Maybe Scotland leaving the union will be the change that England needs too.

Past election results don't quite prove that no Scotland means Tories forever in England, but it will be very difficult to get rid of them with the Labour party in its current form.*

*I actually don't mind Ed Milliband. I think his real beliefs are probably quite similar to my own; unfortunately there are still too many powerful Blairites in the party and a dominant right-wing press ready to crush any socialist ideas he might want to put into practice. 

But maybe this is what England needs to shake things up.

For years, English politics have been stuck in post-Thatcher mode: pro-greed, anti-Union, low tax and overly suspicious. Thatcher really was a massive success. I'm sure that others in the Conservative party of the late 70s and 80s share a lot of credit too but between them, they gave the country 10 new commandments:

1. Kick, punch, trample and bribe your way to the top! 
2. Keep grabbing as much as you can before someone else does! 
3. Cheating the system means you're brilliantly talented and deserve your ill-gotten gains! 
4. Unions are only there to steal from the vulnerable rich people and need to be squashed! 
5. Anyone who considers the fortunes of others before their own is a communist and will destroy us all!
6. Poor people only have themselves to blame and don't deserve anyone's help!
7. Tax is a con to help the poor; rich people shouldn't have to pay for things they don't use!
8. Tax is optional; wealth in offshore accounts or in fiendishly clever avoidance schemes doesn't count!
9. If you can pay your staff less, you're paying them too much!
10. Publicly-owned organisations are only used by the poor; these need to be harvested for private profit!

In their pursuit of power, the Blairite, Tory-lite New Labour party seemed only too happy to accept this and yet were still seen as the party of the left. Political commentators conceded that they might be 'centre-left'. But in truth, they were bang in the centre at best. New Labour weren't all bad, but they left us without a proper alternative to the City-hugging, privatising, greed-cheering, corporate lobbyist-loving Tories. And that's what really needs to change.

Of course it's difficult. The public in England seem convinced enough by most of the Thatcherite ideals even whilst cheering the news of her demise that the opposition are too scared of upsetting the status quo by being more radical. And frustratingly, the Labour party don't realise that playing around with minor changes to the Tory manifesto (scrapping the bedroom tax, reversing the privatisation of the NHS that they themselves started) is not enough. They would be far more popular if they gave voters a proper alternative.

As I've said before, given the option of choosing a temporarily poorer but fairer and more equal place to live, I would take it. I don't agree that most of the questions surrounding an independent Scotland have been answered. And I really don't like a lot of the shouty YES attitudes: many people are far too aggressive and unwilling to even listen to counter arguments. But I can't get over the feeling that although I would prefer the UK to stay the same, I think they should go for it.

Get out while you can Scotland (but take your first opportunity to appoint an effective leader)

As I've said on this blog before, I hope the people of Scotland vote no. My wife’s family are all from Scotland and I've lived there too. I have a great affection for the country and did contemplate living there permanently. We still might reconsider that later in life. However, I've also said that if I, as someone living and brought up in the north of England, could vote to separate from Westminster, I would probably take it.

There’s this idea that London has all of the money. It’s mostly true. But why and how? There’s also the idea that we don’t make anything any more; we have no industry. This is also broadly true. But why? The answer to both of these is mostly by Government design.

Don’t let anyone convince you that our manufacturing ceased to become commercially viable. If that was the case, we wouldn't have Japanese manufacturers producing cars in this country. I would also point out that if Germany can be home to some of the most successful car manufacturing plants in the world in Volkswagen, Audi, BMW and others, then we can too. 

I wouldn't claim that it is a massive conspiracy to keep all of the money in the City of London but the fight for job security and better pay and conditions by unions in the 1970s didn't exactly endear them to the Tories. I would stand with them of course, but as soon as Thatcher came into power, she saw them as a nuisance to be put in their place. Why would any right-wing government help out a struggling industry whose employees might strike again the next time their pay was frozen or colleagues made redundant? Instead all of the country’s finances were focused on the ‘big bang’ in the city. De-regulation entrusted wheelers and dealers to gamble safely and if they wanted to line their own pockets at the same time, more power to them (literally). Government assistance via tax breaks and infrastructure investment fuelled the boom. Publicly-owned organisations one by one became commodities to be bought cheaply and sold handsomely. 

