Guy Fawkes Night is particularly explosive this year. The fireworks at Westminster have shocked and outraged us Scots. But so have the “firework riots” in Dundee.
On Monday night, bonfires were lit in the streets of the Kirkton district of the city. Cars, shops and a local school were attacked with bricks, and police in riot gear were faced with youths throwing fireworks. The disturbances lasted most of the night and, although no one was seriously injured, the scale of the riot has shocked the local community, where anti-social behaviour is not unknown.
It has shocked the rest of the country too. It’s left me wondering if we are in for a winter of rebellion not just a winter of discontent. Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators were planning to throw 36 barrels of fireworks at a Protestant parliament which was stamping down on their Catholic culture. It may be far-fetched, but is there a parallel between today’s Austerity parliament at Westminster and the youths of the Kirkton estate? Are they just hitting out at the authorities which have treated them so unfairly?
As for the winter of discontent itself, it shows every sign of getting worse. There’s another shutdown on the railways this Saturday and threats of more strike action on Fridays and Saturdays nearer Christmas. The nursing and teacher unions are balloting on strike action. Ambulance staff and fire fighters are also angry at their 5 per cent pay offer. Even the police are talking of working to rule.
To meet these pay demands, the Scottish finance secretary John Swinney has announced £615 million of cuts elsewhere in his budget, which is largely fixed by Westminster. And it comes on top of the £560 million of cuts he announced in September. Most of this week’s cuts will come from the health budget, with new programmes postponed, vaccination centres trimmed, and social care and GP budgets cut. And there will be cuts, or stand-still budgets, for other departments, including the local authorities and the law courts.
Mr Swinney is not finished yet. He may have to cut more if the chancellor at Westminster Jeremy Hunt announces further austerity measures in his autumn statement on 17th November.
We all face tough times: inflation at over 10 per cent, the base interest rate at 3 per cent, two years of recession. Three-quarters of the population can cope with such necessary hardship. It’s the price we’re paying for our reliance on gas and the Westminster Brexit mistake. But the other quarter need help and I hope the chancellor remembers them.
Our tough times are as nothing compared with the people of Ukraine. At the outbreak of the war, the Scottish government struck out on its own to become a “super-sponsor” for Ukrainian refugees, in addition to the individual families who sponsored a refugee. Some 7,000 people are currently being given refuge in Scotland, 5,000 of them under the super-sponsor scheme.
However this week it was announced that the scheme is to end. It was paused in July because there was a lack of suitable accommodation – refugees are being lodged on board cruise ships at docks in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Now an appeal has gone out for more families, councils and housing associations to provide a temporary home for refugee families.
We’ve had more gusty winds and heavy rain this week, as the climate tells us again that “the times, they are a’changing. ” Nicola Sturgeon was quick to announce that she is going to the UN climate conference in Egypt next week to follow up the limited progress made at last year’s conference in Glasgow. At last, Rishi Sunak has changed his mind and is following her lead. I wonder if King Charles will now be allowed to go, so that Britain presents a united front on the big issue of our times.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Fire Service is urging people to go to organised firework displays on Guy Fawkes Night rather than buy their own fireworks. The super markets in Dundee have taken fireworks off their shelves. Last year, on November the 5th, there were eight attacks on fire crews as they responded to 370 calls from all over Scotland to bonfires which had got out of control. At one, in Cumbernauld, bricks and stones were thrown at fire officers, injuring three of them, and rubbish bins were stacked in the road in an attempt to prevent them reaching the fire, which was dangerously close to a gas leak.
These may be dangerous economic and political times but we don’t want to add to our troubles by attacking our public services. Firework youths and Guy Fawkes impersonators and Chancellors, please note.
