Our Hidden Shame............

azzuri · Our Hidden Shame............

see - http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=31992006

Our hidden shame - the terrible truth about the state of the nation

FRASER NELSON

ON PAPER, Scotland is a truly terrifying place to live. Those born in our small country will generally die sooner than other west Europeans, are three times as likely to contract lung cancer and are seven times as likely to be murdered.

It's an image impossible to reconcile with the Scotland to which Londoners relocate, seeking and finding a far superior quality of life.

Nor would the millions of tourists leave the country believing that Scots are worse off than Bosnians.

For years I didn't believe these figures either, and I ploughed through reams of reports trying to solve this socio-economic mystery. I came across the horrific answer two months ago and, even now, I have trouble taking it in.

The answer comes in code: behavioural, social, health and economic statistics for 830 postcode areas in Scotland. When fed into a computer, they can be manipulated into runes from which the state of the nation can be read.

It became clear that the very word "Scotland" is useless when analysing the situation. Our tiny corner of Europe contains two distinct countries with almost nothing in common: Prime Scotland and Third Scotland. They can be identified by finding the 100 best and worst postcodes in the nation.

This exposes the fact that each Scottish town and city is an amalgam of huge inequalities - and that the city average figure obscures the picture. Take Glasgow, for example. Its life expectancy at birth - 69 - is the worst in the UK, and probably Europe. It's worse than the Gaza Strip.

Shocking enough, but it comes nowhere close to the true scandal of inequality. In Prime Scotland, salaries are at London levels but the property is a third of the price. If it were a country its life expectancy would be the highest in the world. State schools are good, the countryside is handy.

The Glasgow "dead by 69" figure was produced by merging the Prime Scotland outposts of Bearsden and Cathcart with welfare ghettos like Calton in the east, where the life expectancy figure seems hardly credible - 53.9. Finding this statistic felt as unreal as encountering a pterodactyl hibernating in the garden. Hasn't that kind of thing been extinct for years? And, yes, Scotland as a nation passed this mark in the 1950s.

I went to see for myself. Calton is within walking distance from central Glasgow but a world away. Prosperity seems to drain with every step of that eastwards walk along Argyle Street to a bar where I foolishly thought I might blend in. My cover was blown when I ordered a pint, and I was asked if I was carrying a Bible.

A local assumed I was some form of missionary. I protested not. "But you are religious?" A question to duck in this quagmire of sectarianism.

Within half an hour of conversation, I was asked if I would like to buy a handgun. I declined but had by then aroused enough suspicion for a pensioner to summon me over and suggest I leave before I got my head kicked in. I needed no second telling. Violence is a characteristic of the east end of Glasgow, where hospitalisation is six times that of the suburbs.

The next pub, the Treble Two, was an oasis by comparison. Its locals offered me beer rather than firearms and had witty, articulate and trenchant analysis of why government policies had destroyed the work ethic. "Why work for a tenner when you can get it on the dole?" summed up the main curse of the area: worklessness.

Jobs are there for those who want them, but the most lucrative skill nowadays is claiming the maximum welfare payout. The number of under-25s on incapacity benefit (IB) has jumped from 52,000 to 83,000 in seven years.

In Scotland, just under one in 10 of the workforce is on IB - a golden lining to a new ceiling which is keeping the poor down.

Scotland's poverty is a special brand - almost invisible. Visitors to Delhi can see deprivation in run-down houses and begging, but the average boy born in India will live almost a decade longer than a boy born in Calton.

Scotland is good at keeping such people out of sight. Our cities are designed in such a way that motorists can whiz past the Easterhouse and Drumchapel estates on a motorway which has an exit straight on to leafy Woodlands Road. In this way, it is possible to traverse the length and breadth of the country, knowing each of our major cities, while never leaving Prime Scotland. This is why the picture of deprivation can seem so incredible.

Even places like Calton look fine from the outside. People are well-clothed and don't go hungry; the council houses are refurbished and in good repair.

