Sir Ian sees the wood from the trees

With youth unemployment running at nearly 20%, Calton welcomes any initiative to get our young people into work and the Wood Report, published today, seems to have some very positive ideas. It is good to see that the report recognises the importance of vocational training for the businesses which exist in a particular geographical area and recognises that academic studies are not the best way into work for all youngsters. It is now up to the Scottish Government to start implementing the ideas in the report. What concerns Calton is the fact that, if the SNP persist in their aim of bringing thousands more immigrant workers into Scotland, our young people will still be up against it when looking for a job. Businesses may want to employ Scottish youngsters but if their communication skills, plus their motivation, are not up to it, the jobs will go to immigrants who do have the skills employers are looking for. Put more simply, the unrestricted immigration from the EU in recent years has hidden the fact that some of our young people are unemployable and the Scottish Government seems to have been quite happy to allow a lost generation of unemployed to grow up under our noses as long as businesses were not complaining and the wheels of commerce kept turning. It's just not good enough. Parents need to take some responsibility for kids who can't get out of bed and do a decent day's work but if they can't read and write properly, there's something wrong with our education system. Businesses have told the Government what they need - it's now up to the Government to come up with the goods and simply increasing immigration to fill the jobs is not the right answer.

Running scared - the political elite

It seems to Calton that the main political parties are running scared of UKIP and with good reason. The trendy liberal political elite are completely out of touch with ordinary voters. They seem to have no idea what it is like to see your grown up children spending their days either in bed or on the computer playing games because they can't get a job. For many parents the fear of the empty nest has been replaced by anxiety over whether their offspring will ever manage to fledge and fly the nest. Many of these youngsters have been through further education, supported by their parents and yet they still can't find a job. For people like these, the news today that there was a 7% increase in the number of NI numbers issued to workers from overseas in 2013, compared with 2012, is not good news. The government can say all it likes about controlling immigration and bringing down the numbers but, as long as we remain in the EU, we have no control over immigration from the EU, which makes up the bulk of that 7% increase. UKIP are on course to win the EU elections, with the possibility of an MEP in Scotland, because they scratch an itch the other parties are not reaching. They are also constellating an anti-EU sentiment which is not able to be expressed in any other way. If the main political parties were really serious about spiking UKIP's guns, all they need to do is take us out of the EU, thus removing UKIP's raison d'etre in one fell swoop. Or at least offer a referendum. Instead, the old-boy establishment (including the BBC) has ganged up on the newcomer who is daring to challenge them and has resorted to playing the loony/racist card, conveniently ignoring the loonies/racists in their own woodpiles. It is a strategy almost certain to backfire. Voters are not that stupid.

Scotland's deuxieme embarrassment?

When are the SNP going to realise that, if Scotland becomes independent, we will not be able to tell Westminster what to do. It may make sense for an independent Scotland to be part of a common travel area with the rest of the UK but, if Westminster decides to put up manned crossing points just south of the Scottish/English border, there will not be a lot we can do about it. Ditto if Westminster decides to withdraw British passports from Scottish citizens. We could, of course, indulge in tit for tat behaviour - oh, hang on, we're doing that already. Alex Salmond is Scotland's premier embarrassment, in Calton's opinion, but Nicola Sturgeon is running him a close second with her habit of slagging off the Scotland Office whenever they point out an inconvenient truth. It's certainly a bit rich for her to say that the latest paper from the Scotland Office "lacks credibility". Has she read the White Paper?

The bottom line is this: if we want the freedom to choose our own immigration policy as an independent country, we have to accept that the price may be border controls between us and England. That's what independence is all about folks.

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?

It's not the immigrants who are the problem

Calton has never disputed the fact that most immigrants to this country are hard-working and make a positive contribution to our economy. It is no surprise to find that, in recent years, they are less likely to be in receipt of benefits than Brits. The problem is, the ready supply of skilled people with a good work ethic has allowed us to ignore the fact that many of our young people are unemployable and many of our unemployed do not want to work. If we did not have uncontrolled immigration from the EU, genuine jobseekers would find it a lot easier to find a job and the work-shy would find it a lot harder to hide. We would not have such a huge problem with youth unemployment and business owners would be putting a lot more pressure on the government to sort out our education system so that it turns out employable youngsters. As it is, the influx of Eastern Europeans is masking a growing problem within our society. It is also fuelling resentment because, now, they are not just doing the jobs Brits don't want to do - they are doing jobs that some Brits do want to do. Recession has made us less fussy when it comes to a job, which would be no bad thing if the jobs were available. Given the announcement today of up to 1000 job cuts at BAE Systems yards north and south of the border, it is time for both the Scottish and Westminster governments to take a serious look at whether we can afford a further influx of Eastern Europeans at the end of the year, especially when we have no idea how many will come. We should let in the immigrants we need and the ones who need asylum but call a halt to unrestricted immigration from the EU.

