Deprived Scotland

The good news - there are fewer deprivation blackspots in major Scottish cities.
The bad news - the poorest areas in Scotland are now spread far more widely throughout the country.

Soaring jobless levels across the country are among the reasons behind the increasing spread of poorer areas. Experts are now warning that the situation is likely to worsen as the impact of looming welfare cuts starts to bite, thwarting the life prospects of thousands of Scots. Dr John McKendrick, a senior lecturer in Social Policy at Glasgow Caledonian University, said “All the evidence shows that the problems of poverty are on the increase”. But the problems are not only a result of the downturn which has only served to intensify the problems, he said. “We must avoid coming to the conclusion that Scotland’s poverty is simply down to a temporary block in the economy. It’s much deeper than that. There’s a structural problem that has been there for generations.”

John Dickie of the child poverty action group in Scotland said: “It’s vital to remember that behind this complex-seeming data are tens of thousands of children whose education, health and life chances are being systematically damaged by low income, poor housing, lack of jobs and inadequate access to services.”
The Ferguslie Park area of Paisley is the most deprived neighbourhood of Scotland, while Edinburgh’s Craiglockhart is the least, according to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation 2012.

1 Paisley Ferguslie, Renfrewshire
2 Possilpark, Glasgow City
3 Keppochhill, Glasgow City
4 Paisley Ferguslie, Renfrewshire
5 Parkhead West and Barrowfield, Glasgow City
6 Drumry East, Glasgow City
7 Parkhead and Barrowfield, Glasgow City
8 Paisley Ferguslie, Renfrewshire
9 Craigneuk Wishaw, North Lanarkshire
10 North Barlarnark and Easterhouse South, Glasgow City
11 Central Easterhouse, Glasgow City
12 Larkhall, Lightburn and Queenslie South, Glasgow City
13 Drumchapel North, Glasgow City
14 Carnwardric West, Glasgow City
15 Cliftonville South, North Lanarkshire

Under-employment

According to the TUC, about 270,000, or more than one in 10, Scottish workers are underemployed. That represents a 39% jump in the underemployment level in four years.

One view is that half a job is better than none. It keeps down the unemployment figures as workers accept part-time contracts in preference to redundancy and the unemployed take part-time work because it is all that is on offer.

Since last April low-income households have only qualified for tax credits (which are worth up to £3870 a year), if they jointly work 24 hours a week, with one partner working at least 16. Before April one partner working 16 hours was enough to qualify. The households caught in this trap are desperate for more hours but, in a tight labour market, they have difficulty getting them.

Fact of the Day

Just five percent of the population own 80 percent of the farmland in Guatemala.

Fifty-four percent of the population lives in poverty and 13 percent in extreme poverty, according to the 2011 National Survey of Living Conditions, while half of the children under five suffer chronic malnutrition, according to UNICEF

Blue-Blood Feminism

Daughters of titled aristocrats are calling for a re-examination of inheritance rules amid claims the proposed change in succession laws which will allow a daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to become Queen would leave the gentry "two steps behind" the royal family with calls for the aristocracy to overhaul its own traditions to grant women equality with men by ending the rule of male primogeniture.

 The anomaly was highlighted last year by Julian Fellowes, a life peer, who described it as “outrageous” that his wife Emma Kitchener’s family title will die out rather than pass to a female heir. The current Earl, Henry Herbert Kitchener, a descendant of Field Marshal Horatio Kitchener, is 92 and has no children. Emma Kitchener is his niece but, under the current practice, cannot inherit.

 Another victim of this sexual discrimination is Lady Clare Kerr whose  father, the Tory politician Michael Ancram, is the 13th Marquess of Lothian, but neither she nor her younger sister will inherit the title which will eventually pass to an uncle. Lady Clare, who is married to the Tory minister Nick Hurd, said it was now time to re-examine the practice.

Also among those being passed over under inheritance rules are the three daughters of the Duke of Rutland: Lady Violet Manners, 19, and her sisters Lady Alice and Lady Eliza. The heir to their family seat, Belvoir Castle, is their 13-year-old brother Charles, the Marquess of Granby.

