Sad About Scotland

Only four significant local authority areas had a YES vote in the Scottish Referendum. These were the once-great industrial cities of Dundee and Glasgow, and Glasgow's immeduate neighbours.

The Thatcherite destruction of the economy in these places in the eighties was matched by the mayhem that Thatcher wrought in West and South Yorkshire, The Northeast, Lancashire and Mwerseyside and the once-Black Country in England: these areas, too, can be expected to show cynical contempt for Westminster politics and politicians whenever they are given a chance to show it.

Although 364 Economists signed a letter to the TIMES deploring Thatcher's Monetarism, the whole profession agreed with the nonsensical pursuit of the 'competition' agenda that has been common to Blair, Brown and Cameron as well as Thatcher. Where the Economists disagreed with Thatcher was with her insistence on modesty in public spsnding; they preferred to believe that 'growth' could be fostered by Keynesian deficit spending. Blair-Brown and Cameron-Osborne practiced deficit spending - it is still going on, backed up by the reckless expansion of the money supply under 'quantitatiove easing' - and thus they have supported an increase in TRANSACTIONS, which is what they see as 'growth'. More people than ever are employed, mostly on extremely modest wages, distributing money and imported commodities around the system. The real economy, to which Dundee, Wolverhampton and Darlington contributed mightily between 1760 and 1960, has continued to decline.

Now the Westminster gang of politicians without life experience plan to spend years on constitutional tinkering; while the economy continues to go down the Suannee and Gidreon Osborne's nasty spending cuts reduce the standard of living for the most vulnerable groups in society. Things in Britain are getting nastier.  See my book, Sinking Britain, accessible from this site.