Spring has finally arrived. April showers are being blown in on a lively west wind. The sun teases us with an appearance from time to time. Lawns are being cut. Daisies are beginning to grow. The sand martins are hovering around the embankments on my local nature reserve at Duddingston. And the old “Lady” of the Loch of Lowes has laid her 65th osprey egg.
But that doesn’t mean the winter of our discontent is completely over. The ghost of Margaret Hilda Thatcher has haunted us all week, as it did the week before. Her stately funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral in London on Wednesday was supposed to be our final farewell but the debate over her legacy is raging still. Indeed, the Scottish Parliament staged its version on Thursday, with MSPs debating a Green Party motion which insisted: “There is such a thing as society.”
On the day of the funeral itself, there were celebrations that “the witch is dead” in the old mining communities of Danderhall and New Cumnock and there was an anti-Thatcherism rally in Glasgow’s George Square. News that the Chancellor George Osborne was shedding a tear in London did not surprise many people in Scotland because he is seen as carrying on where the Iron Lady left off…rolling back the state, eeking out austerity budgets and doling out welfare cuts.
And strangely enough, the medicine seems to be working. The latest figures show the Scottish economy is growing again ( at 0.5 per cent). Unemployment is down to below 200,000 for the first time in four miserable years (7.3 per cent, compared to a UK average of 7.9 per cent). But then came a warning from the independent economist John Philpott that the worst of the public sector jobs cuts has still to come. He predicts that a further 34,000 jobs will go in Scotland over the next two years.
The Scottish Parliament is worried too. Its economy committee brought out a report which found: “Underemployment has grown significantly since the economic crisis five years ago, with young people particularly badly affected.” It estimates that the number of part-time self employed workers has gone up by 37,000, with most of them working an average of only 13 hours a week.
The Scottish Labour Conference in Inverness this weekend will be insisting “there is an alternative” ( to misquote Mrs Thatcher again ). The party has a policy review going on at the moment which the leader Johann Lamont says must end the “something for nothing culture”. It’s thought this is code for ending some universal benefits, such as bus passes for pensioners and free prescriptions, and targeting other benefits on the very poor. Also up for discussion is the party’s stand on further devolution. An official report to the conference calls for more income tax powers to be given to the Scottish Parliament, along with vehicle excise duty and air passenger duty. As usual, Scottish Labour MPs at Westminster are jealous of further powers for the “White Heather Parliament ” so we await with interest the outcome of these highland games.
We now know at last who will not be competing at the Glasgow games next year. Sir Chris Hoy announced on Thursday that his Olympic and Commonwealth cycling career is over. At the age of 37, he’s decided enough is enough. “ People don’t realise how much the London Olympics took out of me,“ he said. “I don’t want to go to the Glasgow Commonwealth Games just to wear the tracksuit and wave to the crowd. To go on for another year would be one year too far for me.”
This modest Edinburgh man is Britain’s most successful Olympian, having competed in four games and won six gold medals. He won two gold medals at two Commonwealth Games and earlier this year won a six-day event in Rotterdam. But is he retiring from cycling? No sir, he’s launching his own brand of cycles and will be an ambassador for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, indeed the new velodrome has been named in his honour.
As a fellow cyclist in Edinburgh, I hope to see him pedalling to work with the rest of us…facing up to that wild west wind and enduring the same April showers.