 Peter Yorke,  author of the Official Sloane Ranger Handbook, said that the tradition of male primogeniture had developed to preserve aristocratic power and wealth by preventing estates being divided up but was now ripe for reform. “What mattered was that the estate goes to one person...n this sense primogeniture is more important than gender, it goes to one person rather than being divided up. The relative survival of the British aristocracy is down to them being cruel to younger sons, but also daughters. Daughters you married off, younger sons became soldiers or clergymen or whatever, they went off to safe bits of the establishment"  
 
Socialist Courier cares little for the rights of the female aristocracy to feudal titles, baronial homes and family estates.

One pay-cheque away from homelessness

A quarter of Scots families ‘one pay cheque away from homelessness’ according to Shelter if they happened to lose their job. Just over half (56%) of households would only be able to pay for their home for a maximum of three months.

As the rising cost of living and "severe" cuts to welfare benefits hit home, a lack of savings and the eroding housing safety net is putting more people at greater risk of being repossessed and evicted.



According to the charity, at least 5300 children in Scotland will be homeless this Christmas, often living in poor quality, damp and dangerous temporary accommodation.

A capital welcome

25 million people use Edinburgh Waverley station annually. Hundreds work there eachday and thousands pass though it daily

Exhaust fumes from trains and taxis, coupled with toxic dust kicked up by construction works, are endangering the health of commuters, tourists and workers – particularly those with asthma, lung or heart conditions, experts say.

 Scientists measured levels of nitrogen dioxide, a gas emitted by vehicle exhausts that damages the lungs, blood and immune system, at four locations around the concourse. They found average levels varying from 205 to 304 micrograms per cubic metre, compared with the annual average "air quality standard" of 40 required by European law. The concentrations of nitrogen dioxide in the station were four to six times higher than in the surrounding streets.

 Scientists also found high levels of tiny particles known as PM10s, which inflame lung tissue and increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes. They were nearly twice as high as the air quality standard, and up to 10 times higher than in nearby streets.

 Highly toxic diesel pollutants known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, were four times higher than the relevant air quality standard, according to the report. They are blamed for causing cancers.

Rickets is back

Rickets is making a comeback. Cases of rickets have risen fourfold since the mid-1990s  Half of Britain's white population, up to 90% of the multi-ethnic population, and a quarter of children, are suffering from vitamin D deficiency, the main cause of rickets.

Food for thought

Stop the Press! Last month we reported how China must be communist because it believes that the resources of the Arctic are the common property of mankind. This month, unfortunately, China falls back into the ranks of all the other countries, i.e. capitalist. The New York Times reports (November 4, 2012) that billions have been hidden for Premier Wen Jiabao and his family. Wen says his family was extremely poor when he was young but records indicate that just one of his mother's investments is worth $120 million. How this widow from poverty acquired this wealth is not known, but that she appears to have become wealthy after her son's elevation to China's ruling elite. Other records indicate that Wen's wife, son, daughter, brother and brother-in-law have
similarly made spectacular advances in wealth and influence in the Chinese system. Gee, sounds just like the Western countries (he says, tongue-in-cheek). John Ayers

Your Life - Their Country

Scottish independence is a gesture of despair but for many Scots, and it is also a beguiling idea full of promise of a nation. Nationalism facilitates the efforts of various national bourgeoisies as they seek to obscure class conflict. So long as the workers form the “tail” by following any section whatsoever of the bourgeoisie, they will remain tame and incapable of gaining their true freedom. They will merely secure the ends of those very bourgeois against whom they think they are fighting; and since they are not looking after their own interests, they will either forget those interests or be unable to distinguish them.

