We were told to forget
our cares at the door.
I didn’t forget mine
The Cafe 3
Cybernats
What on earth has
happened to
my dongle?
Islay McLeod
Lust in Balloch
The Cafe 2
Quaking in my baffies somewhat in case I misplace an apostrophe or mis-spell Raymond Soltysek’s name, thus incurring the editor’s wrath and consigning this letter to Cybergatory, I write to thank Mr Soltysek for his incisive critique of the ‘financial terrorism’ practised by the credit rating agencies Fitch and Standard & Poors.
Until the current economic slump began, how many of us had ever heard of these outfits or had an inkling of the astonishing power they wield over all our lives? Mr Soltysek’s piece should be nailed to the desk of every politician in Europe. If what these ‘agencies’ do is not terrorism, it is certainly blackmail, and to defeat them every self-respecting democratic politician should get together with every other self-respecting democratic politician and downgrade them so robustly that their pronouncements are not heard above the trickle of sewage.
James Robertson
Some day Scotland may indeed travel ‘first class’, but not if it remains in thrall to the kind of cultural confusion which identifies Sarah Lund’s sweater as a ‘Fair Isle’ (18 January).
‘Fair Isle’ is not a generic term for big woolly gansies you pull over your head, despite the piracy of manufacturers from Beijing to Barnstaple. It is a very specific variety of knitting pattern rooted firmly in the Shetland Islands; the Icelandic aberration worn by Ms Lund is as much a Fair Isle as a Glenfarclas is a Jack Daniels.
And don’t get me started on the use of the word ‘Shetland’ to describe any kind of woollen garment. It’s enough to make me think we should just take our oil, gas, sheep, fish and fiddle playing, and tell Salmondland we’re off back to…Denmark.
Tom Morton
(Shetland)
SR Extra
Dounreay end game has arrived. What happens to the people?
Click here
SR Forum
A new series of articles debating the issues around the referendum
Today: Alex Wood
In the end, the British ruling elite may hand
the Scots devo-max
on a plate
Click here
Three cheers for
our under-valued
public sector
Anthony Seaton
Two things caught my eye over the holiday. The first was a letter to a newspaper in which the writer described the public sector as ‘unproductive’. The second was a report that Mr Osborne’s grand plan for deficit reduction was not working, since for every job created in the private sector 14 had been lost in the public sector. Most of those 93%, the 13 out of 14 with no job available, are presumably paying little or no tax and relying on state support in one form or another. I suspect a disproportionate number live in Scotland and the north of England. Few people who live outside the wealth girdle in south-east England will be surprised at this. Perhaps our lack of economic sophistication blinded us to what was so clear to the UK government. But the sequence of events does seem to make sense, because the public sector is not unproductive. It has just been characterised that way by people, and parts of the media, with a political axe to grind.
Of course, I’m biased. I worked my whole career in the public sector, indeed in four separate public sectors as an employee of the NHS, the state of West Virginia, British Coal and finally the University of Aberdeen. So save for two years draining the US economy of a couple of hundred dollars a month I appear to have spent my life as a parasite on the UK economy, and even now I draw my pension from it. But have I and my colleagues in these organisations really been economically negative? Have we not contributed according to our abilities something of value to the society in which we have lived?
Almost all children are educated in the public sector. The raw products of their parents’ initial attempts at child-rearing are mostly turned into employable and useful citizens – value is added. Who does not recall an inspirational teacher? A remarkable proportion now goes to university, an environment where most of the ideas that lead to innovative enterprise are hatched. Many graduates find work in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, engineering, electronics, IT and, more recently, in the nanotechnologies. Sadly, a proportion has recently been diverted into gambling in the money markets.
The best of the non-science graduates find ways to express themselves in such exportable cultural outlets as film, illustration, literature, art, design and theatre. The law and financial services are also exportable. Most will lead useful productive lives and pay their taxes, though a few will have ended up as politicians or their advisors with grand ideas based on little experience of the rest of the world. Education is not unproductive. Scotland in particular can look with pride on the educational opportunities it has provided for its people and on the effects these people have had on the world.
The unequalled innovation of the UK pharmaceutical industry owes a
great debt to its access to NHS doctors and patients for the development
of new drugs.
Professor Anthony Seaton is an emeritus professor in the school of medicine and dentistry at the University of Aberdeen
website design by Big Blue Dogwebsite development by NSD Web