The Scottish Atheist

Johann Lamont, the stuffed suit who is currently leading the Scottish labour party to ruin has launched her great new policy – A commission to review universal benefits, and seeking to introduce means testing for the things she sees as a “something for nothing” culture in Scotland.

Johann has a problem with free prescriptions, free university places and free bus passes for the elderly.

So, yes, that’s right. The leader of the Labour Party in Scotland is trying to take entitlements away from the Sick, the Elderly and Students.

The really galling thing is that her minions have turned up on BBC Scotland to defend this, and suggest that it’s okay, because they are not seeking to get rid of these benefits completely, they want to means test them.

Again, the irony is staggering.

Labour want to introduce Means Testing for benefits that are currently universal thanks to our SNP Government.

Forget the Jarrow Marchers, Forget the entire history of the Labour movement and it’s fight against the Means Test, put all of that to one side.

We have Free Prescriptions in Scotland – but it’s not all altruism. The previous scheme exempted people that were terminally ill – seems only fair, doesn’t it? that someone who is living out their last shouldn’t have to pay for the medicine which is keeping them alive? and new mothers were exempt too. And those who weren’t working.

In fact, by the time you counted out all the exemptions, the scheme brought in so little money that it basically cost more in administrative charges than it brought in. So scrapping the charge was a sensible thing.

That being said, here’s the thing which really rankles in this. It’s not that we don’t pay for those prescriptions.

We pay for them from our taxes.

Johann Lamont’s “something for nothing” says something pretty dark about how she sees the world. I work hard, and I pay (a lot) of taxes. It’s the social contract. I pay in, and I see precious little in return. If I am sick, and need medicine, I don’t see why that shouldn’t be taken out of the tax I have paid, rather than me having to put my hand in my pocket again.

In Johann Lamont’s world, the money that I pay out of my taxes entitles me to NOTHING, and no matter how much I pay in, I shouldn’t get a bus pass or my medicine paid out of tax.

Roll on Independence!

I don’t blog as regularly as I used to.. partly because, well, it’s more for me than for the internet. I have thought a few times about just using wordpress on an internal server, but always swung back to keeping it here. The point being, I don’t post unless something really makes me bristle.

With the news today did, and how.

It’s bad enough that Pope “king of the paedos” Benedict tries to weasel out of a proper apology for the Irish victims by blaming priest child rape on Secularism, but now, in the most misguided attempt to come out fighting in history, he has decided that faith will help him resist “petty gossip”.

Sorry? Petty Gossip?

When your organisation is being investigated by journalists worldwide, and they are producing documents which YOU SIGNED, that is not “gossip”.

And when we are talking about your organisation’s conspiracy to prevent child rapists from being brought to justice, that is anything but “petty”.

When there is clear evidence that your organisation, and you personally, oversaw the relocation of paedophiles, allowing them to abuse fresh victims, then you have blood on your hands – quite literally, as many of these poor people have committed suicide.

I am sickened that this organisation is not being brought to it’s knees by the criminal courts for large scale perversion of justice – and they thought that they feel empowered to make comments about how other people should live their lives?

It’s beyond belief.

So, Jim Murphy’s attempt to suck up to “values voters” (and let’s hope that expression never becomes something of substance in Scottish Politics) has exploded in his face spectacularly.

I’m appalled at the attempt, and quite happy with the outcome, but I was having a think about this last night. It’s not actually what I would want to ask Jim Murphy about, if I got the chance. I’m intrugued as to why he thought it would go any differently, but honestly… there’s a more serious question at stake here.

See, I know Jim Murphy – not as a friend, but I went to University at the same time as him (and Ed Byrne too, but that’s another story), and he was a pretty prominent fixture on campus. He was almost universally known as “Megaphone Murphy”, due to the permanent attachment of either a megaphone or a placard. Always involved in organising protests against the Tories and their latest horror policy.

The thing I would love to know, more than anything about atheism or secular politics is this…

Why, when he was a campaigner and protester in his student days, is he happy to serve in a government which is happy to use riot police as shock troops to crush protests?

Why, when he saw protest and activism as a path into politics, and to eventually to rise to be secretary of state for Scotland, is he happy to serve in a government which labels any protester as a “terrorist”?

Why, when he was always to be heard chanting and leading protest about “the people”, was he the man who championed an act through parliament which removed more freedoms and rights from “the people” than almost any other bit of legislation in History?

Seriously Jim, how do you sleep at night? Don’t you cry into your pillow thinking about how completely and utterly you have betrayed the younger you? (not to mention the rest of us)

Back in 1992, when I left University, I didn’t think for one second that I would like to see Megaphone Murphy again – but I would rather that than see what Politician Murphy has become.

