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Scotsman
25-05-2025
- Business
- Scotsman
Why reducing cost of living is vital in seeing off hard-right Reform threat
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... According to a new survey, 22 per cent of respondents would need to borrow money to cover a £100 emergency expense and double that proportion would be unable to cover a £500 cost. The figures underline how many people are only just getting by as the high cost of living continues to cause real problems. No doubt some could be more careful with their money, but the Understanding Scotland Economy Tracker also found one in four reported losing sleep over their finances, so they hardly sound like carefree spendthrifts. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad When times are tough and governments offer little hope of making them better, people have a tendency to send a signal to their political masters by registering a protest vote. Therefore, Reform UK have reasons to be optimistic about their chances of doing well in the looming Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election. Support for Nigel Farage's Reform UK party has risen sharply since last year's general election (Picture: Oli Scarff) | AFP via Getty Images 'Blatantly racist' As we report today, Nigel Farage's party is outspending all the other main political parties put together with an advertising blitz on Facebook and other Meta platforms. Its deputy leader, Richard Tice, has claimed the election is now a 'two-horse race' between Reform and the SNP. This is an assessment that Labour would most certainly dispute and which has been undermined by Reform's appalling social media attack ad on Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, which ridiculously claimed he would 'prioritise the Pakistani community' and which a Labour spokesperson described as 'blatantly racist'. If Labour were not in the running, Reform would have no need to spend money on the advert and would target their vitriol elsewhere. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Hopefully, the good people of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse will send a message to Reform about this kind of campaigning. And if they are considering backing the party as a form of protest, we hope they think again. Adding to the party's current political momentum could lead this country into a particularly dark place.
New Statesman
22-05-2025
- General
- New Statesman
Child poverty is Britain's ongoing, forgotten crisis
Photo by Oli Scarff / Getty Images Mary remembers when she became homeless. She was in year four at school and her family 'hopped' around different friends' houses for a year. During that time, she stopped going to class for months, which led to the school stepping in. Mary is one of the millions of young people in the UK who grew up in poverty, a number that has now grown to 4.5 million. Living in a low-income family meant Mary could never afford school trips or school meals – even her school uniform required months of saving up. 'I remember it being more isolating,' she said. 'I guess I was old enough to know what was going on, and so I just wanted to get out of that situation.' Public policy can, and often is, a dry retelling of statistics and figures that struggle to convey the magnitude and impact of an issue such as child poverty, let alone what that means to an individual. Early attempts to quantify poverty by social reformers such as Seebohm Rowntree set an amount of money within a family below which they would be in poverty. A figure for child poverty was not attempted until 1965, when Brian Abel-Smith and Peter Townsend estimated that 2.25 million children met the definition in their book The Poor and the Poorest. These figures were based on a family having an income that was below 140 per cent of the 'National Assistance' payments made by the state. Nowadays, poverty is calculated using a threshold of 60 per cent of the median income and, in the UK since 1996, subtracting housing costs, given the particularly high cost of housing here. There is a good degree of consensus across those working on child poverty that this is a decent threshold. It is not, however, without its weaknesses. 'I do think that is a useful measure, but it's just one specific measure. It's based on a line which is fairly arbitrarily drawn, and you know, it will sometimes miss important subtleties,' said Tom Wernham, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. For example, he continued, a policy such as removing the benefit cap would seem to have little effect on the number of children in poverty. However, that is because its impact would mainly be on those children living in deep poverty (which is defined as 40 per cent of median income). It would not by itself lift them over the poverty line, but it would get them much closer than they were. 'One solution to this is, when we're thinking about evaluating specific policies, trying to think how they will affect incomes across the distribution,' Wernham said. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Another challenge is place. Housing costs in a city such as London are very high and have a big impact on the number of children in poverty. However, public services in London, such as transport, schools and parks, are more available than in parts of the UK with lower housing costs, or rural areas. To an extent, housing costs act as a proxy to the quality of local services, but that brings its own challenges. '[It] comes back to this question of, what do you want? What do you want the measure to do?' Wernham said. The success of New Labour in bringing down the level of child poverty was, in part, due to setting legally binding targets based on the 60 per cent median income measure. '[It] really focused both minds and government departments to ensure that they were pulling together across Whitehall,' said Rachel Walters, coalition manager at End Child Poverty. However, those targets were dropped after Labour lost the 2010 general election. Walters and the 130 organisations that comprise the End Child Poverty coalition argue that the promised Child Poverty Strategy from the government must include legally binding targets again. 