Glasgow East is Brown’s dirty little secret: a hideous, costly social experiment gone wrong

Scots Student

I start my summer job in a relatively high tech workplace in Parkhead next week. I wont be driving there.

Fraser, you know you are wrong to say that Glasgows life expectancy stats also cover the "lush suburbs". Glasgow was jerrymandered comprehensively by the Tories in the nineties, resulting in the exclusion of posh Bearsden et al from Glasgow City. Of course, the effect of this was to drastically reduce the monies available in council tax to the City Council, and accelerate the flight from the city of the professional classes who enjoy the benefits of living in one of the most vibrant cities in Europe, without having to pay for it. This is worth saying.

On the election, if Tommy the Commie Sheridan stands, I believe the SNP will be home and dry.

I agree that there are enormous problems, but there is also a future in the area. A new motorway will bring jobs, and the commonwealth games will reinvigorate housing stock. Statistitians will tell you that the Glasgows population will rise quickest in the East-end over the next ten years.
I think, therefore, that you are too quick to judge, Fraser. Glasgow East will continue to improve thanks to New Labour, its just that the problems are so deeply rooted there that it takes longer to see the benefits.

Can you please tell me how to reverse poor diet and substance abuse without New Labour style state interventionism?

Colin

Some one called Scots Student asked the question...

"Can you please tell me how to reverse poor diet and substance abuse without New Labour style state interventionism?"

I would argue that "state interventionism", new labour style, in the form of an ill thought out, gerrymandering, spray and pray approach to welfare and benefits is one of the reasons for the poverty that inevitably leads to poor diet, among other things.

It’s a bit like 17th century colonists offering beads and whisky to the natives in return for land and women. In labour’s case they want blind obedience at the polls and open hostility to any other party. As with the 17th century natives, the bribes being offered to the 20th & 21st century natives have brought nothing but grief, hopelessness and ultimately the destruction of their way of life and community.

As for the inability to deal with substance abuse: It would have been better if the labour state had not intervened to introduce laws that favour criminals and had not implemented a cynical, soviet style target culture that makes it easier and more productive to go after the normally law abiding, than to tackle the hard case drug dealers and loan sharks.

Sensible Man

"Can you please tell me how to reverse poor diet and substance abuse without New Labour style state interventionism?"

Yes , very easily , bring jobs and investment into Glasgow. New Labour's answer is to bury these "inconvenient" people in statistics. New Labour just hopes that these people will die , it has no interest in helping them. All it wants is power so that it can continue on the Welfare State gravy train that benefits no one but New Labour.

Andrew Morrison, Glasgow

Fraser you are absolutely spot on.

Glaswegians will blindly vote Labour, or misguidedly switch to the also left of centre Scottish National Party thinking they will get a change.

They will rule out voting Tory definately.

This is pretty sad, because the people need to take a long, hard look at the facts here: the ineffective social workers, the poor schools, the bad housing... Labour have controlled the local authority here for over 40 years. It is all their fault and no one elses.

On a national level, Labour have ran the country for over ten years, yet we have more young people not in education, employment or training now than we did when John Major was Prime Minister. The people of Glasgow have been let down by what they perceive to be their own side.

A bit more detail here:
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/goldlist/2008/07/andrew-morrison.html

Ian C

In one word, in answer to Scots Student's question, where Blair needed three: education. If state education worked, this would not be the problem. In areas such as the East End of Glasgow education needs enormous back up from people like Ray Lewis who are willing/able to dedicate their lives to managing and motivating the young in such deprived areas of the country. Not the machinery of egalitarianism that results in political correctness and bureaucracy and eternal benefit addiction.

Labour’s solution? As Fraser says has been to dump the statistics on the 'sick' and pretend it is not happening and throw my money at their problem that they perpetuate through a client culture.

Money is the problem if it is someone else's, because bleeding heart salaried and pensioned state employees, who know nothing of how wealth is created and how hard it is, will always spend your money far worse than you can. State money distributed in this way distorts and prevents practical solutions that need to become part of everyday life, and vitally, in the ownership of those who need the help, egged on by social entrepreneurs who are trusted and encouraged to bring the Ray Lewis type of solutions to social Britain. (Why else do you think Cameron made straight for his door on election as party leader?).

