Quality Of Life = Length Of Life.

       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.

 Cartoon by Frank Boyle:

         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