Monday 19 May 2014

Widening inqualities a sure sign of a society in decay

Scotland's richest people saw their fortunes rise 19% last year according to the Sunday Times Rich List published this weekend. The wealthiest 100 Scots now own £25bn.
At the top of the rich list with £1,300million is the Grant family who own whisky distillers Glenfiddoch among other brands.

Whilst the majority of us continue to endure the consequences of the worst economic recession in 80 years and the impact of the Westminster austerity measures the wealthiest millionaires and billionaires rake it in.
Across the UK as a whole 1,000 people own the equivalent of 1/3rd of Britain's entire GDP.

Those who benefit from this state of affairs would have you believe this ever widening gap between the rich and poor is inevitable, or the result of market forces we cannot control or occurs by accident. The fact is it is the inevitable consequence of the neo-liberal economic policies pursued by successive Westminster regimes. They know exactly what they are doing and they condone the appalling consequences which follow for the poorest in our society.

To my mind these outrageous inequalities are completely unacceptable and will again disgust Scotland's working class majority who realise the huge gap between the rich and poor is not the result of some unhappy accident but is rather the consequence of greater and greater exploitation of the working class majority by a rich capitalist elite.

And all this certainly has a bearing on the Independence referendum in September because Scotland's social democratic and socialist majority demands action to narrow such grotesque inequalities. A Yes vote in September is therefore not only a vote for Independence in my view it is also a vote against the neo-liberal economics and political warmongering offered by Westminster. That is the reason why support for Independence continuous to grow in Scotland's poorest communities. Those who stand to gain most from narrowing the gap live in our most deprived communities. And all of us in the Yes movement must realise an independent Scotland must reverse the trend in wealth distribution or we will have failed its most passionate advocates.

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