The zero-faced liars
So this isn’t true, any more than it was when Labour first promised it 22 years ago.
But the sheer number of ways in which it’s a lie is quite the thing.
Firstly and most obviously, Scottish Labour can never enact such a policy. They could win every single seat at Holyrood and still be completely helpless to do anything about zero-hours contracts, because employment law is reserved to Westminster.
And who ensured it was reserved to Westminster? Scottish Labour, of course.
Months before the independence referendum, Scottish Labour made it unequivocally plain that the power to ban zero-hours contracts (or set the minimum wage, and much else besides) must NOT be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, and the party took that commitment successfully into the Smith Commission negotiations.
Had they backed the SNP’s position of devolving employment law in 2015, zero hours contracts could already be outlawed in Scotland. But Labour want to hold Scotland hostage for the sake of Labour’s own political power, by ensuring that such a move can only happen in Scotland if England elects a Labour government at Westminster.
And sure enough, in the only part of the UK where Labour is in power – Wales – there have been no attempts to do anything about zero-hours contracts. Well, that’s not quite true. There have been numerous attempts, but not by Labour.
On SIX separate occasions since 2013 Plaid Cymru have tried to introduce legislation which would end zero-hours contracts in the Welsh public sector, ie for people directly employed by the Welsh Assembly – the one area where the devolved administration does have the power. And on every occasion, Welsh Labour has teamed up with the Tories to vote the legislation down.
(The Scottish Government doesn’t employ anyone on a zero-hours contract.)
Alert readers may notice some similarities between these positions and the respective parties’ policies on public-sector pay increases, where the Scottish Government has lifted the pay freeze but Welsh Labour refuses to, despite demanding it be ended anywhere that Labour ISN’T in power.
Even the Tories have begun removing the 1% pay cap in England, leaving Labour-run Wales the only part of the UK where the freeze still applies.
(Labour’s policy in the UK is also to NOT give public-sector workers a real-terms pay increase, ie one above the rate of inflation.)
Yet hilariously, when the SNP enacted the public-sector pay rise in Scotland that Welsh Labour refused to bring forward in Wales, Scottish Labour tried to claim the credit for it.
In fact, with uncanny consistency Labour advocates left-wing policies ONLY where it ISN’T in a position to implement them. Wherever it IS in power, it fails to. It furiously calls for nationalisation of railways in Scotland and the UK, for example, but in Wales is actually increasing privatisation of the network.
Some might consider these positions to be two-faced. Some might even drily suggest that when it comes to having positions on any given subject Labour was “for the many, not the few”. But the reality is even less principled than that.
Because in truth Labour HAS no policies, merely slogans. Any stance Labour takes is only for the purposes of a soundbite – as soon as any actual action is required, whole manifesto pages simply blink out of existence altogether, replaced with Schrodinger-esque mysteries where Labour is both for and against Trident, or both for and against Brexit, or both for and against a second independence referendum, or simply abstains on everything so nobody knows what it’s for.
Which may be why, if the most recent polling is anything to go by, voters think the most likely person to have a zero-hours contract in the coming years will be Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister.
Succinctly put as ever.
Yet great honking Labour rentagobs like Hothersall are still guaranteed to handwave glaring double standards like this away in their quest for the increasingly difficult to pin down SNPbad/LabourGood angle on every such issue.
I am so sick of Labour. I trust pretendy jesus will fall off his slippers next year.
That, that’s why I will never ever vote Labour again!
Labour in Scotland are a total disgrace, it’d a disgrace that the SNP called for Employment Law to be devolved to Scotland yet Labour would not support such a power being devolved.
Just how then do they expect to scrap zero hours contracts? Oh that’s right there would need to be a Labour government in Westminster in order to do so.
Poor wales are even worse of thatn us in Scotland, they could at least have scrapped such bad employment law for those that are employed by the Welsh government and yet they have rufused to do so SIX TIMES!
I find that astonishing, really I do. How can they keep winning in Wales? One of life’s little mysteries I guess. Well we’ve now got Richard Leonard leading Labour up here, going by his performances so far I really don’t think he’ll see out the end of this parliament. Another useless wannabee who’ll never make the grade. Definitely never as Scotland’s First Minister.
Corbyn too, his star will fade and it’ll be back down to earth with a bump for him. Useless shower, they do give me the cringe.
