shops and shoppers disappear

One in nine Scottish shops is lying empty as the retail sector slowdown shows no sign of easing, new figures have revealed. Scotland’s store vacancy rates stand at 11.1%.

Stephen Robertson, British Retail Consortium Director General, said: “Fewer people are shopping because households are facing high inflation, low wage growth and uncertainty about future job prospects.”

Colin Borland, spokesman for the Federation of Small Business in Scotland, said “Hard-pressed families are reviewing every pound in their weekly budget. People are thinking before they buy and that, of course, has a knock-on effect on foot-fall and wider business confidence. As soon as people start to see vacant units appearing in high streets, it is almost as if they are contagious. It gives the impression the area is on the way down and means there is less economic activity to sustain remaining businesses.”

The Lairds of the land still rake it in

Scotland’s aristocrats are earning millions of pounds from windfarms on their estates , according to figures from the Renewable Energy Foundation, a charity that promotes sustainable development.

Fallago Rig in the Lammermuir Hills in the Borders, will earn landowner the Duke of Roxburghe £720,000 a year. In the course of the 25-year lifespan of the windfarm, the Duke of Roxburghe could earn something between £18 million and £62.5m.

Sir Alastair Gordon-Cumming will earn £435,000 from the 29 turbines on the Altyre estate near Forres in Moray.

The Earl of Seafield also has eight turbines on his estate near Banff in the north-east which are estimate to be able to earn him £120,000 annually.

The Earl of Moray receives £540,000 a year from 36 turbines at Braes O’Doune near Stirling.

ALL RIGHT FOR SOME

Capitalism is at present going through one of its recessions. We have rising unemployment, businesses threatened with bankruptcy and mortgage foreclosures leading to re-possessions. However its not all doom and gloom, some capitalist concerns are doing well despite the recession. "Sales of London homes that are so luxurious they contain temperature-controlled cupboards for storing fur coats has helped profits to rise 20 per cent at Saville. The upmarket property group said that demand from foreign millionaires had enabled it to sell more homes than ever in the £5 million-plus bracket ... Saville said that first-half profits rose from £17.2 million last year to £20.6 million." (Times, 19 August) RD

YESTERDAY'S HEROES

It was a media sensation. The newspapers and television coverage was immense. The heroism of the miners existing in awful conditions on the brink of death was lauded internationally, but this is capitalism and the heroes were members of the working class so the outcome was predictable."One of the myths surrounding the 33 miners who were so dramatically rescued after being trapped for 69 days deep inside a Chilean mine is that they're all millionaires and no longer need to work. The truth: nearly half the men have been unemployed since their mine collapsed one year ago Friday, and just one, the flamboyant Mario Sepulveda, has managed to live well off the fame. Most have signed up to give motivational speeches. Four, so far, have gone back underground to pound rock for a living." (Associated Press, 4 August) RD

CAPITALISM'S VALUES

The newspapers are full of stories about half a million children dying of lack of food, clean water and basic medical care in East Africa. We can also read about millions of people trying to survive on less than $1.25 a day. Contrast all that with how our parasitical masters live."Supermodel Linda Evangelista is asking French billionaire Francois Henri-Pinault for $46,000 a month in child support. He's the father of Ms. Evangelista's four-year-old son, Augustin James. And Ms. Evangelista argues that $46,000 is the minimum required to provide for young Augustin in the manner to which he has grown accustomed." (Wall Street Journal, 3 August) RD

FUTURE CONFLICTS

Capitalism is an extremely volatile society and it is impossible to predict when and where the next military explosion will occur. The Middle East is a likely candidate because of its oil resources but there are other potential battlegrounds. "Rapidly expanding oil exploration looks likely to escalate territorial disputes in the South China Sea , which is suspected of containing vast oil and natural gas resources. A Philippine company, Philex Mining Corp., announced Tuesday that it plans to drill at least two wells and expand its surveys in Reed Bank, in one of the most contested areas of the South China Sea, the Wall Street Journal reports. China claims the sea in its entirety and several other countries in the region, including the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan claim parts of it." (Christian Science Monitor, 1 August) No doubt if a military conflict arises it will be depicted as one of democracy, justice or some such high-sounding principle. It will of course be a naked scramble for profits. RD