Indian-style poverty is conquered here but Scottish-style poverty has taken its place. This means a drugs-death ratio running at seven times the national average; three in five adults having no qualifications; a third of children growing up in workless households; a quarter of pre-school children being obese.

It hangs together on one devastating statistic - 57% of Calton adults do not work at all. This is not because of a bad economy. Only 8% are classed as unemployed; the rest are in a state of permanent worklessness.

The terrible truth is that Scotland has incubated a new breed of deprivation. It is like a hideous experiment where the state wants to see what happens if the incentive to work is removed for the most deprived in society.

What is most baffling is that such avoidable poverty has become politically accepted and seen as somehow inevitable. It has been ignored by the Tories and portrayed by Labour ministers as the side-effect of a capitalist society. No, this is the side-effect of a welfare system designed to solve the poverty of the last century but which is fuelling the new poverty of this century. Deprivation is being perpetuated by the party devoted to its abolition.

Labour would howl with protest at such a charge. Has Gordon Brown not introduced the minimum wage? Lifted a million children out of poverty? Written off Glasgow's housing debt? A calculator could back up the claims. But this "let them eat tax credits" attitude is exactly the problem. The solution to welfare ghettos is not more welfare - the solution is fundamental welfare reform.

A green paper is being published this month. It is a once-in-a-decade chance to change the tax and welfare incentives to make work pay for Third Scotland in the way it so emphatically does for Prime Scotland.

Third Scotland still exists because we shepherd the poor into council estates and pay them to stay there.

Scotland is a rich country and a small one: these are our people. It can no longer do to write a welfare cheque and then look the other way. Only radical welfare reform can free the trapped.

SLG

I'd agree with the sentiment. I'm not sure about comparing stats from one of the poorest area in Scotland with the average from other countries makes much sense though. Not to defend it, but all countries have there gap between rich and poor. I'd imagine the difference in London is even more stark than that of Glasgow.

Ozscot

Azzuri - your piece was well written enough to entice me to join and poke around further in here. I totally agree with you as to the diagnosis and prognosis. I take the point SLG makes however, but I still think comparing a small area (Calton) with a large nation (India) is a reasonable thing to do when we are comparing the overall economic structures they exist within. Can I just say though that sometimes we in the West are pretty insulated from the 'realities' of other nation's economies. In the next ten years India is forecast by the IMF to be the fifth richest nation in the world. I've been to India and seen the poverty first hand but I suspect I parachuted into a part of Delhi which was akin to landing in Drumchapel or Calton. Just like Scotland it's not the overall wealth that's the problem, it's the inequalities in the distribution of that wealth. Generally speaking, folks (the middle classes?) don't appear to grasp the simple concept that poverty is the far end of a scale on which you will find wealth - and if poverty is a 'problem' then so too must wealth as they are all part of the same structure. I just fear no one is prepared to address that politically...

Oz

Red Justice

Only socialism can begin to tackle the deep rooted problems of inequality in Scotland. Even when we get independence, if we have social democrats in power in Holyrood it will take decades to take Scotland out of the sick man of Europe status.

They can produce as many green papers as they like it won't alter reality.

An Independent Socialist Scotland is the only solution.

Ozscot

Red Justice - I categorise myself as socialist in thought and indeed most of my beliefs are usually found to stem from Marx - but I do acknowledge certain aspects of socialism as failing to address adequately some of society's ills. Not so long ago I was discussing with Scotland's last and only communist councillor the problems of 'eyesore' communities and he made something clear with which I agree - 'If it's not owned by someone then no one takes responsibility' - Look at the huge wastegrounds littering housing estates, communal football parks, pavements even - they are a disgrace because the council owns them and therefore no one owns them. When things start going downhill there is no one to intervene and say 'Stop! That's mine'. If it's your house you'll protect it, your garden you'll protect it, your field you'll protect it - but fact is no one protects half our urban open spaces because the council is a bit like God - Everyhwere and therefore nowhere. Sorry I'm drifting from the main topic a bit - but that one single issue has long been a stumbling block for me advocating 100% socialism - my heart says socialism is the answer but my head says 'Whoa!'