[…] Wings Over Scotland The zero-faced liars So this isn’t true, any more than it was when Labour started promising it 22 years […]
Well at least they are consistent – like the Liberals who have been trying to bring about Home Rule for about 150 years.
It takes a journalist to point out the sheer vacuousness of the Labour Party in Scotland. Pity there are so few journalists about.
Another direct hit for WoS. That’s why I come here for news and comment. Thanks, Stu.
“How can they keep winning in Wales?”
Because there are still people I characterise as ‘Old Collier Evan Bevan’ who point their (industrially-damaged) finger at anyone suggesting that BritNatLabour isn’t worth voting for and croak, “I’ve voted Labour all me life, see? And Da’ voted Labour all ‘is life. And Grampy voted Labour all ‘is life, see? We’ve been votin’ Labour in our family since 1698 and we’re not goanna stop now!”
And so the rogues get back in time and time again.
Of course, if we had a genuine nationalist party (rather than one which keeps Labour in perpetual power whilst blaming everything on the Tories), it might be different. A new pro-independence party is in the process of being formed, with the aim not of bolstering Labour but of replacing it.
Watch this space…
The working class can kiss my arse because I’m a Labour MP now, soon be a Lord too, if I keep my nose clean;-)
Zinger of a post, Rev.
“Because in truth Labour HAS no policies, merely slogans.”
That’s it in a nutshell.
And moreover it’s a great pity that we can never expect to get a forensic dissection like this of the ephemeral reality that is British Labour (whether their decaying wee North British outpost or the Imperial HQ in London) from our national broadcaster (whether their forelock-tugging wee North British outpost or the Imperial HQ in London).
Wake up, remaining Labour supporters! If you want proper full implementation of the things you truly want, you’ll only get them in an independent Scotland. And you know it.
Labour branch preferred to pay the Bank of Americana huge payments due to PFI than pay for staff in local government. How many home care workers could be employed and with a half decent wage if labour hadn’t signed local government funding revenue to the city sharks. Millionns every month siphoned out of Scotland blindly supported by the likes of UNISON, UNITE and the like. The last hiding places for the labour ex cooncillors.
It would be quite difficult to ban temporary contracts which can keep. people in work. Who otherwise cannot work. Contract work etc. People can be on ‘banks’ on temporary contracts. Students and people with children who only want to work when they can. Or do agency work. Sometimes they earn more to cover lack of holiday pay etc. Just like the Rev Stu. Or the NHS doctors, nurses etc. Financial service workers. They often cover staff shortfalls but can’t do fixed hours. How can they be distinguished?
How’s this for perverse logic …
Because Labour habitually claim to be something they aren’t, and promise to do things they won’t, they may actually hinder Scottish independence.
However the Tories habitually do exactly what you’d expect them to do, and may inadvertently assist us to achieve Scottish Independence.
A very odd world!
Labour’s hypocrisy is truly rank…
Ken500
100% agree with your post. I worked as an agency nurse for years, my preference. I cannot see how you can separate those who wish to work that way and those exploited.
Here’s me thinking they don’t make Whoppers anymore .
Labour only exists to give the impression of choice from Conservative.
BBC GMS and many newspapers will be rushing to hold the government-to-be to account on their promises.
Labour have a Blairite core of grey men the party is fully part of the English Nationalist establishment.
To keep the proles voting Labour occasionally a semi literate and hardly articulate former loyal union rep is permitted to be elected as a councillor, MSP or MP.
Sometimes the inarticulate ones make the Lord’s. They have to fully follow the party line and basically not say too much or cause trouble.
The majority of the Labour Nationalists are rather well of types and the number of proles permitted public office is controlled.
Labour are part of the English elite establishment just like the Tory team, that’s why they don’t do anything which would damage the balance.
Labour are, and have always been, only interested in the party, not the workers.
Keep promising jam tomorrow, if you vote for them today; tomorrow never arrives.
@ Ken500 – you can specify whether a contract is temporary or permanent. Then you can specify whether it is a “fixed” number of hours per week, or a variable no of hours. The actual number to be decided by mutual agreement. Staff can also cover for each other.
Holidays are specified as so many days per annum so that people get paid holidays. Ditto sick leave.