HUMAN NATURE

Whenever socialists point out that socialism will be a society wherein everybody will work to the best of their ability and take according to their needs; a society without ownership, wages or prices, we are invariably taken to task for our naivety. What about human nature? we are asked. It is human nature to be greedy. At various times we have explained our position using many illustrations from history but it is unlikely we could improve on this argument by the writer George Orwell nearly 70 years ago. "The proper answer, it seems to me, is that this argument belongs to the Stone Age. It presupposes that material goods will always be desperately scarce. ....but there is no reason for thinking that the greed for mere wealth is a permanent human characteristic. We are selfish in economic matters because we all live in terror of poverty but when a commodity is not scarce, no one tries to grab more than his fair share of it. No one tries to make a corner in air, for instance. The millionaire as well as the beggar is content with just so much air as he can breathe." (Tribune, 21 July 1944) RD

A TORTUROUS SYSTEM

It is the stuff of movie legend. How those devilish foreigners torture our gallant British soldiers. It is not the sort chicanery that our chivalrous lads would engage in. Alas, it is just movie nonsense. "A top-secret document revealing how officers were allowed to extract information from prisoners being illegally tortured overseas has been seen by the Guardian. The interrogation policy - details of which are believed to be too sensitive to be publicly released at the government inquiry into the UK's role in torture and rendition - instructed senior intelligence officers to weigh the importance of the information being sought against the amount of pain they expected a prisoner to suffer. It was operated by the British government for almost a decade." (Guardian 4, August) This revelation makes the claims of a number of men who said that they were questioned by MI5 and MI6 officers after being tortured at Guantanamo Bay seem highly likely. Capitalism is a filthy system and isn't run according to any rules of fair play. RD

PROGRESS IN ACTION

One of the defenses of modern capitalism is that although it is far from perfect it is gradually improving. Improving for whom? "The richest one per cent of Americans earn nearly a quarter of the country's income and control an astonishing 40 per cent of its wealth. Inequality in the US is more extreme than it has been in almost a century - and the gap between the super-rich and the poor and middle class people has widened drastically over the last 30 years." (ALJAZEERA, 2 August) Socialists would disagree with a few things in this article. The use of the term "earn" for the parasitical capitalist class and the usual confusion about a non-existent "middle class". Despite these disagreements we still think it well illustrates the gigantic gap between the working class and the capitalist class. RD

Over-worked

Nurses are "propping up" the NHS by repeatedly working more hours than contracted and providing last-minute shift cover, a union has claimed.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Scotland said a survey of its members found just only one in 10.

96% reported working in excess of their contracted hours, with 27% saying they did this every shift.

More than a quarter said they provided last-minute cover for absentee staff at least fortnightly.

29% of nurses said they missed their meal time at work at least three times a week.

One in six said they rarely or never took the breaks they were entitled to.

One in five nurses said that in the past six months they had spent a week or more at work despite feeling too ill to be there.

Let hear it for the lazy workers once again!!!

Women and children first

Women now make up almost one-third of Scotland’s unemployed. The number of females out of work north of the Border has soared 20% in the past 12 months. 47,000 women aged 16 and over in Scotland are now claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance out of a total claimant count of 146,900. The figure compares with 39,000 in July 2010.
Public sector cutbacks were blamed for the growing toll of female unemployment. The rate of female redundancies is also accelerating, according to separate figures for April to June this year which showed that women accounted for 45% of all those laid off

Youth unemployment north of the Border is racing ahead of the UK average, with the statistics revealing that Scots aged 18 to 24 accounted for more than 30% of Scotland’s JSA claimants, compared with a national average of 18.5%. There were 45,000 young Scots claiming JSA in July, a rise of more than 5000 on the previous month. Youth unemployment is up 10% on July 2010 and there has been a 40% rise in the number of 18 to 24-year-olds in Scotland who have been claiming JSA for between six months and a year.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/unemployment-among-women-soars-by-20-1.1118303

independence from what?

Ex-Labour MP and the man who raised the West Lothian question on devolution, Tam Dalyell, says independence is now inevitable.

Socialists don’t take sides in the debate about whether it is better for workers there to be ruled from Edinburgh or from London. The SNP argues that the problems facing workers in Scotland are due to “Westminster rule”. If only there was an independent Scotland, they say, separate from the rest of Britain, then there would be full employment, higher wages, job security, better state benefits, a healthy health service and all the other things politicians promise at election times. This view is echoed by the so-called Scottish “Socialist” Party and Tommy Sheridan’s Solidarity. Nor should our opposition to the nationalist parties be interpreted as support for the Union or the Labour, Liberal or Tory parties that support it. A plague on all their houses.

