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Having a Word with Myself

Good Advice

By Harmony FlowerPublished 7 years ago 4 min read
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General Elections is seeing a lot of pointless debates with Scottish MSPs that aren't even up for election. They are mostly filled by devolved issues and a big pile of virtue signaling.

The debate on the BBC 1 21/05/17 with 5 leaders in Scotland saw an issue that had already come up elsewhere, to someone else.

This would be Theresa May on the Andrew Marr show on 30/04/2017.

The pay cap on nurses is a separate issue from nurses finding themselves using food banks.

Kezia Dugdale brought up the real issue during First Ministers question time a couple weeks after the story of nurses using food banks. This is labour directed issue, I have no doubt about that.

The BBC Scottish leaders debate had audience perception and lo and behold a nurse in the audience saying the same thing. So poor due to the wages cap, they need to use food banks. I have no idea why but it's not helping the issue of pay cap for nurses and it's a bit like lightning striking twice.

On more than 1 occasion I was told to have a word with myself because I dared to question why a nurse on an above the breadline salary is needing to use food banks.

Often now with the Scottish political scene important issues or pointless policies are placed in a heart grabbing wrapping and the actual issue or policy is lost in the wrapping. In this case the issue was the pay cap and the wrapping was nurses using food banks. But a nurse using food banks is an issue in itself, I felt had to be openly discussed.

I was accused of only saying it because of Nicola Sturgeon. I am pro independence, but I am certainly not pro SNP and the SNP supporters went after the nurse on a lie that she was married to Tory councillor, which was ironic since Natalie McGarry Ex-SNP MP is married to a Tory councillor, and they believe now it was a directed attack from Joanna Cherry MP and Jeane Freeman MSP.

If this nurse was a plant she was more likely a Labour plant than a Conservative plant. They aren't the brightest SNP supporters. It was wrong of them to witch hunt her for bring up the issue of the pay cap. The wrapping was distracting from the valid issue of the 1% pay cap.

We can now see the nurses issue wasn't about food bank use at all. It's about the pay cap. Has this helped people focus on the real issue here, that public service wages have been capped?

I don't believe it does, it just made me think that a nurse using a food bank is bad at money management. Families can live on a modest income, less than nurses earn so I am genuinely struggling to understand why a nurse is using a food bank and it can only come down to poor money management. The nurse in the audience claimed she couldn't live off her wage. How is that even possible beyond lifestyle choices? We all have to budget.

In this day and age who doesn't insure they have a roof over their heads and food in their bellies as main top priorities?

The Westminster government has just curbed the benefits system to the 2 children level, this is £25000 a year and it is on par with a nurse's starting salary. Nurses already begin their careers on a comfortable wage, that would yield more than just covering the basics.

Poor nurses using food banks and their possible unknown cirrcumstances, how could one be so wicked to talk about money management? Really? You don't think for a second this could part of the problem of a nurse using a food bank?

Now let's cover the real issue about nurses and other public servant's pay cap and where this drive on public service wages was directed from, I.E. the Labour party as you can clearly hear in the video.

NHS Scotland is fully devolved and NHS spending has increased year on year in England. As a result Scotland receives more money through the Barnett formula for health. The SNP is the main party at Holyrood in control of Scottish government spending, how money is spent on the NHS is their choice.

SNP Scottish Government set NHS staff cost spending, it is the SNP Scottish government that has placed this pay cap on nurse's salaries, at the same time forking out vast amount of money to pay for agency staff to cover NHS staff shortages, a vicious circle of nothing get solved but someone is profiting of NHS budget. All this money comes out of the NHS's budget. The nurse had a valid point last night, the mistake was virtue signaling using food banks when a nurse's salary isn't on the breadline. They should have talked about NHS spending priorities and paying vast amount of money to agency staff.

We should be able as adults to separate issues and discuss each issue without it all being blurred together. We also need to stop hating on each other because of how we voted in the Scottish referendum, it clouds everything in Scotland. For the first time since I have been on Twitter I felt the hatred of the no voters, this is really sad because I cover all issues and when I find myself on the wrong side of what was seen in the constitutional divide, it's just as vile as the yes voters hating on me because of my opinions of the SNP. They can only divide us if we let them.

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Harmony Flower

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