I’m really happy that you feel safe and secure and have had a decent life. You probably work hard and manage to pay the mortgage and have kids just like the rest of us. This life can be rewarding for folk that put in the effort and have the opportunities.

Opportunity is a wonderful thing. I’ve had loads in my life, I bet you have too. But opportunity doesn’t come to everyone does it? Did you know that in Scotland, we have the highest proportion of children in Europe living in poverty, at the last count there was 170,000 of them. Imagine that. Just do a Google of the children’s charities in Scotland and you’ll see estimates somewhere between 170,000 and 210,000. That figure is set to rise given the activities of Westminster with regard to the bedroom tax and the universal credit. Better Together? Don’t be daft.



What caused child poverty on that scale?

It’s simple really, back in the 80’s Scotland was de-industrialised and suffered mass unemployment which the government of the day tried hard to cover up. They even used the wealth coming from the North Sea to fund the de-industrialisation. People were put on long-term sick rather than have them as a statistic of unemployment.



The hidden woes

Child poverty is a bit like an iceberg with child poverty sitting at the top balanced on all the other woes of de-industrialisation, mass-unemployment, poor social housing, loss of hope, lack of self-respect and last but not least and probably the most important, a complete lack of opportunity.

That lack of opportunity gives rise to Scotland having a low wage, high unemployment, service economy which helps very few people indeed and caused the woes that we see now. What we need is to move to a high wage, full employment, high technology, manufacturing economy. How are we going to do that? It has more to do with taking control of our political powers and resources.



Our begging bowl

Now it doesn’t really matter who is in power in Holyrood or Westminster and it wouldn’t matter how hard the Government at Holyrood begged the Government at Westminster, the folk in the House of Commons would never gift us the money or the powers to start tackling all the big ticket items that are needed to help the wee souls that are living in poverty. That’s just human nature. Their patch is more important than ours. They have pet projects that they need to fund for their own electorate. The plight of Scotland doesn’t figure in that equation. So, we’re left with only one sole alternative because we’ve tried all the begging and that alternative is Scottish independence.



The family silver

With Scottish independence we immediately get access to an asset which is worth £1.5 trillion pounds (at least). That’s the oil that’s left and has been discovered so far. With a £1.5 trillion asset, you needn’t worry about how you fund the set up of an independent Scotland and it is an asset that is going to increase in value as time goes on and more wells are discovered.

Just four weeks ago we heard how the MOD had blocked oil production on the Clyde estuary. They didn’t want the nuclear subs “inconvenienced” whilst going to and from Faslane. They did that in the 80’s and if you remember the Clyde at that time, it was peppered with shipyards such as Scott Lithgow which employed hundreds of thousands of people. Where are they now?

An oil boom in the Clyde Estuary would have given a new lease of life for those shipyards. Chevron had spent millions planning to place a huge oil refinery at Hunterston Point. The whole thing was hushed up and only a few weeks ago with the help of Julie Dettbarn, Angus Coull, George Smith and Chic Brodie SNP MSP got the goods out of the National Archive by finding and getting access to the declassified documents which showed the pernicious actions of the British Establishment which included the MOD. The only newspaper in Scotland which picked up this story and ran with it was the “Sunday Post”. They ran a full two page spread. That speaks volumes about our unionist press who wont speak a bad word about the British Establishment. The only good thing to come out of that is that the oil still exists in plenty enough quantity that someone deemed it big enough to plan a refinery and big enough for large oil companies to buy licences.

Our Common sense future ~

Scotland has a fledgling industry, it’s called the “Renewables Industry” and is about all those big wind turbines that you see dotted about the place and the wave power projects that you’ve heard about and even the fantastically sized and odd-shaped sub sea generators that we’re testing right now and you may have seen on telly. With the revenue and borrowing powers that a government in an independent Scotland would have, we can make an inroads immediately into some of the woes that I was talking about, but what would be sensible is if we could re-industrialise. The intention is to “push” the fledgling Renewables Industry which will do just that. We’ll also see manufacturers from abroad coming to our shores to invest in the industry (we’re seeing that starting to happen now). With that, we’ll do something that hasn’t happened in Scotland in a long, long time and exponentially increase the number of opportunities that the normal folk of Scotland have.You will see a lifting of self-respect and see hope in people’s eyes and yes, the number of children living in poverty……….well I’ll let you work that one out for yourself.

The answer’s, all of them, are in our own hands.

I urge all of you to vote yes in next years referendum on Scottish independence so that we can start rebuilding our beautiful country and create a fairer and more equal society for all that live here. Scotland is minted, so don’t believe a word of those who have an axe to grind and keep Scotland as a cash cow which feeds London and the South East of England, they would have you think that the sky will fall in if we vote yes. It won’t.

Kindest regards,

David Milligan Lvss