Bits from Nov. 27th “The Independent” English Newspaper Articles
On the plane they provide free newspapers. It is difficult to read "The Time" in the seats in the economy section, so I chose "The Independent" as the paper is small enough to turn the pages in an airplane seat. The three articles I thought I'd share cover some of the key issues in the news this week, and also demonstrate how Britian's issues are common to other parts of the world. The push for independence is not just in North Africa and the Middle East, people stuck in low wage jobs is a problem in the U.S. as well as in the U.K (though in Spain, Greece, Ireland and So. Italy, many would be happy to have any job), and the rising cost of fuel for heating is a problem for people in many countries.
“Salmond’s cry for freedom is long on hope but short on substance”
The Scottish leader had promised a document to inspire a new nation. Instead, reports James Cusick, what he unveiled offered little more than aspiration and assumption.
It was billed as the Scottish Government’s long-awaited authoritative blueprint for independence. Braveheart-style tartan-wrapped nationalistic aspirations would be minimized in favor of heard-edged economics ad unchallengeable number-crunching.
The undecided, still key to next year’s referendum outcome, would be won over by “the greatest document of its kind ever published by a prospective nation”.
The article goes on to provide counter arguments to each of the following bullet points from the head of the Scottish Nationalist Party.
Salmond’s wish list:
An independent Scotland would retain the pound
An independent Scotland will continue as a member of the EU
The apportioning of the UK national debt will be agreed
Scotland will negotiate independent membership in NATO
A single GB-wide market for electricity and gas will continue
The Royal Mail would be renationalized
The current TV license fee will be retained
This is far from the first time that there has been a call for a separate Scottish nation. Scotland was a separate country until James I took the throne on the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1605. In the 1970s there was a fairly vibrant movement pushing for independence from the artistic community, but it failed then due to a lack of political will. Even this latest push has the polls currently standing at only 38% for independence, 48% for remaining in the U.K., and 16% undecided.
“Millions of workers snared by low-pay trap” by Andrew Grice. Report reveals three-quarters of people on low wages have been badly paid for a whole decade.
Three in four people on low wages in 2002 failed to escape from Britain’s “low-wage trap” over the next 10 years, according to a report published today.
According to Resolution Foundation think-tank, 1.3 million (27 %) of the 4.7 million workers on low pay in 2002 remained in the bottom bracket for the next 10 years.
A further 2.2 million (46 % moved in and out of low wages ut failed to break free of them for good by the end of the decade.
The findings will fuel the growing concern about the lack of social mobility in the UK and the headed political debate about the ‘cost of living crisis”.
In a Commons debate today, Labour will highlight figures showing that average earnings have fallen in real terms in every part of the IK since 2010.
Labour will claim that the Coalition has failed to meet the goals it set itself on living standards, economic growth and the deficit.
Despite the pressures on low-wage workers this article refers to, the British economy is doing much better than many in the European Union, perhaps in part because it doesn’t use the Euro, but retained the pound.
“Winter freeze led to 31,000 extra deaths last year” by Tom Bawden. Needless fatalities pile pressure on Cameron and Big Six over energy price rises.
The big six energy firms and the Government came under fresh criticism yesterday as new figures showed that more than 31,000 people died needlessly during last winter’s freezing weather.
About 10,000 of the deaths are estimated to be the result of cold houses, as people struggled to head their homes in the coldest winter for nearly 50 years, against a backdrop of soaring energy prices.
According to the ONS, the vast majority of those who perished were over 75. The number of “excess” deaths was up 29 per cent on the previous year. Britain’s biggest pensioners’ organization, the National Pensioners Convention, said the figures were a “national scandal”
Referring to the dismissive language reportedly used by David Cameron to describe the bill levies used to fund home insulation, the NPC’s national secretary Dot Gibson said “Making sure older people have got a well-insulated war home and the income to pay the fuel bills is’t ‘green crap’. It’s what a decent society should do…..
