With a 29% increase on last year, new affordable home-building is at its highest level since the 1980s when Maggie Thatcher had yet to do her worst and Tony Blair was just a bad dream.
The Scottish Government is investing more than £1.75 billion over the next three years with funds provided to local authorities to enable delivery of the target of 50 000 by 2021.
The construction work should also add a further 14 000 new jobs each year.
The funding for the local authorities announced in advance to enable smooth planning is
2018-19 £532 million
2019-20 £591 million
2020-21 £630 million
This £1.75 billion takes the total for this parliament to £3 billion for affordable housing. This is, no surprise, twice the per capita level of the English Government’s building despite the latter’s faster growing population.
Talking-up Scotland 
It is an uphill struggle trying to repair the damage Thatcher did, not that things were rosy before, but they were significantly less rosy after. Her bizarre ideal that we should somehow turn into entrepreneurs and build our own houses. It was an unrealistic and not very feasible view. Housing and infrastructure development is good for all aspects of Scottish society; improves our environment, creates work, gives people hope for the future, etc.
Some things I found over the weekend:
Pete Wishart on Perthshire strawbs and rasps – this is a good demonstration of what our SNP MPs are doing for Scotland, committee meetings are good to watch because they do not have the same combative atmosphere as that nonsense of the House of Commons. It shows that we do work together with other parts of the uk and there is agreement on some aspects – independence for Scotland will always be a sticking point down south, but meanwhile the SNP MPs ARE working to make things better for Scotland, it’s just that you won’t hear about it in the news,,,
It was noted that no Scottish Tory MPs turned up to the committee meeting – despite being MPs for several farming communities, you would think they would want to ensure their interests were heard? To not even turn up doesn’t sound like they are interested – maybe busy elsewhere? Doing what we wonder.
https://mobile.twitter.com/PeteWishart/status/883382786241024001
Interview with Nicola sturgeon – I liked this for the personal feel, and her whole aim in life to work towards equality in our country. Surely, you could not argue against such an ideal?
https://www.snp.org/a_decade_to_defy_disparity
Improvement in Scottish labour market:
https://www.markiteconomics.com/Survey/PressRelease.mvc/ac3566df7b43488bbf2ae8f05432e5eb?hootPostID=465be96ff94505a9d46b738d3136f528
SNP actions for disabled people:
https://www.snp.org/our_action_for_disabled_people
It isn’t easy to find things you haven’t already covered John! This looks like a bit of an SNP-fest, but I am kind of sick of everyone jumping on the bandwagon of what the media tells us, that they aren’t good enough (for what? I ask, they are a political party, not a radical insurgency or a deity-like rescue service. That their goals and ideals are good and they do their best to enact them, and doing a better job than most political parties, seems good enough for me), that they are wasting their time in Westminster (maybe, maybe not, but they are certainly working for Scotland, promoting our country, our maturity, getting involved, and influencing policies and actions – just because we don’t hear the boring stuff doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Until we are rid of this destructive Union, it is the best that can be done, and will help when we get to negotiating the divvy-up of resources stage. It seems the right thing to do, keep on good terms with those you may need to negotiate with in the future).
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This is another worth separate billing!
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Haha, thank you! See, who needs a separate blog? I have my very own editor right here 🙂 . I think I have said before, I wish I had the time to watch a lot of the parliamentary goings-on first hand and put it out there, but time (efficiency??) is not on my side.
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