Scots’ attitudes to the unemployed differ from those of UK

May 27, 2019May 27, 2019johnrobertson834

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This survey reported today show quite low and falling levels of empathy for those on benefits at UK level:

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benefitschanges

http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media/38977/bsa32_welfare.pdf

There is no breakdown to allow comparison of figures for Scotland and other parts of the UK but today’s poll by YouGov for the Citizens Advice Service in Scotland, though not directly comparable does suggest differences:

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https://www.cas.org.uk/news/myth-busting-polling-sh ows-scots-believe-people-should-claim-what-they-are-entitled

The more than doubling of the UK figure to just over 50%, in 2014, agreeing that benefits for the unemployed are too high and that they discourage them from finding jobs, contrasts sharply with the mere 18% of Scots sharing a similar notion of reluctance to work and 77% agreeing with the reasonably contradictory argument that they work hard for too-low wages.

Here are some only of the many reports here on related matters:

Abuse of women and the disabled far higher in England than in Scotland

Less homicide, less knife crime, less domestic violence, safer cities and now much lower alcohol problems: should Scotland’s old stereotypes be sent south?

Racial hate crimes increase by 33% in England & Wales while falling by 10% in Scotland: Who says we’re not different?

Scottish Muslim students far less likely to report abuse or crime?

Terror de-radicalisation referral rate in Scotland less than one third per capita of that in England

Only in Scotland! ‘A review of small country’s approaches to public policy reform in response to economic, demographic and other pressures found that only in Scotland could this ‘golden thread’ be so clearly discerned’

Scientific evidence that Scots tend to be different from the other groups in rUK?

Who said Scots were not more left-wing than those in the rest of the UK?

With 1 in 4 living wage employers already in Scotland, the Scottish Government aims to make this a ‘Living Wage Nation’

8% of the UK population and 28% of living wage employers. More evidence that we are different enough to want to run the whole show?

80 000 lowest paid workers in NHS England still on poverty wages as NHS Scotland follows Scottish Government policy to pay a living wage to all public-sector employees

Scottish care workers to receive Living Wage for ‘sleepover’ hours while English care workers receive only the National Minimum Wage.

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Alasdair Macdonald May 27, 2019 / 11:34 am

The view that a large majority of Scots hold, as indicated in your table is in line with research by the Glasgow Caledonian University, which shows that the large majority of people in poverty (relative and absolute) live in households where at least one person is in employment.

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Bugger (the Panda) May 27, 2019 / 12:20 pm

I have more than a wee feeling that Scotland is growing up fast and is now ready to tackle indipendence and full EU membership

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Ludo Thierry May 27, 2019 / 12:33 pm

Apols – slightly off topic but did everyone notice what a total roaster of a brexit party MEP the good folks of N.E. England managed to elect themselves last week? – Yes – it is the same Brian Monteith (now resident in the south of France) who was too ghastly for even the Scottish tories to tolerate. Link and snippets below: (I feel sorry for the good folks of N.E. England but it’s not as if they weren’t warned about him).

https://www.thepeoplesnewsonline.co.uk/single-post/2019/05/25/brexit-party-north-east-candidate-found-to-be-living-in-france/

In an interview conducted by the Chronicle, the MEP candidate didn’t clarify that he would relocate to the North East should he win the election, or even whether he would move back to the United Kingdom should a no-deal Brexit be enacted.

In response to being asked whether it is important for an MEP candidate in the North East to be from that part of the country, Monteith said that “I don’t think it’s necessary for me to be from here… This is about Europe”.

(Bit of extra info to jog the memory: The Scottish Conservative Party withdrew the whip from Brian Monteith when it emerged that he had been briefing the media against the then Scottish Conservative leader David McLetchie regarding questions over McLetchie’s £11,500 of claims for taxi expenses.

In 2006 Monteith announced he would not stand again as an MSP, saying he “would rather return to commerce than be a one-man band swimming against the treacly tide of collectivism in the Scottish Parliament”).

Truly the brexit world is barmy.

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Terry callachan May 28, 2019 / 5:41 am

In Scotland I have sensed a growing impatience with those sorry people blighted and captured by drug addiction many folk see them as being unemployed rather than sick although they are actually registered sick once on methodone and once they are registered sick they are not counted in the figures of the unemployed but the impatient lack of sympathy continues.
There is little feeling for them when they are in the Q for their methodone in the local chemist an arrangement that I reckon encourages a lack of sympathy not just for them but for unemployed across the board.
It is my opinion wrong to deliver the methodone to addicts in local chemists and from what I’ve seen there is no review or advice just a quick delivery in a wee cubicle and out they go.
Surely there is a better more joined up way of delivering the product with expert advice and monitoring done together instead of junior counter staff doing this current delivery in privately owned chemists.

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