Nicola Sturgeon's 'fair' pay offer for teachers is anything but

With inflation rising to more than 11% – with the possibility that it could rise further – Scottish workers are being asked to accept half of that in wage settlements which means that they are being asked to take a 5% wage cut. Just what does Nicola consider to be fair about that?

But hold on, Nicola, qualifies her statement, “fair in the circumstances”; so what are the qualifying circumstances which make this “fair” for Scottish workers?

Well, Nicola did not feel the need to identify them, so let us speculate on what circumstances could possibly make this fair. “The country can’t afford it”, that is the usual excuse. Is that true?

Well the Tories have made a mess of the economy and the distribution of wealth in Scotland is extremely bad, which in itself is creating low effective demand holding back economic growth, but the super-rich are doing quite well their real incomes are rising fast so the poor distribution is not hurting them.

The huge increase in oil and gas prices, which is causing such hardship and distress to millions in Scotland, is not hurting the super-rich; on the contrary they are increasing their wealth by selling Scotland’s natural resources at ever increasing prices, even to the Scots from whom this natural resource is being taken.

Now cutting the real wages, and the social wage of the Scottish people, will not help the Scottish or the UK economy to recover, on the contrary it will reduce demand further and drive the economy into further recession.

Does Nicola support this Tory policy of another bout of austerity? Does she think it will work? Does she think it is fair?

Or is she just responding like a colonial administrator to the demands of our colonial masters and administering their plan to reduce real wages for working people?

When the UK forced through wage cuts on the miners and other workers in the 1920s it led to the General Strike in 1926 and later to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The new attempt by the Tories will lead to bitter struggle and hardship – it will not “cure” the economy, it will make it worse.

Nicola needs to understand from history that she is backing the wrong horse and get her government to support the Scottish people in this struggle if she wants to survive in the political tsunami which about to hit UK politics.

Nicola should be preparing to ride with this wave not to stand against it like the Tories to be swept away like they will be by it.

Andy Anderson

Ardrossan

ANENT Kevin McKenna’s frequent bouts of SNP-bashing in The National, it behaves me to say the novelty of his acerbic anti-SNP rants appearing regularly in an independence-supporting newspaper is beginning to pall for me.

It appears Kevin has become the provider of a de facto columnar support system for ambivalent Yessers and those who believe the solution to the independence conundrum is to remove the SNP from Holyrood power and start over again.

An example of Kevin’s verbal contortions was his take on Anas Sarwar’s (below) Politician of the Year award, in which he described Sarwar as a “class act” always “warm and gracious when they meet”.

Although I concede that Sarwar has lost his slightly supercilious, snooty air of yore, I noted that Kevin conveniently forgot Sarwar’s privately educated multi-millionaire status, facts which generally act as a red rag to the McKenna bull.

Regarding Kevin’s now customary SNP-bad narrative, a recent column carried a headline aimed at the SNP suggesting that “adolescent insults” have no place in political discourse.

He then went on to inform us that the upper echelons of the SNP consist of a cadre of “deeply unpleasant people” and “glove puppets” all led by an “arrogant” leadership, etc.

Presumably Kevin’s insults are acceptable, due to not being “adolescent”?

Finally, regarding Kevin’s snidey wee pop at SNP MPs (Sunday National, December 11) advising said MPs to avoid using the “indxxxxxence” word, I suspect most SNP politicians have used the “indxxxxxence” word somewhat more than Kevin’s new pal Anas has used the “Socxxxism” word.

Malcolm Cordell

Dundee

CONFRONTED with the most criminally incompetent government in living memory, an opposition with half an ounce of ability or determination would wipe them off the field.

Yet Keir Starmer has so little confidence in his or his party’s ability to dispose of the Tories in the next General Election that he is attempting, this far in advance, to shift the blame for his expected failure onto the SNP.

Honestly, have you ever heard of a more pathetic ploy?

Derrick McClure

Aberdeen