Summer Holiday...not

We’re all going on a summer holiday….not, but hey who cares! Certainly not http://www.cliffrichard.org/        (I can’t believe I just typed that !)

But in Scotland, July is the start of the  traditional holiday period: Trade’s Fortnight, the first two weeks in July for Edinburgh and the following two for Glasgow / Fair Fortnight.

The Glasgow Fair in Victorian times was the major yearly summer holiday event for Glaswegians, particularly those from the working classes. Glasgow Fair is celebrated during the last two weeks of July in the west of Scotland in the city of Glasgow. Most of the locals take their vacation during this period and you will see them relaxing in Glasgow Green where the fair is held. If the weather is good you will also see people relaxing and sunbathing on the grass. 

Who writes this condescending codswallop? Not me, so try……http://www.kgbanswers.co.uk/wot-dates-r-glasgow-and-edinburghs-trades-holidays-this-year-glasgow-fair/3312631#ixzz2YJ6jxisu     for more of the same!

So being July, you might be tempted to think of it as a quiet time, or the silly season when nothing much happens, and the lttle things get blown out of all proportion. Well, not a bit of it. It’s been quite a week, and quite a start ot the month.

That wealthy Conservative minister …oh sorry, exactly which wealthy Tory minister ……Lord Freud.. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/04/lord-freud-food-banks     a Work and Pensions minister,    provoked outrage & indignation this week  when he queried the connection, or lack of, between the increase in the use of food banks and the Government’s cuts(in progress & forthcoming) in benefits in a speech in the House of Lords.

The same Lord attempted to dispute the increase in food banks being accessed and any direct link to  benefit sanctions/welfare cuts/delays/confusion.  He inferred that the food banks were being used just because they were there. A form of …’if its’ free’, they want it’ scenario, even stooping so low as to say “It is difficult to know which came first – supply or demand.”

Now I ask you, who would you believe? Lord Freud or UK charities & campaigners. After all, he is a former investment banker, first supporting & inputting into Tony Blair’s government before jumping ship, and resurfacing supporting the Tories Or Chris Mould, the executive chairman of the Trussell Trust http://www.trusselltrust.org/  currently running in excess of 300 food banks who reminded us that  “The only people who seem unable to accept there is a social crisis driven by the cost of living is the Government.”

Is this a clear indication of the return of the ‘nasty party’ and further evidence that the con-dem government is far, far removed from the people in whose name it governs?

Is it a clear indication that the seat of power, powerful decision making, is far, far removed from Scotland?

Surely though no one would be so foolish as to believe that a ‘yes vote’ would produce a utopia the next day, week, month or year, would they? No one believes that we would suddenly live in a world politically pure, and socially sound,  sans corrupt politicians, police, and the trains running on time, would we?

But in turn, that’s not the point either. The point must be more about the maturity of a people and a nation to consider its past and present, with a view to determining its future. There are very few examples past, or present, whereby a people and a nation  have that opportunity, so shouldn’t we use it? Will we ever get another ?

I’m not of the ilk that says we must have definitive answers at this moment in time to all those questions that get thrown up. Those are questions to debate, consider, & explore. It is unproductive to become corralled into dead ends…’they can’t answer’; ‘they don’t know’. But it is interesting to note that we always get a rebuff to the 'scare stories' that emerge...I really don't believe I would have to pay higher roaming charges when I visit the grandson in London.   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland/  

The very nature of life and living is its changing nature, and since I know that there is no guaranteeing the future, all I have is the past to look back to, take note of and project that into a future scenario.

So is Lord Freud yet another clear indication of the return of the ‘nasty party’ and further evidence that the con-dem government is far, too far removed from the people in whose name it governs?

So is Lord Freud yet another clear indication that the seat of power and  powerful decision making, is far, far  too far from Scotland?

I'm beginning to think it is.