Scottish nationalists seek to merely re-arrange the existing national boundaries by establishing a new state. This new Scottish state would be just as much an enemy of the working class struggle as are the existing United Kingdom state. In overthrowing capitalism the Socialist Party agitates for the abolition of all nation states and national boundaries. The real enemy of the working class is the entire capitalist system itself. What is wrong with the working class taking sides in struggles is that it amounts to encouraging the working class to co-operate with one enemy in order to defeat another, in order later to be suppressed by the first. If the independence movement succeeds profits are intended to rise at the expense of the Scottish worker. The ruling class - or those who aspire to become the ruling class - have always been able to rope the working class into fighting their battles for them. Certainly no one country's exploiters are so superior to the rest that the workers should sacrifice themselves defending them. There can be no relief for Scots in changing an English robber for an Scottish one. The person of the robber does not matter—it is the fact of the robbery that spells misery. Let the thieves fight their own battles!

"The nation" and "The people" are not identical. "The people" have never determined their own political, social and economic affairs. In every country, political, social and economic policies are drawn up by, and in the interests of, the ruling class. What is presented as being for the good of the nation is purely for the benefit of the bosses. Any ideology which denies this is so, is a barrier which must be broken down. Pro-independence advocates encourages workers to waste their efforts in chasing something which cannot be achieved. An independent Scotland cannot be free from external control. The rulers of any newly "independent" nation-state immediately find themselves having to come to terms with a worldwide economic system dominated by powerful blocs and integrated on a global scale. Their room for manoeuvre within this framework is extremely limited. Of course, nationalists say that the working class would be better off in a Scotland controlled by Edinburgh but international capital based in the City of London, Brussels and Wall St will still determine its affairs. The best that it can be achieved is to mitigate some of the worst effects. The  capitalist class is still to remain the proud possessor of the land, factories, the mines and transport.
"As long as we have not broken the world capitalist order, we remain exploited by the mercantile relations of production."  Ben Bella, a leading figure in the Algerian Front Liberation Nationale during the struggle against French colonialism and who became President of newly independent Algeria in 1962, speaking of his disillusionment following their success.

Scottish nationalist does not strengthen the real force for socialism, a united, class-conscious working class, but fragments and weakens it. National divisions are a hindrance to working-class unity and action, and national jealousies and differences are fostered by the capitalists for their own ends. The Socialist Party of Great Britain does not defend the unity of the United Kingdom in any way but that does not mean we are in favour of separatism. Our abstention distinguishes us from the Left. The interests of the workers of all countries are the same – the establishment of the socialist world. What workers has to realise clearly is that the interests of their fellow workers in other lands are nearer to theirs than are those of their masters in their own country. The bonds which bind worker with worker, irrespective of nationality, are those of class solidarity. Struggles over the environmental is just as much part of the class struggles as the workplace and encompasses solutions that go beyond the factory floor and national boundaries. Socialists claim membership to the whole of humanity not just a part of it.

For the triumph of socialism organisation is essential, but the organisation must be for socialism and based on socialist principles or such organisation can be nothing to the workers but a delusion and a snare. To the Left unity is the Holy Grail, always sought but never found. Insistence upon the necessity for agreement on principles, on methods, and above all on the aim, appears to be scorned as sectarianism. True unity is a means to an end. First of all the essentials regarding the end to be sought and the means to that end must be agreed upon, for “unity” without this is unity in impotence, being without everything that makes unity useful, namely, common principles, methods, and object. Unity under any other conditions than that of agreement on the essentials of aims and methods is doomed to failure. This type of unity does not prevent certain members of the party from calumniating '"fraternally" against their "dear comrades", nor discourage persecuting them with venomous bile. We need look no further than the  the SSP and Sheridan and the other Trotskyist groups. And now they urge unity with our class enemy to achieve Scottish sovereignty!

We of the Socialist Party are few in number but our mission is simple. We  proceed with educational propaganda until the working class have understood the fundamental facts of their position - that they do not own the means by which they live, that they are but commodities on the market, never hired unless employers can profit, always discarded when a liability. We have to emphasise the fact that no appreciable change is possible in the working-class condition while we all remain commodities. There are no short cuts. Naturally, we wish the work to be accomplished as soon as possible, and that is why we oppose and expose those who, sometimes with the best of intentions, blur the issue that must be kept in clear view, and so prolong the task of emancipation. For the worker in Scotland there is hope. Join the local branches of the international socialist working class and make common cause with the socialist workers of all countries for the end of all forms of exploitation; saying to both English and Scottish capitalists: "A plague on both your houses". For the true battle-cry of the working class is more significant and more inspiring than mere nationalism, and that rally cry is: THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS!

