Tax rises for higher-earning Scots are modest – and there are also benefits such as free prescriptions, an NHS which is performing better than down south, free university education. Other progressive changes such as more rights for renters are also being introduced.
Scotland faces real economic challenges, low growth, the threats of Brexit and an ageing population. But the tax changes send a powerful message about inclusion and values. Scotland is arguably now a better place to live than England. It is the creative centre of the UK, a friend tells me. Anecdotally, I hear of people moving north from London as First Minister Nicola Sturgeon urged. Earlier in the year in a blogpost “Politics on the Hill”, I wrote about Edinburgh’s growth as a European capital.
Scotland’s digital media, beyond the paywalls which fence off almost all quality media in the US, is lively. (I write for some of them): Sceptical Scot, the Scottish Review, the Ferret, Bella Caledonia, individual journalists’ websites. Music, theatre, art seem vibrant. Perhaps some of the engagement that was engendered by the “Yes” movement is being channelled into everyday life, as in Alasdair Gray’s exhortation which it took to heart: “work as if you live in the early days of a better nation”.
The US appears economically more buoyant than Scotland but it is doing badly on other metrics – at the end of 2017 it was announced that life expectancy has fallen for the second year in a row, largely due to the impact of the opioid epidemic.
In the year of #Me Too, it seems it is young men in the US who are facing a crisis – in the main they are the ones who are dying of drug overdoses and dropping out of the workforce due to addiction. The opioid epidemic here was started by doctors who handed out powerful drugs like smarties in a health system that, viewed across the population as a whole, seems better at keeping people sick than making them well. Maternal death and infant mortality rates are also shocking.
The US tax cut is only going to increase the polarising of wealth which exacerbates so many social problems here. I touched on some of these issues in my bogpost about a Boston violin maker, who voiced a quiet anger about the social inequality which allows a hugely rich fellow citizen to disrupt his life.
But the picture is not all negative – the US system has checks and balances on the president’s power. The recent election of a progressive Democrat in the state of Alabama was encouraging. There are mid-term elections coming up.
Beneath the negativity of much of the political news, the US is also full of challenging, creative and resilient people. There are two tribes here – each of whom believes it is defending its vision of America from the other. Much of their disagreement is not economic but social, around “ gays, guns and God”. But the tax bill may have the effect of focusing minds on the economic realities of life for the vast majority of citizens.
Most read blogs of 2017
1 “Politics on the hill, an Edinburgh View”, March 12, a walk up Arthur Seat where I contemplated politics was then turned into a short movie by Phantom Power for the series “Journey to Yes”.
2 “The SNP and 50 Years of Parliamentary Democracy” was actually written by my father Arnold Kemp. I put up a summary of chapter of his book the Hollow Drum recounting some of the drama of the minority Labour government of 1974-79 which relied on an SNP group to stay in power, and some other moments.
3 A Thought for the Day the Scottish Parliament Votes for a New Independence Referendum, March 28, had a response from Bob Tait, who died this week, reminiscing about being called “a rootless cosmopolitan’ by the poet Hugh MacDiarmid.
4 How Le Monde Sees Brexit and the Scottish Referendum, April 4, in the run-up to the French election.
5 The Scottish Economy – Could it Survive as an Independent Country? April 23
6 Brexit is an Immediate Threat – Remainers Should Vote SNP, June 7, the day before the UK general election
7 Stupid and Hardworking is the Most Dangerous Kind of Leader, January 27, on Trump’s inauguration week
8 The Violin-Maker’s Quiet Rage
9 Bookshops of Boston: Commonwealth Books, Jan 9
10 Finding Art in the News, Jane Couroussopoulos, June 21.