The morals of the music industry are sickening, which makes it hard to take Feargal Sharkey’s Crocodile Tears a bit much to stomach.

Firstly, they rip off artists more than any teenager downloading music ever could, with one sided contracts, stealing royalties etc.

Secondly, they have ushered in ever more draconian laws which will restrict our freedoms online, just so that they don’t have to come up with sales models that suit the age. Even prominent Artists don’t agree that piracy is the problem

There will always be freeloaders who just want something for nothing – but Illegal downloading truly thrived for one reason and one reason only – the copyright industry treated normal consumers like criminals rather than provide a legal way to download music and video that could be freely used on any of our devices.

They are so desperate to control us that they have made illegal downloads attractive. I buy my music from Amazon now because they give me unrestricted MP3 files without DRM, that I can play in the house, in the car, on my Zen… and I would love to do the same with TV shows, but that industry is still desperate to stop me from using content I have paid for as I wish.

If you can avoid the usual anti-scottish rants in the comments that is…

it’s been a while since I posted, largely because I have been quite content with the world. Sure, there’s a lot of stuff there to annoy a Scottish Atheist if you look hard enough, but for a while at least, things are ticking along nicely.

Labour has been self destructing nicely, eating itself to death, culminating in them losing Glasgow East to the SNP – good days indeed. The SNP government have been getting on with governing (and doing a darn good job of it) and drawing praise from the Scottish business community to boot.

But this one caught my eye today – I was following the hoo-hah of the Olympics banning the ‘other’ UK flags – the Saltire, St George’s Cross and the Welsh Dragon.. it’s because of Tibet, naturally, but annoying nonetheless. I don’t really have the stomach for waving a Union Jack. So, on the forum, someone linked in the Fair Flags campaign..

The basic upshot of the campaign is that lots of food is labelled as ‘English’, then has a Union Jack added, rather than the English flag – which is the St George’s Cross.

Now this is one I can really get behind – it’s a natural justice thing. I remember as a schoolkid being taught how to make up a Union Jack from the Saltire, St George’s Cross, and the St Patrick’s Cross of Ireland. While we have a Union, we have to remember that we are the United Kingdoms plural, not the United Kingdom singular.

It seems only natural that just the same way a Scotsman would wave a Saltire in support of his team, an Englishman would wave the St George’s cross – and you would expect that just the same way butter from Dumfries and Galloway or cheese from Ayrshire was labelled as local produce with a Saltire, there would be no problem with cider from Somerset, or Bacon from Yorkshire carrying the English flag – loud and proud.

Tesco, on the other hand, thinks otherwise – they claim that this is because Scots and Welsh would not buy produce with an English flag.. well maybe during the world cup qualifiers, but seriously? this is ridiculous. It’s like authorities falling over themselves to avoid offending muslims when the vast majority of muslims just don’t care. A completely non scientific straw poll of opinions here says that this is just wrong – English strawberries in particular are highlighted as being extra juicy: the climate further south is much better for them apparently.

This is basically like the West Lothian question all over again – and in the same way, it’s not a difficult problem. The West Lothian question, of course, is whether Scottish MPs (elected to the UK parliament) should be able to vote on issues affecting only England.. and the answer is obviously no – what moral right does one population have to inflict policies on another population that didn’t vote for them.

And that’s, unfortunately, where the Fair Flags campaign turns  a bit ugly – England is currently enduring a Labour government (well, really, we are all enduring a labour government) that they did not vote for. It’s unfair, and a lot of English people are unhappy about it. I would be too… and I was, when it was happening to us. England voted in Thatcher’s government, Scotland didn’t want her, and she set about dismantling and destroying our industry as punishment. We had the Poll tax inflicted on us two years before England as a trial – because she knew fine well it wouldn’t make a difference: Scotland’s votes didn’t matter to her.

The commentors trot out The Barnett Formula (where Scotland is funded at a higher rate than England), but oddly enough, fail to consider the income to the treasury *FROM* Scotland (hint – Scotland puts in a lot more than it gets out, even when you don’t consider THE OIL. Remember? The Oil off Scotland’s coast?)

All this does is underline that Scotland and England have wildly different electorates – and the ‘Union’ is like the front end of a pantomime horse stitched onto the back end of a pantomime cow. It’s fooling nobody – and it’s time to bring the whole sorry thing to an end.

Oh, and in the meantime, please let Tesco know that Real Scots are not so petty as to avoid fruit and veg because it comes from England.