Food for thought

It used to be that if a job applicant had young children, it was a plus because an employer knew if someone had young mouths to feed they wouldn't make waves. But not any more -- a recent program on TV's 20/20 focused on how that is now a drawback. In job interviews the applicant is asked if they have children at home. Some times the interviewer will have photographs of children on his/her desk to lure the applicant into admitting that they do. Once they answer in the affirmative, it's a matter of 'we'll call you'. The thinking is that if the children are sick or involved in any trouble, the parent won't be at work. This is just another example of the insecurity under the capitalist mode of production.

On Remembrance Day, Thomas Walkom's article In the Toronto Star was on how much the government appreciates the soldiers who have fought for its capitalist class. His thesis is that the government lauds its soldiers in the abstract while giving them a boot in the side when it comes to benefits. This squares well with our view that the ceremonies, monuments etc. are all about propaganda, jingoism and much less about caring. For example, the Canadian government has spent millions promoting the War of 1812 in which the British and a few Canadian troops prevented the Americans from invading Canada. The same week, veterans and their widows demonstrated on Parliament Hill to protest the clawback of their pensions. Another group is taking the government to court on its decision to give veterans a one-time payment in lieu of a pension. It works out much cheaper for the government, of course. How long will the
working class be duped into going to war? John Ayers

Wal-Mac

McDonald's sells more than 75 hamburgers every second. McDonald's' daily customer traffic 62 million, that's about 1 percent of the world's population. McDonald's' $27 billion in revenue makes it the 90th-largest economy in the world. The $8.7 billion in revenue from franchise stores alone, makes McDonald's richer than Mongolia. McDonald's hires around 1 million workers in the US every year ( a 700,000 domestic workforce with 150% turnover rate.) According to company estimates, one in every eight American workers has been employed by McDonald's. Americans alone consume one billion pounds of beef at McDonald's in a year – five and a half million head of cattle. McDonald's has 761,000 employees worldwide, that's more than the population of Luxembourg. From 2011 to 2013, McDonald's plans to open one restaurant every day in China. McDonald's is the world's largest distributor of toys, with one included in 20% of all sales. McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner receives $8.75 million a year. Twenty years ago the CEO’s compensation was about 230 times that of a full-time worker paid the federal minimum wage now its 580 times.  Profit growth for period 2007 - 2011 was 135%. Dividends and stock buybacks last fiscal year $6 billion, the equivalent of $14,286 per restaurant worker employed by the company.

But guess what, there's an even bigger and more important company.

In  2012, Wal-Mart registered approximately $444 billion in sales, which is $20 billion more than Austria's GDP. If Walmart were a country, it would be the 26th largest economy in the world. Walmart has more employees worldwide — 2.2 million — than the population of Houston. The mega-retailer employs 1.4 million people in the U.S. alone. f Wal-Mart was an army, it would have the second largest military in the world, behind China. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot, Kroger, Target, Sears, Costco, and K-Mart combined. The average family of four spends over $4,000 a year at Walmart. One of every four dollars Americans spend on groceries is spent at Walmart. Each week, Walmart serves more than 200 million customers at more than 10,400 stores in 27 countries. In 2010, CEO Michael Duke's annual salary of $35 million earned him more in an hour than a full-time employee makes in an entire year. The Walton family has given away about 2 percent of its net worth to charity — Bill Gates is giving away 48 percent of his net worth and Warren Buffet 78 percent of his net worth. An additional Walmart Supercenter per 100,000 residents increases the obesity rate by 2.4 percent. Roughly 4,700 (about 90 percent) of international stores operate under a banner other than Walmart, including Walmex in Mexico, Asda in the UK, Seiyu in Japan, and Best Price in India. Dividends and stock buybacks last fiscal year $11.3 billion. The Walton family has  some $93 billion in wealth, just under 0.14% of all US wealth, more than bottom 30% of Americans (49 million)

The total number of people employed in the U.S. at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and McDonald’s and Yum Brands restaurants exceeds the entire 2.7 million population of Chicago. Net income at those three companies has jumped by at least 22 percent from four years ago. Shareholders, not employees, have reaped the rewards. At the same time, companies have formed an effort to freeze the minimum wage, whose purchasing power is 20 percent less than in 1968. Minimum-wage earners have less power to demand higher pay because so many adults are willing to take low-wage positions.