There is no justification for a zero hours contract. It is perfectly possible to provide a flexible work contract which guarantees hours, rates, holidays and sick pay. If an organisation can’t do that they are not competent to organise anything IMO.
Posted this on the other thread, never mind. 2 or 3 guys rout 100 of Westminster’s finest and make them look silly!
link to youtube.com
but I never saw this one before, and appropriately it’s asking if Labour want to bring back slavery:
wwww.youtube.com/watch?v=ISIvVoH-qJ0
mogabee says:
27 December, 2017 at 6:45 pm
Ken500
100% agree with your post. I worked as an agency nurse for years, my preference. I cannot see how you can separate those who wish to work that way and those exploited.”
Opt out. Get paid more to compensate.
UK gov did this with the EU work time directive and its probably the first thing Brexit UK will scrap completely, way too socialist.
Anyone can sign out of the EU work time directive in the UKOK zone today though.
That was all the very hard work of socialist heroes like Blair and Brown. Great guys, minted too.
OTT. just watched ( I know) Shit tv seems that the pipeline,with the crack,was costing £20M PER DAY. If that is multiplied over a year, it comes to £7,300m what happened to the £15B blackhole?
@ Thepnr I purloined your post 5.31 to share on F/B Yes pages .
@Ken500
I agree with this, people do want to work on a temp, part-time, freelance basis, the one thing is that zero hour contracts should not be exclusive, no idea if that was implemented in law yet, there was talk about it.
If on the other hand the state guaranteed 100% employment that would eliminate zero hour contracts though competition.
One of your rapier jobs, Rev, and quite devastating.
It’s why They hate you.
How any sentient being can vote for BLiS______d is beyond me: they take hypocrisy to new levels.
Labour promises to do …………same broken record . Sick listening to it
The main reason that the supply-side approach is flawed is because it fails to recognise that unemployment arises when there are not enough jobs created to match the preferences of the willing labour supply. The research evidence is clear – churning people through training programs divorced from the context of the paid-work environment is a waste of time and resources and demoralises the victims of the process – the unemployed.
Imagine a small community comprising 100 dogs. Each morning they set off into the field to dig for bones. If there enough bones for all buried in the field then all the dogs would succeed in their search no matter how fast or dexterous they were.
Now imagine that one day the 100 dogs set off for the field as usual but this time they find there are only 95 bones buried.
Some dogs who were always very sharp dig up two bones as usual and others dig up the usual one bone. But, as a matter of accounting, at least 5 dogs will return home bone-less.
Now imagine that the government decides that this is unsustainable and decides that it is the skills and motivation of the bone-less dogs that is the problem. They are not “boneable” enough.
So a range of dog psychologists and dog-trainers are called into to work on the attitudes and skills of the bone-less dogs. The dogs undergo assessment and are assigned case managers. They are told that unless they train they will miss out on their nightly bowl of food that the government provides to them while bone-less. They feel despondent.
Anyway, after running and digging skills are imparted to the bone-less dogs things start to change. Each day as the 100 dogs go in search of 95 bones, we start to observe different dogs coming back bone-less. The bone-less queue seems to become shuffled by the training programs.
However, on any particular day, there are still 100 dogs running into the field and only 95 bones are buried there!
Or you can use the game of musical chairs to also prove the point. While you might be able to train somebody to get to a chair quicker and do better in the game, the game is designed so that there will always be one person standing at the end of every round.
The answer of course is to introduce a job guarentee. An employer of last resort that makes sure there are enough chairs or bones available.
link to medium.com
Business is tight. Employer A hires Labourer B at the minimum wage. Employer A can then pile more and more work and hours on Labourer B because B’s alternative is the dole. So B ends up earning far less than the minimum wage for their hours while Employer A earns super-normal profits, or perhaps even normal profits in a downturn, when they shouldn’t.
Hardly fair is it. We have a minimum wage for a reason.
However that scenario only applies in a system that is systemically short of demand and has no alternative employers bidding for Labourer B. There are other scenarios over the business cycle. When you get alternative employers popping up, as you do in an expansion, you get the following:
Business is good. Employer A hires Labourer B at the minimum wage. Employer A piles on the work. Employer C pops up, but doesn’t like the unemployed because they have no idea if they will turn up. Instead Employer C offers the minimum wage and promises faithfully to be nicer to employees. So Labourer B changes jobs, and Employer A is stuck because the alternative is unemployed people who they have no idea will turn up, let alone work the crazy hours now expected. Then Employer C piles on the work… Rinse and repeat.
