Glasgow East by-election or why socialism has failed

The Glasgow East by-election is occurring because its sitting MP, David Marshall, is standing down for health reasons. It shouldn't surprise, at 67 he is already outliving the average man in his constituency.

In the 2005 election he won with 60.7% of the vote. Yes he is one of those MPs with a strong true majority. The Scottish National Party (SNP) came a distant second with 17%, the Lib Dems third with 11.8% and the Conservative Party fourth with 6.9%. You get the picture, this is heartland Labour territory. Much of the media coverage is about whether Labour might lose, as the SNP is campaigning strong calling for nanny state to help food and fuel prices. Once addicted to nanny state, always addicted, although I hope the Tories might squeeze into third place (which happened, just, in 2001).

What's actually more telling are two sets of statistics. First, those about the constituency itself. This is a part of the UK that is not middle class, it is the absolute pits of despair - funded from the loving caring generous welfare state.

UK polling report describes the seat as follows:

"This seat contains some affluent suburban areas like Mount Vernon and Bailleston, but it is mostly made up of the post-war product of slum clearances, soul(l)ess tenements and terraces thrown up in the 1950s and 1960s into which the population of Glasgow’s substandard housing were decanted. The resulting estates, lacking employment and amen(i)ties were ravaged by unemployment, hard drugs, violence and gang culture." (sic)

It is poor white Scotland, with only 1.1% of the population not European. A quarter of the population under 18 and 20% over 60. Parts of the seat have a life expectancy for men of 62 - one of the lowest in the UK and akin to Bangladesh. Good ol' NHS doing wonders isn't it?

Only 7.6% of the population are graduates and just over 50% of adults have no school qualifications at all. Good ol' state monopoly education working then?

46% live in "social housing", about the same again in owner-occupied homes. 15.6% of homes have either no private bathroom or no central heating - in Glasgow!

Fraser Nelson of the Spectator explains further: "I once had the job of signing up the good people of Glasgow East to the electoral register — at the time, regarded as an invitation to pay poll tax. Gang graffiti scars the walls, police are virtually unseen. This no-go-zone status is new, and cost billions to achieve. Houses there are in good condition, money is being spent. But it has funded a hideous social experiment, showing what happens when the horizontal ties which bind those within communities to one another are replaced with vertical ties, binding individuals to the welfare state."

You see this is the dire world of welfare, drug and despair addicted Scotland "A boy born in Camlachie is expected to live to 64.5 — the same as in Uzbekistan. In Parkhead it is 62, the same as Bangladesh. Just outside its boundaries lies Dalmarnock where the figure is 58 — lower than Sudan, Cambodia or Ghana. The lowest is Carlton, where the figure of 54 is lower than even Gambia’s equivalent"

Nelson continues, pointing out the vile levels of dependency of those there and how irrelevant they are to Labour "It is invisible because the people in this Labour stronghold are of no use to politicians, who only do battle nowadays in marginal seats. When I last visited a pub there, to research an article, I was asked if I was a missionary — church groups are about the only people who bother with such places these days. Its horrors are hidden by statistical manipulation. Official unemployment is just 6.7 per cent. But add in such factors as those claiming incapacity benefit, and it quickly emerges that a scandalous 50 per cent of the working-age population are on out-of-work benefits."

However, you might think as a Labour heartland seat, this should be easy, this sort of seat is apparently what Labour is meant to be about.

Well no.

The people of Glasgow East have been rewarded by their loyalty with Labour by being ignored. Channel 4 reported that the party has as few as three dozen active members in the seat, and that it has never actually campaigned there in recent history on a door to door basis. After all, why would you campaign when those who vote do so as zombies, ticking the same formula as they are told time and time again that only Labour represents the working man, an irony given how the majority don't actually work. The Labour Party doesn't even have a database on the seat's demographics show where it's weakest and strongest. It has taken most of them for granted. With one part of the seat excepted, poor, destitute, welfare ridden, they'll vote Labour - nobody else will bother campaigning in this seriously dire part of Glasgow.

Of course as David Cameron says, the truth is that those in this electorate have, to some extent, given up. Although you do wonder how the inquisitive bright kid in this place fairs, when he risks being beaten up for being "smart", hounded at a school where intelligence makes you a social pariah, where one parent cynically thinks he's getting "too big for his boots", and with temptations towards drugs and other mindless decadence all around. They all vote for the status quo, and get it of course - and get it from a party only too glad that it gets a guaranteed House of Commons vote so it can have power, to look after the floating voter.

You see that's where, hopefully, all that will be proven wrong. This heartland Labour seat speaks volumes about the arrogance of many on the left for those they purport to give a damn about. Labour ignores them, doesn't even have enough local members who LIKE Labour, and the other parties completely ignore them too - until now. What has Labour done for Glasgow East? Kept the benefits flowing, kept the state monopoly schools open, refurbished some housing and left law and order to the gangs.

