No one is forgotten and nothing is forgotten

A few hundred yards from where missionary David Livingstone was born, stood five pits run by William Dixon Ltd. Together they produced hundreds of thousands of tons of coal and made wealthy men of the mine owners. In 1871, the first two pits were sunk in High Blantyre and by 1876 there were 8 pits in production in the area. The demand for an increased labour force was high, and there was reluctance among the local mill and farm workers to work in the new mines. This labour force was found principally in Irish emigrants who were refugees from the suffering and deprivation caused by the potato famine in Ireland (and later many Lithuanians both of whom the coalmasters exploited to full advantage, particularly in times of industrial unrest).  Blantyre was at this time; "a district of pits, engine houses, smoke and grime" and led to the nickname "Dirty Auld Blantyre". The miners and their families carried out back-breaking work for little more than a pittance and were housed in cramped tied cottages. The High Blantyre pits were known locally as "The Fiery Mine" because of the heavy presence of a gas called firedamp, which consisted chiefly of methane.

The Blantyre mining disaster, on  22 October 1877, in Blantyre, Scotland, was and remains Scotland’s worst mining accident. Pits No. 2 and No. 3 of William Dixon's Blantyre Colliery were the site of an explosion which killed 207 miners, the youngest being a boy of 11. The accident left 92 widows and 250 fatherless children.

Repeated complaints about the working conditions at High Blantyre had been ignored. In fact, a year before, Blantyre miners had been so fearful for their safety in the mines that, when Dixon's refused them a wage rise to compensate, they went on strike and were immediately sacked. They and their families were evicted from their homes, with police officers using clubs on hand if necessary. Just two months before in Dixon's number 2 pit,  Joe McInulty had died of severe burns after an explosion of "firedamp" which had also injured his two younger brothers Robert and Andrew, leaving them also badly burnt. Despite this tragic occurrence and the concerns of the miners themselves, Dixon's pits were not considered by the management to be particularly dangerous, all the pits in this area were subject to "firedamp" and it was accepted as being part of everyday mining life. The mine was known to be very gassy but complaints by miners a few days before the disaster were fobbed off by the foreman, Joseph Gilmour. He told the miners 'There'll not be a man fall in this pit, I'll guarantee that'.

Six months after the accident, Dixon's raised summonses against 34 widows whose husbands had been killed and who had not left the tied cottages which they and their husbands had rented from the mining company. The Sheriff stated that it was out of kindness that the company had allowed them to remain in their houses for so long. One widow claimed that they had a cruel way of showing their kindness. They were evicted two weeks later, on 28 May 1878. No-one knows what became of these unfortunate widows and their children. In all probability they had to seek accommodation in the Poor House. The ejection of the Blantyre widows was a disgraceful end to the tragic story of the Blantyre explosion.

On 5th March 1878 at Dixon's No. 3 pit six men were killed in a cage accident.

On 2 July 1879, there was a second explosion at Dixon's Pit No. 1, with the loss of 28 lives.

 THE BLANTYRE EXPLOSION

By Clyde's bonny banks where I sadly did wander
Among the pit heaps as evening drew nigh,
I spied a young woman all dressed in deep mourning,
A-weeping and wailing with many a sigh.

I stepped up beside her and thus I addressed her:
"Pray tell me the cause of your trouble and pain." Weeping and sighing, at last she made answer;
"Johnny Murphy, kind sir, was my true lover's name.

"Twenty-one years of age, full of youth and good looking, To work down the mines of High Blantyre he came,
The wedding was fixed, all the guests were invited
That calm summer evening young Johnny was slain.

The explosion was heard, all the women and children With pale anxious faces they haste to the mine.
When the truth was made known, the hills rang with their mourning,
Two-hundred-and-ten young miners were slain.

Now husbands and wives and sweethearts and brothers, That Blantyre explosion they'll never forget;
And all you young miners that hear my sad story,
Shed a tear for the victims who're laid to their rest. 