You’ll note the scenario is highly dynamically disruptive, yet this is the scenario that plays out pretty much every day in areas like the construction business. It is partially the reason why getting things completed is so difficult. The cultural dynamic is corrosive and workers walk off the job.
Now let’s look at boom time:
Business is really good. Employer A hires Labourer B at the minimum wage. Employer C pops up, doesn’t like the look of the unemployed and starts touting round their alternative offer at a higher rate. Labourer B asks for more money, or they’ll move. Employer A doesn’t like the look of the unemployed, because they have no idea if they’ll turn up, so agrees to pay more money because there’s loads of work coming in and charges accordingly.
The unemployed buffer has little effect on the behaviour of business because it is a one way trap designed to frighten labour.
Now lets replay those interactions with a Job Guarantee in place.
Business is tight. Employer A hires Labourer B at the market determined minimum wage. Employer A can no longer pile on the work onto Labourer B because there is a guaranteed decent employer who Labourer B will move to if ill-treated. So Employer A has to keep the work at a reasonable level. Employer A now earns normal profits, and may move into a loss, while the worker earns the minimum wage.
Surely that is how it should be?
Let’s do the expansion phase:
Business is good. Employer A hires Labourer B at the minimum wage. Employer C pops up offering the minimum wage and has the choice of Labourer B or new Labourer D currently with a track record of reliability on the Job Guarantee. Employer A would be happy to retain Labourer B but knows they have the option of Labourer D. Neither Employer A, nor Employer C can pile on the work, because the Job Guarantee is known to be decent. So both Employer A and Employer C get the labour they require at a fair deal and stuff finally gets done.
And the boom phase.
Business is really good. Employer A hires Labourer B at the minimum wage. Employer C pops up offering the minimum wage because they have the choice of Labourer B or new Labourer D currently with a track record of reliability on the Job Guarantee. Labourer B asks for more money. Employer A would be happy to retain Labourer B but knows they have the option of Labourer D so they turn the wage rise down. Labourer B can’t get any more money out of Employer C either for the same reason. Yet still neither Employer A, nor Employer C can pile on the work, because the Job Guarantee is known to be decent. So both Employer A and Employer C get the labour they require at a fair deal and stuff finally gets done.
Importantly Employer Z will tend not to pop up and stay around because policy has been set sufficiently tight that the Job Guarantee buffer will not exhaust. But even if it did the Job Guarantee remains a credible threat to labour services in the private firms. Nobody can become a parasite business. Competition for labour would ultimately eliminate one of the other players, force their profits down to the new normal, or drive an innovation cycle (doing more with less). All of which leads to cheaper prices, not more expensive ones.
This is why we say the Job Guarantee is a superior buffer. It promotes the same competitive response between the Job Guarantee buffer and private firms as there are between private firms where labour operates in a talent economy. This is because under the Job Guarantee, the workers can deliver a proven track record of engagement with the Job Guarantee, as opposed to a perception of inactivity on the dole.
So in reality the number of people on an unemployed buffer would always be far higher than a Job Guarantee buffer because the risk to business of engaging the unemployed is so much higher. Therefore they will move into bidding from each other much earlier in the cycle and because the unemployed buffer isn’t a credible threat to private business labour services you get an unpleasant dynamic where capital can pass its losses onto workers.
When the financial crash hit the automatic stablisers kicked in. Pushing the deficit to 10% of GDP as tax payments fell and government spending increased in the form of wealfare payments as many lost their jobs.
Imagine if we had a job guarentee in place at the time that paid £365 per week. So anybody who lost their job via the crash or the recession could find a job the next day.
Ultimately, if a job guarentee was in place at £365 per week offering good holiday pay and a decent pension. Then the private sector would have to up its game.
Finally the private sector would have to compete for labour and thus the likes of Mike Ashley and Uber and the gig economy would be destroyed overnight.
Unless they all at least matched the job guarentee that was being offered by the government.
