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Today’s banner
Choppy waters, Oban
by Islay McLeod
When they said they
worked in the oil industry,
I knew I was in trouble
Douglas Marr
It’s sometimes said, usually by those that way inclined, that confession is good for the soul. In that case, I have a confession to make. My whole working life has been spent in the public sector. I was never going to make a fortune, although I think I was well enough remunerated for what I did. At the risk of appearing immodest, I probably could have done something that paid better. For example, a goodly number of my contemporaries went into law or accounting. Those with the capacity to thole near-terminal boredom seem to have done well enough for themselves. However I had the consolation of job satisfaction that arose partly from the belief that there are things more worthwhile than making money for its own sake.
However, the events of the last couple of years have threatened to undermine the self-confidence and the self-concept of those of us who did or still work in the public sector. A deft sleight of hand has shifted culpability for the current economic mess from the real culprits to those who provide public service. The process has been educative and insidious.
As SR has regularly demonstrated, there are individuals in the public sector who are grossly overpaid. However the bulk of public sector workers do not fall into that category. Nevertheless they, and the services they provide, have been systematically demeaned and demonised through pejorative and inaccurate language such as ‘bloated’, ‘feather-bedded’ and ‘gold-plated’. The UK government has skilfully and insidiously driven a wedge between hard-pressed workers in the private and public sectors. The coalition has deployed public sector workers, together with immigrants and benefit claimants, as human shields to protect the genuinely guilty.
Alarmingly, many private sector workers have swallowed the bait and accepted that their declining standard of living is down to an engorged public sector. As Dr Goebbels demonstrated, the bigger the lie, the better chance it has of being believed. An Orwellian-like rhetoric of ‘private sector good, public sector bad’ is now implicit in all economic discourse.
Of course this is nothing new. In my old job as a headteacher in an upwardly mobile part of Aberdeenshire, my heart would sink to receive phone calls from parents prefaced by the dreaded words, ‘I work in the oil industry’. At that point I knew I was in for a lengthy lecture on the comparative inefficiency of public services, education and me, though not necessarily in that order.
Recently published ‘rich lists’ make interesting if disturbing reading. The lists appear devoid of commentary or analysis on the morality of such wealth, how it has been created and used to the benefit of wider society.
No one is denying the need for a mixed economy and the importance of the private sector in creating economic and social capital. However critical faculties are suspended too often when considering the contribution and performance of the private sector. The job description, ‘businessman/woman’ virtually guarantees reverential treatment. Their views and forecasts are accorded the power of prophecy, despite all recent evidence to the contrary.
I go into Victor Meldrew mode when the CBI shop stewards are trotted out to give us the benefit of their wisdom. But I have yet to hear one of them say, ‘It’s a fair cop, the private sector has made a right pig’s ear of the economy’. Why do we listen to these people? Over the years I have worked with several of them and, on an individual basis, they seemed harmless and relatively well intentioned. However I was not left with the impression that they were at the cutting edge of economic or indeed any other type of thinking.
For the private sector, the bottom line is the bottom line. Fair enough, most business people are in it to make money, usually for themselves, as the more transparent of them will cheerfully admit. Social responsibility and concern usually come a long way down their list of priorities. For centuries business people and their apologists, with honourable exceptions such as Dale and Owen, have opposed virtually every piece of progressive legislation for the workplace. The CBI’s predecessors predicted economic destruction when children and infants were prohibited from working in factories and mines. In more recent times increases of a few pence to the minimum wage or an additional public holiday are greeted with dark mutterings about international competitiveness.
Recently published ‘rich lists’ make interesting if disturbing reading. The lists appear devoid of commentary or analysis on the morality of such wealth, how it has been created and used to the benefit of wider society. We are invited to marvel at the deeds and sagacity of those listed. No attempt is made to place ostentatious wealth and consumption in the context of the millions who struggle to make ends meet. We are in this together? Aye right. The rich list is the logical and inevitable conclusion of Mandelson and his cronies’ relaxed attitude to deregulation and to people becoming ‘filthy rich’. He, and others like him, are probably equally relaxed about the lack of moral compass that too often accompanies wealth on such a scale.
The first minister has not been slow to get close to Scotland’s rich list. At times, as demonstrated by his dalliance with bankers and those such as Mr Trump, his judgement and taste have been found wanting.
The public services are important not just because of the support they provide for society in general and the most vulnerable in particular. They matter because they provide a moral counterbalance to the atavism of those calling most loudly for root and branch retrenchment and privatisation. Public services matter because they are a measure of a society’s moral capital and its commitment to equality and fairness.
The equilibrium of society depends on the balance between the processes of wealth creation and social wellbeing. At times of social and economic stress the equilibrium is disturbed and it’s usually the social conscience that is silenced. As Sir Tom Hunter has pointed out recently, it is outrageous that around one quarter of Scotland’s children live in poverty. They are living proof of the fallaciousness of the argument that wealth ‘trickles down’ to the most vulnerable in our society. The current economic crisis is being used as a Trojan horse to deliver a politically motivated onslaught on the ways in which we support the vulnerable. We are witnessing a redefinition of ‘fairness’ in favour of the better off and influential.
The decimation of public services will leave us collectively and individually poorer. It is up to those who believe in public services to be more proactive in their defence. Those who work in that sector should not apologise for doing so. They need to take the offensive to remind us how much we rely on the services and support they provide. The spread of the ‘Arab Spring’ to Europe may be a sign that increasing social injustice may not always be met with a resigned shrug of the shoulders.
The newly-elected Scottish government will face immediate tests of its commendable commitment to public services. By deferring cuts in spending until after the election it simply put off the evil hour. Its commitment to a raft of popular but immensely expensive services and benefits will require bold economic strategies that are not immediately apparent. Is it possible that the SNP manifesto was written when most party strategists believed that the election was lost?
The first minister has not been slow to get close to Scotland’s rich list. At times, as demonstrated by his dalliance with bankers and those such as Mr Trump, his judgement and taste have been found wanting. Nevertheless his strategy has paid off. Endorsement by News International and by ‘200 leading business people’ did him no harm. However one suspects that payback time is just around the corner. Mr Salmond and his colleagues now face the unenviable task of squaring the circle. He will need to keep his new business chums happy while protecting the users and providers of public services. Above all he will have to remember whose greed and failures created the sorry state we are in.
Douglas Marr CBE is a former headteacher
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