Did Tories Kill 25,000 Glaswegians?, New research points to lethal political attack Options

[GG]

Disturbing new research by some of the city's most eminent social scientists has concluded that the most plausible single explanation for Glasgow's shockingly high mortality rate is the effect of a sustained political attack on the city by the Conservative governments of the eighties and nineties.

Scientists at the Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH) conducted extensive research into a multitude of candidate hypotheses which may account for why thousands more Glaswegians have died than can be explained by the city's endemic poverty and deprivation (a phenomenon widely referred to as the 'Glasgow Effect').

While it has long been known that Glasgow's high death rate from 1980 onwards was largely due to alcohol-related deaths, drug-related deaths, suicides, violent deaths and road-traffic accidents in young adults (in addition to the continuing high rates of mortality for cardiovascular disease, cancer and stroke), the GCPH study looked into the underlying factors which resulted in the unique and deadly set of negative health behaviours prevalent in the city.

While acknowledging that further comparative research is required into a complex and multifarious problem, the report on the study concludes emphatically that:

The political attack hypothesis seems best placed to bring together the most likely behavioural, cultural and structural determinants of health into a coherent narrative which can explain the post-1980 mortality phenomenon. This hypothesis suggests that the neoliberal government policies implemented from 1979 onwards disproportionately affected the [...] Glaswegian population, and that this in turn was causally implicated in changing behavioural patterns leading to negative health outcomes.

In short, the report suggests that punitive and vindictive Tory policies "got under the skin" of the Glaswegian population, resulting in many thousands more premature deaths from drugs, alcohol, suicide, road-traffic accidents, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, stroke and cancer, even when compared to other equally deprived cities such as Manchester and Liverpool.

In explaining why the Tory governments were inclined to implement such damaging policies, the report suggests that:

[I]n the years after Edward Heath’s abandonment of his neo-liberal ‘Selsdon agenda’ in 1972, and particularly after the loss of the 1974 General Elections, elements within the Conservative Party planned a political attack against the organised working class – which had proved such an obstacle for Heath. After 1979 this plan was implemented with a high degree of resolve, and with very significant adverse impacts.

Regarding why the policies were most lethal in Glasgow, the report states:

What seems less clear is why other deindustrialised areas of the UK did not suffer in quite the same way as Scotland and Glasgow during the 1980s. On this question, there is evidence to suggest that Scotland was in some ways particularly targeted in the broader UK attack, and in key respects more vulnerable to its damaging effect than other areas – in light of its pre-existing poverty, high dependence on industrial employment, and very high reliance on council housing. There is also some evidential basis to indicate that Scotland had a distinctive cultural response to the political attack – in terms of a national feeling of disempowerment and loss of control.

Full report here:
http://www.gcph.co.uk/assets/0000/1080/GLA..._Report__2_.pdf

GG.

[Crewsy Fixer]

I voted No, I have no intellectual input apart from No. Ordinary good respectful people have been down trodden since time began.

[Macbeast]

"The report suggests " "suggests " " may have " " suggests " " seems " " evidence to suggest " " some evidential basis "

Means nothing.

Lets have some comparative mortality figures for pre-1980 ?

[TeeHeeHee]

Scientists at the Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH) conducted extensive research into a multitude of candidate hypotheses which may account for why thousands more Glaswegians have died than can be explained by the city's endemic poverty and deprivation

" ... research into a multitude of candidate hypotheses which may account ..."

To charge 25,000 deaths from wide and varied reasons to the account of a political party after extensive research into a multiple of hypothetical candidate causes can only be described as an exercise in research itself.

Theories are all well and good; even when based on a multitude of candidate hypotheses, but they remain theories.

Would it have been a consideration to note how many of the dead among the 25,000 were Catholic or Protestant; or of foreign heritage?

To ask if members might think that a political party's policies might be responsible for the premature deaths of 25,000 Glaswegians over two decades: 2.5 per day approx; and that based on a bunch of hypotheses, has that ring of conspiracy theory about it.
I'd have to read the report itself ... but just out of curiosity.
But my answer is NO.

[tarheels]

I voted No, I have no intellectual input apart from No. Ordinary good respectful people have been down trodden since time began.

I am from Ojai, Ca. (oh-hi). I do have heritage from Scotland, many years back, I will study this, thanks. Reilly = tarheels

[Tommy Kennedy]

Certainly the social conditions of pre-war Glasgow, condoned by the Establishment, and their contempt for Scots, killed off thousands of Glaswegians.

[*Guest*]

I think some serious study into the Glasgow Effect is long overdue, so well done to these scientists for moving on from the assumption that the higher death rates in our city are simply due to the 'Glaswegian mentality'. Lets hope that this leads to further investigation of the real causes.

