Tory Policy...

I recently received a recording of a speech made by a recently adopted Conservative candidate to his constituency association and I thought a transcript might be of interest to whose who do not necessarily share his views:

 Friends,

First of all, let me say how grateful I am to have been adopted as your candidate.  I know, having talked to many of you, that we share common aims in achieving a truly Conservative nation.  I also know I can speak frankly to you, and if what I say is not yet publicly stated Conservative policy, let me assure you that my views are shared by our leaders and many MPs, even if they cannot be expressed as openly as yet. Our general aim, of course, is to dismantle the welfare state. 

We are well on the way to ridding ourselves of the so-called National Health Service, itself a socialist product of the post-War Labour Government.  The privatisation of key elements of the Health Service is proceeding well, but we have much further to go.  Let me be clear.  There should be no reliance on the state to provide medical services.  It is up to individuals to look after their own health needs, for which private insurance is readily available.  Doctors and hospitals should be normal businesses, making profit to provide health care.  This would improve efficiency.  It has already been suggested that doctors should charge for appointments and I see no reason why hospitals should not also charge for the services which they provide. As I'm sure you know, the health service was not the only section of the economy nationalised by the post-War Socialist Government as part of a conspiracy to turn the United Kingdom into a Socialist Republic. 

We have already returned most of the commanding heights of the economy into private hands and the privatisation of the Post Office will continue our efforts.  As far as education is concerned, we are making progress in dismantling State and local authority control by encouraging private ownership of schools and this will continue with appropriate incentives given for companies, churches and charities to take over school education.  Nor should we dictate what is taught in schools beyond basic literacy and numeracy.  Speaking personally, I see no reason why the State should insist on education beyond the age of 15 or even 14.  Those who leave school and do not find work should be made to work on some of the country's expanding infrastructural projects.  Our transport system, for example, still needs cheap manual labour.  And before socialists bleat that this is morally wrong, let me point out that even in Communist Albania, school children had the responsibility for laying the track for the country's railways.  Hard physical labour will develop fitness and encourage the work ethic.As you will know, we are reducing the enormous, ridiculous burden of welfare benefits and I confidently expect much further progress in  shrinking the role of the State in welfare as a whole.  Indeed, no-one should expect State hand-outs with nothing in return.  Everyone should make provision for ill-health, periods of unemployment and old age.  I know some may feel this harsh, but for those who have made little or no personal provision for the future, then I am very much in favour of a Victorian solution; namely,the workhouse.  I would remind you that no-one was forced into a workhouse, but those who felt they had no alternative could apply to be accommodated. 

Naturally, for those who are able , directed work would be a pre-requisite for entry.  I would hope that charities would help to finance and run these institutions, but a minimum of state aid would, I accept, have to be provided. I have been asked whether the above policies should be enforced on Scotland and I would argue that, assuming a positive vote for the Union in the forthcoming referendum, the Scotch should abide by the same regulations applicable to England.  A vote for the Union should imply the abolition of an independent judiciary, no separate education system or separate health service, and so on.  The Scotch could surely make do with Holyrood merely having an administrative function. 

After all, Scotch MPs are present in Westminster to make their views known. Some have mentioned that the Labour Party leader, Ed Millipede, and his colleagues have endorsed some of our radical policies to roll back socialism and eliminate the residual power of trade unions.  This may seem to be so, and it does reflect the desire of the electorate for our policies.  But I would remind you that Ed and David's father, Ralph Millipede,was a Communist and there is no evidence that his sinister beliefs have ever been disavowed by his sons. The population wants a reduced tax burden, more choice in education and health and a continued attack on sloth and fecklessness.  We should make sure we represent and lead these attitudes, and I believe the press will be behind us.  Some of you may know the tract issued by the author of Gulliver's Travels, Jonathon Swift, in 1729.  This was a time of great famine in Ireland and the tract, A Modest Proposal,suggested that the solution to the famine was to eat the surplus Irish children of that benighted nation. 

Now, naturally, I would not recommend such a radical solution to the problems of poverty,but Swift's tract does illustrate the blue-sky thinking in which we should indulge to eliminate the curse of socialism which has benighted us for so long. 

Finally, thank you for allowing me to express my views to you.  When I become your MP, rest assured that I will make every effort to effect the policies which I have laid before you. 