'We think that a government should be able to have less than 10 per cent of children living in poverty,' said Walters, adding that this is 'a long way off' at present. 'The need to reduce child poverty came directly from the PM and the Chancellor. So, it was really considered a top priority for the whole of government, and that's what we want to see this time around,' said Walters. Wernham points out that there are other statistics published that are connected with poverty, and child poverty, that are useful in of themselves, but are not as good for evaluating the impact of policies. There are indicators for deprivation and food insecurity that are released alongside the official poverty statistics. There is also a new measure of what the Department for Work and Pensions is calling 'below average resources', similar to the poverty measure but taking account of other factors, such as childcare and disability costs. It is possible that, over time, extra costs will be added to the measure of poverty, akin to the 1996 addition of housing. This should bring greater attention to those components of the costs that drag families down into poverty. The solution, however, is not just to cut costs but also to raise incomes. Mary's family were eventually placed in temporary accommodation, where they stayed for another two years. 'It was a very, very slight relief, because at least we had our own space,' she said. But the space was limited, and the living situation had an impact on her parents. 'All their emotions just spilled out, and it would be arguments and arguments after each other,' she said. While they were in temporary accommodation, Mary's dad suffered a health crisis and nearly died. These are experiences that are impossible to quantify, but the broad measures of child poverty are good enough to make public policy interventions. The question is whether policymakers are good enough to act on them. This article first appeared in our Spotlight on Child Poverty supplement, of 23 May 2025, guest edited by Gordon Brown. Related
IOL News
15-05-2025
- Sport
- IOL News
Champions League return more important than Europa League glory for Ruben Amorim
Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim Manchester United's Portuguese head coach Ruben Amorim looks on during a press conference at Old Trafford in Manchester, on Thursday ahead of their UEFA Europa League final against Tottenham Hotspur. The UEFA Europa League final will take place on May 21 in Bilbao. Photo: Oli Scarff/AFP Image: Oli Scarff/AFP Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim believes a return to the Champions League is even more important than winning his first trophy in charge of the Red Devils when they face Tottenham in the Europa League final. Victory in Bilbao on May 21 will hand a lifeline to one of the struggling English giants by propelling them directly into the lucrative league phase of next season's Champions League. United and Tottenham sit just outside the Premier League relegation zone and the loser will miss out on European competition entirely next season. A return to Europe's elite tournament is estimated to be worth at least £70 million ($93 million) to United and would allow Amorim more resources to rebuild his squad. Get your news on the go, click here to join the IOL News WhatsApp channel. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. 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Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ "For me the Champions League is more important," Amorim said at a press conference on Wednesday. "For everything, to prepare the next season. "We are supposed to be in the Champions League. Europa League here is not enough and you have to have that feeling here. "The best way to help us to get to the top in a few years is the Champions League. It is not the title, the trophy. "The most important thing is how this title could help us to get back to the top faster." A dramatic run to the final has salvaged a torrid start to Amorim's time at Old Trafford. Since taking charge in November, he has won just six of 25 Premier League games. The Portuguese coach has at times been brutal in the assessment of his team, including labelling them the worst in the club's history. However, he rejected suggestions he could resign if United compound a miserable season with defeat in Spain. "I cannot see the team having these results, especially in the Premier League, and see nothing and not take the responsibility," added Amorim. "It's just that I have a clear idea of what to do. I understand the problems of the team, so I'm far from quitting. "What I'm saying is that we need to perform. In the future we need to perform or else they will change us." Amorim confirmed reports that he will help fund travel for the families of his backroom staff to the final. United have made swingeing cuts off the field in the year since British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe bought a minority stake in the club, including 250 redundancies with up to 200 more to come. Amorim said that negativity has played a part in United's struggles this season but the Europa League offers the chance for a much-needed boost. "This season has been really tough on everybody. The results and also the changes in the staff. You can feel it in our club. "We had so many bad results in the Premier League, so the environment is tough at the moment. But I guarantee you that when we are preparing a game in the Europa League, the environment is a little bit different and you can feel the excitement." AFP Get your news on the go, click here to join the IOL News WhatsApp channel.