Going right back to the sixties people like Enoch Powell (and I've forgotten the name of the other radical policy maker at the time) advocated policies which could reasonably be expressed as allowing 'freedom' - freedom to choose - How do you argue against 'Freedom'? That is such a damned hard thing to do unless your case is watertight and humanistic - and I seriously don't think the Left have ever gathered their thoughts together competently enough to argue against 'Freedom' when it burst on the political scene in the 70's (via Thatcher and her cronies) - that's why all mainstream parties started stepping to the right - because although the heart says 'Left' there's no coherent argument against 'freedom' which allows the Left to fight back - yet Smile

Maybe I'm being too pessimistic and out of touch somewhat - but the people of Calton will not progress (IMO) until they feel Calton belongs to them...until they have a meaningful stake in what happens there, and consequently to themselves...

Oz

Red Justice

I believe in the type of socialism that empowers the community. Allowing local people to sit as workers on committees that deal with public services such as health, housing and even education etc..

Councils and NHS Scotland within the present system are working to budgets which are curtailed by government such as Holyrood. Budgets within capitalism hold back any progress when radical change is needed to cure the patient.

Capitalism does not provide for responsibility or pride in Scottish communities.

As for "Freedom" there are no greater freedom than to prevent the ability of a few to reap the abundance of wealth to exploit others. Freedom from exploitation is what is the best freedom any nation can recieve and that is not just about independence but equality and freedom for the people from poverty.

Begin the improvements and the health and pride in community is more easily restored.

Scottish independence will bring improvements for Scotland but socialism will do better and replace the old institutions with a political system that works better and quicker.

Ozscot

I agree largely with what you are saying Red Justice - but I cannot close my eyes and pretend that the transformation of Drumchapel (for example) isn't happening. That transformation appears to me largely due to people being able to have a stake in their housing (not just by purchasing part of it, or all of it outright via right to buy) but they are given a say in the design too - Now that's something that socialism could support - the empowerment of people in determining their built environment - but unless (at the level of housing) people can say 'It's mine and I reserve the right to protect it and take responsibility for keeping it neat' 20 years from now the new houses out in the Drum will have the same worn appearance of the old estate. Drumchapel was heralded as a paradise when it first sprung up and of course the social evils of poverty corroded it, but that corrosion is assisted and supported by non-ownership (IMO) - I know there are good arguments to say that folks who keep places like Bridge Of Allan (another example) have the money to do so - but when you look around the best kept places are undoubtedbly those where private ownership of property is high - is that a coincidence? Is it just a reflection of what 'money' can do? Or is it telling us something about the nature of people when they feel they own something? I admit I'm torn on the issue but I suspect it has less to do with disposable income and more to do with responsible ownership and a feeling of pride...

I'm sitting here glugging coffee and pondering what you said..and the only thing I can think of to use as an example (forgive me I've just been out for a few beers and my head is a wee bit lost) is Library Books! Generally speaking do folks treat communally owned library books better or equal to the way they treat their own? I know I've ditched a few in my time and legged it without paying the fine - yes I confess - but would I ever mistreat one of my own? Nope! Is that human nature or am I just a socio-bibliopath?

Oz

Rinty

I totally disagree with your view on property OZ and could cite thousands of commonly owned property that has all of the pride you talk about in individually owned properies, from community centres and social clubs to football stadiums, golf courses, allotments and parks as well as a lot of housing.

I cant believe a communist councillor would be meaning anything other than the people in that area should have ownership of the properties communally and a sense of ownership rather than him advocating individual ownership.

I dont understand your 'choice' between socialism and freedom, there are many who are not free to choose in an unchecked market and you, as you claim to be a socialist, would not doubt acknowledge this.