At which the candidate, Winston Algernon Norris Ker, sat down to enthusiastic and prolonged applause.

The Rich are not being fair

Letter:

Jo Swinson started off to the left of Labour but since going to Westminster has moved steadily to
the right. Charles Gray, a long time Labour supporter, doesn't seem to recognise Labour too has
been corrupted by the same Westminster virus and has ,likewise, moved to the right so now it would
be appropriate to describe New Labour as pink Tories.

At the end of WW2 old Labour, which no longer exists, brought in the welfare state, a glowing
example of social development. Unfortunately most of the millionaires,the rich people and their
party, the Tories, have always been antagonistic to the welfare state and have steadily moved to
undermine and destroy it. Welfare – health, education and the many public services we all need
have to be paid for and this is done by taxat ion It is generally agreed that progressive income tax
is the fairest way to do this.

For many it is now clear that tax dodging is out of control. In the UK alone we have a £120
billion tax gap-- comprising tax avoided through obscure accounting and the use of tax havens,
illegal tax evasion and even uncollected tax. The 3 main parties Tory, Lib Dem and Labour all bear
responsibility for failure to tackle this as the people of Bradford seem to have realised. The rich
don't pay a fair share of tax.

Ron Mackay,
Milton of Campsie.

SSP Campsie join hundreds in Troon...

...to ask the self interest group "Scottish Tories" to leave us alone and stop robbing us.

The bile that came from the Tory Conference was incredible.  They told us Scots again and again, we are too thick to run our own country and to leave it to the English Tory Party.  They told us that Scotland would be over-run by "immigrants" after independence.  Well, if they WOULD steal from the English working class, of course they will want to move to a fair independent Scotland!

The message from protesters, who outnumbered the delegates 4 to 1 and in the week that the Tories announced the robbery of pensioners and stole our NHS was, no more Tory rule from Westminster.

Photos:  Sandra Webster and Andy Harvey

Photographer, Andy Harvey said of this photo, "Tory delegates protected by the police like animals in a zoo after they decided to come out to "confront" the demonstrators.  

Local teacher, Neil Scott to stand in Bearsden North in May's council election

Statement:

“East Dunbartonshire has, in recent years, had the misfortune of having had a Liberal Democrat Council followed by a coalition of Labour and Tories. The mishandling of the council by these three versions of the same thing has seen an attempt to close schools in the past two years; terrible deals with corporations that have meant millions of pounds of our Council Tax money being given over to massive PPP/PFI “Guaranteed returns on investment” for minimum outlay; a decimation of our local services from Libraries through to schools, and more. If any of these parties gain the council in May, there will be more of the same, and in fact the deferred closure of East Dunbartonshire Schools will go ahead.

 As a father and a teacher I have a different vision for East Dunbartonshire services. Our area is a well off council area, one in which money could be invested in our services rather than further job-losses and cuts. I see a clear need to renegotiate PPP/PFI deals. Some of these venture capitalists are making millions of pounds of our tax money with investments of a few hundred pounds. I see East Dunbartonshire being a place of opportunity for all; a place where our money is invested in real jobs and services which will help stimulate the Scottish economy. The real drivers of any economy are people. The profits creamed off by corporations from our Council tax should be reclaimed and invested in real jobs and in our people.”

The Deepbone Roundabout- keep Swinson away.

Letter to Bearsden Milngavie Herald


It is really good to see the construction of the new roundabout at the Duntocher Road / Baljaffray Road intersection. This will undoubtedly save lives and stop the risk taking of motorists pulling out on to the Duntocher Road.

When I saw this was given the go ahead I was reminded of the locally filmed “Burnistoun” comedy series and the single issue politician who was successfully elected to get rid of the traffic lights on the Deep bone Roundabout (see below for video ) and was also reminded of the single issue politician who represents our constituency in Westminster, and through a hung Parliament has become an apologist for the Tories, Jo Swinson.




Swinson was elected on the single issue that she was not the Labour Party, nor was she a member of the Tory party. How wrong we were.

I look around East Dunbartonshire and see the changes electing such a careerist politician to Westminster has imposed upon us. Her unfaltering support for the ConDem Tory led government and deep, rapid cuts aimed at working people have led to a huge proportion of our young people without hope of work after training as teaching assistants, teachers, nurses, doctors etc. Her proudest moment seems to have been the support for a policy that does not, thank goodness, even effect East Dunbartonshire and Scotland, ie. the imposition of huge fees to young people wanting to participate and add to our economy through educating themselves at Universities in England.

