It is a the tragedy of my middle age, it is the indictment of a creeping realisation, I am embarrassed to support the Scottish Football team. A number of things have turned me against it. As a child, a teenager, and even last week I think I aged 5 years watching Scotland play England. It is not just the style of football that Scotland played in the tournament, relying on long balls and physically intimidating forwards hassling defenders; it was like watching crazy gang era Wimbledon play Barcelona, with Lyndon Dykes as Vinnie Jones and Modric as Iniesta. It is more than the aesthetics of the beautiful game that commands my loyalty. It is the connotations, Scottish Football has been hijacked by Scottish nationalism. My own personal theory is that the performance of the Scottish football team has went rapidly downhill since we changed the national anthem. The dirge that is the flower of Scotland with a second verse lamenting all that we have lost has the affect of subconsciously suggesting that there is no need for fight, or valour; instead it evokes wistfulness and sentimentality. When Scotland the brave was the Scottish national anthem our performance was much better; there was no out of sync singing, with the players singing the words slightly ahead of the crowd, it was just a tune to stir the warrior blood and send out the plucky underdog Scots to go out and fight and prove the world wrong. It seems like the fans who follow Scotland have changed. It is not the ordinary working man anymore, if such a person still exists or ever did, now we have a parade of clowns decked out in their fancy dress and ginger wigs in a half-empty Hampden park left me feeling slightly ashamed as another pot-bellied patriot belted out our pain to lost identity. Perhaps this is not completely fair. The hordes who invaded London are an echo of the past of which I am but a spectator and a viewer. However, I feel that the mass of the feeling that once willed Scotland forward has wavered and split. The identify of our traditional support for the Scottish Football team has been hijacked by the purveyors of a new definition of what it means to be Scottish, and that in order to be patriotic you have to support the quest, the fallacy of Scottish Independence.
This myth that is represented in our new national anthem is that we can only become a nation through conflict and victory over the English. This identification of the bureaucratic elite of the United Kingdom with the English people is the hatred that is accepted as humour in Scotland. I hope that in 50 years when they have TV programs looking a the humour in Scotland they will think such humour as outdated as the racism and the sexism of 1970's broadcasting television. On the other hand, I am taken with a moment of doubt, as I moralise and self-aggrandise, a product of my education and my upbringing, and who am I to deny the joy of self-expression, the right of mutual communication; nevertheless it is the English establishment and the English class system that we distance ourselves from with our base sneers to cement our group identity, our simple thoughts free of pretension, our language lost and debased, ashamed into silence at the sight and sound of the received pronunciation of our Southern cultural overlords. We do not need to meet these in battle with swords, or with the wits that they have proclaimed superior to all in the world, in order to pronounce ourselves a nation amongst all the peoples of the Earth. Rather, to return to the game of football we need to bring the ball down and start playing possession football, not lumping the long ball up the park, we must have the confidence to rule our nation, to advance our powers and our cause - not in opposition to Westminster, instead by taking their ball away and playing to our rules in Holyrood instead. We do not fight the good and merry gentle folk of England, not withstanding anyone who has ever voted for UKIP, or the football hooligans, or the EDL, or wish them any ill in the world. We wish that they would wake up and see that they are equals to their Lords and Ladies, that they need not kneel before any King or Queen, and that the common tongue is as learned as any other; and it is what you think in your heart and your head that makes you wise not how which way you hold your fork or pronounce your words. However, in defence of our animosity, it is typical of all peoples to dislike being ruled by foreigners no matter how benign, and it is the misfortune of nations that the people within them comes in all shapes and sizes, and shades of good, bad, competence and incompetence; even the most accomplished must fail over and again, blundering their way forward until the achieve a final victory like Great Britains finest prime minister, or on the other hand bankrupt the nation and set it upon it's downward descent beneath the waves to rest at the bottom of the sea. It is undeniable that all peoples are insulted deep in their core, and know that their own people would care for them better than the outlanders, especially when these ask you to subsume your identity to theirs and call your nation a province, a backwater or a region. In conclusion, I do not find the Scots guilty for their animosity towards the English, but I strongly feel that a Scotsman shouting "Fuck the English", even in Jest, should be relegated and stricken from the public record and made illegal like any other hate crime, and be as a socially unacceptable as Racism, homophobia and Sexism. And we could start with a new national anthem, I imagine that a lot of innocent people died in the battle of Bannockburn, never mind the all horses. Undoubtedly many on the English side were either forced to fight, or needed the money, and I feel it is slightly disturbing to have a song celebrating their butchery and slaughter, how would we feel if the English national anthem celebrated crushing the rebellious Scots?