Engineering and manufacturing never received that kind of help and for the most part, was left to crumble. We still, despite everything, have quite a strong aerospace industry (according to Wikipedia, it is the second or third largest in the world, depending on the method of measurement). Just imagine what it could have been with a fraction the sort of special treatment the precious financiers are constantly given.

Those with money donate to the powerful and the powerful reciprocate with special allowances and policies that suit their trade in cash-grabbing. It’s a happy, pin-striped partnership all served by a gloved hand on a silver-platter with glasses of champagne and expensive canapés. The City is the favourite child, doted on and lavished with presents and praise while other sectors are the runts, fighting for scraps on the floor, getting kicked should they get in the way.  

No wonder the Scots want out. I do too.

I hope, though, that if Scotland votes for independence, the country takes its first opportunity to elect leaders who will get on with the job of running the country. Alex Salmond has done a fine job of getting Scottish people more for their money and then convincing them that, despite this, they need to be independent. He hopes to go down in history as the man who gave this to Scotland but he will not go down in history as a great Scottish Prime Minister. Once this is over, his job is done. He will want to stay in power but I don't get the impression that he can deliver on the promises he’s made. And I don’t know much about the party as a whole but I wouldn't put money on Nicola Sturgeon being able to make their rhetoric a reality either. Someone will need to deal with the realities of the Scottish economy and although I feel it is within their grasp to at least continue to enjoy the standard of living they currently have, it will require realism and professionalism as well as vision.

I'm a socialist. Amongst other things, that means that I think of the greater good rather than what would be best for me. And for that reason, I think if they do really want it, Scotland should take this chance.

The pig-headedness of the climate change sceptic

Anyone with a financial interest in maintaining the status quo with regards to energy usage and pollution will go to great lengths to deny strong scientific evidence. On their side are all of the other people who don't have a financial interest in fossil fuels or energy but like to keep their heating and/or air conditioning on, like to drive their large cars everywhere, fly regularly, leave the lights on to save the effort of flicking a switch and believe that greener energy will cost them significantly more.

Let's just forget the environment and consider costs.

Admittedly, building newer, greener energy systems will initially cost money. But the continuing efforts to plunder the planet's natural resources does too. Take drilling for oil. As supplies that we're already guzzling reduce, not only does it become more expensive to buy, it also becomes more difficult and thus more expensive to find the next source. Deeper drilling means hotter temperatures and that requires more money spent on the research into and the production of materials that can withstand these temperatures and still do the job. Then there are areas where the materials used are subject to incredibly acidic, corrosive environments which requires different research and different materials. And this cycle will keep on going, costing ever more money in research and development until eventually, we've used every drop of oil or gas the planet can give us.

So instead of investing in harnessing renewable energy such as tidal power - to take one example - energy companies are spending money on chasing the next source of oil or gas. Tidal power is a very interesting source. For one thing, unlike wind and solar, we can predict exactly when and where power can be harnessed. For an island like the UK, it should also be possible to establish a constant system - where different tide times from around the UK are used to balance out the wave power being harnessed (where one tide goes out, another is coming in) and thus, ensure that there are no peaks and troughs. I say "should": research is already under way into the best ways of doing this. Once tidal power systems are in place, the only certain costs will be upkeep (although of course, improvements will be made from time to time).

Failing to adequately fund new energy is not only short-sighted, it makes no economic sense in the short-term. The sector is already employing more people in the UK than teaching and there is a huge capacity for growth. Employment means people earning and paying tax back into the economy. In the UK, where our earning power in energy is not the greatest (we have little oil and gas and much of the energy work undertaken in the UK is by non-UK companies who pay their taxes elsewhere - what little taxes they pay, that is), the benefits to our economy of growth in this area would be huge..

The constant denial from the right has echoes of the fight to recognise the dangers of smoking. Common sense won that battle in the end; we just need to keep going.

British Rail: the naysayer’s favourite story of state failure

I’ve been trying to find out what really went wrong with British Rail. I failed to find anything. I then turned to finding out information from the time to support the modern idea that it was badly run. I haven’t been able to find that out either. (If anyone can point me in the direction of any real information from the time that supports either of the above, do let me know – I’m always willing to see the other argument).