Then what happens is 2 things
1) The private sector up their game and make a bid for labour by either matching the job guarentee or a slightly higher bid. Thus the number of people on the job guarentee gets smaller. It shrinks lifting all boats from the bottom and no failed trickle down from the top.
2) The private sector don’t make a bid for labour and choose to invest in machines instead that increases the productivity of the nation making everyone better off.
It’s a win win all round.
link to bilbo.economicoutlook.net
The legendary productivity of the French (which leaves the UK, and the Japanese, left for dead in the water) is almost certainly tied in with their labour laws. When firing is so difficult, and therefore hiring discouraged, companies naturally invest in the tools and the training to make the existing workforce highly productive. The French are also pretty keen to get on with a job, and then clock out on time. Very disciplined in that sense.
We have almost the reverse in the UK; companies find it easier and cheaper to hire and fire mammals – machines are expensive, the return on investment can take years and a mistake in buying the wrong machine, or one ahead of need, is much more costly relative to another pair of hands. Also the low corporate tax rate does not encourage investment, and we have the famous Anglo Saxon disease of short-termism.
We could learn from the French, and also the Japanese. Despite the latter’s low rate of average productivity, in those areas where companies compete globally they are very productive, and low productivity is largely confined to the domestic sector, such as local retail and other services. Which raises prices locally, but can be seen as an informal tax designed to protect and provide employment for the less qualified. Wondered about the legendary standard of service in Japan?
Corporate tax rates are also very high (once national and local taxes are summed) but generous tax breaks for investment reflect this, encouraging investment (sometimes to excess, Japan is still suffering from that).
Low corporate tax rates don’t on their own encourage investment. They are a sweet given away without anything in return.?
Macron the neoliberal wolf in sheeps clothing will destroy French Productivity while trying to replicate the German model. Which only benfits Germany and keeps the rest of the Eurozone in chains.
link to bilbo.economicoutlook.net
@Derek Henry
Plus the big reduction in benefits, better to pay wages to actually get something done, than pay benefits to get nothing done, plus a probable savings on the NHS with healthier more active citizens and costs of drug abuse to the economy.
So how would the SNP with their own central bank and free floating currency implement the job guarentee ?
It’s all about concentrating on effective demand and not just the aggregate demand the £365 per wekk job will bring.
So let’s start in a depression era, and assume I’ve been away from home for a few days and it’s been really hot and sunny (in Glasgow no less!). All my plants are dry and gasping for water, so I can whack the sprinkler on across the whole garden, immediately providing a much needed boost in aggregate water levels.
However, as I get near to the point of correctly watering all the plants, some start to saturate and waterlog. In some perfect theoretical construct of a garden, this would not occur – a combination of gravity and osmosis would ensure that as long as the aggregate volume of water was correct, water would disperse from the overwatered areas to the dry areas and everything would get just what it needs.
Unfortunately in the real world, this won’t happen. Some parts of my garden drain much better than others (damn Glasgow clay), some dry quicker depending how much shade they have, while some of my plants are much more susceptible to drying out than others – my tomatoes need water every day while fruiting, whereas the potatoes can survive days without.
The mainstream obsesses over the problem of waterlogging, and determines that it is vital that I turn the sprinkler off the second I sense any plant getting too much water. It posits that unfortunately there is a necessary trade-off between that and some plants dying of too little water, and suggests that in this scenario, any specific interventions I make in the garden will lead to disaster, and all I can do is encourage flexibility in the vegetable market.
Perhaps I can retrain my tomatoes to behave more like potatoes, or suggest they move from their nice sunny spot by the fence, to the shady spot behind the runner beans where there’s no shortage of water.
Meanwhile, academic vegeconomists all over the world spend thousands of fruitless hours devising ever more complex models to compute the absolute amount of water I should use, taking in to account their predictions of the weather (which they can never get right), the mix of vegetables (which changes from year to year and depends on the random germination of seeds – which they never get right) and the composition of the soil (which depends on the compost I’ve used this year – which they never get right). Despite the complexity of these models, all they ever come up with a slight variations as to how much I should leave the sprinkler tap on.
After that, my poor old tomatoes are left to their own devices. C’mon, I’ve incentivised you to be a potato!
But the targeted demand approach says we can do much better than that. It deals with the fact tomatoes are and always will be tomatoes and need the sunny patch by the fence to grow.
