If life expectancy is an indicator of
quality of life, and it is, then we in Scotland can be worried.
Scotland has the lowest life expectancy levels in the EU. Men in
Scotland have a life expectancy of 76 and women 80, but in the most
deprived 15% of areas in Scotland, (2007/08) it is 57.5 for males and
61.9 for females. Whereas the European average is 79.7 for men and
84.8 for women.
In that very low average for Scotland,
Glasgow languishes at the bottom as the lowest in Scotland, with 71
for men and 78 for women.
Of course across Glasgow that average
rises and falls as you move from the more affluent areas to the more
deprived. The area with the lowest life expectancy is the Calton
district of Glasgow, with a life expectancy of 54 for males. While
not many miles away just on the outskirts of Glasgow we have Lenzie
with a male life expectancy of 82. If we move south of the Scottish
border to the London district of Kensington and Chelsea, we have the
highest life expectancy in the UK with a figure of 89 for males.
These vast fluctuations are an
indictment of a system that not only tolerates such wide variations
in quality of life, but fosters and perpetuates a grossly unequal
society. Why should one person expect to die younger than another
born just a handful of miles away? These variations in life
expectancy also show the callousness and injustice of the raising of
the pension age to 70. What does that mean for those living in the
15% most deprived areas in Scotland whose life expectancy is in the
50's?
There is no democracy, there is no
justice in the midst of such disparity in quality of life, and we
can't expect a band of millionaire parasites to put matters right. It
would be against their own personal interests. We will have to do that ourselves.
Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk
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