It might be coming yet for a’that, but sense and worth o’er a’ the earth were not much in evidence this week.
Robert Burns knew all about revolutionary times and how to handle them. We’re not so sure today. Real wars and tariff wars, and drug wars and religious wars and diplomatic wars are all quite baffling. Who would have thought, for instance, that there would be an international dispute over the peaceful icefields of Greenland.
At least Donald Trump has forced us to face up to solving these forever wars. The west has been too happy to accept the “peace dividend” after the end of the Cold War, and has done little to ensure peace elsewhere. It’s been caught unawares by Putin, and now by Trump.
Scotland, as a devolved nation, is not directly responsible for Britain’s foreign policy but we feel the effects of it. More defence spending means less for everything else. High tariffs would damage our whisky and salmon exports. The First Minister, John Swinney, has said Trump was “wrong” to threaten higher tariffs as a bargaining tool over Greenland. “The future of Greenland should be decided by the people of Greenland,” he said, in a handy parallel with his campaign for Scottish independence.
Electricity
This week Mr Swinney had a good example of how Scotland comes off worse for being part the United Kingdom. A promising wind farm development to the west of Orkney has been put on hold because of the crazy charging system for access to the UK’s national grid.
Electricity producers in the north of Scotland have to pay £26 per KW to use the grid while producers in London are actually paid £7 per KW for in-putting into the system. In the Cotswolds they are paid £11 per KW. This all dates back to the days of coal-fuelled power stations when producers were encouraged to build their power stations near to centres of industry and population where the electricity is being consumed. UK ministers have promised to review the charging system. But they had better be quick to save the West of Orkney development which would have put 125 turbines in the sea and created 2.5GW of electricity.
Much of the week’s news has been about an enquiry into the water system at Glasgow’s new flagship hospital the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. Problems with the system began to emerge in 2018, three years after the £840m hospital opened, to much political fanfare. Three children went down with a rare bacterial infection, a cancer ward had to be closed and in early 2019 two patients died from infections linked to pigeon droppings, one an 83 year old woman, another a 10 year old child. An enquiry was ordered and a review found that, in all, 84 children had been infected with rare bacteria.
The enquiry is now coming to an end and the Glasgow Health Board has finally admitted that the infections were probably caused by problems with the hospital’s water and ventilation system. It also admitted that it was under pressure to open the hospital in 2015, before it was quite finished. Now, ministers, including Mr Swinney, are being accused by opposition parties of applying that pressure ahead of the elections that year. It’s a tricky issue, just ahead of elections later this year.
Education Education Education
Another tricky issue for the SNP is teacher workload and teacher numbers. A ballot by the main union, the EIS, resulted in an 86 per cent vote for strike action but the turnout failed to meet the 50 per cent threshold introduced by the Conservatives. So this week they announced a new ballot to be run next month, again ahead of the elections in May. The teachers’ point is that the SNP government has not lived up to its promise of increasing teacher numbers by 3,500 and cutting class-contact time from 22.5 hours per week to 21 hours.
The difficulty for the government is that this would cost money. The Education Secretary, Jenny Gilruth, has committed an extra £186m this year. But the local councils, who run the schools, say it’s barely enough to cover the pay-rise the government gave the teachers last year.
It’s emerged this week that only 25 per cent of newly qualified teachers are in a permanent post. But part of that problem is distribution- there are too many primary school teachers and not enough secondary teachers, and newly qualified teachers are unwilling to move out of the central belt.
It’s all a far cry from the days of John Murdoch’s “School of Adventure” which Robert Burns attended in 1763, along with boys from four other families in Ayrshire. They were taught English grammar, Latin, French and mathematics. And the values of equality and independent thought.
“A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke and a’that
But an honest man’s aboon his might
Gude faith he mauna fa’that !
For a’that and a’that,
Their dignities, and a’that.
The pith o’ Sense and pride o’ Worth
Are higher rank than a’that.”