It seems to me the that the fortunes of national team are forever entwined with the masochism of the nationalists. The unsmiling, moralising, self aggrandising, uncompromising through the looking glass version of the DUP for which defeat playing football without panache, style, daring and with defence first amongst all priorities mirrors their national mood and national culture. A long hopeless ball for Che Adams as fruitful as asking the Tories for a neverendum. It is a fallacy to deny that we are a not nation no more. We have our own Football team, our own law, our own parliament. It is true that the English seem a low moral and selfish sort with their love for the Tories, low taxes and coveting the wealth of Kings and Queens. However, our nationhood is not defined by slaying St George in battle, our identity has been forged over 600 years of history, our separate national identity is an undisputed unarguable fact. And what will be the ultimate climax of our suspicion, our anxiety, our lack of confidence; another self inflicted wound of a savage separation which will set back our prosperity for at least 50 years. To have a national government whose main objective is a juncture which will split the nation of Scotland down the middle. Even the most ardent nationalist cannot deny that the issue of Scottish independence is divisive. Even if they had another referendum and the result was yes it would have the affect of creating more division, chaos, and instability. Perhaps, it is impossible for us Scots to think with our heads when we think of Scotland. However, I would like to hope that our elected representatives are slightly more canny than an old man sitting on some foreign shore sipping whisky remembering the bravery of the highlanders on New Years eve. I compare the SNP to the DUP because they define themselves through an unwindable war of attrition with an unpersuadable opponent, they participate in an unreconcilable argument for the ages, little is gained, and little is lost, long hours are spent fuming and shaking fists and pontificating about the enemy and nothing is achieved. Is the poverty of the people in Belfast is mirrored by the poverty of the people in Dundee? I am not implying that the starving jobless children migrating to a life of crime are like neglected children while their parents argue in the Kitchen about who gets to keep the sofa - that would trivialise something that is beyond my ken.
The modern nation state lives within a system of interdependence, even North Korea relies on China for support, and some would smirk that we are unfortunate in our neighbours because proximity is the largest factor in maximising the benefits of interdependence. If only we could float across The Atlantic Ocean and become part of the USA or Canada, or even better float South and anchor ourselves somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea. Is it the best goal for our Scottish government to wish for an event that will divide us all? Or is it better for our glorious Leader to use her pulpit to ask for small incremental changes and transfer of power from Westminster to Holyrood. It is debatable if the super majority, whitewash, landslide of support in parliamentary elections gives anyone a mandate to cleave the nation in two, however, it definitely gives them a mandate to demand that Westminster transfers the levers they lack so they can show all the doubters that Scotland can function as a state with the apron strings of deluded men who still think it is 1890, however 1890 is closer to the modern day than 1314
So what could Holyrood ask for, powers over welfare spending? It is undeniable that Scotland is blighted by poverty. I have visited Glasgow and I have seen the enormous concrete tenements, we have watched Still Game and we know about the Jakeys and the Neds. I have looked at the map of Scottish Deprivation and I have seen the poverty in Dundee, in Fife, and in the Highlands. Surely this is the Lords promised land and it can offer all its citizens milk and honey for all eternity. If we just assume that the government could afford to pay enough to keep everyone above the poverty line, would that solve the problem. Instead of having neglected children we would have spoiled children. It is safe to assume than in any group, and in any population of people there are those with certain characteristics such as diligence, hard-work, honesty, and there are other who are deceitful, lazy, and who are happy to rely on the efforts of others. If we could afford to pay money to every impoverished family in Scotland so they could afford to heat their house, so they could afford to feed their children, to live in comfort, then is it unconscionable to suggest that a significant minority might prefer this support to actually working, and that the number of the people would grow until those claiming support outnumbered the current day poor. Even if we assume that the Government can afford to pay for this, then fine, but is it old-fashioned to think that the discipline of work is something that is learned, and if the youth were presented with the option of an idle life playing computer games then they would never grow up, and then who would be our police officers, and our shop assistants, our plumbers. Then it is unarguable that the Government must be very careful before giving someone without a job a better standard of living and more money than another who has to work for a living. I am sure if I voiced such an opinion in certain segments of polite society I would be ejected from the room, even when it is unlikely that I would have been invited into the room in the first place because free thinkers who don't live in the newspaper or the television are an anathema to the simple messages conveyed as moral truths like