So the failure of socialist is apparent - starkly apparent. The formula is not more money for state monopolies and welfare. Yet this seat may offer a chance for the taste of change.

I'll leave the end to Fraser Nelson from the Spectator again:

"Labour, forced for the first time to focus attention on one of its ‘safe’ welfare ghettoes, may find it has nothing to say. Is it to promise more of the same? Or blame the wicked Conservatives? It is one thing for Labour to lose the leafy suburbs which Mr Blair won over in 1997. But to be rejected in a supposed heartland like Glasgow East would plunge the party into existential crisis, and rightly so. Because after all those years in power, and all those billions spent, its main legacy has been, quite simply, the most expensive poverty in the world."

3 years ago today

I used the tube twice today, and was gently reminded by coverage in one of the free papers that today is the third anniversary of the terrorist bombings that killed 52 innocent people and injured 700 in London.

It is notable that it had a low profile today. London has been scarred, but neither the economy nor the culture of the city has been substantively hurt. In the regard, the Islamist terrorists did not achieve their goal of frightening Londoners nor frightening the British government to withdraw from Iraq or Afghanistan.

However I do wonder whether the relative nonchalance is naive, or a reflection of the success of the security forces in combating terrorist plots. I hope the latter, because Britain has paid a high price in individual freedom for security.

There is no doubt that it has proven more difficult than the Islamist terrorists thought to undertake their own filthy form of civil war against British society - but Britain remains vulnerable - and has to remain vigilant. Hopefully the naivete about Islamists who preach jihad in British mosques has been shattered - for too long the UK has relied only on its tolerance to battle the intolerant. The message ought to be that if you, as an individual, wish to declare war on Britain's government and society, you will no longer receive the generosity of tolerance. An (effectively) secular United Kingdom must never be negotiable.

Gordon austerity Brown tells Britain off

"There are poor kids in Africa who would love that food" says Gordon Brown in effect, as he puts on the school headmaster outfit and tells the UK off for throwing away "too much food".

Like a little protestant guilt monger he snarls at us all, eyes darting from right to left with that dour expression permanently etched on his tightly judgemental face. Already lovingly taking between 20 and 50% of our incomes, because, after all, he knows best how to spend that money (no longer "ours"), he's decided we don't spend the rest of it well either.

According to the Daily Telegraph he said "If we are to get food prices down, we must also do more to deal with unnecessary demand, such as by all of us doing more to cut our food waste which is costing the average household in Britain around £8 per week".

Furthermore "If you don't eat your meat, how can you have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat...(whipping sound)". (OK so I made that one up).

Talking to the British public as if they are children is hardly going to endear him with them all, but no doubt he thinks it is good. Maybe he was raised to eat everything off his plate, overcooked dried peas, boiled to a pulp carrots, bland mashed potatoes and lard fried sausage products, and be damned lucky he had that.

Now don't get me wrong, I KNOW people waste food. I do. Sometimes things go off, sometimes something you buy is quite awful (like the pasta we had last night). Maybe some people who moan about it could be more economical, but it's the same about petrol, electricity, clothes, gambling, alcohol, entertainment - hell, anything.

However, what is particularly grating when the G8 summit he has gone to has ensured he is well fed with a banquet including caviar. Yes Gordon, eat up!

What I care about more is whether Gordon can stop his rapacious consumption of taxpayers' money. He bailed out a bank with it, he is pouring money into the Olympics with it, he's pouring money to pay for other people to have easy access to the property market, he's pouring money into a long list of petty welfare projects that are nothing but politics. Gordon, maybe people would be under less stress if you didn't spend so much of their money? By the way, hope the caviar was good, and you saved doggy bags for your constituents.

oh and by the way, next time you want to tell me how to spend the remainder of my money after you took over half through taxes, just fuck off. You're not my moral superior, and the money you take from me already is not that well spent. I learnt enough about being thrifty from my own Scottish Protestant parents, I don't need a highly paid new one who constantly has his hand in my fucking wallet!

60 years of NHS- time for a rethink

The past week has seen the BBC and the UK, celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the nationalised health service - the NHS. The system based on the openly socialist philosophy that the state should provide health care free at the point of use to all.

The reality of the risks of that system was largely ignored by the Labour Party at the time it was introduced. Britain was bankrupt from World War 2 and the Atlee Labour government used ample funds from the Marshall Plan supplied by the USA (and the UK got more than any other country in post war Europe) to fund its socialist plans of the NHS, iron/steel, coal, railway, bus, truck, airline etc nationalisations. The point that the NHS would result in over demand (with some going to doctors when they had little wrong with them), few incentives for healthy living (you pay the same regardless if you smoke, exercise and eat fatty foods or not), and a lack of accountability for any failure to perform as promised

Now the NHS is probably the UK's biggest sacred cow - it shouldn't be. For years the argument was that it needed more money - Labour did that, increasing NHS spending by 80% in 11 years. Improvements are difficult to see, as most of the extra spending has been sucked up by increased demands and increased pay. Another argument was that there needed to be administrative tinkering, which also has sucked in more money.

