East Is East And West Is West!

      As a football pundit once said, "Football is a game of two halves", to me a non-football guy, I thought that was obvious, I always  miss the subtleties of the "beautiful game". However it could also be said that Glasgow is a city of two halves, the West End and the East End, and according to the Mafia in George Square, East is East and West is West, and ne'r the twain shall meet. This divide is obvious to all our senses, visit each End and the difference startles and baffles all those senses. On visiting these "ends" the first impact is visual, the West End, busy shops, cafes, bistros, pubs, restaurants and the smell of affluence, visit the East End, closed shops, derelict buildings, empty spaces, poor housing and the smell of poverty. The difference is not just apparent to our senses, it is embedded in the lives of those who live in each of these two "Ends". The life expectancy in parts of the East End are as low as 53.9 years, while a short (but expensive) bus journey across the city, and in parts of the West End, life expectancy can be as high as 82 years. 

      Now we know that it is not a genetic difference between the species that live in these two ends of our city, the root cause is that first visual appearance, affluence and poverty. Quality of life governs length of life, and in this society that is decided on affluence and poverty. We also know that poverty is not an accident, it is caused and prolonged by policies, and policies are made and carried out by people. It therefore follows that those people are directly responsible for the poverty, deprivation, short life expectancy, and the criminal plunder of the future of all those children who are born into those policy created conditions.

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- ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!!!

       Aberdeen has been in the news recently for some very different reasons. Of course most football fans will know that the city's team is having a crap season. Its council workers are not doing so well either. The council has been trying to get them to take a 5% cut in their wages, though I'm delighted to see that the workers through their union have refused to willing throw themselves into dire poverty. Like everybody else they are facing increased costs in energy and food along with the VAT increase, it is more likely that they will need a 5% increase in wages just to stand still. Another occasion where the name Aberdeen has come to my notice is by way of Aberdeen Asset Management. As its name suggests, it is an asset management company. Its CEO is a Mr Martin Gilbert, no he hasn't taken a 5% wage cut, on the contrary, his basic annual salary went up from meagre £400,000 to a more acceptable £500,000, on top of this he had a nice little bonus of £3.3 million. You would think that might be enough to keep him above the deprivation line, even although it is not a full time job, well he appears to have time on his hands as he is also Chairman of First Group and Chaucer Holdings which brings him in some spending money to the tune of £262,000. How many jobs at more than a quarter of a million pounds can one person hold down. Just a few examples of our millionaire cabinet's mantra, “we're all in this together.”

       The sooner we scrap this greed driven parasites paradise and replace it with a society based on the needs of all our people the better. We know there is a desirable alternative of communities based on mutual aid, co-operation and sustainability, where we can all contribute in the knowledge that our needs will be seen to and we will not be carrying a bunch of greedy parasites on our backs. Also just maybe, Aberdeen Football Club might win the SPL, well that's probably a wish too far.

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