Soma to the great masses because the cognitive dissonance of the chaotic truth is impossible for the human mind to accept. We have been conditioned to have pity for the poor, and this is an uncharitable opinion which clashes with the Dickensian morality that the poor are deserving. I will probably be misunderstood, if I am ever read, but I will attempt to explain myself nevertheless. It is easy to stand out with the system and see its faults. There are thousands like me who can make suggestions and despair when nothing happens because the system is self perpetuating. The current way feeds upon itself, thousands are employed to maintain its upkeep, and it is easier to stop the river running down into the sea than to change its course. I do not pity the poor, or think that they are deserving their poverty, rather they are the victims of cruel circumstance. They are crushed by our system which rewards the bourgeois middle class at every turn. The middle class get an education system geared towards them, they get free education and health so they can spend money on foreign holidays and gym memberships, they have captured the attention of the Political class because they are the bulge in the distribution, they are the majority and our democratic system serves them first and them alone. And if and when they notice the poor they look down and cast their very human moral aspersions, taken from the very core of our Christian tradition, and offer pity and charity. The Middle classes know that the income distribution is a contest. In a job market there is a fixed and limited number of jobs. Each job pays a salary, if you want to have a high salary you need to occupy a position on the job distribution to gain the financial reward, this position cannot be shared, it must be won through educational achievement, through office politics, through connection; their is only so much of the pie that can go round.
It is a statement of fact that our education system wastes resources. A proportion of the population attends school with no enthusiasm and leaves with no qualifications. This is because the education system is geared towards outdated notions of academic achievement. As a beneficiary of good exam marks I can bear testament that passing exams requires at best the regurgitation of some learned fact or commonly agreed on opinion rather than any demonstration of free thought, and when you receive the A grade your forget the simplicity of the thing you were asked to do and rank yourself amongst the ranks of intellectuals and are somehow gifted with some great ability, and thus festooned with this confidence you are ready to be placed at high rank within society. However, on the other side of the coin is those without the interest, or the background, in the academic sciences, in history, geography or Chemistry because these things do not interest them or apply to their lives. This is not a class issue, some from backgrounds with parents with degrees are not interested in this sort of thing, and vice-versa some from poorer backgrounds flourish and take a deep interest in these subjects and excel.
Nevertheless there is imbalance in the societal perception of what is valued in educational achievement. Surely the range of higher qualifications can be extended to A-Levels or Higher's in Bricklaying, painting, house-building, mechanics, hair-dressing, design etc. Surely these subjects can be taught at School and examined in the same way as the traditional academic subjects. I do not imagine that this will salve the lust for indolence and freedom inherent in teenagers, but it will capture the interests of another type of skill which is ignored and relegated to a lower status. Moreover, could this qualification system be extended to a higher level so that a a system of certification and excellence could be implemented whereby a consumer could tell by looking at a certificate if a plumber, or an electrician was actually trained to the highest level of excellence. Perhaps technology will supersede the minefield of contracting with a tradesman, however, the cult of amateurism pervades the skill of our workforce. I remember being on a train in Germany and overhearing a conversation behind me where two civilians explained to a non-german the exact number of millimetres of the distance between two seats; without denigrating anyone for the manners or accent I would be very surprised to hear this level of exactitude and precision mentioned in a conversation in the UK. Is this because those that go into these trades were too busy having fun while their teacher waffled on about the meaning of poem or a play by Shakespeare, or explained how to measure the radius of a circle. It is inarguable that it is unfair to sort children by ability at an early age, however it is at a teenagers liberty to choose which way the want to go, and in which direction they want to specialise at the age of fourteen or fifteen after their generalised education has finished. Is it more useful to teach someone to complete a tax return, or complete a VAT statement, rather than to work out the SIN of a triangle (if that is such a thing?). Is it more useful to teach someone to design a website, or fill in an application form than learn about Romeo and Juliet? I remember the confusion on the faces of my contemporaries when they heard the foreign language that was Elizabethan English. Especially in Scotland where the Queen's English is not a first language for a large amount of the population. Is it fair to discard this part of the population and condemn them, to label them failures and stupid to boot? Is it not better to look for what their talents and abilities are? Would they rather learn how to build an engine? Even without reference to human justice this is supply side Economics, it is improving the human Capital stock, perhaps it will reduce crime and substance abuse? (I do not advocate not exposing all children to culture, I am dubious about the universal benefit of the sophistry and intellectualisation of culture and art which can ruin people's actual enjoyment of it)