In her current position as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Vince Cable, she has now foisted the blame for the UK’s stagnant economy on to workers who are trying to defend their ever decreasing income and in fact their jobs, rather than on the banks and the billionaires who caused the economic crisis in the first place. Cable and Swinson and the rest of the ConDems have, regardless of their empty rhetoric , failed completely in taking on the banks and their bonus culture and the structural aspects of capitalism that will lead to further crisis, and further disaster for working people, in the future. Instead, the workers and their children growing up in East Dunbartonshire are bearing the brunt of the cuts – Swinson, Cable, Clegg and Cameron have turned socialism on its head and instead of the people they represent gaining through the profits of these institutions, the people of East Dunbartonshire, Scotland and the UK have had the DEPT shared out, whilst the bankers enjoy their bonuses and the oil and gas profiteers steal our resources (and charge us the highest prices in Europe for what is produced in our country).

Swinson, with her £60k+ salary and expenses is so far removed from the struggles of ordinary people in East Dunbartonshire, one can imagine her muttering under her breath the thatcherite nonsense, "There is no such thing as society," adding, "only workers who will pay for the neo-capitalist destruction of our economy."

Unfortunately, Swinson has another four years to be an apologist for a Tory led Government that is draining Scotland and East Dunbartonshire of its resources and young people (who undoubtedly will leave our shores to find work in countries that value the skills they have learned).

A single issue politician or a politician without a single issue?

I believe the time to start fighting for a local candidate who sees far beyond the £60k+ pay packet and huge expenses Swinson can claim, is now. I propose those of us in East Dunbartonshire who share a vision of a better world for our children and not more of the same, should come together and find a candidate we can support that will oust the Liberal Democrats from East Dunbartonshire AND ensure the Tories get the message that their extreme capitalism is not welcome here. A candidate who will fight for East Dunbartonshire and for an independent Scotland and a candidate who will not be seduced by the money and self aggrandizement the title of MP has brought to Jo. A candidate who will work for us on an average workers wage.

Oh, and I hope when this new Roundabout is opened, Swinson is not asked to cut the ribbon. The Burnistoun writers and performers have added much more to the Bearsden/ Milngavie/ East Dunbartonshire economy than Swinson has by far. Ask them.

Neil Scott
SSP Organiser, www.campsiesocialists.com

Tories, Liberal Democrats, SNP and Labour Unite to attack Scottish Education Again...

Teachers, after suffering the blows of last years cuts in education, are being asked to work an extra half an hour a DAY in front of classes. In a cynical move, Labour run Glasgow City Council has proposed this as a reduction of “marking time” and called for a re-negotiation of McCrone – the agreement that was supposed to ensure teaching staff worked a 35 hour week.

Teachers in Scotland already work an average of 10 hours unpaid overtime and have borne the brunt of cuts that have meant class sizes on the rise and fewer adults in the class. Glasgow has already cut support workers and assistants jobs that help with children needing extra educational input.

Glasgow has also quietly shed 500 teachers in the past two years, and the Labour council also presided over closures of 22 schools last year under the previous scandal riven Labour provost, Steven Purcell.  All of this has impacted on teaching and learning.  Children are being made to suffer because of the neo-liberalist ideology of the combined forces of the Tories, Liberal Democrats and Labour and the apparent capitulation of the SNP.

Locally, this has been a complete capitulation to the Tories and Liberal Democrats by a so called Labour Glasgow Council. Not only have they quietly cut education provision through staffing, but now they are essentially asking teachers to take a pay cut.

Labour along with the Tories and Liberal Democrats are peddling the lie that cuts are necessary. The SNP are keeping a cynical silence and after Salmond and Cameron met shortly after the election of the most reactionary Government since Thatcher (and actually becoming more reactionary by the hour), the SNP seem powerless to criticise the ideological cuts they are telling us are necessary. This is not true. There are huge amounts of money around – but in the hands of the bankers and billionaires who caused this crisis (including the RBS who recently have launched an incredible campaign saying they are giving thousands of pounds to Scottish Education, when in fact they were one of the major factors that have led to the crisis in Education  over the past two years!)