The list of victims

The “nonsense” of nationalism

"The nationality of the toilers is neither French nor English nor German; it is toil, free slavery, sale of the self. His government is neither French nor English nor German; it is Capital. His native air is neither French nor German nor English; it is the air of the factory. The land which belongs to him is neither French nor English nor German; it is a few feet under the ground."-- Karl Marx  Notes on Friedrich List

Nationalists love the soil which makes their graves. The working class has often been, for Marx, beguiled by nationalism, organised religion, and other distractions. These ideological devices help to keep people from realising that it is they who produce wealth. Socialism is a theory that stands for a stateless society. On the other hand, nationalism stands for a state or nation. Nationalism means the development of a particular nation. For nationalists, state or nation is the primary importance. However, for communist, the whole class around the whole world is a single entity. It is the community that prevails over others in communism whereas in nationalism, it is the national spirit that prevails over other thoughts. In nationalism, there is a belief that one nation is superior to other nations. Moreover, the citizens of a country are more valued than the citizens of other countries. This belief does not hold in communism. For the communists, community stands above all. Unlike the nationalists, the communists think globally. Workers' real interests and loyalties lie in supporting the efforts of workers worldwide in the class struggle; in supporting all workers' efforts to resist their exploiters and defeat their exploiters through the establishment of socialism. It means rejecting nationalism and the efforts of ruling-class nation-states to pit workers against each other in economic competition or set them at each others' throats in war. It means holding up international working-class solidarity in opposition to ruling-class nationalism.

Those who create wealth are the working class and in socialism workers will collectively manage society for the benefit of society as a whole on a planned basis for human need and not for profit. Without the profit motive and without the capitalist class, there is no need for wages, racism, sexism and war. There is more than enough to provide everyone with a decent life, to restore the environment which is currently being destroyed by capitalism and use all the modern means of production to reduce the burden of labouring for surplus labour value for the benefit of the ruling class. Nationalism is a fraud whereby would-be rulers ‘self-determine’ to impose their vision of nationhood on an entire community. Nationalism is an ideology of separation, of hatred for the ‘other.’ It is a creed of violence and war and oppression. And it has absolutely nothing to offer the world’s oppressed. What is necessary is to develop human solidarity and mutual aid. Nationalism is today one of the most dangerous hindrances to social liberation.

There are some on the Left who believe that whatever the nature of the SNP a vote for ‘independence’ will somehow weaken the British state. This misunderstands the nature of power and where it lies. There is no reason to believe that in an independent Scotland striving for a socialist society will be any easier or that will see a resurgence in the class struggle. Would an independent Scotland be any different for workers who would still be economically and socially powerless?

James Connolly before he subordinated working class independence to Irish independence asked what would be the difference in practice if the unemployed were rounded up for the "to the tune of 'St. Patrick's Day'" and the bailiffs wore wear "green uniforms and the Harp without the Crown, and the warrant turning you out on the road will be stamped with the arms of the Irish Republic...Whoop it up for liberty! "?  ("Socialism Made Easy,")

Starvation - side by side plenty

Rising food prices during 2010-11 may have pushed three million Bangladeshis into poverty, and kept eight million Indians from getting out of poverty bracket, finds a UN report. In Asia and Pacific region, food inflation pushed nearly four million people into poverty.

 Increasing cost of fertilizers, competition for arable land, water resource and high oil prices are all responsible for the spike. Commodity market speculation has also been a growing factor behind high and volatile commodity prices. 65% of the household income of poor across the world is spent on food.  In Bangladesh and India, more than 40% children are undernourished.

 The report claims that at national level, "hungry population live side-by-side with people who have easy access to food." It explains that the root cause of hunger across the sub-region is not lack of food rather the socio-economic and social distribution is responsible for this.

Protesting is just the start

Socialist Courier is cheered that our class is once again on the move, marching to protect its interests and talking about its future. But optimism sometimes needs to give way to gloomy realism.

The world is dominated by profit, and that a relatively small number of people, the owners and employers, benefit in terms of wealth and power. As this economic crisis deepens at home and aboard, its human toll becomes even more evident. Recovery will only come when the rate of profit is restored. Which employers are actively seeking to bring about by imposing wage freezes, even wage cuts, watering down pension schemes, and anything else they can think of to reduce their labour costs. Thousands are facing job losses or being offered an enforced shorter working week as this malignant disease spreads. Workers have been warned to brace themselves for even worse to come. All those on  benefits' will be affected, as the aim is to force people on out-of-work benefits into low paid jobs or doing  community work", previously only undertaken by people ordered so by courts for criminal convictions. Incapacity claimants face harrowing questioning and ever more frequent tests from someone other than their own GP. The government have dressed up the proposals as part of an austerity programme. We are talking about death by a thousand cuts.

