Previous to my last post on the Edinburgh tram system, Councillors have now voted to keep the scheme alive, yippee ! Well you would think, a nice new shiny tram to transport the residents and tourists around the Capital, but as I reported in my last blog, the project was getting out of hand and the Councillors were required to vote to keep it alive, it was to avoid paying Bilfinger, Berger & Siemans £161 million in cancelation charges, another yippee, well….. You would think but this is going to incur further costs to the tax payer, namely you and me, to the tune of a possible £1 billion !!!
The new line is expected to cost around £86 million per mile, this extra money still does not complete the original route, it falls short by 8 stops to the terminus at Newhaven, so let’s recap, original route, Haymarket to Newhaven at a cost of £520 million, sorted, new costs £776 million and short by a number of miles, borrowing an extra £231 million to build the new section, well to finish what the contractors originally designed and promised. This is on top of the money received from the Scottish Parliament and local businesses. The people who passed the proposals should in my mind be reprimanded, the Councillors involved with passing the proposals should be removed from their posts, this is incompetency at it’s highest, an independent review board should be looking into this obscene waste of tax payers money in these times of austerity.
At least we should expect to see a resignation from Jenny Dawe, leader of the city’s ruling coalition. So who within the council building has been taking back handers from the contractors, who within the council has an interest within these companies ? I think these questions need to be asked.
Folks, we all have been asked to tighten our belts as this global recession hits everyone, why should this project go ahead, why should the contractors get a huge payday at our expense, why should incompetent local government officials keep their jobs when quite frankly other more competent people lose theirs, is it any wonder the people of this land have no confidence in their so called rulers, when they seem to make up rules for themselves when they benefit from it, is it any wonder the public don’t vote in the same numbers they used to, is it any wonder we get civil disturbances, as seen in some major towns a few weeks ago, when the the people in power abuse the position they have been given, seemingly laughing their arses off because they get away with it.
The revolution is coming, believe me, I did predict in February of this year that we would have a summer of discontent and that people would take to the streets, although I’m no Nostradamus, I feel I can confidently predict that the general public will not put up with this for much longer, so far the politicians have stolen out money by their cheating expense claims, lied to us regarding the legality of that theft, the bankers have gambled with our money, then were given more of our money for them to gamble some more leaving the whole planet in a global recession, with no remorse over what they have done, they still have jobs, they still get their bonuses, they have got away with possibly the biggest theft in world history, yet we still don’t get angry enough, these capitalist organisations should have been burned to the ground the day after they lost billions of our money, preferably with the occupants still in them, then let’s turn on parliament and rid ourselves of these leeching bastards once and for all.
There was a slogan during World War 2 which went thus: Keep Calm & Carry On, which meant people should not panic and carry on with their daily lives as normally as possible to keep the morale of the country at as high a level as possible, well here’s the new slogan that I think we should all adopt: Get Angry & Fight Back, this is OUR country, it is through our blood, sweat and tears that we have this infrastructure, we build the houses they live in, we drive the buses, trains, taxi’s and ironically the trams, that they use, we clean the drains, we clear their rubbish from the streets, without us they are nothing, without us they would not receive the wealth they flaunt in our faces, folks, it’s time to realise that we DO have the power, if we only united together regardless of class, creed, colour or religious beliefs then we could take back this land of ours, tell the bosses ” Fuck You, I’m not going in to work today, you do it ” if everyone decided to do this then we would soon see how much work actually got done, I’ll tell you now, FUCK ALL ! Don’t be suckered into the argument that we need to work for them, we can grow our own food, we can work as a co-operative to enhance our lives, we have the skills, we have the knowledge we just need the confidence to step away from the life they tell us to live.
Until the next time, Unite & Fight
Anarchy, Peace, Freedom, Equality
Alan Louttit 