SSP members in EIS wish to unite with other trade unionists in decisive campaigns – including coordinated industrial action – to defend jobs, pay, educational expenditure, and national action to enforce maximum class sizes of 20 across the board, as a pre-requisite to improved education and better conditions of work.

How will this be paid for?

The SSP have long been campaigning for a Scottish Service Tax in place of the Council Tax. This would mean the poorest families would pay nothing, but the highest earners would pay more – a fair tax in other words. The richest would pay a modest extra 10% in tax – which when you realise their income grew by 30% last year alone – is a drop in the ocean. The revenue generated by this tax alone would save our Scottish Education System, save jobs in the Public Sector and ensure the Tories and Liberal Democrats do not return us to the eighties when Thatcher and Major had public education on it’s knees.  See also our alternative budget

The SSP support the ballot for strike action the EIS are calling in March – but urge the union to unite with other unions and stand together in solidarity against these attacks on the working class.

Upcoming events at which teachers and the EIS can unite with others against the Tory and Liberal Democrat cuts:

Sat 4th Sept UNISON-convened anti-cuts strategy conference – aimed at all public sector unions and community groups. More HERE

Weds 29th Sept European TUC anti-cuts day of action.

Sat 2nd October Street Rally against cuts… as a Scottish contribution to the European TUC action, AND as a stepping up of efforts to bring members from across different unions and community groups together – as a means of building towards the STUC demo (see below), AND to begin to crank up unity in action BEFORE either the Tories and Liberal Democrats OR SNP govts set their spending cuts in concrete.

Sat 23rd Oct STUC Scottish Demo (more details soon)

Scottish Socialist Voice - Special Budget Issue

Click on image for PDF version...

Gleichschaltung

Dave and Nick came skipping down the garden path hand in hand, heralding the dawn of a “New Politics.” The fawning press -both the BBC and Sky- spoke about the beautiful weather and the birdsong as the two men kind of half mapped out what form this new government would take.

Everyone seemed to agree – this was a wonderful thing for the country and we would all benefit from the steely hand of the Tories being stayed by the “lefty” liberals.

After the coalition was voted on by the Parliamentary Lib Dems in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Jo Swinson broke her tweeting silence and said -

• astonished that Tories agreed to fairer tax, extra early years funding for poorer children & political reform while Labour didn't … and looking forward to seeing so much of what @libdems campaigned for in this election implemented in govt

SSP Campsie (@sspcampsie) immediately tweeted to her - @joswinson astonished you lot let the tories in. Incredible. You've been had at our expense.

Her reply: 1. Lab bottled out of agreement 2. good LD policies on fairness included plus much more fairness agenda than minority Tory govt

Campsie SSP: we'll see. You've played your part, Jo,a patsy again.U got two terms.But that's it.Haven't met 1 happy Bearsden neighbour tonite

Her reply: we will see - do look at the coalition agreement when published tomorrow and compare to LD manifesto though

Campsie SSP have looked at this agreement, and all is not what it seems. This article is only SOME of the reservations we have about the agreement - there are many more, not least how our young people will be treated after they leave school, but we have to start somewhere -

Let’s start with the fairer tax, for example.

The original Lib Dem policy was for a “Tax Switch” – which meant this £10k allowance would be paid for by the ultra rich in a progressive policy which would have taken £17bn. The Lib Dems have dropped other progressive measures they had in their manifesto that would have paid for this gift to the middle class – like their mansion tax and the higher rate of pension relief – and instead this gift to the middle-high earners will be paid for through the cuts the cabinet now know of, but are not telling us about.

The claims – and unquestioning repetition by the BBC etc that this is tax relief for the poor is completely untrue. Three million poor households will not get an extra penny as they are too poor to pay income tax. That includes pensioners (the ConDem coalition are selling this as £100 to pensioners when it is £100 to the richest 40% of pensioners and nothing to the other 60%)

This £17 billion tax giveaway means that £1bn goes to the lower incomes that pay income tax- the majority – while £16bn goes to the higher income bracket. 70% of the benefit goes to the top earners in our society!

So the LibDem promises and nods to an equitable society are actually undermined by this Tory wet dream. Those near the top of the income spectrum would get on average four times as much as the poorest. (see http://short.to/2fr1j for more detailed breakdown of this regressive tax give-away, plus graph and links to stats etc).
Briefly – other measures that are ominous…

The agreement states;

“a significantly accelerated reduction in the structural deficit over the course of a Parliament, with the main burden of deficit reduction borne by reduced spending rather than increased taxes.”

