A sad start to 2014

It is sad that, only two days into the new year, The Prince's Trust is reporting that more than three quarters of a million young people in Britain think that they have nothing to live for due to unemployment and almost a third of young people who are long-term unemployed have contemplated suicide. This is a problem which is just not going away and will only be made worse if competition for available jobs becomes greater due to an increase in immigration from Eastern Europe. What is really sad is that employers would rather advertise for workers in Romania and Bulgaria than employ our own youngsters. It's not the employers' fault - we live in a competitive, capitalism society and they want the cheapest and best workers. It's not the fault of the immigrants - they are just trying to better their lives and they are entitled to come here due to decisions made by successive UK governments. In Calton's opinion, the root of the problem goes back to when we started talking about rights without talking about responsibilities, when discipline became a dirty word in schools, when we started inculcating a sense of entitlement into our children without teaching them that there is no such thing as a free lunch. The result is a generation who are unemployable. The Prince's Trust manages to pick up the pieces for some but what is really needed is prevention and that means a change in attitude. Perhaps if the Bank of England stopped printing money, children would learn that it does not grow on trees.

Back to the 19th century?

We have a shortage of housing, unemployment (and, in particular, youth unemployment) is high, it can take 3 weeks in some parts of Scotland to get a doctor's appointment and NHS dentists are scarcer than hens' teeth - so would someone please remind Calton why we need thousands more immigrants from Eastern Europe? Unfortunately, unless we leave the EU (which is Calton's favoured option), we are powerless to stop a new influx in two days' time, regardless of what some Conservative activists may think. Even if we succeeded in delaying the ability of Romanians and Bulgarians to move here until 2018, that is just postponing the problem. The Tory activists are at least right in one thing - more immigration will only fuel tensions, particularly in poorer areas where people are already struggling to find homes and jobs and to access vital services. Calton is not against immigration per se - he is against unlimited economic immigration from poorer countries within the EU and one look at the graph in this BBC News article will tell you why. The number of Eastern European workers in the UK has gone from less than 50,000 in 2003 to 800,000 in 2013. There are areas in Glasgow where one bedroom flats house 15-20 people. That's a higher population density than when the Victorian tenements were built! If this is the sort of Scotland which Alex Salmond and his party wants, Calton's response is "no thankyou". A return to overcrowded tenements and streets overflowing with rubbish hardly seems to be progressive - it's more like a regression to the 19th century. Is this really Scotland's future?

Calton's Christmas Message

The First Minister's choice of image for his Christmas card tells us a lot about what he believes and where he wants to take us as a nation. It depicts a fictional 4th Magi or Wise Man - Artaban - who misses out on seeing Jesus because he is caught up with helping others he meets along the way. He is a seeker who never finds but who is finally admitted to Heaven on the strength of his good works. It all sounds very nice but, actually, it is the antithesis of the Christmas message - which is that none of us can ever do enough good to merit entrance to Heaven and so God sent, not a muscular wise man, but a helpless baby to do what we cannot do and save us from our helplessness, failure and sin. Accepting that baby requires a humility which the First Minister seems to lack. It looks like he would rather try to reach Heaven by his own efforts, like Artaban, and the Scotland he wishes to create is one in which the gospel of Christ is increasingly marginalised, as the baby Jesus is in his card. Artaban sought and never found but Christ promises that all who seek will find Him. Just as #lostbear was found by his owner this week and regained his identity as Roar the Lion, we need to seek and be found by our owner, God, the one who created us, and, in so doing, find our true identity. That is the real message of Christmas.

Out of touch Tory?

"Out of touch Tory" is not a phrase Calton usually associates with Murdo Fraser MSP, however the man does seem to be out of touch with the stark choices facing many people this Christmas when he tweeted this:

Dear everyone. If you want to wish me a Happy ChrIstmas, buy a card and a stamp and post it. Don't send an email to your address list. Ta
— Murdo Fraser (@murdo_fraser) December 19, 2013

When families are struggling to put food on the table and heat their homes, never mind buy presents for the kids, suggesting that the only way you can wish someone a proper Merry Christmas is by spending 50p on a stamp is, quite frankly, demonstrating that you don't know what being poor is. OK, it is a bit crass (and lazy) to write a one-line email and then send it round your entire email address book with one click. Calton can see Murdo's point in that regard but, the reality is, even those who are fortunate to have a job these days are becoming reluctant to use Royal Mail to distribute their Christmas wishes at 50p a pop. Even a very modest Christmas card list of 40 names would cost £20! Many people are opting instead to send e-cards or personalised email greetings and either save the money or give it to charity and Calton is wholeheartedly in agreement with this, even although it means that the old eyrie looks a bit bare compared to Christmasses past when you couldn't move for cards falling about your ears. So, please don't be offended if your Christmas greeting from Calton Hill arrives over the internet - apart from anything else, the Barn Owl who usually handles Calton's mail is still recovering from delivering the White Paper!

Don't forget the poor singles

Calton is not at all surprised that those in poverty are now more likely to be working than on the dole. He's also not surprised that they are likely to be single, childless adults. If you don't have children, you lose all benefits as soon as your income goes over about £100 a week but you don't qualify for working tax credit unless you work at least 30 hours a week. That is becoming increasingly difficult in these days of zero hours contracts and part-time work. The result - a lot of single people stuck in a poverty trap. It is good that child poverty has fallen, according to the latest Joseph Rowntree Foundation report, and pensioners are also better off, however a truly just, fair society will look after all its members, something which British society is currently failing to do. If we don't end the scourge of low wages and under-employment, we are stoking up a problem for the future when poor single people reach pension age and do not have anything apart from the state pension to fall back on. Perhaps the new Universal Credit should recognise the reality that full-time employment remains a dream for many people and include a graded benefit rather than the current step-change at 30 hours a week. Now that would be progressive.