It still uses the sprinkler, and set at a level where waterlogging shouldn’t occur. But then rather than worrying about measuring the amount of water used, and comparing this to some notional target, it checks each plant individually to see if is getting enough water. If it isn’t, it tells me to pick up the watering can, and specifically water that plant. Happy tomatoes!
What’s more, if for any reason the run-off from my specific watering flows elsewhere in the garden, causing too much water in aggregate and I notice any saturation, I can always turn the sprinkler down a notch, safe in the knowledge if some other plants now lack water as a result, my targeting watering can will deal with the situation. Happy broad beans!
What’s more, because my garden is now much more stable, my vegetable growing is at maximum productive output and I’ve discovered making specific interventions in the garden isn’t the disaster the mainstream assured me it would be, and I can consider longer term structural changes. Perhaps building a run-off towards the tomatoes so they’re less likely to require the watering can intervention, or improving the drainage by the rhubarb so they won’t waterlog so quickly.
And of course, the garden never reaches a permanently stable equilibrium – there’ll always be jobs to do, and I’ll always need the watering can occasionally – but hey, it’s a lot better than the mainstream system and it gets me out the house.
Aggregate demand is a curve. Effective demand is a point on that curve where it intersects current aggregate supply. As you push for higher effective demand, it creates more supply until you become supply limited. That is the effective demand limit.
We’re always at effective demand, but not necessarily at the effective demand limit. A Job Guarantee adds extra supply of public goods as well as extra demand, which shifts the limit upwards because it is not constrained by profit optimisation.
Effective demand is the point D on the aggregate demand curve where it is intersected by aggregate supply. But the supply curve is an indication of preference, not a mechanism to force demand where it needs to be. So there may be potential supply for which there is no demand. The classic one being labour.
So just increasing demand isn’t enough. It has to be demand for which there can feasibly be a supply. In the labour market that means creating jobs for the people as they are where they are.
If you demand 1,000 doctors when all you have are care workers, then you’re not going to improve matters one jot. If you demand doctors in Aberdeen, when the spare ones all want to live in London then you’re not going to help anything.
You have to manage both curves to get the dynamics to move them where you want them to go. They won’t shift all the way naturally.
@ yesindyref2
Exactly !
Nail on head it’s a win, win for everybody even the private sector and their profits because of the increased aggregate demand and they like to employee people who are working.
They can take people who are working in the job guarentee who are learning new skills, turning up for work every day who they would never employee if they had been on the dole for 6 months.
Which again shrinks the size of those on the job guarentee.
It’s a no brainer but the only way the SNP could do it is if we were independent and had our own currency and central bank.
It’s time they adopted the idea and said this is what they were going to do.
Hamish100
“..How many home care workers could be employed and with a half decent wage if labour hadn’t signed local government funding revenue to the city sharks. Millionns every month siphoned out of Scotland blindly supported by the likes of UNISON, UNITE and the like. The last hiding places for the labour ex cooncillors..”
Well said Hamish.
Labour in Scotland have always relied on two things-
The stupidity of Scottish people & Total Memory Loss affecting some people .
This has worked for them since the days they used to Weigh the voting papers
I doubt if it’s changed much, my first reaction on losing in 2014 was f/n Cowards, I doubt if that’s changed either, Cowards then and Cowards now they won’t change they are too bloody scared .
I cant wait for the Alex Salmond show tomorrow on RT, I am getting fed up with repeats.
Good one again Rev.
Labour has the moral integrity of a loan shark.
@Derek Henry
Over 2,800 words, brevity is not your forte I see. I can put you in touch with a Slovenian who can match your output if you want.
Over 2,800 words, brevity is not your forte I see. I can put you in touch with a Slovenian who can match your output if you want.”
Hey, that’s my girlfriend you’re talking about.
Simple fact is, all of Scotland’s neighbours DO NOT have their next door neighbour run their economy for them and they all thrive away quite happily.
They’d all be completely mortified if say an England style economic model was dumped on them too.
They be even more mortified, if like Scotland, they were promised Devo max, to stay under the control of said neighbour, agreed to do that, on that basis alone, then got totally reamed on the deal, almost over night, after agreeing to it all.
Imagine a Norway today being told to stay in a UK, governed by approx 500+ English MP’s in merry olde London town.
