We could have built 120,000 new homes, desperately needed. Instead we spent the money on a bloody big ship. To what purpose? An aircraft carrier is of no use to defend the British Isles – land based planes can do that much better. It is to enable our armed forces to operate elsewhere, far from here. In other words, it is not for defence, it is for attack. It was ordered in the Blairite era of enthusiastic invasion of other countries.
Look what that left us. The Middle East in turmoil, half the world hates us, a wrecked economy. Oh and a bloody great ship. Thanks for that.
Not only could 6.2 billion pounds have built 120,000 social housing units around the country, but doing that would have created 200,000 more jobs, and helped cool the housing bubble, as well as giving families nice places to live.
Next time a disabled person has their benefits cut, we can say “Aah, but look, we’ve got a really good boat!”
Mary @5:37am
There is much to praise both articles, but in the second article, I must take issue with Lesley Docksey’s praise for John Knox. Knox was an absolute sectarian monster, a subservient spy and agent-provocateur on behalf of then foreign Monarchy and the City of London, sowing fundamentalist extremist religious division, his every utterance peppered with incitement to let loose murderous religious infighting. Think ‘Reverend’ Ian Paisley squared with added malice. The few monuments to him and his creed still extant, are reminders of and episode of intolerance which Scotland struggles yet to throw off and live down the shame. His type or his role, as a true ‘believer’ is still recognisable in todays inflammatory radical muslim clerics, working for the security services, forever prescribing holy war and purges for the gullible followers they can gather. Knox almost duped an entire nation with his appeal to the base and the vile, perturbing the Lowlands in intrigue and bloodshed, his life was and legacy is a poisonous one.
Tony M His aims as described seem reasonable enough.
‘John Knox wrote this wish list 450 years ago:
That all Church land should be used for three purposes, namely
◾for the upkeep of the kirk
◾for the support of the disabled and the aged poor and the provision of work for the unemployed
◾for a public elementary school education for every child’
Weren’t other religious leaders in the C16 like him in the continuous battles for power between Catholicism and Protestantism? Most wars seem to have been fought in the name of man made religion. Perhaps that is why I am an atheist.
You probably know more about him than I do. This is the Wikipedia account.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Knox
Excellent work as always Craig. I took the liberty of expanding on your words and ideas here. https://arewebettertogetherscotland.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/low-flying-hospital-beds/ I hope you don’t mind!
Whilst the sums add up what is missing is that the money wouldn’t be used to build houses anyway. There is no appetite for house building. Cheap social housing on this scale would disrupt the housing market and affect those middle class voters that have become landlords through buy-to-let schemes.