Tinkering while UKIP gains ground

It's a bit rich for Labour politicians to go on about companies recruiting more local workers when they (Labour) presided over an education system which has failed to get a generation of young people ready for the workplace and it would seem that they (Labour) deliberately encouraged mass immigration as a way of forcing acceptance of the philosophy of multiculturalism. And we all know how well that worked out. As long as companies can get cheaper, better workers from outside the UK they will do so - it's called capitalism. It's up to the Government to limit immigration if they want to keep jobs for British workers and that will not be possible as long as we remain in the EU. That is why UKIP are gaining support in many parts of England. Unemployed Brits are fed up of seeing jobs go to Eastern European immigrants and it is fuelling resentment, especially when getting a job means that an immigrant passes the residency test and can then get a council house. The three main Westminster parties all realise this but are not prepared to do what is necessary to sort it i.e. leave the EU. Instead they are all tinkering round the edges and fighting with each other rather than dealing with the problem. No wonder the voters are losing patience with them.

Time to count them in?

It really beggars belief that we just don't know how many people are coming into this country and how many are leaving. What is the point of setting immigration targets when we can't measure if we are meeting them? What is the point anyway, when we have no control over immigration from EU countries? Calton is not against immigration. He is against uncontrolled immigration, which is what we have got at the moment. How on earth can government and local authorities plan for housing, schools, medical facilities etc when we don't know how many people we are planning for? The UK has finite resources and a limit to the number of people it can support. Large numbers of migrants can stretch those resources to breaking point and cause tensions within communities. The Government needs to get a grip on the situation, not by setting arbitrary limits on non-EU immigration, but by looking at immigration as a whole and obtaining accurate statistics on which to base its decisions. Anything else is just empty posturing.

Not so expert independence experts

Nicola Sturgeon has rolled out Hollywood film producer Iain Smith, award-winning chef Roy Brett and events expert Prof Joe Goldblatt to back her argument that Scotland would be better off independent. Unfortunately, Brett seems to be confused between Westminster, which is in charge of VAT, and the EU, which determines our fishing policy. Under the SNP's plans, an independent Scotland would only be able to control the former - the fishing policy would still be out of our hands. Maybe he should stick to cooking. Calton also has his doubts about Goldblatt, who thinks that an independent Scotland would "become one of the most successful tourism destinations in the world". Not once the SNP have covered it with windfarms it won't. It will also not be so attractive to film companies for location shoots once the landscape has been industrialised on a grand scale (unless the next Bond film has a helicopter chase though a windfarm as its opener). Scotland does have a lot of assets and a lot of great businesses. We are being hampered by Westminster's restrictive immigration policies, brought in because they have no control over immigration from within the EU. The answer is not "independence within Europe" but for the Scottish Government to work with Westminster to help businesses by reducing red tape (much of it from the EU), and to agree an immigration policy which takes account of Scotland's needs. Unfortunately there is not much sign of that happening between now and next September.

Help our farmers

Calton does like people who are not afraid to speak their mind. Like Sheriff Richard Davidson, who likened the recent sectarianism at football matches legislation to "mince". Like Nigel Farage, who has just described the leaders of the three main political parties in England as an "out of touch bunch of college kids" who have "never done a day's work in their lives". Nadine Dorries clearly has some competition. As do local councillors from the main parties in next year's local government elections in England. UKIP are gaining support because they identify with the concerns of ordinary people, like immigration from Eastern Europe and windfarms, not gay marriage and trying to reform the EU (a hopeless task if ever there was one). Meanwhile, here in Scotland, our Government seems to be spending most of its time bandying about statistics to try and prove that we could go it alone. Out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people? Hmmm. At least Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead has recognised the plight of Scottish farmers and has promised help. Let's just hope he delivers.

One big no-no

The number of people employed in Scotland has just gone down, we have a huge youth unemployment issue, we have a lack of affordable homes and we are about to see a large number of people trying to downsize to avoid a housing benefit cut due to under-occupancy but the SNP is getting ready to welcome a potentially huge influx of Romanians and Bulgarians with open arms and they don't seem to have any contingency plans to cope if, as seems very likely, the numbers exceed even the most liberal estimate. If any further evidence was needed to prove that our Government is stark, staring mad, this is it. OK, so we can probably house them in all the larger council houses vacated by Scots who can't pay for them any more, but what about schools, medical practices, dentists etc, etc, etc? And what about all the Scots who find they can't get a job because they are all taken by Eastern Europeans? What are they supposed to do? This is not just a few skilled immigrants, which we need, or some temporary unskilled immigrants doing menial agricultural work which we don't want to do. We could be talking millions of people in the space of a few months and we have absolutely no control over it while we remain part of the EU. One very good reason to vote NO to independence and NO to the EU.

