With Richard Leonard, you sometimes think ‘puir auld sowel, he disnae ken ony better’ but with the altogether more cunning, Wilson (rattus hebrideus), we know he knows he’s spinning smelly wee fibs in this piece which seems to be actually suggesting a raised living wage for, just, Western Isles care staff. I suppose that apparent contempt for national standards is typically Blairite.
Wilson’s enthusiasm for better pay didn’t seem to be translated into visible action on his beloved Celtic FC:
I know, they have paid up now, grudgingly.
Back to the story today:
In the headline, we see the suggestion that the care staff are not being paid the correct rate and then:
‘The Western Isles is short of care workers but paying them a decent wage might alleviate that.’
‘The hard work of caring for the elderly and vulnerable in their own homes is currently rewarded at the bare Living Wage and councils have no money to change that.’
Now, I’m not for a minute, suggesting that the ‘living wage’ is satisfactory but isn’t the ‘national minimum wage’ the ‘bare’ payment and the ‘living wage’ the ‘correct’ one currently?
For a bit of balance, readers might like to be reminded of these:
Perhaps most interesting for us propaganda students was Wilson’s opener:
‘Sometimes it helps to see national problems taking shape through the prism of a small community where numbers are comprehensible.’
When I read that, I thought:
‘Sometimes it helps a propagandist to present Scottish problems as if they were taking an unhealthy shape through the distorting prism of a small atypical community where numbers are too small to be reliable.’
Finally on the living wage level:
Talking-up Scotland 
Wilson is one oleaginous snake, who was even chucked out of the Free Peas he established.
Anyone who sups with him need a lang spoon at least the length of an Alpine Horn.
Happy New Year John and thanks for all the work sweat and tears. I could never do what you have done.
My style is more suited to Twitter which I liken to shouting though letterboxes and then sauntering off
, 🏴🥃🐼
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Thanks BtP, no sweat and best wishes to you too.
I like your representation of twitter – accurate
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I believe we have to colonise and control all Social Media to counteract The MSM State Press.
Twitter attracts a different type of person than Facebook and blogs.
I use Twitter to be a funny, dismissive yet chiming voice in the maelstrom.
My personna, a Panda makes me androgenous and woman seem to much more free in sagging off Yoons and Wallop in the nutters out the Park.
I have even been included in some discussions where I had way too much information about their real thoughts on “delicate” matters.
I always excuse myself.
So horses for courses is how we will one.
One voter at a time.
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Of course Care Workers – and everyone else should be payed at least ‘the living wage’.
We are playing with words here since Mr Osborne in one of his final budgets colonised the term ‘living wage’ by making it mean the same as the ‘minimum wage’. There is a Living Wage, which was devised by well meaning people to indicate what is needed to provide a dignified lifestyle and the is the living wage’ which is Westminsters breadline dole.
You were right to highlight the wage structure of Celtic FC and their venal attempts to prevent low paid people earning a decent living. There are few organisations where the contrast between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ is more starkly displayed than in Celtic, where we have directors, players and coaching staff earning massive sums and others who operate turnstiles, programme kiosks, cleaning, catering, etc, get paid washers.
I remember reading a report about the economy of Glasgow which showed that by most indicators the Dalmarnock/Parkhead area was one of the most deprived areas and not just of Glasgow, yet the area had one of the highest concentrations of ‘million pound plus’ earners.’
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Thanks Alasdair. As always a phrase from my past appears – ‘paid washers’.
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Wallies in my Grannies house, meaning ceramic tokens.
Not sure why but think it could have been indentured or tied labour was paid in these which were only accepted at COMPANY store?
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Brian Wilson was also one of a small number of Directors of the Scottish Resource Group, which as Scottish Coal open-casted for coal in some of the old mining areas of Scotland.
The company eventually collapsed, leaving huge ecological damage (estimated at £150 millions) and a workforce whose pensions had to be entered into the pension protection fund as the company had not paid its proper level of remuneration’s.
An odd side note—– another of the tiny band of Director’s of this coal extraction company was James Lindesay-Bethune, the 15th Earl of Lindsay, which in spite of the dereliction left on the landscape, was “appointed” as President of the National Trust for Scotland.
About as appropriate as the elevation of Nelly Oliver into the same role, it might be said: but then some of us are not “connected”.
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Brian Wilson, man of the people, true socialist, friend of and collaborator with the aristocracy. What a slimy individual he is.
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Interesting stuff, thanks.
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Brian Wilson was once heavily criticised for printing in the West Highland Free Press that a particularly nasty aristo was “the biggest shit in the Highlands”. The following week he acknowledged the criticism and stated that he would no longer use the word “shit”, but refer to a “Dochfour” (being the aristo’s title). That particular aristo dochfour is now no more so I would suggest that Brian Wilson now take his place and be referred to by the title “The Biggest Dochfour in the Highlands”. (Other areas please feel free to use as well!)
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Douche bag works for me but Baron Duchfour beats just being ab Hon Panda.
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Seconded!
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