LAST week Octopus Energy chiefs reiterated that there’s no reason why Britain should not introduce “zonal pricing” for energy, with Scotland being a zone in its own right and where, as the lowest-cost producer, we’d enjoy the lowest prices for electricity in all of Europe. In that same week a majority of Labour MSPs in Holyrood voted against condemning the Westminster vote to dump the Winter Fuel Payment for 90% of pensioners. Do our Labour MSPs no longer vote for what’s best for their constituents?
We already know that users in Scotland not only pay higher prices for our electricity than most of Britain, and that we also have the coldest climate – requiring us to use more power to heat our homes than further south. This is something that was obviously recognised in that Holyrood vote by MSPs from the SNP, Conservatives, LibDems, Greens and Alba – but only two Labour MSPs supported the First Minister’s call to oppose the Westminster cuts.
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I no longer recognise the Labour Party in Scotland as the one I used to vote for. I really can’t understand what’s happened to British Labour in Scotland.
On the particular issue of energy pricing, it’s well past time that Scotland’s MPs, MSPs and representatives in local councils all got together to demand what’s right for the people of Scotland.
If they can’t do what’s right for their constituents on this subject – when the heads of energy companies are giving them the solution on a plate – and would rather see a much higher death toll this winter than needs to be the case, then they, by their actions, are confirming that there’s no hope for politics in Scotland as part of the UK.
Ian Waugh
Dumfries & Galloway Indy Hub
WE have been living with austerity measures for many years now. We see services cut whilst wages stagnate. We have seen the cost of virtually everything increase. All this time, the perception is that the rich get richer and common working people get poorer.
Many people hoped that voting in a Labour government would make things better. The first thing they do is to cut the winter fuel payment from pensioners. Their rationale is that rich people, like Mick Jagger, don’t need the payment. They totally ignore the vast majority of pensioners who rely on the fuel payment.
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It’s not as though we salt the payment away in an offshore tax haven. It goes towards our heating bills, therefore straight back into the economy.
There is one section of our UK population who never get a mention when it comes to where our taxes go. That is the Londoners who enjoy the London Weighting. This was something that was introduced in 1920 to encourage civil servants to work in London. It was in the form of an enhanced salary.
In the 1970s London Weighting was formally introduced widely for most London workers. Today, according to recent research carried out by the Trust for London, weighting should be £9600 per year for people living in Inner London and £6549 for workers in Outer London. Remember that weighting is on top of their “normal” salaries. These figures are considered by the Trust for London as being the minimum allowance to meet the extra cost of living in London.
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Whilst I accept that London is an expensive place to live, I suspect that the introduction of London Weighting has contributed to the problem. There is the other side of the coin which is ignored. Many Londoners have enjoyed their enhanced salaries and have been able to live very well and maintained a good standard of living.
In recent years we see many Londoners selling up their properties at eye-watering prices and moving out of London for a more tranquil life elsewhere. If I had been getting an enhanced salary of an extra six to nine thousand pounds per year I doubt that I would now be living in an ex-council house.
Harry Key
Largoward
THE fact Prince William is excited about the appointments of a new manager for the English football team is perhaps worthy of a mention on a national news bulletin but surely not as the lead story. Radio 2, broadcasting to the whole of the UK, led with this item on their 11am news summary on Wednesday. Although I’m now in my 80s and have experienced this kind of skewed English reporting all my life, I still get annoyed at the blinkered, uncaring and “all about me” attitude of many south of the Border! I just wish they would think a bit more widely, but is that in their DNA? I hae ma doubts!
Bill Drew
Kirriemuir, Angus
UNION Murray declares a £360 lunch and game freebie courtesy of an influence-buyer, while in the real world The Resolution Foundation think-tank said the inflation figure of 1.7% in October would mean that a typical low-income family, with two children, on Universal Credit would receive an increase of £253 in their annual payment from next April. That’s £4.86 per week or 69p per day in five months’ time! This is obscene. Labour, too busy with their collective noses in the trough to remember their founding raison d’etre.
I Easton
Glasgow
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