The short-term well-being of workers is determined by the degree to which they submit and co-operate in the intensification of their own working conditions. Labour power is a marketable commodity that causes workers to globally compete for jobs; this carries the tacit acceptance that if greater profit can be made elsewhere then production will be switched to an alternative location. This inevitably sets worker against worker in a downward scramble to offer the most ‘attractive’ conditions conducive to investment and future profitability. In these circumstances the working class should not be surprised when they become the ‘collateral damage’, the unfortunate but necessary casualties of a ‘war’ in pursuit of profit. The sectional interests of the owners and shareholders must always take precedence over the interests of workers. We are facing the cold reality of the simple fact that our class enemies hold state power, and will use it, ruthlessly to protect their interests. Which is why the Socialist Party argues for the prime importance of taking state power out of their hands. For socialists the rule of government can never be democratic. Governments implement policies for which no one voted, or would vote for. No one voted to cut care services for the old and the disabled. No one voted to close hospital departments. People getting what they didn’t vote for shows that capitalism is incompatible with democracy as an expression of “the people’s will”. Governments work for a privileged section of society. They make the laws which protect the property rights of a minority who own and control natural resources, industry, manufacture and transport. These are the means of life on which we all depend but most of us have no say in how they are used.

 Workers should fight back. The unions today may appear weak yet they still remain an important social movement. The activities of trade unions are important to defend the interests of workers against the bosses but they should also be encouraging the spread of ideas that would end the capitalist economic system. If you accept the logic of capitalism, you play by its rules.  Ask yourself this: Why should we have to fight the same battles over and over again? The crisis has shifted the balance of forces in favour of employers. Even under the best of circumstances unions have to work hard to get wages to go up but with the recession unions can only try to put a brake on the downward slide and try to stop things getting worse. Is this the only future? Yes, within the context of the capitalist system, it is. But capitalism is not the only possible way of organising the production and distribution of the things we need. Without a decent anti-capitalist argument, and an idea of what we are fighting for, we¹ve lost before we’ve begun.

Socialists argue that our current economic system is fundamentally undemocratic because those that produce all of the wealth have no say in how it is put to use, and those that control most of the wealth had nothing to do with creating it. Workers have little control over their future and must decide whether life under capitalism is really the future they want. Workers can and should organise to end capitalism which forces them to work for wages to live. We need to get rid of the master, take the means of making a living under our collective ownership and control, and organise our own lives, democratically. We should organise a system based on producing the things we need simply because we need them and not to make a profit. Production for use, not production for profit. We need socialism, the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.

Capitalism drives us mental

Scots are suffering more mental health problems because of the economic downturn, according to the largest ever study on the subject. Living in the most deprived areas of Scotland places people at a higher risk of poor mental health, researchers concluded.

A report published by NHS Health Scotland today examines more than 50 indicators which help make up a picture of the nation's mental health, covering factors such as working life and community, chronic physical health problems and misuse of alcohol or drugs. 42 indicated a direct link between greater socio-economic disadvantage and a poorer state of mental health. Only two were more prevalent in better-off areas than poor areas – drinking outside the recommended limits and overwork. Alcohol intake is excessive across the classes, but it causes more health problems in deprived areas.

Andrew Fraser, director of Public Health Science said problems were likely to worsen in a context of austerity. He added: "We can reliably expect these indicators to worsen if deprivation and inequality widen."

Oxfam warn about land grab

The global rush for international companies to grab lands for private sector investments in most Southeast Asian countries has put their poorest people at high risks of hunger in its latest report, Oxfam, warned. 

In developing countries in Asia, some 945 million are estimated to be living in absolute poverty.

The irony couldn’t be sharper and more painful in Asia where poor people who grow food for a living comprise the poorest segments of the economy and are scarcely able to eat.  In many countries, 80% of the population are farmers, as are 80% of the chronically hungry.

Norly Grace Mercado, Oxfam’s East Asia regional spokesperson said that “Global land grabs and, in particular, the upsurge of areas devoted to bio-fuel production have sent food prices in a tizzy, making it harder for poor people to buy affordable food,”

 227 million hectares of land, including coastal land, in developing countries have been sold or leased since 2001, mostly to international investors.