Labour & BBC in Scotland working as one as usual.
On the BBC website it headlines waiting time targets missed because of a surge recently, this surge wouldn’t have anything to do with labour controlled councils failure to grit the bloody pavements and roads during the recent cold snap.
We live on the route that the Gritters use when going about their business, like clockwork you used to see the yellow glow of the hazard lights reflecting on the blinds, Until this year , The same ice and snow that usually happens this time of year, What’s missing was The movement of gritters,
Labour councils taking the Piss over the past few months, firstly it was sacking classroom assistants , then it was withdrawing school buses, every dirty little move aimed at ensuring headlines making sure all grief and bile is directed at the Scottish government and away from useless labour councils, the latest was forgetting to use the brand new gritting trucks. I wonder what’s on the agenda next because this is a drip drip designed to enrage the public, this will assisted by the BBC .
Good old labour as bitter and Twisted as ever, the SNP should call their bluff and end their stupid bloody political games by introducing special measures by taking control of some of these wayward councils, by making sure essential services are maintained, even if it means dipping into reserves that are growing yearly, all for the public good you see.
@Derek Henry
The thing about companies investing is that the UK actively discouraged it by charging corporation tax on all profits. Gordon Brown had the right idea with his Annual Investment Allowance (AIA), which was a tentative £100,000. I guess it might have had to be introduced in stages, next £250,000, then £500,000, £1 million, £2m, £5m then unlimited. But along came Osborne to cut it to just £25,000 then forced to rise it to £250,000 as he was shown the error of his ways.
Main reason for not having it is because of the avoidance culture in the UK, companies would have used it to dodge CT by spurious investments in offshore funds or something.
But it could be done in a oner with a strong attack on avoidance, problem being Westminster genuinely is in thrall to the City banks and casino operations.
Would the SNP do it – and the guaranteed job idea? Perhaps, and it would be good to see a paragraph in the Growth Commission report just discussing it as a future option to show knowledge and understanding of it.
Problem is for Indy Ref 2 – anything truly bold and revolutionary would get ripped to shreds by the complicit media, and Indy which is needed, wouldn’t happen. So it’s first a YES vote, then perhaps a fairly cautious start, but progressive move over.
After all, Scotland invented economics, it’s time we re-invented it and actually implemented it.
@jfngw
ScottieDog says much the same thing, but a lot shorter. It needs both to get the idea across, and perhaps a dedicated YES group to make the case. Irony is that it’s neither right nor left, nor centre, it’s cross-politics really, so it could appeal to Conservatives for YES and RISE / Common Weal at the same time, to endorse at least some of the philosophy.
All our lives,our family “mum and dads”generation were staunch liebor. It was only when us,their children opened our eyes in the technological age, and saw these lying self serving b’xxxxds for what they were.liars and backstabbers who constantly run Scotland down. C’mon Scotland lets sweep this liebor sh**e into the dustbin of history.
Any thinking person in Scotland must know by now what Scottish labour really is. PFI robbery, Iraqi war, deliberate poverty in our country etc etc.
Watched the industrial base of Scotland being wasted and saying little about it. They are indeed a branch office only there to keep Scots under the Westminster jackboot.
They have been well and truly rumbled in recent years and deserve every thing bestowed on them, they will not rule Scotland again.
Corbyn is part of the Westminster system, nothing less. Ermine awaits no doubt. They are deceivers just like their Tory pals and want to hold Scotland fast.
But their game is blown and no amount of talk and falsehoods are going to protect them, an independent Scotland is coming, they will just have to take it on the chin.
Is there anybody still unaware anywhere, Labour tells lies, big fat giant lies, even when they’re caught telling lies they lie about that
Tony Bliar promised at the liebor party conference in 1995 in brighton that liebor would abolish zero hour contracts. They had 13yrs to do so in which they done f**kall. FFs Scotland Will you ever wake up and smell the coffee? Or are you destined to be f***ing stupid forever?.
@yesindyref2
My point to Mr Henry is that hardly anyone will read his post, it is too long for a comments section, just a mass of words even if the point he is making is valid. If he wants to post massive amounts of text he really needs a web page properly formatted to encourage people to read it.
This party are more of a disgrace than the Tories at leat they are honest about their elitism. Labour no they pretend they are for, the disadvantaged vulnerable young and disengaged. Really they are same elite as the Tories except they won’t admit it.