If Brown loses this election, and we must hope and pray that he does, it will signal that the wider public will now be willing to believe, what those of us on the right of centre in their politics, have been saying for years, that the State is the problem, not the solution. And they will also be willing to believe that this is the true home of 'progressive' and 'liberal' ideas and solutions.

clyde southsider

Has Fraser Nelson has been hobnobbing with too may Tory clubmen? Glasgow's worst area is the [sic] Calton.
The bleakness in Glasgow East is deep and wide. Labour deserve a kicking, and the SNP advocacy of 'independence' in a Union of dozens is incoherent if the old Union was|is as terrible as they say.

Roger Inkpen

I’m English, but lived in Scotland for a couple of years. What always baffled me was the attitude the Scots had to how their society worked compared to England. They seemed to believe they had a more egalitarian society, yet where I grew up in the south of England there was a far greater social mix than existed in Scotland. As has been pointed out – Glasgow is another world compared to its suburbs. The only posh bit is around the university. The rest is pretty undesirable – even compared to the Middlesbrough I used to live in. At the time – the early Nineties – there seemed to be a much more rigid class structure than down South. They also have the (self-imposed) divide between Prods and Catholics.

Now, of course, everyone is talking about how little social mobility is occurring in Britain as a whole. Scots often brag about how they lead and the rest of the country follows in education and law. Perhaps we should have guessed that the gap between rich and poor would grow for the rest of us.

As to Labour doing anything about this, well, as Fraser reminds us, seats with large majorities are not of interest to our leaders. The obvious solution to that is of course reform of the voting system to allow every vote to count. I can’t say I had illusions about a Labour government making us a richer, fairer country, but I was foolish enough to think they would give us PR. Alternatively, if such a solid Labour seat as Glasgow east goes to the SNP, it seems unthinkable, but Labour could go the way of the Tories in 1997. Clearly Scotland is not going to suddenly turn to the Tories - most likely SNP, and it’s conceivable the northern cities would go to LibDem, with the Tories mopping up south of the Wash. 2010 looks like being one of the most fascinating – and unpredictable - elections for years.

Kenneth Perry

Seems an excellent article if the facts cannot be challenged
either on accuracy or by counter facts that have been omitted.

Anon

Did you know Christopher Glamorganshire? What's the gossip?

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics-news/2008/07/09/sacked-blogger-s-taking-case-to-tribunal-91466-21308104/

Sam Akaki

As a British of African origin, I have read with horror and shame that the people in Glasgow east are poorer than many in African immigrant community, who are generally perceived to be the poorest in the UK.

This disparity is not by accident. African immigrant communities benefit from generous government support services which help them to set up national or tribal support groups to tackle poverty within Somali, Ugandan, Congolese or Zimbabwean communities.

In west London where I live, there is a group called Independent Rainbow Against Poverty (IRAP), which promotes the commonsense view that “Poverty is colour-blind”.

Why can’t New Labour encourage local community support services, which they do African and other immigrant communities, to help to tackle poverty Glasgow East?

Kiffa

Scots student, the welfare state is a very cheap and efficient way of dealing with the underclass. Capital (the rich) are not taxed, because even the socialists have worked out that they will move; instead habits are taxed - petrol, alcohol, tobacco and the lottery. And which group consumes these things disproportionately? Thats right: the poor.
The welfare state as currently structured is a wicked, evil institution and must be drastically reformed. To reward people for self-destructive behaviour and to penalise them for trying to better themselves (by removing benefits on getting a job) is literally insane. The black market economy is a logical response to a ridiculous situation.

Motley Crue

What is about the British elite that makes them so detestable hypocritical. Bangladesh if there are reliable or any statistics at all is 32 years. Tashkent in parts is cleaner and better than most parts of Britain with its immigrant problem!

hadrian

Whether anyone'll read this at this late date, I don't know but as a resident of of of the wards of the constituency I put in my tuppence-worth!
One of the posts asks how anything can improve here without state interventionism. Well, let's just say, in the past twenty to thirty years I've seen thousands poured into the constituency on inproving enviroments, housing stock, social inclusion schemes. And, susprise, surprise, the only lasting improvements have been from the wholesale demolition of council stock, refurbished at huge expense, then remorselessly vandalised.
The problem is not lack of money but lack of spiritual leadership. Inculcate raw atheism in people and the result will be the hopeless, cynical mess we face in many wards of this uneven constituency...for your information, it has large pockets of very middle-class, reasonably affluent districts. The churches labour away tirelessly but of course our humanistic masters rarely wish to acknowledge the crucial role restoring faith in the value and sanctity of human life and our need for salvation plays in the health of a community. Where there's no vision, the people perish, it's as simple as that.If your god is your belly all the problems ensue in depressingly predictable fashion.