Spring Perhaps

It is just possible that Spring has come to my part of the world at last. Today I glanced out of an upstairs window and sitting on a telephone wire was the first swallow I have seen this year.

I made a note of my first sighting in 2011, 22nd April, so almost back on schedule this year. Last year I only became vaguely aware of the odd one flying around in June so I didn’t note the date.

As for daffodils, they are still a rare sight.

Twitter Discussion on Scottish Independence

Prof Keating of Aberdeen University has apparently suggested that Scotland should have no real problems vis a vis the EU if it were to vote for independence next year. Iain Hallahan (@don_iain), Robert Macmillan (@robfmac)and I  had a brief discussion on Twitter in which we largely agreed that we could not really guarantee any future position and neither could the good Professor, largely because the outcome would be a matter of politics rather than law. And as ever politicians on both sides of the argument are spinning madly. It was a pious hope of mine a while back that Salmond would be more statesmanlike.

However one aspect does disturb me. The SNP seem to be setting the agenda for a post Yes vote in terms of their vision of what a future Scotland should be. I read recently something about a totally new tax regime for instance. That I think is completely wrong. If we vote for independence then we should be looking at a general election before anything else  happens to allow the people of Scotland to democratically decide what the future governance of our country should be. The SNP have a mandate to go for Independence, not to govern Scotland in perpetuity.

Arrogance

I am hoping that I will be able to make a habit of regular blogging. Of course some posts may be trivial but I hope that some may reflect and question.

Listening to the news today I was struck by the arrogance of the BBC and the Work and Pensions minister, Mark Hoban. That the BBC thought their own reporting of a trip by students to North Korea was worth putting students at risk is breathtaking. If their reporting crew stayed with the student party what more would they see than any of the rest of the party. Why not just ask students to comment on what they had seen when they returned to the UK? Or are professional journalists a breed apart, so much more perspicacious than the rest of us?

Mark Hoban said on Radio 4 Today programme that he has visited some job centres and is thereby convinced that cutting benefits will have the desired effect of encouraging people to seek work. So surveys, consultations, think tanks and government data on availability of jobs count for nothing against one person’s anecdotal evidence.

Alcohol and Drug Misuse

Parental drug and alcohol misuse is alarmingly high in the UK and affects up to 3 million children, 2.6 million of whom live with parents who drink hazardously; 705,000 of these are living with a dependant drinker and 350,000 children live with a problematic drug user.

I have just read this on the Children Society website and I find it hard to believe. However if it is true then why is it not somewhere near the top of the political agenda? Sixty years after the creation of the welfare state we seem to be no nearer creating a place fit for our whole population. Too many are being excluded for whatever reason.

Back to WordPress

I found posterous.com an easy way to record my random thoughts and so this WordPress blog fell by the wayside, but posterous has failed me and countless others by ceasing to exist as of April 30th 2013. A great shame on Twitter!

However this has spurred me to transfer all my posts from posterous to this site and hopefully it will make me more productive here.

I found the whole process of transfer very easy using the tool provided by WordPress and so congratulations to them.

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