Back to the thread, I have a problem with taking the Calton as an example of evidence of a dependency culture that has grown from welfare. There is not a tradition in the Calton of benefit claiming, rather there has been an encouraged policy of housing people in those situations in specific places and also an area subsequently getting a reputation, so that only those with no choice in housing, or who have nowhere else to go, would choose to live there.

There are also a lot a of privately rented flats and bedsits that are populated with people, not from Calton, but are staying there, often on benefits.

The calton statistics is more a problem of ghetto-isation of the poorest and sickest, rather than a culture that emerges from the area itself.

I dont have figures but I would bet that a survey of people living in flats in calton would show that come from all over Glasgow and beyond. I would also bet that if you go to the wealthier areas you will find some people from calton or similar places originally who did well and chose to move to the better areas when they could afford it.

I don't think the author has done enough to show us how he reaches his conclusions from the statistics, it is a much more complex problem than just those who become 'welfare dependent'. Often people and families fall into that cycle through govt policy and decisions.

One aspect that should be looked at, if it isnt worth working, is wage levels. The tax credit system coupled with a very low minimum wage, in my opinion, is just a subsidy to companies to keep wages low.

When you have to survive on extremely low incomes then it is a difficult gamble to move into low paid work, especially these days with increasing short-term contracts, no contracts, people ben taken on but as 'self-employed', no holiday pay, sick pay etc. Further Education is an impossibiliy for poorer people as it simply now costs too much and you dont get housing benefit while at uni. and a family couldnt survive if the parents(s) decide to get better qualifications.

Also, living in poverty and poor conditions leads to poor health, physically and mentally.

To me, when I hear that many young people are on Incapacity Benefit in an area that also has high drug use, high crime levels, high unemployment, high levels of violence, I am not surprised, most of them are probably suffering from depression and who wouldnt be? I dont think it is a deliberate choice encouraged by generations of dole scroungers as this guy seems to be suggesting.

But overall, the disparity of figures is exarcebated by a concentration of people towards those areas. Wealthier people want to move to the areas where it is cleaner and safer and they can afford to, poorer people need a roof over their head and there are fewer and fewer choices in public housing so they get concentrated in one or a few areas.

If I open two pubs and advertise one selling meals and the other being a sports bar, people will head for the one that they prefer. If a few years later I release survey results that reveal a "puzzling" conundrum that the regulars at one club eat out more than the others and regulars of the other pub play more darts, no-one would be surprised.

So if you have one area saying 'healthy, wealthy, safe and clean' and one saying 'I'm sorry but it is the only council accommodation we have available' then we shouldnt be surprised to find that those who can afford it end up in bearsden and those who cant end up in calton. The heathiest and wealthiest in one place, the poorest and sickest in the other.

Whers the choice there OZ? Only one side have the choice.

Meanwhile the social housing in the wealthy areas are more desireable and therefore bought and sold, leaving no way in for the poorer families. So encouraging private ownership, through selling council housing stock, has made the problem worse for the poorest.

I dont have all the answers on this but the author of the original piece is taking a leap and not looking at the problem scientifically, he has a pre-judged answer before he goes in to the Calton and hears the evidence "why work for a tenner when you get it on the dole" because he already thinks this is the problem. To him, it is all about the poorest people choosing to be poor, or benefits being too high, people not being 'incentivised' to work.

Red Justice

Ozscot

Thanks to both of you for your thoughtful replies - I will address them soon - I just need to do a couple of hours work before getting back to my computer. Thanks again!

Oz

Aventinian

Holebender

Parish mayors sounds like a busybodies' charter!

mairead

Hey, Scotland is not alone in this. England has it's share as does America, indeed America has unbelieveable poverty areas.
My cousin and I drove thousands of miles from Canada and through the USA to Florida and cut off the highway to use many back roads a number of years ago.
As we passed thriough the southern states of the USA, the unbelievable poverty screamed out at us. It was worse than anything you would find here.