I have a great deal of sympathy for overworked teachers. There seems to be several things which make a teachers job very difficult. The first is uninterested, and unenthusiastic students. The solution to this is not to force students to learn things they are not interested in. This might not be possible in the early stages of a general education, however, as they become older there is little utility gained by forcing someone to learn how to complete equations, analyse a poem, or describe the effect of U shaped valleys on the landscape. If these students are allowed to make a choice to learn something more useful to their future development, then teachers would be faced with more interested, engaged and enthusiastic students. The second complaint is that they are overworked. It has always seemed to me that having one teacher responsible for a class of 20-30 students is impractical. This approach may have worked when a teacher stood at the front of the class and the children learned by rote. Surely, a teacher in a classroom should be part of a team of 2-3 so they could help more children on an individual basis and share the work of organising and marking. Moreover, there is no requirement for all support staff to be as highly qualified as current teachers are. Could an approach where. a qualified teacher manages a staff or 2-3 support teachers, who do not need to be as formally qualified, in the class lead to better results? Moreover, if you take this approach outside of education into other intensive occupations such as General Practitioners, Nursing, in order to ease the burden on these overworked occupations and reduce the rate at which people quit the profession. This seems especially pertinent in case of teachers, if teachers did not have to face the daily torrent of mental abuse from children who have been forced into lessons that are essentially irrelevant to their future lives, if they are forced to learn facts and opinions in the hope that they will absorb these and reproduce them in an ear so they can get a certificate saying they are clever. If the current system of schooling is failing these pupils it is surely better to send them into an environment where they can at least be less disruptive?
If the school population could be sorted at age 14 or 15 by pupil choice with some choosing the current academic path, other choosing the practical path, and other being selected into specialised Sporting academies, each institution would have separate buildings e.g. the school teaching practical skills would have large workshops and practical training areas such as the typical set-up of pipes in house so trainee plumbers could train and be assessed on their plumbing skills, and they would be taught by former plumbers not red-brick university graduates, and plumbing is just one example, the schools teaching academic skills would be similar to the current schools we have. Surely this set-up would produce better results in the state sector than what happens currently, especially in deprived areas where there is an absence of a culture of achievement. If the ring-leaders, and the trouble-makers are sent away to learn about something that might interest them more than the current academic subjects this might make life more pleasant for teachers with academic degrees and also allow those more academically inclined to develop to a greater extent. I am not advocating a return to the 11+, this must be a choice made by the parents and their pupils according to their own will and liberty.
One area that I think especially Scotland could benefit from selection would be the creation of sporting academies. I am strongly in favour or the establishment of sporting academies in Scotland which would select pupils based on sporting abilities. Of course I think the establishment of Football academies in each of the Scottish regions would improve the quality of Scottish football, and more importantly keep young potential athletes away from Drink and drugs and other bad influences. I have of course borrowed this idea from the US and sporting scholarships. If young Scottish children could be selected for Tennis, Athletics, Football, Golf at the age of 12 and be provided with extensive training by qualified coaches until the age of 21 this would perhaps help Scotland qualify for the second round of the World Cup. Could we include Snooker, Darts, curling in the list (perhaps not Rugby Union because the Scottish private school already specialise in this sport) Of course these children would also be educated as they so wish in Numeracy, literacy, articulateness, etc.
Furthermore, the practical colleges should be arranged to offer courses to people of all ages, not just children, this means that those attending these practical colleges would learn alongside fully grown adults if they so wished. I imagine a rebellious 14 year old would be less brave facing a fully grown man as opposed to a bookish university graduate trying to teach them. These practical colleges would then act as training centres providing free courses for the unemployed if they so wished. Also, it must be made clear that a certificate from a technical college is not a requirement from entering a profession unless a profession requires certification due to health and safety concerns or for the protection of the consumer. If someone has a degree in Hair design this is a signal to show their skill and ability but it does not prevent someone else without a qualification opening a barber shop.