What I did learn is how the idea of privatising the railways came to be: and I was surprised to learn that it wasn’t some grand plan with widespread support, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Thatcher, the original queen of state-stripping (now of course totally out-classed by the current mob), didn’t see it as worth pursuing. There was no evidence that it would appeal to the private sector and there was little interest in the conservative front bench, or ministers and peers who had previously been involved with transport. Not only did the opposition and the Unions opposite it, so did the majority of the Tory party – with many voicing fears that it would destroy the railways. A leaked proposal to hike up prices by 16% in the South East, with further rises to follow (the intention being to make it appear more profitable to potential private buyers), caused outcry. The idea was killed off.

But then Thatcher was ousted and John Major, elected with only the proposition of electoral defeat ahead of him, needed policies. Rail privatisation was thrown into the mix and seemed to fit the bill. With a policy like that, the government could show they weren’t afraid of bold ideas and the right wing press, always happy to help by a spot of state-bashing, got stuck into British Rail.

The public can be easily convinced that something is wrong with a public service and scared that they were losing money to a failing state-owned system, privatisation didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

I still don’t think it would have been this policy that caused the shock victory but whatever it was, somehow, the Tories stayed in power. With a narrow mandate, they needed to make their promises stick and so the privatisation of British Rail was on. Inner discussions considered a few ways of going about it and the party and its private backers settled on the model of regional franchises and between 1994 and 1997, British Rail was pulled apart and sold off.

Fast-forward 20 years and we now have a good model to use in arguments against the privatisation of large public sector organisations.

The rail franchise which is the most cost-efficient to the taxpayer and the most highly-regarded by passengers is the only one which is not privately-owned: East Coast. East Coast put profits from fares back into the business and pays for improvements to the rolling stock and the service they provide. And there are no shareholders to satisfy. East Coast has paid almost £800 million to the treasury in less than five years. That is more than Virgin have paid in 15 years.

As a result of privatisation, our railways are now more expensive to passengers, more expensive to tax payers and less reliable. It should be impossible to believe that privatisation is now going ahead in the NHS. Yet we’re under Tory rule and pretty much anything which takes taxpayers money and puts it into the hands of the wealthy is to be expected.

Short-termism drags us back to the 1900s.

We need our own home. Sadly, we're unable to buy one simply because of our age: we're the mid-30s of the mid 2010s.

We just missed out on being in the slightly older bracket of late 30s-early 40s. If we were a few years older, we'd have been ok: we'd have bought a long-term home just before the crash. But we bought a flat; a reasonably-priced one at that.

The area has improved since we bought it. There's new employment locally, new public transport and so many nice shops and cafe bars that BBC Breakfast can be there about once a week, asking the contented, cultured, middle-class residents the lifestyle question of the day without anyone realising it's the same small area every time. So why can't we sell it?

Whilst we're trying to find a buyer for our flat, houses are getting further and further out of reach, even though we're looking at areas that are considerably more affordable than the affluent, sought-after area we live in now. The economic crash robbed us of the income that had enabled us to get on the property ladder and we've only just now caught up to where we were 7 or 8 years ago. But despite all of the local improvements (and some improvements to the flat itself), our flat has been on the market for four months and nobody is willing to pay the amount we need to raise enough deposit to buy a house. And the longer it takes, the more expensive houses get.

Short-termism is an every-parliament problem. Why would a government invest in the future so that the next reaps the rewards? And can you imagine a government minister, or the media for that matter, letting a member of the shadow cabinet claim credit for an improving economy, or improving Schools, or an easing of the housing crisis? The opposition don't have a voice. And even if they did, the majority of the electorate wouldn't be listening and when they're fine with how things are, they either don't vote, or vote for the status quo. So no party in power would ever make short-term losses, and in doing so risk being seen as a failure, and let their successors claim the credit.

But this government have got short-termism in their blood; it's like an addiction. Scrapping green levies that were intended to pay for greener and cleaner energy in the future to bring bills down now. Cutting income tax and cutting spending on infrastructure that will mean more critical need and higher costs at a later date. Cutting benefits and care for people who need it now and ignoring the longer term costs of doing so.

