Professor John Robertson OBA
From We’re Scotland’s economic powerhouse. Why doesn’t it feel like it? – A data investigation into where Glasgow’s wealth ends up, published today by The Bell:
There’s a bit of a perception around the city that Glasgow has no cash — especially not compared to wealthy Edinburgh next door. But the data shows Glasgow is the economic powerhouse of Scotland — and productivity is growing faster than the rate of many cities south of the border too.
From a crude Talking-up Scotland perspective, the above is good news but, not surprisingly, it’s tempered by the problem, increasingly common across the UK, after 45 years of Thatcherite economic, of massive wealth inequality.
The whole paper is well worth reading, at the link: https://www.glasgowbell.co.uk/where-is-glasgows-wealth-going/
Why greater equality is better for everyone: https://citizen-network.org/library/the-spirit-level.html
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Glasgow gets a lot of public monies because it needs it. Especially after Thatcher and the Labour Party took all of Scotland’s assets, oil and gas fuel and energy. They tried to hide it under the Official Secrets Act. Lied about it to cover up. Left Scotland in poverty. Shut down all the manufacturing facilities. Higher unemployment in Scotland was the result. Many people from Scotland had to migrate to get a job and prosperity because of Westminster policies. Deliberately bringing Scotland down. The illegal wars, financial fraud and tax evasion. The Clearances, the £10passage. Etc. Until Devolution 2000. Scotlands population increased and unemployment fell.
Get Trident out of Scotland. A total waste of money and a danger to Scotland. Dumped without permission or authority.
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When Strathclyde Regional Council was in existence it meant that the towns on Glasgow’s perimeter contributed to the services Glasgow was providing. It also redistributed funds to sparsely populated rural areas such as in South Lanarkshire and Argyll to relieve poverty.
The disaggregation of Strathclyde in the early 1990s was blatant gerrymandering by the Tories to relieve (as they saw it) the affluent communities just beyond Glasgow’s boundary of the costs of contributing to Glasgow.
We need to re-establish Strathclyde Regional Council.
Disaggregation was also motivated by centralisation – the UK government establishment in Edinburgh (we had not yet had devolution) did not want alternative power sources in Strathclyde and Lothian, for example, who could demonstrate that there were political and economic alternatives to the Thatcherite model. This was demonstrated powerfully when Strathclyde successfully opposed the privatisation of water.
UK Labour, being the British/English nationalist party with a strongly dirigiste centralising mindset did not want it either. It was prepared to give the illusion of local control.
Sadly, the SNP is a centralising party, too.
Alasdair Macdonald
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