We need to talk about immigration

The publication of The Prince's Trust Youth Index 2013 Report yesterday has triggered quite a bit of debate about the plight of our young NEETs. Basically, young people who are Not in Employment, Education or Training are twice as likely to feel that they can't cope with life compared with their employed peers and many young people despair of ever finding a job. There has been much discussion on the part family breakdown plays in all this (major) and the effects of the recession (great) however no-one seems to be mentioning the obvious elephant in the room - immigration. Easy availability of hard working young people from other EU countries who are willing to work here for low pay has kept businesses going and has allowed our politicians to ignore for too long the fact that many of our own young people are unemployable. No wonder politicians think that immigration is a good thing! They have been hiding the failings of our education system and the bitter fruit of easier divorce laws behind it and our youngsters are now paying the price. Youth unemployment has rocketed and won't get any better once the Bulgarians and Romanians are also allowed to come and work here. How can any country control its economy when it can't control its borders? Unfortunately, immigration has become the new taboo subject - if you don't believe Calton, just try mentioning it at the next dinner party you go to!

Not a law unto themselves

Most normal people are able to differentiate between a general policy and specific situations. Not so the social workers of Rotherham Council, who have removed three children from the care of foster parents because the couple are members of UKIP, which, as we all know, is against unrestricted immigration from the EU. The decision was made in spite of the fact that the couple seemed to be making every effort to accommodate the childrens' language and religious background. In other words, the fosterers were not letting their views on immigration in general influence the way they treated these particular children. Unfortunately this is not the only instance of social work departments deciding the suitability or otherwise of parents and carers at least partly on the basis of their political affiliations, as the case of Anne Murgatroyd demonstrates. Fortunately the Rotherham case has triggered such an outcry that investigations have been launched and questions asked. Any decision involving children inevitably includes information that is not appropriate for the public domain however social work departments must be accountable for their decisions and should not be able to hide behind confidentiality. If they are discriminating against people on the basis of membership of legal political parties, this needs to be brought to light and rooted out. Social workers will only be trusted if they are not a law unto themselves.

Salmond - a modern Canute?

It's no surprise to Calton that the Home Secretary is powerless to prevent unrestricted immigration from Bulgaria and Romania come the end of next year. Freedom of movement is what the EU is all about - if you don't like it, the only option is to leave the EU. Now there's an idea! Not one that our First Minister is considering, admittedly, however an increase in Eastern European immigrants into Scotland nearly a year before the independence referendum may concentrate his mind a bit. It did not escape Calton's notice, on a recent visit up north, that the majority of people serving him in shops, cafes and petrol stations were Eastern Europeans. They were polite and helpful and they have a reputation for being hard-working, however, if their numbers were to increase dramatically it would almost certainly fuel tensions with locals in areas with high unemployment and a lack of affordable housing, ie most of Scotland. If Salmond sticks with his plan to stay in the EU he will be as powerless as Theresa May is to stop the inflow. So much for having control over our own economy. As well try and stop the tide coming in.

Heading for the SKIP?

It's about time politicians in Westminster realised that the problems with immigration are not caused by those outwith the EU wanting to come here - they are caused by unrestricted immigration from the majority of the EU countries. Calton is not against immigration per se - many immigrants make a real contribution to the economy and our society - but there needs to be controls which apply to those from EU countries as well as those from outwith the EU. David Cameron is obviously worried about the UKIP threat wiping out his non-majority at the next election but at least he is moving in the right direction vis-a-vis the EU. The question is - will Europhile Alex Salmond do the same if Scotland becomes independent? If he doesn't, Calton will be the first to sign up for the SKIP (Scottish Kingdom Independence Party).

Poles apart - more's the pity

Two items on Radio Scotland caught Calton's attention today - one was the program Poles Apart on Polish immigrants in Inverness and the other was a report on youth unemployment in Newsdrive. Some think that the two issues are connected. The simplistic argument is that lots of Eastern Europeans have flooded into Scotland, taking all the jobs, and so our young people can't find work, hence the rise in youth unemployment. Calton thinks the issue is a lot more complex, one of the problems being that some of our young people are, quite frankly, unemployable. They aren't interested in menial work, they have no self-discipline, they have no qualifications and, as long as the state pays them dole money and their parents provide free board & lodging, they have no incentive to get a job. Maybe it's time to get tough on our able-bodied, unemployed youth because, if Poles can come over here and get jobs, so can they.