This government is only too happy to let house prices spiral up and up and up again, boosting the economy in the short term, gambling that in the next parliament, the fall-out won't be their problem. What is happening now is putting people with quite healthy incomes in situations similar to how quite low income families would have been 100 years ago. We're faced with cramming our future into a scruffy two-up two-down with only a yard for any children we might have to play in. And even a property like that would be pushing the limits of our finances.

We should be able to afford a family home. But many people like us are putting off having children because we just can't.

In the mind of one UKIP voter.

I had a bit of a shock after work recently. Conversation over a couple of congratulatory drinks turned to people's attitude towards homosexuality and a young colleague said that "people of my generation don't even think about it." My response was that that is great but added a note of caution, mentioning recent EU elections where right wing parties made large gains across most of the continent. Then I said the fateful words:

"A lot of people are voting for parties like UKIP."

What followed could have turned very nasty. Another colleague (fortunately someone I don't work with often), who henceforth shall be referred to as 'bile-man' erupted into a seething monster, burning red and spitting uncontrollable vitriol. It was incomprehensible, though his point was clear. He voted UKIP at the recent elections and hate cannot describe his feelings towards anyone who disagrees with what he thinks is right.

I didn't want an argument. If he had reacted more calmly I would have happily engaged in a heated debate about Europe, immigration, the economy, welfare etc but this turned nasty in a split second and it was obvious bile-man was not going to discuss the issue in anything like a measured way. I tried to calm things down by saying "I understand why you don't want to vote for the main parties - I voted green." This didn't help - "THE GREENS ARE THE WORST!" How anyone could think the Green party are less likeable than one of the main parties, I have no idea. Even if you hate the idea that we should all be treated equally and don't think that we should be compassionate or look after the planet, you can't deny that they're probably the nicest party. 

I suddenly felt the need to go to the gents. When I returned, a friend who had had a bit more to drink than me had somehow managed to wade into this situation and yet also calm it down a little. I was trying not to get involved. I feel equally as strongly as bile-man about this topic but the shock of his ridiculous reaction had left me on edge and I didn't want to erupt too. I finished my drink and made my excuses. 

It really affected me though and I went over the earlier discussions again and again on the way home and again in quieter moments over the weekend, wondering why it is someone I had otherwise quite liked could be so angry. I recalled an earlier conversation: a colleague had mentioned the 'no more page 3' campaign and bile-man had proudly stated that he reads the sun and likes it very much. He'd also mentioned that he was from the baby-boomer generation, although I can't remember why that came up exactly. 

I woke very early the next morning and immediately began thinking about this all. Why is he so aggressively anti-socialist (I like that term; I think I'll use it again)? I looked at the facts:

Baby boomer

Formerly in the private sector, now a low-paid public sector worker.

Sun reader

UKIP voter

I came to the following conclusion, which may be almost as reactionary as bile-man himself but I'll share it anyway:

As a young baby-boomer (approximately 60), he didn't witness the difficulties of war-time Britain or the immediate aftermath when people helped each other and helped the country to recover. He is young enough to have always had the NHS and the welfare state to support him and anyone he cares about although he has rarely needed it, if ever. Before he was born, all adults had the vote. By the time he started work, the Unions had sorted out fairer working hours and better working conditions. He will have been in his 'prime' during the difficult late Labour-Union years in the 1970s when the right wing press (owned and paid for by the rich, of course) made people believe all Unionists were scum, and/or Trotskyite revolutionaries and that the Tories, Capitalism and Thatcher, were the only positive choices for an empire punching below its weight. 

He's a public sector worker who doesn't earn very much and probably earned a better salary in the 1980s and early 90s when he worked in a private sector industry until that failed and spat him out when times got tough. He likes golf: a man's sport where men often talk about work and business and moan about 'er indoors'. He becomes older and less tolerant to change as he sees his prosperity worsen and thinks back to when life was better for him. He didn't see many people from different countries at work back then. The Sun tells him other working and non-working people are to blame for him being worse off. 

So he's learned from Thatcher's Tories that he has to fight for himself and during that time, he was doing ok. Now the only fight left in him is directed at those he feels are taking something that he feels belongs to him. 