Nobel Prize winner professor Amartya Sen was instrumental in pointing out that food security was not just about producing more food, but ensuring the needy had access to it. There can be plenty of food in shops, as was true of the famines in Ireland in the 19th century and West Bengal in the 1940s, but if poor people cannot afford to buy that food, they will go hungry.

Quote of the Day

"There’s no place for nationalism in the world of capitalism. Money has no flag, no boundaries and no musical anthem."

Bangkok Post

The Chinese rich get richer

According to a recent report from China's Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, astronomical increases in salaries in several domestic industries, especially among high-level corporate executives, have widened the gap between the rich and the poor.

Ma Mingzhe, the general manager of Ping An Group, for example. In 2007, his annual income reached 66.16 million yuan ($10.58 million); 2,751 times higher than the average yearly salary of a white collar worker in China at that time and 4,553 times more than the average migrant worker.

In a poll 81% of Chinese agree with the statement the “rich just get richer while the poor get poorer,”

26 richest people of all time’:

1. Mansa Musa I, (Ruler of Malian Empire, 1280-1331) $400 billion
2. Rothschild Family (banking dynasty, 1740- ) $350 billion
3. John D Rockefeller (industrialist, 1839-1937) $340 billion
4. Andrew Carnegie (industrialist, 1835-1919) $310 billion
5. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (last Emperor of Russia, 1868-1918) $300 billion
6. Osman Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VII (last ruler of Hyderabad, 1886-1967) $236 billion
7. William the Conqueror (King of England, 1028-1087) $229.5 billion
8. Muammar Gaddafi (former Libyan leader, 1942-2011) $200 billion
9. Henry Ford (Ford Motor Company founder, 1863-1947) $199 billion
10. Cornelius Vanderbilt (industrialist, 1794-1877) $185 billion
11. Alan Rufus (Fighting companion of William the Conqueror, 1040-1093) $178.65 billion
12. Bill Gates (Founder of Microsoft, 1955- ) $136 billion
13. William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey (Norman nobleman, ??-1088) $146.13 billion
14. John Jacob Astor (businessman, 1864-1912) $121 billion
15. Richard Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel (English nobleman, 1306-1376) £118.6 billion
16. John of Gaunt (son of Edward III, 1330-1399) £110 billion
17. Stephen Girard (shipping and banking mogul, 1750-1831) $105 billion
18. Alexander Turney Stewart (entrepreneur, 1803-1876) $90 billion
19. Henry, 1st Duke of Lancaster (English noble, 1310-1361) $85.1 billion
20. Friedrich Weyerhaeuser (timber mogul, 1834-1914) $80 billion
21. Jay Gould (railroad tycoon, 1836-1892) $71 billion
22. Carlos Slim (business magnate, 1940- ) $68 billion
23. Stephen Van Rensselaer (land owner, 1764- 1839) $68 billion
24. Marshall Field (Marshall Field & Company founder, 1834-1906) $66 billion
25. Sam Walton (Walmart founder, 1918-1992) $65billion
26. Warren Buffett (investor, 1930- ) $64billion

Big Bad Pharma

Doctors generally want to do the best for their patients, but they can't know what that is if half of the data on clinical trials of drugs is missing and some of the rest is distorted.

New drugs are tested by the companies that make them, often in trials designed to make the drug look good, which are then written up and published in medical journals. Unless, that is, the company doesn't like the result of the trial (maybe it shows the drug not working or having severe side-effects), in which case this result might be hidden. The vital comparison may be made against a placebo or against unusually low or abnormally high doses of the drug – to ensure suitable conclusions as to efficacy and the severity of side-effects. It's no surprise that most published trials funded by drug companies show positive results.

 Companies pay doctors to extol the virtues of their drugs on the conference circuit (spelling out the sources of information they want doctors to use) and fund patient groups to lobby regulators to approve new drugs. Academic journals (I work for one, the BMJ) are sent research papers and comment pieces that may not always be written by the academics listed as the authors. If a journal does decide to publish a paper showing the benefits of a drug, it can be rewarded by the company which made it, who might buy up hundreds of thousands worth of reprints (glossy versions of the published paper) to distribute to doctors to encourage them to prescribe the drug.

