Posted on 06/12/2007 9:14:39 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Scotland is the least successful country in western Europe, according to a new survey.
The nation has come bottom in the Federation of Small Businesses' (FSB) annual Index of Success, which compares living, health and education standards, and employment rates, with 10 other small countries, including the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand and Switzerland.
Scotland's poor health performance is the main drag on improving quality of life, the survey said.
It has the worst life expectancy amongst the 24 'developed' nations of the OECD, as well as among UK regions.
The FSB said the in-coming SNP Administration faced a "major challenge" in seeking to raise the proportion of Scotland's wealth and to reduce by 10pc the wealth disparity between the richest and poorest parts of the country.
The report, by John McLaren, honorary research fellow at the University of Glasgow, said Greater Glasgow is the most deprived area in Scotland.
It said that Glasgow is "very much isolated at the bottom of the pile", and while income is important, it is in other areas that it "lags the most" - including housing, education and physical and mental health.
Overall, Scotland was ranked bottom of the table, which Iceland topped, followed by Switzerland and Norway.
Looking at the individual components of the report, Scotland's general education performance is good, but it masks very poor performances at the bottom end.
The report said: "Education inequality, along with the general level of Scottish health, are the two key issues that need to be tackled."
"Poor education leads to poor employment prospects and both, in turn, are good predictors of poor health and poverty."
That’s because the Socialists have Scotland by the bagpipes.
Call me a cynic, but I’m wondering if immigration is the back story here.
Scotland leaving the EU, will be the first step towards better days..
I think it must be all that hagus they eat.
Arrrr! That’s HAGGIS, laddie...
:0)
“Scotland is the least successful country in western Europe, according to a new survey.”
Most of the enterprising Scots left during the Clearances - the sheep stayed behind. Same with the Palestinians and for the same reason.
Thanks for the correction. I understand it is best to hunt haggis at night when there is a full moon.
Scotland never recovered genetically from losing 1/2 of it's young healthy men in the Battle of Flodden in 1580. The heirs of the survivors eventually died in the trenches of The Somme and then in N. Africa, France and Germany.
It's a small population where a great portion of healthy males were killed before they had children. The ones who did were the guys too unhealthy to fight for Britain or emmigrate to America.
What you say is interesting. Something to think about.
A small list that the less than enterprising Scots have done.
A few things the Scots have given the world ...
Mathematical & Financial
Logarithms
The Bank of England
Capitalism
The overdraft
The decimal point
Technological
The threshing machine
The gravitating compass
Street lighting
The steam engine
The pneumatic tyre
The pedal bicycle
Tarmacadam (the modern road surface)
The locomotive
The bus
The telegraph
The thermos flask
The telephone
The gas mask
Colour photographs
The lawnmower
Television
The fax machine
The photocopier
Video
The kaleidoscope
Scientific
Theory of combustion
Electric light
Geology
Gardenias
Helium
Radar
Neon
Artificial ice
Dolly, the cloned sheep
Medical
The hypodermic syringe
Anaesthesia
Morphine
Antiseptics
Insulin
Penicillin
Interferon
The thermometer
Ante-natal clinics
Sport
Golf
Curling
Shinty
Tennis courts
The bowling green
Electronic
The alpha chip
Blue lasers
Kerr Lens Modelocking techniques
Everyday Items
Marmalade
Writing paper
The fountain pen
Postcards
The Mackintosh (aka raincoats)
Suspenders
Miscellaneous
Finger-printing
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Documentary films
The traffic cone
Sherlock Holmes
It also is very, very, very rural outside of a handful of cities and large towns. Edinburgh is quite well off. Its also the nicest city in the UK by far. Much prettier than London.
Interesting...but not really correct. Genetics doesnt work like that. Sorry.
The Chinese supposedly gave the world civilization. Where are they today? A billion dirt farmers and some industrial slaves.
yitbos
1 out of 16 men in Asia has some genetic legacy of Gengis Khan 'cuz he was a 'super-breeder'....
The opposite of that is true as well--if you self-select the healthiest males out of the gene pool, so end up with a lot of defects.
It works that way in every other species on the earth and it works that way for us....
Instead of just crapping on it, why don't you descend from your mountain-top of genetic knowledge and enlighten us?
I believe that 1 in 200 people in the world today is descended from old Genghis.
The problem is that the Human genome is very large, Human Beings are a great deal more similar than they are different and Human generation sizes are quite long. I know it seems to make logical sense - if the healthiest males are killed before they have children, their genetic heritage is not passed on, and it is up to weaklings and deviants to breed the next generation. Aside from the fact that beliefs and pyschology and mental prowess are only partly genetic in origin, these things take an enormous time to affect.
For example. If all the people who have multiple sclerosis were forbidden to have children, then yes, you would indeed halve the incidence of multiple sclerosis - in 10,000 years! (By which time there will probably be a cure).
Also, natural selection is utterly ruthless. If you have a deleterious gene that is going to get you killed, it is immaterial that the rest of your genes are totally wonderful. It therefore follows that by keeping people alive who would otherwise have died young, we may very well be increasing the numbers of bad genes, but we might also be increasing the number of good genes too. The classic example would be Stephen Hawkings. In “normal” circumstances, he would have died long before making some of the greatest advances in physics.
This is the crux of the scientific argument against eugenics. The genetic composition of any individual is derived from that of their parents, but in an utterly unique way, because of the way DNA is recombinated and because of random factors (mutations). In determining what your kids are like, you are pretty much throwing genetic dice. In other words, just because you are tall, intelligent, healthy, courageous and moral provides no guarantee at all that your children will emulate you, or even much more of a probability that they will. In any case, environmental conditions (nurturing etc) dwarf genetic considerations. Especially in modern industrial societies.
To suggest that the Scots (or anyone else for that matter) are degenerate because the most adventurous/desperate of them departed a few generations ago, to colonise or fight the world, is over simplistic to say the least, and frankly racist at worse.
Holy cow: it's the race card in a scientific discussion.....
We'll never know the truth. Any conclusion is hostage to the racial politics....
It was only a throwaway comment at the end, and you were the one who brought race into this in the first place!
I agree, we are unlikely to completely know the truth, but thats because our knowledge of the complex interplay of genetics and environment is incomplete, to say the least, not because Im asking anyone to bow to political correctness over ethnicity.
Nonsense.
PLENTY of brilliant Scots for over 100 years after the Clearances,right up until the 1950’s and 60’s.We continued to invent,discover and run the British Empire until the 1960’s.
Our downturn like many nations has come in the last 40 years of liberal,socialist dogma.
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