Independence would be a purely political, not to say mere constitutional, change which would leave the basic economic structure of society unchanged. There would still be a privileged class owning and controlling the means of production with the rest having to work for them for a living. Just as now. An independent Scottish government would still have to operate within the constraints of the world capitalist system. It would still have to ensure that goods produced in Scotland were competitive on world markets and that capitalists investing in Scotland were allowed to make the same level of profits as they could in other countries. In other words, it would still be subject to the same economic pressures as the existing London-based government to promote profits and restrict wages and benefits. Ireland, which broke away from the UK and things have never been any different.

The Scottish nationalists see themselves as visionaries but they cannot see beyond the narrow confines of the nation-state, conceived in pre-medieval times and as outmoded as the clan system it replaced. It is the Socialist Party who are the true men and women of vision, who look forward to and struggle for a new world of common ownership and democratic control of society's resources.

If only we had known

According to ex-Labour MP Tam Dalyell memoirs, the veteran Labour politician's suspicions about Blair were first aroused when he spoke to one of the former prime minister's teachers at Fettes.

The teacher said: "Be careful of Blair – he's a superb actor, he's good at getting others into trouble but avoiding it himself. In fact, he's a shit..."

Pigs in the trough

Finance Secretary John Swinney, whose main home is in his North Tayside constituency, bought the four-bedroom apartment on one of the capital’s most desirable streets for £355,000 in December 2003 while SNP leader. At the time, the two-storey terraced property was the most expensive second home ever bought by an MSP. Mr Swinney, who earns £100,000 a year, used parliamentary allowances to pay the interest on his RBS mortgage, ultimately claiming more than £60,000 from the public purse. He also claimed around £10,000 to pay council tax for the Band G property on Morningside’s Hermitage Terrace. (Only former Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott used Holyrood expenses to maintain a more expensive second home after buying a £380,000 house in 2005.)

The sales prospectus praised its “magnificent” 23-foot drawing room, private front garden, “delightful leafy outlook” over Blackford Hill to the rear and it was sold for £430,000 was made to Registers of Scotland on August 1. After capital gains tax, Mr Swinney made a profit of around £57,000. Mr Swinney’s gain on the property is one of the largest ever recorded by an MSP.

The largest was made by fellow SNP minister Alex Neil, who made £105,505 before tax when he sold up last year, after billing taxpayers for more than £87,000 for mortgage interest, security, utilities, council tax, factoring and insurance on a two-bedroom flat over a decade. Mr Neil’s ministerial responsibilities at the time included affordable housing and homelessness. He and his wife had stumped up just £4720 for a deposit on the property.

Swinney and Neil’s claims were made under the Scottish Parliament’s discredited Edinburgh Accommodation Allowance, which paid for MSPs to stay overnight in the capital.
Some stayed in hotels or rented flats, but some bought homes, reclaimed mortgage interest, and sold at a profit. Past beneficiaries of EAA who sold for a profit include former LibDem deputy first minister Jim Wallace, who made £69,400 before tax; Tory MSP Alex Johnstone (£60,000); SNP MSP Gil Paterson (£50,000); and former SNP homelessness minister Stewart Maxwell (£34,500). After an outcry over MSPs cashing in, since May they have only been able to claim for rent or hotel costs. The change is prompting some MSPs to sell.

Announcing a Treasury-imposed £1.3 billion cut in public spending in February, the Scottish Cabinet Minister Swinney said “Hard choices must be made.” Now he has made one of those "hard"choices, making a lot of unearned money while he’s currently freezing public-sector salaries and squeezing public services.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/swinney-makes-75k-out-of-home-sell-off-1.1117785

Warts and All

Since the SPGB was founded in 1904 generations of its members have had to examine whatever social, political and economic events arose.

For example, there were two world wars, the Bolshevik  seizure of power in Russia, the rise of fascism, the Wall Street crash, the Social Credit movement of the 1930s, the election of Labour governments, the threat of nuclear weapons, inflation and much more.

Of course the party has made a few mistakes none of which were serious, but these are nothing compared to its successes which are truly remarkable since they were achieved by ordinary working class men and women and they did this by simply applying Marxist theory when most of the phoney Marxist floundered in reformist politics.

The branch meeting is at 8pm in the Community Central Halls, 304 Maryhill Road.
admission free, be there by 8.30pm to hear comrade Vanni's accounts

Fore!!

A street of unassuming terraces in St Andrews will this week cement their reputation as a millionaire's row when a double upper flat goes on the market for £1.75 million. Its panoramic views across the famous Old Course and its hallowed 18th green - where Open Championships are won and lost - have brought the 2011 valuation of the three-bedroom property with no garden that will only appeal to the very wealthy. Just a few yards away, luxury apartments in the Hamilton Grand, a former St Andrews University halls of residence being redeveloped by American billionaire Herb Kohler, start from £1.35m. Some of the properties do not even have a view of the Old Course but are still highly prized for their location at the centre of the traditional Home of Golf.

