Ed Milliband evokes Liverpool dockers and Upper Clyde ship workers

Apparently Ed Milliband sees the affinity between the working people of Britain as more of a reason for Scotland staying within the United Kingdom than any argument which contends that Scotland is too poor or too weak to break away. In a speech in Glasgow, among other things, he said: "When a Scotsman who works in the shipyards of Govan meets an Englishman who works on the docks in Merseyside, he doesn't see a foreigner, he sees a fellow countryman." Of  course, he neglects to mention that the likelihood of that happening is extremely remote.

Firstly, the main dock area in Liverpool has been transformed into some sort of theme park, where any jobs available are more likely to mean working at Costas, or some other retail outlet, than unloading ships and secondly, the chance of getting a job in one of the two major shipyards that remain in operation on the Upper Clyde is extremely thin to say the least.

Moreover, Mr Milliband might want to point out that when it came to saving those dockers jobs during a strike from September 1995 to February 1998 those striking were betrayed by their own union and Mr Milliband's  hypocritical Labour Party, while at the same time not forgetting to mention that working in one of the few jobs still available on Upper Clyde would probably mean helping to produce weapons of death  for BAE and a corrupt arms industry against which all real socialists should mobilise. Furthermore, even if morals are to take a back seat in the "thinking" of a "celebrity big brother" intoxicated population, it might be pointed out that some twice as many jobs could have been created in health Care, social services or education for the same amount of money.

The Labour Party leader and his ilk have nothing to do with socialism and when Mr Milliband spouts  platitudes and seeks to evoke affinities in the manner mentioned above we would do well to remember this. Of course, when it comes to Scottish independence we might do well to remember the adage, "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely", and the joke, "what happens when the pope dies? Up popes another one." Nevertheless, whatever the case for an independent Scotland, the hypocrites, liars and criminals, do the union no favours and you never know, while the evidence tends to suggest otherwise, the Scots on their own might just do things a bit better.