I do not think this system is a magic wand that will solve all of our problems, it will not, however it will hopefully improve things a bit. The current system of academic education does not equip people with the skills they need to get employment. We need to change our cultural attitude so that someone with a degree in Sociology is not seen as socially superior by the high-brow press, and upper culture, as someone who is a plumber, or to move the goalposts into the white heat of technology, as almost all of daily life moves online and on to computers we need to train people to be software engineers and such like. It is probable that most of innovation in technology that is going to take place in the next 30 or 40 years is going to be created on a computer, and in all likelihood this technology will be created in Japan, China, England or the USA; it will rarely happen in Scotland. Could the Scottish education system be adapted so that pupils could choose at a certain age to specialise in computers and technologies and be put in programs similar to the Y combinator start-up school and be put in situations where they have to design products and implement solutions. This might be as fruitless as spending 3 nights going to Scottish enterprise, however, there is a chance that such a set-up could be the springboard for the creation of a business. Moreover, the utilisation of technology should not be left to those solely interested in the profit motive. An outdated government bureaucratic system needs to be modernised, for example medical records should be on-line, could an encrypted ID card Scottish government app be designed so that people could vote in elections using their smart phones, could we put sensors in cars and the roads to charge users by the mile and actively target reductions in carbon emissions. I am sure their are clever, imaginative people who know about computers who could look at the public sector and try to improve things, however at the moment these people are drawn towards Silicon Valley or not trained in computers and technology in the first place, or more tragically turned away from Education because they do not read and write the English language in the received fashion because of their upbringing, or called stupid and lazy for not caring about the angle of a triangle. Perhaps not, perhaps I have a romantic vision of the poor and recalcitrant set right in their liberty and joy to learn how to improve themselves; perhaps, however, if a thousand make it over 10 years that is a thousand better than it was before, and another step has been taken, another foothold as we drag ourselves up the mountain, the slowest first and the strongest at the bottom pushing up the infirm.
And if you are still with me I hear you sigh, at what cost, and where is the magic money tree. Tax the successful and give to the lazy and the indolent - that's how you make things fairer for all. And you are right to think I have never met a free rider, or an invisible train passenger who never pays his fare. However, we can rest assured that the problem is not extra money, it is how taxes are allocated. It is a sign of the middle-class (by which I mean the bulge of the demographic around the median income rather than the social status of one activity over another) has captured the political system and minimised the level of tax it spends while at the same time being faced with lower standards of public goods. A free education system which frequently has under-motivated teachers, or where they are motivated they are obsessed with bewildering pettifogging such as school uniforms and which type of shoes children wear, over-worked teachers, out of date politically motivated centralised curriculum's. Please if I am wrong dissuade me of the fact of the experience of my sub-standard education with out of date textbooks, etc. I do not know if private education is superior but it does seem to offer more activities, sports etc, however, private education is prohibitively expensive for the middle classes. If you consider these same middle classes I can guess that some with children will have a car on hire purchase, they will have a gym membership, they will have money to pay for holiday, they might have designer clothes etc. The middle-classes may have captured the government by minimising their tax spend but the government is happy to oblige because the middle classes can then funnel their disposable income to spend on consumer goods and fuel growth in GDP, and increase profits for the large corporations. If people with children who earned over a certain amount of income per year were asked to make a token contribution to fund the education of their children, for example anything between £50 a month to £200 a month depending on the level of Income, and if this income was given in part directly to the School which their child attends and in part to the local education authority this would allow parents to better fund more improved educational facilities such as technical colleges, computing start-up schools and sporting academies. Furthermore, GDP might fall and the sky would fall in and whichever politician suggesting this would be thrown out of power and told never to stand again for proposing such lunacy. However, this would allow the central government to concentrate education spending on those areas which have the greatest level of deprivation because schools in affluent areas would be mostly funded by extra payments sourced directly from parents. Furthermore, citizens without children could also volunteer to make these extra payments directly to schools, or make charitable tax-exempt donations. Absolute nonsense and heresy! Asking middle class people to pay directly for better public services. It is a wonder I don't use my real name when writing this even though I consider the Stuart's stewards for the true ancient Kings of Scotland.