Well done Stu for outing them again.
@jfngw
I know and generally agree.
Perhaps a short summary post to get the idea across, ending by saying “detail in the next 4 posts”, for those who are prepared to spend the time. Anyone not can then just scroll on by.
jfngw says @9-47pm
“My point to Mr Henry is that hardly anyone will read his post”
Agreed, particularly on a Boxing Day evening, stuffed with yet more turkey etc, I only managed to read the first sentence and gave up! Far too long for a ‘comment’.
“ Robert Graham @ 0906pm” exactly right Robert as regards the non Gritting of roads & pavements causing “ havoc” in A&E. Specifically Aberdeen city council total non response to snow & ice the weekend before last can be directly linked to a huge increase in A &E visits that weekend to ARI. An absolute disgrace and abdication of responsibility by the council.
The management, organisation & budget for gritting of roads pavements etc should be stripped from the councils and given to NHS Scotland ( as a preventative measure , to further safeguard the health & wellbeing of our citizens). I was “ spitting feathers” when I listened to STV & “ BBC Scotland” headlining with the SNP bad A& E statistics.
As you say unionist controlled councils directly “ putting the cost of their penny pinching on to our health service” . Time our SNP government take action on this disgraceful state of affairs .
Some of us who are a bit longer in the tooth may recall the toothy Tony New Labour Blair reassuring his Big Business donors that he was on message by telling us all that that there was no longer a ‘job for life’, that we all had to be ‘flexible’, and all that zero hours pap.
Just scan the Labour cheese wedge of failures at Holyrood on FMQ day.
They are a sad bunch of dowdy overfed losers who have absolutely no idea what they are supposed to stand for.
Richard Leonard and James Kelly make up the ‘front Bench’ of Corbyn’s Branch Office now.
Has the labour Movement up here gone completely insane?
How any Scots citizen under forty could consider backing this blatant bunch of not very bright freeloaders beats me.
Then again, a glance to the right of the chamber where Ruth and her fat giggling racist elitists sit and Rennie’s wee cluster of dim but nice LD’s skulk at the back of the room is equally as risible.
None of the Yoon parties are fit to form a Government.
The very thought of Ruth, Wullie, or Leonard as FM is absolutely hysterical, in the true sense of the word, in as much as it engenders hysteria.
I doubt that any who voted Yoon last time did so in the hope that their particular feckless brand of Yookay-ism would form a government.
Can anybody seriously believe that James Kelly would make a fabulous Finance Minister, or Murdo Fraser would sort out the new Social security System?
There is an ugly unspoken horrible truth.
The Yooks, the Yoons, The ProudScotsBut Anglos Up Here could not run a tea club, never mind a country.
But that doesn’t stop the Tom Gordons, the Magnus Gardhams, or the Gordon Brewers of the Yook Propaganda wing from publicising shit like this zero hours dung.
They know that they are polishing turds, they know this, but they do what they are paid to do; lie and pervert, while tens of thousands die of institutionalised poverty and neglect.
2018 will be our year of Discontent.
2019 will be our year of Liberty.
It’s going to get very nasty, I’m afraid.
I invite any YooKay Anglo MSP to list one positive thing they introduced as a member of the Scottish Parliament.
Go on, Murdo, Coca Cola, I know WoS is essential reading for you all.
Name one ground breaking piece of legislation which you championed…
‘Hello, Darkness, my old friend’.
Robert Graham agree with you 100% would it not be earthshaking if Nicola announced that due to incompetence and in the interest of public safety AC will be placed in special measures while a team of SG investigators would be sent in to determine if the council were acting against the public interest . After all the SG have been elected by the Scottish People to act in their best interests and to ensure their taxes are used in accordance with those interests, wow would that not generate some headlines and show that the SG are determined to ensure that competent local government will work for the people , and any partisan authorities playing silly political buggers will face the same treatment.
Also Jack Collatin love your, in your face no nonsense comments
If there is evidence that lack of gritting by uniomist councils has directly led to increased injuries to the public and additional pressure on A&Es leading to missed targets – this needs to be commubnicated to the public.
If taking councils into special measures is appropriate, do it!
Jack collatin 12.38am. Excellent post as usual.