Let Glasgow Flourish.

[tamhickey]

I worked in the Licensed trade during the eighties, and saw the effects that Government policies had on people. Skilled tradesmen were being made redundant in mining, shipbuilding, steelworks and in the building of trains. This de-industrialisation left thousands of people who had worked all their lives in the same trade, and with the same friends undergoing a huge change in their lives, where, bereft of their trades, they would meet up in the pub to pass their days. These were guys who were in the main aged around 45 plus who had done nothing else in their lives apart from the work that the Government had quite deliberately killed off. It led to depression, confusion and a real lack of self esteem for many, but also led to others investing their redundancy money into businesses, moving abroad and buying their homes. That, of course would be dependant on the amount of money available upon redundancy, but the above figure of 25,000 seems rather conflated. However, it's also dependent upon the time scale involved and the veracity of these figures have to be examined in light of all of the above.

[wee davy]

The figures are irrelevant.
Did people die more quickly in Glasgow and the surrounding area, as a result of 'Thatchers' World' - most definitely.

Are the most vulnerable under attack once again, in the 2010's?

You can bet your life.

Do you think Westminster really gives a fig, for mortality rates in Glasgow?
If you believe that - you also believe in 'the BIG SOCIETY' (Cameron Style)

[*Guest*]

Next they will be blaming the Tories for the Holocaust.

What a load of crap.

[*Beltona Bill*]

What a load of self-pitying driffle that must have been written by neo-Marxists of the deepest red.

Glasgow has been ruled by the Left for many, many years, so they must bear a lot of the blame that is being leveled at the Conservative Party. However, the blame must ultimately lie with the citizens themselves - drink, drugs, smoking, over-eating, unhealthy life styles,etc. are the principal causes of premature death.

It's not compulsory to indulge in self-harm. Stop whingeing and blaming someone else - it's your own fault.

[Jupiter]

I dont suppose these mortality figures had anything to do with the copious amounts of alcohol poured down throats,the never ending cigarettes and tobacco smoked to the point where lungs couldnt function,the fresh fruits and healthy foods shunned for the alternative of the lard soaked fry-ups,leaving individuals so obese they are unable to tie their laces?
You can pin anything on any government but dont suggest to me that a person is incapable of making his or her own lifestyle choices.
Constant abuse of the body is bound to bring consequences and premature mortality probably ranks the highest.(Although I have no stats,figures or hard evidence to back this up,merely opinion,just like the tosh written in the disturbing new research)

[GG]

I dont suppose these mortality figures had anything to do with the copious amounts of alcohol poured down throats,the never ending cigarettes and tobacco smoked ...

Jupiter, you are indeed correct that the factors you mention did cause thousands of deaths (direct causality), however, the hypotheses research is tasked with looking at the underlying factors which led to such a phenomenon. Or, as the conclusion to the research states:

It is unlikely that any single cause is responsible for this phenomenon, and there is uncertainty around why Scotland started to diverge from elsewhere in Europe around 1950. It is clearer that the health and social patterns that emerged during the 1980s and 1990s are more closely linked to negative health behaviours (e.g. alcohol consumption), but these behaviours are in turn heavily influenced and shaped by the social, cultural and economic disruption which occurred as the political and economic policies of the UK abruptly changed from the later 1970s onwards.

Any understanding of the Scottish mortality patterning requires, as well as a clear focus on behaviours, an understanding of the most ‘upstream’ determinants of health, including economic, social and political history. Any analysis which only refers to tobacco use or alcohol, or even to early years — massively significant as these factors undoubtedly are — will inevitably fail to identify the overall causality of this profoundly troubling phenomenon, and will be liable to generate at best partial policy interventions, which are in turn most liable to prove disappointing in their outcomes.

This conclusion is the most important part of the whole document, and suggests that current policy (across a number of organisations) in addressing the higher mortality rates are doomed to failure because they do not address the underlying issues. Effectively, huge resources are currently being spent on solving a problem which is not the issue.

GG.

[bilbo.s]

It seems that even the affluent ones are intent on killing themselves with binge drinking, smoking and McDonald's etc.

[chas1937]

Alcohol,/cigs and drugs are the problem and the fact that they are means that the high death rate is self inflicted.All the warnings about this fact goes out the window because of the fact folk think it will never happen too me.You just need too look around you and see the amount of young folk still smoking and THEY know that it can kill you.The older generation didn't get that advice.In the last 2 years here there is a family that have lost 4 members through drink and drug taking with 3 still doing it.So don't blame Governments blame ourselves.The government now says that the Methadone programme isnt working and of course it's not because it is only an extra to folk who use drugs and what is really needed is total abstinance and that goes for alcoholics too