He fails to consider that of our ancestors were immigrants and we have all benefited from the changing culture in this country. He doesn't realise that our country's wealth was built on taking land from other nations and plundering their resources; using the poor to make profits; bringing in cheap foreign labour when the home-grown workers started to become too expensive, or were fighting in wars; and our prosperity is still reliant on using cheap overseas labour to increase profits in the retail sector which our economy is now so reliant on. 

The UK has used other countries to make its wealth and we still need them. At the moment, the UK is producing less than 60% of the food we need. We are not self-sufficient. Bringing in cheap food from overseas means that some countries have to produce more than they consume and when there's a short-fall, it won't be the UK that goes hungry.

But bile-man won't care. He's one of the special original good people of Great Britain, and anybody else can **** off.

My apology

In May 1997, I was 19. I'd grown up under Thatcher and saw what nasty divisive people in power could do to working families - and those who desperately wanted to be working. I was far too aware at far too young an age of what the Tories stood for - and against.

The Labour party under Neil Kinnock were still the party of the working majority. John Smith's leadership was all too brief though I think his ideas were very much still towards the left. People like us had someone to vote for during the champagne-swilling, porsche-driving, wad of cash-wielding, white collar and braces yuppie era.

But the Tories kept winning. They conned many of the older generation of working class - those who had fought in the war and rebuilt the country afterwards - that policies such as the 'right to buy' scheme were in their interests when really they were in the interests of the wealthy few and shrinking the state. In the 80s, the right wing had even more control over the media than they do now: we have the internet now; back then it was even easier to manipulate tabloid readers.

The BBC at the time used to keep a second personnel file for each employee which included security information collected by Special Branch and MI5. If a staff member was thought to harbour any kind of left-wing bias, their file was marked with a symbol which looked like a Christmas tree. This would, in most cases, leave them with no chance of a promotion or any key role in the corporation. The BBC also communicated with secret services to check the 'record' of any potential new employee. Of course, employees with links to the Tories would be treated entirely differently. With this level of bias at the BBC, plus the majority right-wing press, the Labour party didn't stand a chance.

And then came Blair. A Labour leader the right could get behind. Thatcher said in 2002 that her greatest achievement was Tony Blair and New Labour and that's one of few things she ever said that I agree with. The right-wing press went soft on Labour. In the run up to the 1997 election, the Sun switched allegiance and so did a lot of tabloid readers (compare that with now: Ed Milliband is constantly under vicious fire because the right-wing press wanted David Milliband - the most Blairite of the leadership candidates).

I voted for Labour in 1997 because all I knew was that I wanted the Tories out. John Major had been nothing like the destructive force that Thatcher had but they were still Tories: friends of the rich and powerful; architects of inequality. Despite the Iraq war, continuing to assist the rise of the few and the promotion of private sector involvement in public services, New Labour did do some things right and they were still the lesser of two evils - as we know all too well right now.

But the worst long-term legacy of that post-Thatcher, pre-Brown, Major-Blair era, for me, is the bullshit non-speak. We now have the benefit of the internet where we can find facts to prove or deny what we are told by politicians but when they don't speak their minds and if we can't tell what they really mean by what they say, how do people decide who to vote for? I spend a lot of time reading, listening, watching and learning what is going on and what parties are doing or might do and I know who I agree with. But for most people who have more pressing matters, such as trying to put food on the table, this is just not possible.

You know when you need to pay someone to fix something for you and they baffle you with things you don't understand until you pay them a lot of money? That's what most politicians do these days. If people can't decipher it, or they don't have enough background knowledge to know what parties are likely do if they get into power, they're unlikely to vote. This is how, plain-speaking, beer-guzzling, fag-smoking, hate-feeding UKIP make such surprising gains.

If Labour still represented the majority of working and non-working people in the UK, and they still told us what they thought rather than dithering in the centre ground, making sure they don't upset the racists, the people who hate benefits or the bankers, the differences would be clearer and I think voter turn out would be considerably higher. The Tories are just as bad, only instead of dithering, they just lie in their manifesto and then tear it up when they get into power and go about sneaking policies in - often whilst parliament is particularly quiet (did you know it's now easier for your employer to sack you? Do you know how busy parliament was when the gagging law was passed?).

So, I'm sorry. I apologise unreservedly for my part in bringing Blair and New Labour into power. I only hope as many protest votes go to the Greens as to the little Englanders in UKIP.