 25% of Americans (or bottom 75 million) don’t have any net wealth at all. Their debts are higher than their assets.

The 1.2 million households whose incomes put them in the top 1 percent of the U.S. saw their earnings increase 5.5 percent last year, according to census estimates. Earnings fell 1.7 percent for the 97 million households in the bottom 80 percent -- those who made less than $101,583.

Food for thought

The Toronto Star of October 27 reported that the Chinese government blocked the web site of the New York Times because an article focused on the 2.7 billion wealth of the family of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. This shows two things -- that through the control of the media the capitalist class can decide what news we do and don't hear, and where there is great disparity of wealth, capitalism prevails whatever a government calls itself. Some may remember that in Stalin's heyday a British communist called Reg Bishop wrote a book called "Soviet Millionaires".

The Vancouver Sun recently reported that four new coal mines in British Columbia are bringing in two thousand Chinese migrant workers to do most of the work. A spokesman for Canadian Dehua International Mines Group Inc. said that not enough Canadians are skilled enough to do the work. You can bet that unemployed miners are glad to know that. You can also bet the mine owners know that the Chinese will work for less money than the local lads so profits will be greater. There is nothing new in this. In the early nineteenth century, when British capitalists were making roads smoother so they could more easily move their products to market, they brought in Irish workers who would work for less -- hence the racist expression, 'an Irish penny'. This type of tactic alienates
workers from each other. The capitalists can't lose, they get more profits and keep the workers divided. Class-consciousness and a knowledge of socialism is the only antidote to capitalism's tricks. John Ayers

Scottish health apartheid

New figures revealed men in the wealthiest areas live 11 years longer than those in the most deprived parts of the country. For women, the gap is 7.5 years between the poorest areas and the most affluent. Deprived area residents have higher rates of heart disease, obesity, diabetes and drug and alcohol abuse as well as poorer mental health.

There is enough food to feed the world

Some attendees at a conference in London’s Chatham House to debate how to feed the planet’s growing population without degrading the earth’s resources argued that current levels of food production - if better managed - could accommodate everyone. They acknowledge that many people around the world are already going hungry, but contend this is not an issue of food shortage. Instead, they point out that vast quantities of edible produce are used for animal feed or biofuel production, or are allowed to spoil in storage or otherwise go to waste. 

The President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Kanayo Nwanze, explained “There is enough food in the world to feed every man, woman and child. Yet one-third of the food that is produced goes to waste. Fifty-seven per cent of food produced is not used for consumption. There is enough food to feed every mouth. The issue is access to food.”

The issue is indeed access to food - free access.

The outlook is bleak

Some 26 of 30 countries covered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have shown a falling labor share of national income since 1990. International Labor Organization (ILO) data show the gap between the top 10% of earners and bottom 10% increased in 23 of 31 nations since 1995. Between 1999 and 2011, average labor productivity in developed economies worldwide increased more than twice as much as average wages. Real average monthly wage growth worldwide, excluding China, fell to 0.2% last year from 2.3% in 2007. Unemployment might have been higher than it might had it not been for reduction in working hours, shorter working weeks, cuts in overtime and even job sharing in exchange for keeping jobs.

The United Nations bodY focuses on how the shrinking share of the pie going to workers was one cause behind the credit bubble. The falling share of national output going to workers in the decade before the crisis ended up boosting household debt as workers tried to maintain consumption via ever-easier credit. Had falling labor shares of the bottom 99% in the United States not been compensated for by debt-led consumption, it is likely that world economic growth would have slowed or halted much earlier," the report said. The same phenomenon was seen in Britain, Australia,Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain. The pressure to rebuild national balance sheets or sustain corporate [profit] margins with further pressure on wages is all too clear.

 Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire who owns the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Adelson invested more than $100 million in the election, mostly on Republicans who lost -- including $20 million that went to Romney's super PAC "Restore Our Future," $15 million to another super PAC that almost single-handedly kept Newt Gingrich's Republican primary campaign going and about $50 million to nonprofit Republican fronts such as Karl Rove's Crossroads.
Adelson tells the Wall Street Journal he's ready to double his 2012 investment next time around. "I happen to be in a unique business where winning and losing is the basis of the entire business," he says, "so I don't cry when I lose. There's always a new hand coming up." He isn't looking back at his losses.
 Adelson says he has many friends in Washington, "but the reasons aren't my good looks and charm. It's my pocket personality," referring to his political investments. Adelson recently met with three Republican governors said to be eying the 2016 presidential race. This week he met separately with Republicans, House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor. 

Warfare against Workfare

Neither Edinburgh or Glasgow branches of the SPGB participate in these examples of resistance but we do sympathise with the purpose.

Glasgow
On Saturday 8th December as part of the Boycott Workfare Week Of Action a couple of dozen people from Clydeside Industrial Workers Of The World, the Crutch Collective, Glasgow Anarchist Federation, Glasgow Solidarity Federation, the Right To Work Campaign and other individuals leafleted a branch of Superdrug in one of the city centre's busiest streets. The one thousand leaflets given out highlighted Superdrug taking on even more people on the Government's 'Work Experience' workfare scheme for the Christmas period. The extra people on workfare means less holiday pay for the regular staff. There was a lot of police about and Superdrug had hired extra security for the day. However the combination of the picket, the leaflet saying, 'Don't Shop At Superdrug' and the added security costs meant we succeeded in our objective of costing Superdrug money for using Workfare.

 'Work Experience' is not voluntary in practice. All workfare companies have to sign a contract saying that they will report anyone who does not show up for the schemes, which automatically results in benefit claimants having their benefits cut. Job Centre Plus and third party workfare profiteers like A4E bully benefit claimants on to the scheme. Benefit claimants can have their benefits cut if they do not not continue to 'volunteer' to stay on the scheme, after they have been on the scheme for a week. Only a tiny number of people on workfare get jobs afterwards. For example it is 3.5% for the 'Work Programme' and that includes participants getting jobs with other companies and very short-term jobs. Stacking shelves for Superdrug is not learning a skill. Argos state that 'Work Experience' people work alongside paid colleagues, but don't replace them, but the permanent staff lose out on holiday pay. Why aren't all of their temporary staff paid? Of the 25% Poundland say left their 'work experience' early, because they received a job offer elsewhere, how many were going to get offered a job anyhow? Poundland also put a positive spin on 10% going on to get jobs with them, but that means 90% do not, while Poundland continue to make profits from all the unpaid labour.

Dundee
The traffic of people churning in and out of the Overgate mall in Dundee’s city centre seemed more intense then the usual Saturday afternoon – likely the beginning of this season’s Christmas shopping spree. We gathered near the entrance and reflected on the themes of workfare, the state and social community response to such threats. Those participating included myself and two comrades from the Anarchist Federation Dundee branch, a member of the independent Dundee Anarchists group and an activist from the Scottish Unemployed Worker’s Network. We were also joined by members of other left-wing groups, gathered under the event named ‘Name and Shame: The Dundee Workfare Provider Tour’.

