Well here we are, the clocks have gone back an hour, the kids come home from school in semi-darkness, and Scotland's cold, raw, damp winter starts to inextricably envelop us. All very well if you can don decent winter clothing, and turn the heating up in your home. However, this is 2017 Britain, where thousands can't afford that nice warm winter jacket, where thousands of households are wrestling with eating or heating, an inhumane cruel choice. It is an indictment on this country that to be in a home without adequate heating or food can be considered fortunate, for let's not forget, there is an army of homeless and rough sleepers who will face this winter seeking out shelter of some sort, perhaps a doorway, a quiet lane, or under a bridge. This in 2017 in the sixth richest country in the world.
In our cities we have an abundance of empty properties, from shops, warehouses, workshops, offices and houses, but still we tolerate people sleeping rough and dying on our streets and lanes. Our political ballerinas have evolved a system whereby property is worth more than human life, and they have put in place a legal code that guarantees that relationship will be enforced. It is midnight, mid December, the temperature is plummeting, you are walking the streets seeking somewhere to lay your head for the night, you probably know that a night on the pavement might kill you. You come across an small empty, disused locked workshop, you enter find a corner and try to get some rest and survive. You are now a criminal, you could be forcibly removed, charged with criminal damage, and/or breaking and entering, the sanctity of that property is worth more than your life.
Image by Robert Perry.
Having lived a long life can be seen as a curse or a benefit, as it comes with memories. I think of all those children in poverty, the hungry families struggling as best they can in a cruel unforgiving system, the wandering homeless, that have plagued our country throughout my life, and I still hear, echoing from the that distant past, that looped tape, from the mouths of our parasitic political ballerinas, "we will end child poverty", "we will fix the housing problem", "we will eradicate poverty". They never seem to tire of mouthing their vacuous mantras, yet the must know within their hearts, that they are spouting, unmitigated, unadulterated, vicious bullshit.
The system will not allow for those unnecessary cruelties to be resolved, profit is the guiding factor, and history tells us that the gap between the rich and the poor is an ever widening chasm. A system that creates those who can purchase multi-million pound yachts, and fly in private jets to their private islands, needs the many to be exploited. We the many, produce an abundance of wealth in this world, the more the parasite class cream off for themselves, the less there is for us, the many. Until we crush and obliterate this system of profit first and foremost, we will continue to hear the false cruel mantras of our political ballerinas, "we will end child poverty", "we will fix the housing problem", "we will eradicate poverty" and we will continue to have some of our people die on the streets of our cities.
Image by Robert Perry.
It is estimated that approximately 5,000 individuals rough sleep in Scotland each year. This year Winter Night Shelter, which is run by Glasgow City Mission stated that last year was their busiest year ever, with 605 people using their service on 4060 occasions. This is a staggering increase of 94% on the previous year. This is our country, the sixth richest country in the world, in 2017, there is something rotten at the heart of the system.
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