You think I voted Labour without considering others Teribus? Glad to see you know my mind. Just a pity you haven't read where I am a floating voter. One that has for local MP reasons always voted Labour.

In council elections, the conservative local cllr is active, visible and responds well. I wasn't in the country the last time she was up for reelection but have no problem whatsoever considering lending her my support next year. The local conservative MP fought hard and long for rural broadband and as of last week I went from <1Mb to 70Mb and have no issue congratulating his efforts. I wrote to say so. I couldn't however trust a conservative government with EU relations. I am a European by outlook.

Nationally, Labour did well domestically under Blair and sadly, only the war mongering will be remembered. Between them, they built up infrastructure and invested in the future. It wasn't sustainable, but the world market wasn't anyway. The only two things I blame Broon for are flogging gold at bottom price and, interestingly, increasing NHS spending a year or two too early.

I may feel strongly that young people need encouragement to get on rather than monkey see monkey do attitudes that promote reliance on the state and black economy, but I disagree completely with your assertion over temporary safety blanket.

Yin and yang. Not everybody can get on. I had an interesting couple of years helping inspect care and nursing homes. I also led on assessing prison healthcare and substance misuse services. That more than anything else cemented my view that we have a responsibility. We need to spend more, not less on those who slip through the net. But for that to happen, we need more contributors. More contributors means less benefit dependence.

Sadly, Westminster through Ian Duncan Smith have seen this as a draconian cost saving exercise and Scotland cannot afford any alternative.

It doesn't take politicians. It takes young people leaving school to be told this is the start of an adventure, grab it if you can.