Pharmaceutical companies are not charities. They exist to make and sell drugs and to make a profit for their shareholders.  Some companies spend much more on marketing than they do on research and development. In America 24.4% of the sales dollar is spent on promotion versus 13.4% on research and development. They inflate the cost of developing new drugs – Ben Goldacre cites companies claiming that it costs £550m to bring a new drug to the market but says others put it at a quarter of that cost.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/17/bad-pharma-ben-goldacre-review

Another fact of the day

 72 million people around the world had been driven from their homes by conflict, natural disasters or big development projects at the end of last year. Nearly 16.4 million had fled abroad and were officially classified as refugees, while 41.4 million more were living in their own country as "internally displaced persons"

http://news.yahoo.com/72-million-living-refugees-around-globe-2011-red-110248401.html

Independence?

1700 lay-offs confirmed as Hall's of Broxburn is closed by the Dutch parent company, Vion.

Foreign investors in Scotland employ over 600,000 staff and have a turnover of over £145 billion.

 In 2010, within manufacturing, foreign-owned companies accounted for 40.9% of Gross Value Added and 30.5% of employees. Within services, foreign-owned companies accounted for 17.8% of GVA and 13.3% of employees,(agriculture, the financial sector and some of the public sector. are not included in the statistics) The remainder being UK (excluding Scotland) owners

Fact of the Day

A recent report by the humanitarian aid and research organisation DARA, found that 400,000 deaths each year today are attributable to climate change, with air pollution causing another 1.4 million fatalities annually

Fact of the Day

The World Health Organization predicts that by 2030, depression will become the leading cause of disability worldwide. This burden is greatest for poor countries, where 75 percent of patients with severe mental disorders don’t receive the treatment they need. Just one in ten people with depression is treated, despite considerable evidence that generic medications and psychotherapy treatments by non-specialists are effective and cost-effective.

the rich

The number of global millionaires will increase by about 18 million reaching 46 million by 2017, The US will remain on top of the wealth league with $89 trillion by 2017, with 16.9 million millionaires, and Europe with 15.4 million, according to Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report released on Wednesday. China may see its number doubling by 2017, raising the total to almost 2 million. India's millionaires to increase by 53% to 84,000 by 2017.  95% of individuals in India have less than $10,000, whereas this percentage is only 60% in China. Just 0.3% of Indians has a net worth over $100,000. However, due to India's large population, this translates into 2.3 million people. At present, India has 237,000 members of the top 1% of global wealth holders, which equates to a 0.5% share worldwide. There are 1,500 UHNW (ultra high net worth) individuals with wealth over $50 million, and 700 with more than $100 million worth of assets.

Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, with a personal fortune of $19.3 billion, is the richest Indian, China-based research firm Hurun said followed by Arcelor-Mittal chief LN Mittal, whose wealth is pegged at $16.9 billion. In terms of personal fortune, Ambani and Mittal are followed by Azim Premji of Wipro ($12.3 billion), Dilip Shanghvi of Sun Pharmaceuticals ($8.5 billion), Pallonji Mistry of Shapoorji Pallonji & Co, the largest shareholder in Tata Group ($7.9 billion), Shashi and Ravi Ruia of Essar Energy ($7.2 billion) and Adi Godrej of Godrej Group ($6.9 billion). Four others who make it to the list of top 10 billionaires are Kushal Pal Singh of DLF ($6.3 billion), Kumara Mangalam Birla of Grasim Industries ($5.8 billion), Shiv Nadar of HCL Technology ($5.7 billion) and Sunil Mittal of Bharti Airtel ($5.7 billion). Savitri Jindal, non-executive chairperson of O.P. Jindal Group, is the richest Indian woman with personal fortune of $5.6 billion, For determining India's 100 wealthiest persons, the report says the minimum cut-off mark for finding a place in the list was $330 million. While the manufacturing sector produced 17 wealthiest Indians, pharmaceutical sector came second with 12, followed by real estate segment that contributed 10 .

In terms of single countries, the US leads by a huge margin with 37,950 UHNW individuals, equivalent to 45% of the group. The recent fortunes created in China have propelled it into second place with 4,700 representatives (5.6% of the global total), followed by Germany (4,000), Japan (3,400), United Kingdom (3,200) and Switzerland (3,050). Numbers in other BRIC countries are also rising fast, with 1,950 members in Russia and 1,500 in Brazil, and strong showings are evident in Taiwan (1,200), Hong Kong (1,100) and Turkey (1,000).