Scotsman
13-05-2025
- General
- Scotsman
'Justice' for Sycamore Gap Two: Why they shouldn't be sent to prison
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... In Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, after a spaceship carrying a group of spectacularly inept humans crash-lands on a new planet, they agree to adopt the leaf as legal tender. They think they're rich but inflation rises so high that the price of a single ship's peanut reaches three deciduous forests. Realising they must 'revalue the leaf', their plan to restore economic stability is simple – 'er... burn down all the forests'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The famous Sycamore Gap tree on Hadrian's Wall near Hexham in northern England before it was cut down in an act of mindless vandalism (Picture: Oli Scarff) | AFP via Getty Images 'Everyone turned against me' Humans, it seems, hate trees. However, we also love them, as the two men found guilty of cutting down the famous Sycamore Gap tree recently discovered. While appearing to be unpleasant people, even they may not be entirely insensitive to the widespread condemnation of their actions. Being declared an outcast by society is a real and very serious punishment as 70-year-old Walter Renwick, of Allendale, Cumbria, discovered. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad He was falsely accused on social media (where else) of cutting down the tree and then arrested by police. After he was cleared, Renwick spoke movingly about how he had considered killing himself as 'everyone turned against me'. The real culprits, Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, who also managed to damage Hadrian's Wall, are currently in prison on remand and face a sentence of up to 10 years, with the judge warning they could expect 'a lengthy period in custody'. Politicians seem clear about what should happen. Kim McGuinness, the Labour Mayor of the North East, called for 'tough sentences' and Glen Sanderson, Conservative group leader on Northumberland County Council, said that 'such a revolting and unbelievable act requires a punishment that fits the crime'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad An aerial view showing the felled sycamore, which landed on Hadrian's Wall, causing some damage (Picture: Oli Scarff) | AFP via Getty Images Bizarre attitude towards nature Am I the only one who thinks that, while Graham and Carruthers seem like petty, stupid and nasty people, they haven't actually killed or injured anyone and that the felling of a tree, even a really nice one, should not mean they are imprisoned for years at considerable cost to the taxpayer? To me, turning this duo into public enemy number one – no doubt only briefly replacing Prince Harry, whose only 'crime' appears to be falling out with his family – smacks of our sometimes bizarre attitude towards the natural world. In this way of thinking, the felled sycamore is less of a tree and more of a celebrity or an icon. We liked it because it looked good in photographs and in the film Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, and because it was, in our eyes, beautiful. Demise of Caledonian forest However, taking humans as a whole, we really don't care about or value trees at anything like their true worth, as an ecosystem that can support vast numbers of other species. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The Caledonian forest, a wonderful habitat, has been reduced to less than 5 per cent of its original 1.5 million hectares. In some instances, it has been replaced by commercial tree plantations that are positively hostile to almost all other forms of life (as those who try to walk through a particularly densely planted pine forest, as I have, will quickly discover). I say this as someone who was, for a year, a student of forestry. I have no time for people who express pious outrage on seeing a few acres of recently felled woodland as if this was some kind of sacrilegious act. Commercial forestry companies are the main source of tree planting and need to make an income in order to do that. It's just that some need to be persuaded and cajoled to plant more natural woodlands that still generate a healthy profit. Atonement Might we be so exercised about one 'slain' tree because of a guilty conscience? Probably not, but our anger would certainly be more usefully channelled into greater outrage at our long-standing mistreatment of the natural world. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In my opinion, Graham and Carruthers should be made to make recompense in a practical way that could be used to provide a lesson for others, rather than just jailed and forgotten. The National Trust has taken 49 saplings from the tree, which will be planted in public spaces across the country as 'Trees of Hope'. This, the trust said, would 'allow parts of the Sycamore Gap to live on'. Graham and Carruthers should be given a lengthy community service order instructing them to labour on this project and other tree-planting schemes for free. The public could be invited to watch them work at ground-breaking ceremonies. Why humans feel shame Modern societies have largely forgotten this but shame is a 'bio-social' mechanism that humans evolved to help maintain order. It is triggered by social interactions, but the rush of blood to the face and other symptoms are biological. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad When people in small-scale, hunter-gatherer societies, with no formal legal system, do something wrong, they are typically shamed by others and can start to feel like poor Walter Renwick. They end up being isolated and alone until, eventually, the rest of the village starts to feel sorry for them and they are forgiven. The relief they feel, after believing that everyone important in their lives had turned implacably against them, provides a powerful incentive to never repeat their transgression.
