DISILLUSIONED

Five decades I have spent pursuing Scotland’s Independence; today was not a zenith. 

In the first instance we have Annemarie Ward requiring help from Tories to promote her eminently sensible Bill on the Right To Recovery; Scotland’s drugs deaths are the shame of Europe – 1200 last year; 16 times more likely in a poor than an affluent area. Why is the health aspect remotely controversial? It is so because the Gov’t of the last 2 FMs dabbled in projects where views promoted were those of the captured peddling the party line. I listened to Angela Constance in George Square a couple of years ago when she promised change but the numbers of rehab beds stagnated. My ears, unlike ferry windows, are not painted on. I heard those who explained that when you’re skint and all out of hope the easiest way to get a heat and to escape hurt is half a dozen street vallies at 20 pence a pop. Rehabilitation and recovery are possible – when Scotland has a government actively promoting recovery and abstinence, led by those who understand addictions, Scotland will become a better place. Parking on methadone and promoting mainly drug consumption rooms won’t create the fundamental change which is deserved and overdue. 

This episode was followed by an admission that it was foolish to abolish funding to the Scottish Men’s Sheds Association; a paltry £75,000 is all that is available – a mere bagatelle in comparison to the cost of taxis and limos for the Green Ministers these last few years but you don’t want me to get started on that! The public outcry has led to reinstatement of this funding. A responsible competent government would do what we did when I was an Alba member two years ago and ask what the service provides, to whom, its 

results and the cost to society were it absent. It is a no-brainer, particularly for the switched on amongst us who understand about mental health and male vulnerabilities.

The finale for now to this trio  is the declaration of a Scottish national housing emergency. By God, I could greet. This comes weeks after the Scottish Gov’t removed £200million from the Scottish housing budget. I don’t know if any SG Minister knows what it is to be homeless, rootless, to feel forgotten, invisible, unimportant, worthless, but I am increasingly angry that those elected to protect us fail to step up. 

30,000 Scots declare homelessness each year. 

We grow trees.

Scotland has wide open vast spaces which are empty.

Why are we not building houses in Scotland with wood? Makes me want to swear. Instead I will huff and puff and I hope that collectively those in Scotland with brains, vision and determination will bring the whole house down.