This has terrible implications for Scotland. Scotland is a nation that was robbed of its manufacturing base during the Thatcher/Major years. It has not recovered that during the New Labour Parliaments – and is hugely dependent on the public sector for work. Already, Scotland is suffering more job losses than England because of this. This agreement will step up those job losses (which will have to be explained by the Lib Dem Scottish Secretary Danny Alexander – the Tories hadn’t the brass neck to take the post of explaining their Scottish economy wrecking policies – the patsies had to do that one).

Another interesting point about the proposed £6bn cuts this year – a sentence in the agreement says,

“Some proportion of these savings can be used to support jobs, for example through the cancelling of some backdated demands for business rates.”
What that means is that those companies who did not pay their business rates – some in the hope that there would be a Tory Government, will now no longer have to pay that. I bet a lot of those people who with-held their Poll-tax payment and who were pursued for the decades since, would love such a tax amnesty. This is barefaced tax avoidance – and it has been ok-ed by the ConDem government. A taste of tax avoidance measures for the rich to come?

It is also noteworthy that Vince Cable -a luke-warm supporter of the Tory-LibDem deal and tough on 'the City' - entered the Govt to find there had been a "misunderstanding" about his position in Cabinet. He had understood he was to be in charge of regulation of the banking and financial services sector but finds that George Gideon Osborne (who has a 2:1 Degree in history – has been able to hide what A levels/ other qualifications allow him to be in charge of our economy beyond the fact he is Son-in Law of Lord David Howell, Baron Howell of Guildford – and the fact he is heir to a billion pound fortune) will be doing all that stuff while Cable takes care of other "business."

Ominously, the Tories have been consolidating their power. They have castrated any kind of dissent in Government by roping the Liberal Democrats into an agreement that means they have to abstain rather than vote against any Tory madness. The incredible thing about this is that in the agreement, not only do they curtail dissent by ensuring the Libs don’t vote against them, but this sentence –
“legislation will be brought forward to make provision for fixed-term parliaments of five years. This legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55% or more of the House votes in favour.”

So what, you may ask? Well, at present, the Govt can be curtailed – recalled – brought down by a simple majority of 51%.

A breakdown of this has been done by http://northernheckler.wordpress.com
“That means that this parliament (not a future one – THIS one) will be able to be brought down by a vote of no confidence – but only if 55% of the MPs vote to do that. Note that this is not 55% of those who vote, but 55% of all MPs. And not just a simple majority of 51% – but 55% – OK not much difference I hear you say, and it introduces a little more stability by discouraging interminable series of confidence votes designed to sabotage the Government of the day.

But how much is 55% – Well it’s 357.5 seats – so as it needs to be more than 55% it would need to be 358 – no half seats. So that would need (typically) : All 258 Labour votes; all 57 Lib Dem Votes; & all 28 of the “other” votes – totalling 343 – so it would also need a further 15 Conservative votes. Actually not quite true – it would also need a further 5 votes – because Sinn Fein would be likely not to vote at all – not to mention anyone who was ill or otherwise engaged on the day of the vote.
So the Conservative Party, with help from the Liberal Democrat party are planning to enact binding legislation - enacted with a simple majority of those MP’s who turn up to vote – which would ensure that the Conservative Party remained in office for the next 5 years in all circumstances save that when at least 20 of their own number decided to vote against. So actually they could sell the Lib Dems down the river without a second thought – they wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.

The Conservatives lets remember hold just 306 of the 650 seats – a mere 47% – which they gained with 36.1% of the popular vote, on a turn out of 65.1% – this represents just 23.5% of the total electorate.

This is the kind of immunity from accountability that is the hallmark of dictators and despots. It is a manoeuvre of which Adolf Hitler would have been proud – effectively preventing opposition to the ruling party.”

This is the reality of the New Politics and political reform. The much vaunted PR? It is kicked into the long grass. The system that the Tories are allowing a referendum on – AV – is not much better than we have – and not close to the STV system that has given Scotland stable and representative Government since the formation of the Scottish Parliament. Whether AV is accepted or not by the UK public, it means that any real electoral reform will not happen for at least a generation.

As I said, Jo, you, again, have been used as a patsy.

The word Germans have for the consolidation of the Nazi Party is gleichschaltung.