These are unsettling times for Scottish nationalists. Just over a year ago, in the wake of the EU referendum, support in Remain-voting Scotland for independence was spiking. With the British government scrambling to form a coherent line on Brexit, the Scottish government hoped to turn the crisis into an opportunity by forcing the pace for a further independence referendum
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Excellent article thanks, Alastair. And I have to agree bout the campaign being wrong-headed.
http://rwbblog.blogspot.co.id/2017/07/the-great-waspi-cover-up-part-3-not-in.html
The other flaw in the SNP's position was the 'great pivot to the Central Belt' under Nicola Sturgeon was going to scoop up Labour seats - temporarily at least, while imperilling the small 'c' Conservative traditional SNP heartlands of the North East - and under Ruth Davidson the Tories duly retook many of them - including, deliciously, Les Dawson's representative on earth, Fat Eck's.
I'm not sure radical new policies for Scotland can win those back AND work in the Central Belt.
Well worth a read
Alastair makes some important points about pensions equality, which was very widely publicised in the 1990s.
As I recall the theory (roughly) was that devolution might strengthen the union by giving Scots the chance to make some of their own decisions and forcing them to stop moaning about Westminster.
I admit I doubted that when the independence campaign came so close. But maybe that was the high watermark in Scotland, and now the SNP have been given enough power to make themselves unpopular.
As someone noted on here the other day, there was a better WI team in the commentary boxes at the ground than there were on the pitch, even though most of them are in their fifties and sixties now!
Like the number of wickets that had fallen before the Windies squeezed past Alistair Cook's personal total.
They live longer than men on average.
They spend less time in the workforce on average.
More of them have to have NI topped up by their husbands/men of equal distinction than the other way around.
If we are talking about true pension equality, shouldn't they get it later?
This isn't meant to be taken altogether seriously BTW but they do look to me like a load of sexist muppets who want to have their cake and eat it.
The author also doesn't seem to understand that the Lefts obsession with food banks is not a desired to have state distribution of food, but rather for poor people to have enough resources to not need them!
"The climate and composition of the Earth’s atmosphere, has, for example, been changing ever since the planet was formed 4.5 Billion years ago. But today’s liberals assume that its present exact composition is the ideal."
During most of that time the Earth would not have supported much more than a tiny fraction of the current human population.
Do read all the way to the bottom for the disclosure!
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-923X.12347/full
Alastair knows more about pension law than I ever will, but the only legitimate sounding grievance to me is that WASPI claim that individual notice was not given when the change was brought in. Is this correct?
Generally, it seems that reforming entitlements (WFA, Bus passes, Dementia tax) gets a tremendous reaction from the losers that is not balanced out by political benefit to the winners from the policy. Brexiteers take note!
Interesting article, Mr. Meeks. I do wonder if the SNP might do better than anticipated next time. I think it depends whether Scots are thinking of the best PM, or who they want (in MP/party terms) representing Scotland.
Also, might Sturgeon's time as leader, then long apprenticeship to Salmond, then time as leader be wearing a bit thin now?
However, there were over 600 news reports on it, so it's a bit surprising so many are claiming they knew nothing about it.
It's all in the article I link to above.
Edit- Also in that article, a glum statement from a 1983 report - 'it is much easier to confer a benefit than to take it away.'
I could understand it as a one off if her purse was nicked or something, especially if it was full of cash - when we opened a food bank in Newent in Gloucestershire back in 2009 we had several cases like that. However, she made it sound like it was a regular thing, and that makes no sense at all.
Did she have major debts or something?
His point about pensioners and nurses is a very good one.
Of course the luvvies will reply with a lot of yeah buts.......
Otherwise, no.
I think that's how the Act works, although if I'm right it must have been written by a moron.
In short, WASPI's campaign amounts to little more than the pleading of a special interest group of women who were unaware of their new pension age despite widespread reporting and public discussion of the increase and a very long period of phased transition.
Why not mention young mechanics or groundworkers who will earn comparable wages?
Liberals are too busy wringing their hands and pretending to care, which is the gist of the original article.
I don't think nurses are more vulnerable than others, and the tens of thousands of nursing vacancies in the land make agency or bank work freely available if outside commitments like carers responsibilities make this possible.
The poor performance of Leicester's Emergency dept is down to impossibility to recruit and retain ward nurses for example. The problem is the backdoor to the department rather than the front door..
I've lived on non-contributory unemployment benefit and I know the real meaning of poverty - at one point I could only eat one meal a day and I had to wear extra clothes because it was so cold (this being before food banks became widespread - indeed my first job was fundraising for one to be set up).
Nobody on over £20,000 a year should be in that position unless they've made some very stupid mistakes. In which case, fine to help them in the short term but it's surely more important to get those sorted out than just have them turning up for food destined primarily for those who are not in work at all?
