heavy with influence and history that they need only tap the right minister on the shoulder to have their voice heard and heeded.
Imagine working for the magnificent British Medical Association.
When I saw the BMA were recruiting in Glasgow a few years ago I was delighted and surprised. My surprise increased when I was sent to a call centre for the interview. Sitting prim and nervous in the reception area, a tacky room with walls that trembled if you brushed against them, I wondered what this cheap and nasty office could possibly have to do with the great and august BMA.
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Tags: Julie McDowalllizards
Category
comment, uk politics