New Statesman
23-04-2025
- Politics
- New Statesman
Nigel Farage's mayday alert
Photo by Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images Mixing his metaphors, during a speech in Darlington on 19 April, Nigel Farage announced that he was 'parking our tanks on the lawn of Labour's Red Wall'. To translate: he is coming for Labour voters and Reform UK is confident of making significant gains in the local elections in England on 1 May; the anti-system party is also hopeful of winning the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, which Farage claims is Labour's 16th safest seat (it is in fact the 49th), on the same day. More in Common's April MRP poll is remarkable: its model estimates that if a general election were held today, Labour would lose 153 seats to Reform and no party would have an overall majority. What we are witnessing is the fragmentation of the voting system, with no party capable of commanding popular majority support. Both main parties are competing against rivals to their left and right as well as the SNP in Scotland, which under the leadership of John Swinney and Kate Forbes has re-established a settled lead over Labour in the polls. Most notable in Scotland is the increasing popularity of Reform, which is consistently ahead of the Conservatives. Support for Reform is rising fastest in poorer areas outside the major cities among voters for whom the governing class is perceived to be irredeemable. When I interviewed Farage, in November 2014, he said something about the sense of mass disaffection among Labour voters that I've often reflected on. 'Everybody thought that people's tribal allegiance to Labour was as strong, if not stronger, than the tribal allegiance to the Conservative Party,' Farage said. 'What we're actually finding is they don't even recognise the tribe. They just don't. You know… the middle-class person who doesn't think about politics very much, but is concerned about where school fees are coming from or whatever it may be – that middle-class person still thinks of the political spectrum that the Conservatives are more on their side than the other one. Increasingly what we're finding is the people that come from the Labour side of the equation don't think anyone's on their side.' That sentiment has only hardened in the intervening years, which is why Farage senses an opportunity and has embraced left economic populism through his pragmatic support for reindustrialisation and the nationalisation of strategic assets. The Labour Party of 2014-15 was complacent about the threat from Farageism; the present leadership is not. But there is no agreement inside the cabinet on how most effectively to respond. A mayday alert may be just what is required. Jonathan Ashworth, who lost his Leicester South seat to a pro-Gaza independent, is stepping down as CEO of Labour Together after one year. Labour Together is the informal network that became a well-funded think tank under Josh Simonds, now Labour MP for Makerfield. In its original iteration Labour Together was in part an offshoot from Blue Labour, which campaigns for a more conservative socialism. Under the leadership of Morgan McSweeney, often working covertly, it led the fightback against the radical Corbynite left and devised a strategy to win back control of the party and then to find a leader who could implement a preconceived plan for power. That leader turned out to be Keir Starmer, who was never part of Labour Together. Many MPs who were part of the network now hold prominent roles in Starmer's cabinet, including Shabana Mahmood, Steve Reed (interviewed on page 12), Jonathan Reynolds and Lisa Nandy. Others such as Rachel Reeves, Lucy Powell, Bridget Phillipson and Wes Streeting attended Labour Together dinners and meetings. The think tank has lost influence since the general election as the government struggles to develop a coherent politics. Despite being in power, the left does not have a thriving ecosystem of ideological production and lacks transformative ideas; the work of Labour Together is not done. For one more time, for one last time, Pope Francis addressed the assembled faithful from the balcony of St Peter's Basilica on Easter Sunday. He was frail and his voice was faltering after his struggles with double pneumonia, and it was moving to observe him dutifully appear after mass before his devoted followers in the square. The Easter blessing was delivered by Archbishop Diego Ravelli, with Francis by his side in a wheelchair. On Easter Monday it was announced the Pope had died. During his 12 years as pontiff, Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina in 1936; his father was an Italian accountant) attempted to hold together rival factions in the Church through the embrace of ambiguity. He was not an absolutist and sought reconciliation. He gestured at liberal reforms to fundamental moral law that he was unable to deliver. And so, his papacy would be characterised by resentment and division over fealty to doctrine, clerical sexual abuse scandals, the falling numbers of men studying for the priesthood, decentralisation of the faith and conflict between liturgical traditionalists and modernisers. Francis ended up satisfying neither liberals nor conservatives, which might have been the point. What one admired about his irenic approach was his unwavering commitment to the common good, so fundamental to Catholic social thought, and his radical empathy with the poor, the sick, the excluded: 'My people are poor, and I am one of them,' he said, and pushed back against those who accused him of having Peronist and Marxist sympathies. But for all his good intentions, he leaves behind a divided, fractious Church with many fundamental doctrinal conflicts unresolved perhaps because, ultimately, they are unresolvable. This column appears in the 25 April – 1 May 2025 issue of the New Statesman magazine [See also: Why Donald Trump couldn't honour the Pope] Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Related