The Sunday Telegraph's editorial rather boldly proposes something else - an insurance based model which includes the private sector.

It states that the original vision of the NHS was that it would require less money over time as people became healthier, but ignored that people would expect more over time:

"It was assumed that, as the nation's health improved, so demand for medical treatment would diminish.

But the opposite has proved true. Increasing life expectancy means more people live to an age where they contract diseases that are expensive to treat. People are also less inclined to queue than they were in the austere days of the 1950s.

In a consumerist age, people compare their healthcare with the provision of other services and expect to have the same choice and speed of delivery.

Yet, while the NHS has evolved over the years, its structure and the way it is financed still owe more to a 1940s belief in the efficacy of state monopoly than to the realities of the modern world."

The paper continues, pointing out that both Germany and France have insurance based models with larger private sectors:

"Insurance schemes that let people decide how much of their own money to spend on healthcare and top up what they contribute in taxes are the way to bring greater investment into the system. Politicians must prepare the country for the realities that need to be faced; yet the totemic power of the NHS to stifle debate seems undiminished."

Indeed, the incentives of insurance could assist in encouraging people to look after themselves, and manage the costs of healthcare, in particular exposing people to the costs of what they expect. However, it is difficult to see the Tories (much like National in NZ) making any worthwhile change.

"Proposed Conservative reforms risk replacing Labour top-down targets with their own. The party must be willing to take on producer interests in the NHS and give greater choice to patients by embracing new ideas such as easier access to specialist doctors.

People no longer see the NHS as the property of its practitioners, but of those who pay for it. The NHS must respond to that mood - or voters will want to put their money into something that delivers the care they expect"

People will complain and moan about public health care and fail to recognise the simple truths, that the price of socialised healthcare is queuing, not always getting what you want, and paying the same regardless of your good or bad behaviour. It is time to put healthcare in the hands of those paying for it, by moving towards insurance, private provision and competition. The status quo has failed, and will fail more as the population ages and biotechnology pushes the cost of the best treatment beyond a socialised system. People will simply not tolerate ever increasing taxes for a system that produces ever increasing queues.

Drug addict? go on a benefit and don't get treatment

One of the arguments given for the welfare state is how caring and compassionate it is, and how mean, greedy and nasty are the people who actually would rather have their own money back, and then choose to spend it as they see fit, including charity or other acts of genuine benevolence.

The left would argue that the state is best trusted to care for those in need, and those who want tax cuts are less compassionate and moral that they.

So you may ask yourself why, according to the Dominion Post, 5270 drug and alcohol addicts can be on sickness and invalids benefits, defined as those who identify their addiction as the reason they cannot work - AND that none of them are required to engage in any form of treatment as a condition of receiving your money.

Imagine a single charity giving out money to addicts and saying "go on, come back for more every fortnight, and we don't care whether or not you go to treatment".

What is more alarming is the number has gone up so much in a short time "there are 2540 beneficiaries who have drug abuse listed as their primary reason for being unable to work - almost twice the 1297 listed in 2004."

Apparently "case managers could not force beneficiaries into treatment programmes". I would have thought if the government changed benefit eligibility so that if you refuse treatment you cease to get the benefit, it might be an effective way of incentivising them into treatment.

Work and Income deputy CE Patricia Reade has said though that "Many had other mental or physical health problems which prevented them from working, such as cirrhosis. Alcoholism in itself was not a reason to be off work." So presumably those problems should be listed shouldn't they, not alcoholism. Alcoholism if listed shouldn't be a grounds for the benefit if that is the case.

So what to do?

Now some on the conservative right may say that everyone getting the benefit who is a drug abuser should be incarcerated. That, after all, is what the war on drugs is about isn't it? It makes it a crime to ingest banned substances, so why should people get money for being an addict, and why shouldn't those receiving those benefits get a knock on the door from the cops with search warrants with pending charges? (Then for good measure, being tough on crime and all, if they find nothing, there is benefit fraud from NOT being a drug user!).

The better solution is that, while accepting these benefits exist for now, the system should use a carrot and stick approach to treatment. Addicts who are unable to work because of their addiction should only receive the benefit whilst they undertake treatment (and have been certified as having attended). Similarly, they should not receive the benefit whilst they use. That means testing. Whilst some of those receiving the benefits are no doubt trying on the system, others will be sad cases - feeling trapped and alone, and unsure what to do. Pulling the money away unless they undertake treatment is the only kind thing that can be done in those circumstances. You'll find the ones who are trying on the system will drop out, and maybe those who are in genuine need drop out after weeks and months of help (helping their families too).

You see it's how private welfare would ultimately work.

It is kinder than the mad Green idea of throwing more money at beneficiaries, kinder than Labour's "here's the money now you could seek treatment, but if you don't just see your doctor every 13 weeks and if you're still an addict, we''ll keep paying you", and kinder than the "throw you in jail for being a (drug) addict" of the "tough on crime" brigade.