The last home to be sold on The Links, which changed hands for almost £4m last year, became the priciest property per square foot in Scotland at £1,350, putting it among the most expensive property markets in the world, such as London and Monaco.

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland/House-bought-for-5000-now.6818282.jp

PROFIT IS A KILLER

Drug companies like all other capitalist concerns like to portray themselves as selfless benefactors of mankind. The image of dedicated men and women in white coats researching in a ceaseless bid to rid the world of disease is one they constantly try to project. In reality of course they are ruthlessly trying to increase their profits by any means whatsoever. "US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has started making long-awaited compensation payments to families over a 1996 drug trial blamed for the deaths of 11 children and disabilities in dozens of others. ...The payments were part of a $75 million out-of-court-settlement reached between Pfizer and Kano state government in July 2009 over the drug trial." (Daily Telegraph, 12 August) In order to survive inside capitalism companies have got to beat of competition from their rivals. If that means the death and disability of some children in some far-off underdeveloped country - so what? RD

Reading Notes

Tim Flannery in "Here on Earth – A Natural History of the Planet"
provides some good reading and worthwhile scientific information. But as is usual for the reformers of the world, he gets the solution all wrong. After detailing the environmental problems we face, he writes, " In light of this sorry history, it would be easy to blame the Medean nature (i.e. self destruction) of the post-war period on unconstrained human ingenuity, or a rampant capitalist system (yeah, he's got it!). But evidence from the communist countries suggests that something far deeper was at work, for those countries mounted their own wars on nature which were, despite the lack of chemical weapons, as lethal of those of the West. (Oh no, he's lost it!) In Mao's China, brute human effort was the tool of choice, following the aphorism ren ding sheng tian (Man must conquer nature), in just a few decades, turned China into an environmental basket case." He goes on to show how little efforts here and there are making a difference but was deeply disappointed in the outcome of Copenhagen. How is it that intelligent, well-educated writers cannot grasp the simple nature of the problem? John Ayers

STANDING STILL IS A CRIME

The economic downturn has led to a bizarre piece of legislation in Belarus. Because of worsening conditions workers there had to come up with subtle ways of expressing their displeasure. All political protest in Belarus has to have a government permit and that is never given if the demo has any criticism of the government. They tried suddenly breaking into crowd clapping or having their cell phones all ringing at the same time but the government arrested them so the authorities have come up with this weird legal enactment. "Belarus have responded to a burst of creative modes of protest by young protesters with a rather surreal innovation of their own: a law that prohibits people from standing together and doing nothing. A draft law published Friday "prohibits the joint mass presence of citizens in a public place that has been chosen beforehand, including an outdoor space, and at a scheduled time for the purpose of a form of action or inaction that has been planned beforehand and is a form of public expression of the public or political sentiments or protest". Anyone proven to be taking part in such a gathering would be subject to up to 15 days of administrative arrest, the draft says." (New York Times , 29 July) Plainclothes police officers have detained nearly 2,000 people since the so-called clapping protests began in June, in many cases because they were seen clapping or standing near people who were. More than 500 have received sentences of 5 to 15 days. Capitalism is an extremely restrictive society but making a crime of just standing still takes a bit of beating.RD

Scotland on the Dole

There has been a dramatic rise in people out of work in Scotland's poorest areas, including Glasgow.

In North Ayrshire, Scotland's worst-affected area, unemployment rocketed to 11.9 per cent - an increase of 5.5 percentage points in the three years covered by the survey. In Glasgow, the jobless rate rose to 11.7 per cent, up 4.8 points. A total of 6.3 per cent of Edinburgh's population was unemployed at the end of 2010, which represented an increase of two points over the three years. In Dundee, unemployment stood at 9.2 per cent - up 2.6 points.

Scotland's overall unemployment figure had increased from 4.7 per cent in 2007 to 7.7 per cent in 2010. Scotland's levels of economic inactivity, which includes all those who are not in work or claiming unemployment benefit, such as people with long-term illnesses or disabilities rose from 22.5 per cent in 2007 to 23 per cent over the three-year period covered by the survey. Figures also showed that the percentage of people in work in Scotland fell between 2008 and 2010, with the figure going from 73.5 per cent to 71 per cent.

There were also tens of thousands of young unemployed, aged 16-19, who were not in any sort of education of training. The survey showed 36,000 - or 13.7 per cent - of 16-19 year-olds were not in education, employment or training (NEET) - a figure that remained unchanged between 2009 and 2010.