IT’S HARD TO THINK three years have gone by since I wrote about transgender teaching in primary schools. I was attacked, mocked and dismissed as alarmist. Now we find the transgender lobby, like the Borg in Star Trek, have only grown and assimilated ever more of our politics and public services. The only difference is now, for parents and professionals alike, resistance is not futile but existential.
I am not interested in descending to a full blown discussion about transgender ideology, apart from offering my tuppence-worth that it is malignant narcissism with an externalised focus on body image and social roles.
The debate will not end with ‘trans rights’ trumping parental rights. I think we all know where the transgender debate is going. Civilisation has mechanisms to deal with predators. Thus the next target will be the age of consent, which is a civilised principle where the strong refrain from harming or dominating the weak.
It will go like this: ‘If you can choose your gender in primary school without parental agreement why not cross the final frontier and reduce the age of consent?’ Is that not where we are heading if we concede parental rights?
Why is it whenever the trans issue is raised, it’s by some ginger group like Stonewall funded by the Scottish Government? Because that’s how political parties create safe distance for unpopular ideas.
Scotland has a ‘consent’ manufacturing industry that rivals the shipbuilding of the last century.
In Iran, 20 per cent of social spending goes through religious institutions called Bonyads, where a nod from the Supreme Leader is all you need to pick up the ball and run. In Scotland our Bonyads are called the ‘third sector’, as if floating between public and private sectors. In reality they float between civil service and government, with all the civil service’s access to funding and employment and none of its impartiality.
The third sector is left, it is Nat and it is off the wall out of the closet woke. It is beyond reproach and beyond reason and the truth is all we can do is cut it back. When you cannot reason with the beast, you must choke and starve it. This is not for the opposition in Holyrood to do, useless as they are.
This needs something bigger. We need Westminster to take a chainsaw to it by cutting it at source. We need to discuss Barnett because it is not working. The Barnett formula is the philosophy that Scotland is intrinsically disadvantaged and so must be funded above and beyond all levels of England.
With huge giveaways to the middle classes, in free personal care, free bikes, free everything and now the discussion of a guaranteed minimum income (in return for nothing) we have to look closer at how much these Scottish Bonyads are guzzling. I think we’d be shocked.
A year ago I counted something like TWENTY third sector organisations sucking up money for advocating “active travel” that is, walking and riding a bike. There is even a ‘Bikes for Refugees’ charity funded by the taxpayer. Quite something, given many travelled thousands of miles to get here, almost always illegally. Once wonders how they ever managed without us – and a bike?
It has since grown, of course. Nearer 100 organisations will now share in the bounty of getting people to cycle for journeys of less than five miles. Christ on a bike, (not a charity) when does the nonsense stop to breathe?
The beast must be fed and I’ve come to conclusion after dealing with woke drivel and third sector largesse there is only one solution. Say nothing, ignore the screams and cut. Keep going until there is nothing left to cut and, if so desired are the activities, make clear any so-called third sector endeavours can be carried out by local authorities.
So, we can consider the bombshell. We need to end the entitlement, the victimhood and our status as a deserving case. We are not, we are a basket case run by nutcases.
In place of the Barnett Formula we need a Business Formula. The UK could turn all of Scotland into a Special Business Zone. Tax breaks for business investment, new forms of agriculture and maybe some old forms too. If we are going to plant trees for the climate, why not fruit trees and write them off tax bills like we do with arty films? At least you can eat a piece of fruit.
We should run the Business Formula on a lose it or use it basis, preload it for the first five years and give Holyrood five years notice, the end of this parliament, that Barnett is over. Freebies are over and there will be a bonfire of the Bonyads.
We have to accept nationalism is a pathological movement that is bent on wrecking our society to change it so it differs widely from the UK – while being funded by it. This is the work of cuckoos, feeding and growing in a way that is harmful to the host and ultimately lethal to the nest.
Twenty years is a good length of time to rebuild and focus on long term growth. Any money not claimed from the HMRC in tax cuts simply isn’t spent. It’s for Holyrood to lose. Germany was rebuilt in twenty years after the war. If the SNP can’t even get this right, then there really is no case for Scottish exceptionalism.
Time for tough love and investment in our future, and to cut these destructive liabilities.
If you appreciated this article please share and follow us on Twitter here – and like and comment on facebook here. Help support ThinkScotland publishing these articles by making a donation here.
Map of ages of consent courtesy of jakubmarian.com and photo of ‘consent’ neon sign by Chris Titze Imaging from Adobe Stock.