A stark contrast

It is frightening the way some people are trying to silence their opponents in this supposedly democratic country. The latest example Calton has heard was Jeanette Winterson on Any Questions? last night. She had been given plenty of air time to make her points, some of which were quite pertinent, but that didn't stop her trying to silence Andrew Lansley when his turn came. When told by Jonathan Dimbleby that Lansley was entitled to have his say, her response was "I'm not sure about that" and repeated shouts of "NO". Not only was this extremely rude, it was a deliberate attempt to stop another panellist from putting forward his point of view and it was totally undemocratic. Thankfully Dimbleby sat on her (metaphorically speaking) but not before she'd shown herself to be a screeching dictator with no time for anyone else's views. The very essence of democracy is free speech. The minute we start denying certain people the right to air their opinions, we start down the slippery slope of censorship which leads to dictatorship. Winterson's behaviour was the very opposite of another man in the news this week - Nelson Mandela. He was willing to work with his opponents and to listen to them. That is why he is being revered right now. The contrast with Winterson could not be more stark.

Things can only get better?

The SNP truly are deluded. Faced with negative comments from Wales over the Sterling zone and warning noises from Spain over EU membership, their response is to say, effectively, that the rUK would be mad not to include Scotland in a currency union and the EU would be insane not to want Scotland as a member. Well, which of them has lost their marbles is a matter of opinion - in Calton's opinion it's the SNP, not Wales or Spain.

The other common delusion currently doing the rounds is that things couldn't possibly be any worse than they are at present, under the Westminster government, so we would be better off voting for independence. Wrong. Things not only could be a lot worse, they will be a lot worse. You've only to look at the costs involved in some of the proposals in the White Paper (renationalised mail service, separate TV, new passports, separate tax system) to realise that Scotland will be the poorer if we go it alone. Divorces cost money and it's the Scottish people who will foot the bill for this one. Far from being a richer, fairer nation, we will be impoverished for decades and it's pensioners and the poor who will suffer the most. If that's scaremongering, Calton is guilty as charged but the vision the SNP have set out for Scotland is what is truly frightening.

(Oh, and by the way, Calton was half-asleep yesterday morning but he's sure he heard someone from the SNP say that "independence in Europe" is the only sort of independence currently on the table, and, of course, that is no independence at all. Nice to have that clarified by the Yes campaign.)

If this is Utopia, no thankyou

It may well be sensible, reasonable, logical, etc, etc for the rUK to be in a sterling currency union with us post-indy but the noises coming from England and Wales are not positive at the moment. It would inspire more confidence if the SNP listened to those noises, rather than ignoring them, and answered the questions the noises generate, such as the one posed by Drew Smith at Holyrood this afternoon (35 mins in), instead of ducking the issue, as the Deputy First Minister did.

Calton has still to digest the contents of the White Paper (literally) but one thing did stand out today and that is the SNP's nightmare vision of an independent Scotland bankrolled by the taxes of women freed from the drudgery of caring for their own children by increased state provision of nurserycare, which will, in turn, provide 35,000 low paid jobs for women, caring for other women's children while their mothers work in the modern equivalent of the old mills - call centres and warehouses. The irony of it all seemed, unfortunately, to be lost on Ms Sturgeon as she enthusiastically presented this Utopia that could be ours, if we vote yes. Yet another reason to vote NO.

Time to grow up

What a bunch of chancers! Having secured Westminster's agreement that the result of the independence referendum would be binding, the SNP now seem to think that anything in their white paper, to be published tomorrow, will also be binding on Westminster. What planet are these people living on? They seem to think that things will happen, Oprah-style, just because they say so. Calton sincerely hopes that they will be brought down to earth with a bang and the sooner the better. If a nation could be built on airy assertions Scotland would certainly be well-equipped to become independent. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that - the hot air from Holyrood doesn't even manage to warm Calton's eyrie never mind build something of substance. Westminster have agreed that if we vote yes, we get independence. Everything else is up for negotiation and the Welsh have quite rightly said that they want a say in any agreements which affect them. We would do the same if the positions were reversed. It's time the SNP grew up and realised that you don't always get something just because you want it - that's childish thinking. If we are to have any hope of going it alone as a nation we need mature leaders, not big kids.

Precious metal

As long as it is possible to do, as Calton did today, and walk into a Scottish scrapyard with a few bits of copper pipe (which he found in his loft) and get £3 per kg cash with no questions asked, idiots will continue to risk not only their own lives but those of others in pursuit of a quick quid. Calton was under the impression that the Scottish Government was going to bring licensing of scrap metal merchants into line with that of England and Wales but it doesn't seem to have happened yet. "Bring it on" is all he can say, a sentiment probably echoed by the residents of Greenock, not to mention communities across the north of England where metal theft is high due to the ease of shipping the stuff north over the border for conversion into cash. Alex Salmond likes to think that an independent Scotland would attract business but Calton doubts he was thinking of the illegal cross-border scrap metal trade. This is one area where having the same approach as England and Wales would definitely be a good thing.