Brian Monteith: Forget idealism in times of cuts

Published on Wednesday 28 July 2010 15:18

Today's the big day, the day that the Independent Budget Review group announces where it thinks the axe in Scottish public spending should fall.

These are tough times and after a lot of justified girning by the Conservatives in Holyrood that John Swinney was not taking the issue of budget savings seriously enough, our MSPs finally agreed to create this new body to come forward with recommendations about what can be offered up for sacrifice.

Frankly, I think any government should go through this exercise every year - in good times or bad. There was no need to wait for a government debt crisis to start looking at what is a luxury and what is a necessity.

Governments don't have any money of their own - they only have what they legally coerce out of people, businesses and the trade that we generate - therefore they should always be more considerate about what they are spending as it's our money, not theirs.

The obvious test will be what this star chamber decides about Scottish Water - should it be privatised or should it remain a wholly-owned public utility? Those who say there is a middle way and that it can be mutualised are trying to wriggle off the hook.

A mutual company is just that, a company - it is a private business and in no way resembles a state-owned public sector entity. The Co-Operative store is not state-owned, when Standard Life was a mutual nobody considered it state-owned. Politicians who say they prefer a mutualised Scottish Water for ideological reasons are trying to deceive the public.

The important issue is that Scottish taxpayers fund 140 million of Scottish Water's investment borrowing every year and have been for the last ten years.

All the other water companies in England and Wales are private concerns and they have to raise their funds for investment on the market. Over recent years their water quality has often been better and their performance in dealing with leaks and waste has also been better. Keeping Scotland's water a nationalised industry is a self-indulgent political luxury we can no longer afford.

Then the group has to report on the question I have raised previously, "should the NHS be exempt from the cuts?" I do not think so - education and other services such as having enough police and making our roads better and safer must be a priority too. We're all in this together and it is plain daft to suggest that with a third of the government's budget there are no savings to be found in the NHS.

Then there's the question of free prescriptions, free eye tests and other benefits that have been brought in by Holyrood to show how caring our MSPs can be - with other people's money. Now that that money is drying up they seriously need to think about charging those that can afford it - such as myself - so that others more deserving can still get services cheaper. I certainly would not object.

Alex Salmond might want to lay the blame on Westminster for the reduction in his budget - but again this would be a deceit. Alex can always levy an extra three pence on the income tax to pay for the luxuries he has supported in the past - the fact that this is not even being considered tells a story in itself.

Raising taxes is obviously thought of as being too unpopular when the rest of the UK would not be suffering the same burden. So much for independence from the party that says we should do things independently.

Sickening sentence

A man comes out of a place of worship; he is a grandfather holding his three-year-old granddaughter's hand. He is a role model of community service, helping others in his spare time, paying his taxes and upholding the law.

Along come two young boys, approaching him from either side. They hit him by slapping him around the face - it is ridiculously called in modern lingo "Happy Slapping".

Taken by surprise, the grandfather falls to the ground hitting his head on the concrete paving and he dies a week later from his head injury.

There is nothing remotely happy about this assault or the distress caused to the young child who witnesses it.

The boys agree to plead guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter and are sentenced to less than five years each. Due to time served whilst waiting trial and the ridiculously liberal free-on-licence system they can expect to be out in less than 18 months.

How many grandfathers have to be murdered in front of their grandchildren before our politicians in the UK get the message that the vast majority of people are sick and tired of reading of these sad and tragic stories?

Happy Slapping should be called what it is, a physical assault, and the fact that it carries with it the risk of injury or death out of proportion to any intention to have a laugh should not allow it to be treated as manslaughter. A message should have been sent out with a firm sentence but the opportunity has been missed.