Whilst the event was relatively small from a headcount perspective, the public response, though moderate, was exclusively positive. It was an important opportunity to answer frequently asked questions such as whether or not organised anarchist groups are a hypocritical phenomenon, and how the manner with which these organisations are structured created an alternative to hierarchy and centralism. We were in turn provided with the opportunity to meet individuals, their relations and co-workers who have endured the literal consequences of the government’s Workfare project. Whilst we didn’t encounter any staff contracted under Workfare, our touring of companies such as Primark, Tesco, McDonalds and the local casino, revealed an active participation in workfare schemes – with most of the managers and staff either denying involvement or redirecting our questions to ‘higher command’. One member of staff, however, broke the pattern by informing us of a Workfare employee that worked with her on certain days of the week. It was confirmed that many under the Workfare scheme fell through the employment net.

The event lasted three hours overall, and left those participating with food for thought. Reaching out and networking with individuals under Workfare contracts is becoming an increasingly pressing matter for social response to the government’s policy. It has become apparent that the greater majority are either unaware or unconvinced of the presence of social resistance and platform movements against Workfare.

Taken from Libcom

Drug Legalisation?

The Home Affairs Committee recently released a report on drugs use in Britain. After a year of research the committee concluded that "the international drugs control policy has failed to curtail consumption," and that our government should consider a major shift in policy.

In 2005 (largely based on 2003 data) the UN estimated that the illegal drug trade is worth more than $320 billion, 0.9 per cent of global GDP. According to the UN 2012 World Drug Report the total retail market for cocaine amounts to some $85 billion and the opiate market amounts to some $68 billion (figures for 2009).  According to IMF data, a nation with a net worth equivalent to that of the global drugs industry would be the 34th largest economy in the world, just above Denmark and below Venezuela. Scotland's GDP is $177 billion

'bread and water'

The letter was sent out by Mauchline Primary, in East Ayrshire, was issued after around 21 families collectively failed to pay almost £90 of their children’s school meals fees. Those pupils affected would be made to wait until all the other pupils had been served before being able to get their own meals. Those “who have not brought money to pay for meals will be provided with a plain sandwich and water to drink until the backdated debt has been paid”

A hard but true lesson about capitalism for the pupils...can't pay - can't have

The Poor Rich

Europe's richest families are suffering, the poor wee souls. Having had returns on investments of 8 percent in 2011 and nearly 12 percent in 2010 the annual return dropped to 3.6 percent. They could have performed better if they hadn't held so much low-performing cash, or real estate, because some stock markets and asset classes such as government bonds moved ahead strongly. Rather than speculate in shares, the rich have hoarded in the safety of bank deposits and land.

The old and the lonely

10,000 over-75s in Scotland will spend Christmas Day alone because their children are too busy to visit them, a new report claimed today. Across the UK, the survey found a total of 363,176 older people had children too busy to see them. The study by the older people’s charity WRVS said many elderly people were left isolated and lonely because their families had moved away, often to find work. But almost two-thirds of older people said they would not tell their children they were lonely because they did not want to “bother them”. In the Lothians, around 1700 over-75s will be on their own on Christmas Day.

Earlier research from the WRVS showed 27 per cent of Scots over-75s feel lonely – more than in any other part of the UK. 11 per cent of older people in Scotland lived at least one hour’s drive away from their nearest child, which meant almost half were visited just once every two to six months. The survey found lack of job security and changes in the labour market had increased the pressure on families, with 82 per cent of children who moved away from their older parents having done so for work reasons. Margaret Paterson, head of operations for WRVS Scotland, said: “Many children have no choice but to move away from their older parents, and really regret the fact they aren’t close enough for more regular visits.”

Only 28 per cent of older people in Scotland spoke to their children on the phone every day, compared with 40 per cent across the UK. Most older people did not use Skype to talk to their children, many because they did not know how BUT OF those who do 85 per cent said it helped them feel more connected. The regularity of Skype in Scotland is that 75 per cent of those who use Skype do so weekly,

A separate report warned lonely people are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s. Researchers found it was not so much the fact of living alone as feelings of loneliness which increased the risk of having the degenerative brain disease.

Meanwhile average train fares have increased by more than 26 per cent since the start of the recession, almost three times faster than wages, new research revealed today, making even harder for families to visit. Fare rises will outpace wages and inflation again in 2013, with the cost of some fares set to soar by ten per cent, while pay is forecast to rise by an average of 2.5 per cent.