Down and Out Down-under

It was the country many Scots and Europeans sought to make their new home in hope of a better life for themselves but today one in eight Australians lives below the poverty line. According to the international definition of poverty, which is having a disposable income less than half that of the median household, more than 2.2 million Australians live in poverty. In 2010 the poverty line for a single adult was a disposable income of less than $358 a week and $752 for a couple with two children. More than half a million children live below the poverty line, almost half in lone-parent families. If you're a single person that means you have just over $50 a day to cover everything. Single people with two children had $80 a day to pay for everything. New South Wales has the highest number of people in poverty (835,000), followed by Victoria (526,700), Queensland (430,900), Western Australia (211,300), South Australia (165,200) and Tasmania (56,000).

Penny Wilson, Victorian Council of Social Service, said even some people with jobs cannot make ends meet. "We do hear about people who actually have to make a choice between paying for their accommodation, whether that be a mortgage or rent, paying for food and paying for essentials such as clothing or school books for their children,"

RECESSION? WHAT RECESSION?

During the current economic recession it is commonplace to hear of workers being unable to sell their houses because of tumbling prices and difficulties in obtaining mortgages but one part of the housing market is unaffected by economic difficulties. "An estate agent to the rich and famous is celebrating after selling £3billion worth of property - on the same London street. Trevor Abrahmsohn has cornered the market on one of the world's wealthiest roads, The Bishops Avenue in Hampstead Garden Suburb, north London - known as 'Billionaires' Row'. Over the last 35 years he has handled 150 house sales on the street at an average value of £20million at today's prices." (Daily Mail, 12 October) To those members of the owning class who think nothing of spending £20million on a house their is no economic crisis. RD

A DEADLY SOCIAL SYSTEM

In its unending drive for more and more profit the capitalist system ruins lives but it also ruins the world's environment and biodiversity. "Reducing the risk of extinction for threatened species and establishing protected areas for nature will cost the world over $76bn dollars annually. Researchers say it is needed to meet globally agreed conservation targets by 2020. The scientists say the daunting number is just a fifth of what the world spends on soft drinks annually. And it amounts to just 1% of the value of ecosystems being lost every year, they report in the journal Science. Back in 2002, governments around the world agreed that they would achieve a significant reduction in biodiversity loss by 2010. But the deadline came and went and the rate of loss increased." (BBC News, 12 October) Governments can make sympathetic noises and even pass pious resolutions but profit making comes before biodiversity so more and more species of flora and fauna are doomed. RD

For World Socialism

There is a system called capitalism, and it is simple – increase capital from constant reinvestment of capital, invest profits to regenerate more profits.  The Socialist Party  is  against all forms of capitalism: private, state and self-managed.  It makes no difference whether the capital is domestic or foreign, who personifies it, how big and small it is. Capitalist exploitation occurs despite all of them.

 We are for communism, which is a classless society in which all goods are distributed according to need. We are opposed to all ideologies which divide the working class, such as religion, sexism and racism. And we are against nationalism and patriotism. Cultural freedom and diversity should not be confused with nationalism. That specific peoples should be free to fully develop their own cultural capacities is not merely a right but a requirement. The world would be a drab place without its magnificent mosaic of different cultures.

Nationalists argue that people long to have their very own country. Nationalism, though it is a seemingly noble effort to realize social unity, is the twenty-first century's great plague. Nationalism continues to hypnotize us with unrealistic visions of heaven-on-earth. Nationalism divides human beings territorially, culturally, and economically.  National identity is used by the state to legitimize its actions. Nationalism is regressive.

A cold winter

During winter 2010-11 over 25,000 more people died in the UK compared with non-winter periods. Many of these deaths can be directly attributed to fuel poverty. Around four million households in the UK currently suffer from fuel poverty.

£8m profit every day but Scottish Gas bills are due to rise again. Millions of Scots face a winter of rising fuel bills, as the UK’s largest energy supplier is today expected to announce an inflation-busting increase for gas and electricity charges. A 9 per cent increase by Scottish and Southern Energy will come into effect on Monday next week, and other major suppliers have refused to rule out a similar rise.

Citizens Advice Scotland said it was growing increasingly concerned about low-income families this winter. Margaret Lynch, chief executive, said: “We know that at least one-third of Scots are already living in fuel poverty."

Robina Qureshi, of the charity Positive Action in Housing, said: “More and more people are just keeping their houses cold, and that has an impact on illness and their children’s health.”



Last winter, more than eight in ten households rationed their energy use because of cost.