Nicoliar calls

[jdfc]

How many jobs did the decimation of the mining and steel industries in Scotland cost? Can you remember the guys on TV outside the mines and mills saying that was them on the scrapheap because it was all they knew and wondered where they could go from there? Timex and jute mills were the same, people thinking that was it because it was all they'd known but they got other jobs. Michelin, same.

Did we find other industries to replace those jobs and did we recover?

It always looks bleak when it's framed as so many thousand jobs to be lost but people adapt and look back on it and wonder what the panic was. I did that when the place I was an apprentice closed. What skills did I have that people would want? Had the same thoughts when I left the RAF, when I look back now I consider that to be the best thing that ever happened to me. What hope was there for me at those points in my life? Went straight into work both times and have never been unemployed in over 40 years.

You're right about if the bomb drops though, whether Trident's in Scotland or moved to England we're all ****ed.

I really don’t think Dundee has recovered from the lose of companies like NCR, Levi’s, Timex etc, people have found other employment but not to the same wage level in many cases, our biggest employers these days are call centres

[Deeranged]

Heard an interesting comment explaining why Welsh Labour is doing better than Plaid Cmry. They are actually trying to make decisions option work. Why can't the Scottish Labour Party take the same approach at Holyrood? If the Scottish politicians actually tried to work together to make Holyrood an effective force maybe the SNP grievance approach would be seen for what it is, a step on the road to independence. I am hopeful that the Greens will refuse to join the SNP in governing Scotland and perhaps we might see effective action taken on education, ferries, rail and public transport.

Labour is doing well in Wales because Wales is a traditional Labour heartland and Plaid Cymru hasn't pushed its independence agenda as aggressively as it might; it probably isn't even that serious about independence. Obviously it doesn't help Plaid Cymru that there's no real stomach for independence in Wales which is essentially just an English annex. Scotland was a traditional Labour heartland of course but the SNP drive for independence has steamrolled Labour out the way.

I think if Scotland was to gain independence there might be a swing away from Labour in Wales toward Plaid Cymru. Whether there are enough Welsh people left with sufficient nationalistic feeling to swing independence is doubtful for me.

[Deeranged]

I really don’t think Dundee has recovered from the lose of companies like NCR, Levi’s, Timex etc, people have found other employment but not to the same wage level in many cases, our biggest employers these days are call centres

But they found jobs?

I agree that a lot of people might have taken a step down in earnings but by the same token as many will have found work at the same level of or even higher earnings, it would be the same for the 6,000 you quote if Trident was to go.

A job in a call centre is no less worthy of being called a job than the job of furnaceman in a smelter, face worker in a mine or assembler at Timex.

[Returnofrros]

[QUOTE=grantzer;39773826]

My letterbox has been bombarded in the last few weeks with leaflets from all parties. Every main party except one was focussed on independence. The only one that never mentioned it was the SNP.......

Lol, that didnae last long.