Scottish Independence for an extra £1 a year.

'Capital City'

Kevin McNamara made an interesting case for Scottish independence in this week’s Observer. He states an original take on our ‘capital’ city. 

“London has already broken away from the United Kingdom and now exists as a world super-state governed by the greed of unhindered capitalism and recognisable as British only by its taxis and bad service. As the world's most newly minted oligarchs continue to colonise the independent state of London, it becomes almost impossible for families on less than £250k to live decently there. Poor London families made homeless by the coalition benefit cuts are being evacuated as far north as Middlesbrough.

Last week, Goldman Sachs, one of the banks with its fingers in the till when global economic meltdown occurred, awarded an average bonus of £250,000 to each of its employees. The gap between the richest in our society and the poorest stretched a little more and we were reminded yet again that the UK government, despite its promises, allows greed, incompetence and corruption to be rewarded. (How many people do you think will go to jail for the Libor rate-fixing scandal?) Meanwhile, Westminster politicians are dividing the poor into categories marked "deserving" and "scum".

The most common wet dream of every Bullingdon Tory is the national lottery. And what a jolly wheeze it is: get the poor to fund our biggest capital projects in exchange for a cruel fairy story. Now they've doubled the stake to £2, confident that the benefit cuts are increasing their customer base daily. In Glasgow, the boss of a council-run regeneration agency was given a £500k pay-off at a time when the Citizens Advice Bureau is reporting almost 1,000 calls a day from people whose families have been impoverished by the benefit cuts. Life for millions of people under the most rapacious and reactionary government in 150 years has diminished. To prevent the peasants revolting, however, they have been treated to exaggerated displays of unity euphoria such as the Olympics and assorted royal jubilees.

Labour in the UK long ago gave up any pretence at being the party of the marginalised and the vulnerable. Instead, it throws rotten fruit at the SNP when it says what Labour should be saying......

......Earlier this month, the UK Treasury declared that, following a period of intense and prolonged analysis of the economic numbers, each of us would be £1 a year worse off in an independent Scotland. Put another way, for £1 a year you will never have to endure the economic privations of a Conservative government ever again. You will not be penalised for being poor or old and nor will you suffer the pain of watching your young boys being killed in illegal wars or occupations.

We won't be lacking friends, either. Of matters concerning oil and Europe in an independent Scotland, the Norwegian government officials I met in Oslo last month were very upbeat. "Come and talk to us before you commit to the EU," they said, "and let us advise you how to manage your oil fund and how to negotiate with the oil companies."

 Kevin McNamara, Observer 20/1/13

Would that it were all so simple. Does the man not realise that if all he wished for were to come to pass, then the greedy shysters who are alive and well and living in Scotland would come crawling out of the cess pits they live in, and exert their malign influence on newly empowered politicians. The same politicians in the main who do so little to fill us with confidence now. 

Has he forgotten that pillar of greed and incompetence Fred the Shred?