Of course, in reality you have absolutely no way of knowing that there are no nurses in the UK who might need to use food banks. You've just decided that's the case. Luckily, others take a more nuanced view of things and understand that there are many ways in which people can run into the kind of difficulties that might lead them into not having enough money to buy food for a period of time.
You might like to check the definition of need as compared with want.
Nurses are not on it. Not by any reasonable stretch of the imagination. That is in no way to suggest that they are feather-bedded or have easy lives, but their salaries should be enough to live on. As mine is.
While I see the problems about recruitment and retention are an issue for you in your work, I'm also struggling to see how the fact that they can earn more money either overtime or working elsewhere is germane to this discussion.
To my mind, there is something very strange indeed about that claim. It doesn't add up (literally).
It isn't and she shouldn't have to. I think there is more to that story than met the eye.
Indeed smoking strongly correlates with poverty. Homeless,prisoners, single parents, etc. It is in part familial, part institutional (many homeless people started when in children's homes, jail or in the forces). Smoking is generally attractive to people with little else to look forward to, as is bingedrinking and drug addiction.
When was the last time you helped out at a food bank?
I must confess I wondered how she'd had three children if smoking was her only form of pleasure, but he did have a point.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/qatar-files-complaint-icao-al-arabiya-report-170819204047155.html
However, isn't that rather distinct from the question of whether or not her salary is at the right level as a general concept? This one was blaming austerity.
A moment's consideration would provide the explanation for the question it poses - giving out free cash would require means testing, as it would be far, far more likely to be abused than giving out free food. Something beyond the reasonable capabilities of private individuals.
As I say downthread, maybe a big difference between liberals like me and conservatives like you is that I would tend to believe someone using a food bank - whoever they are - has genuine need, while you would be a lot more sceptical.
Yes, drug abuse and mental health issues are massively linked, its a chicken and egg scenario that must be addressed. However its far more comfortable to project concerns about the tiny % of nurses who supposedly need food banks.
This is my point about liberalism, it skirts around real issues, thousands of people are seemingly trapped in a world of both legal and illegal drugs, wrecking lives and costing us a fortune.
However I think it may apply only to scheduled elections. So 2022 would be the clash rather than 2020, even though the latter date is more plausible for an election.
Edit - but that wouldn't matttr as the next SP elections will be scheduled for 2020, so there shouldn't be elections for it in 2021.
I rest my case.
And for the umpteenth time it really doesn't matter how many times you say I'm a conservative it still isn't true. Your willingness to tell lies to support your argument is pathetic, frankly.
Teaching workforce can of course have the same problem of being young, female and fertile but of course childcare is less of an issue especially in the holidays.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/aug/19/huddersfield-town-dean-hoyle-newcastle-united-mike-ashley
Also it's rather insulting to the Scottish and Welsh to suggest they would be confused by having three ballot papers.
I wonder what they pay Maduro in? Gold or oil?
Still have no idea what Huddersfield Town has to do with nurses needing foodbanks.
Similarly with unexpected car bills ...... unisurable damage for example.
As I understand it, few people in regular work are regular foodbank users. In this area, anyway.
I forget who said it but this has always seeme a good piece of advice:
The Government is like luck: you can't ignore it but you would be foolish to rely on it.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bad-news-anti-brexiters-things-are-looking-up-2zmtjbsdt?shareToken=7659e30aa7200babd8a59d91e6658aad
As opposed to pay cuts or job losses in the private sector that pays for the public sector.
However that follows years of inflation busting increases. So for example a teacher's salary is still around 30% higher in real terms than it was in 1995. And it is also still at or above average pay.
So yes, it has not been sunlight and roses. However when there have been savage actual cuts elsewhere - the Honda workforce in Swindon at one point had a 70% cut in pay - I can't help but feel if we bleat about how badly off we are, we'll make ourselves unpopular.
Are you calling either myself or my friend a liar?
It’s a sign of a decent society that we are willing to help those less fortunate than ourselves through our own choice. The Big Society, you might say.
If therefore she cannot live on it there are underlying issues for her personally and it would be better to sort them out so she can manage without help than have her complain that somehow austerity forces her to attend food banks. Such action would also allow food to go to those who genuinely have no other options.
Quite apart from anything else, such statements must have infuriated those workers at Honda, at Port Talbot, at Falkirk, at Monarch, at Sports Direct, at any others you care to name whose wages, pensions and job security are either under brutal attack or non-existent. I got a lot of grief from parents over that recent pensions demonstration about how we in the public sector don't know we're born.
The gap's becoming worrying - it's almost as though we're splitting into two economies, one public one private, and there is no crossover between them. Which is a bigger worry as one pays for the other.
I have to go. I hope this discussion has been of interest (and I hope France is living up to expectations).
Have a good morning.
And in 2008-09 it was £30 a week, and there were no food banks as Brown didn't want to admit people needed them. The real scandal of food banks is not that they exist now but that they weren't set up years before - because anyone can suffer a short term catastrophe.