Oh Glasgow, dear and green place. I wish I could ask if this is what have you become, but you’ve always been the way you are now. Poverty and addiction a working-class affliction, the ultimate destination? Complete destitution! The politics they say will show us a different way, the working-class voters now say, we’re fucked either way. Labour or Tory, they’re out for their own glory. Bolster the NHS, get tougher on crime, oh for Christ’s sake pass me the wine! That slippery slope that starts off, a way to cope, leading again to no bloody hope.

Camera in hand, I set out, living in hope, to see that change in the city I call home. I’ve witnessed its worst and thrived on its best. The people are special, from all over the world, built on migration, also a scar of the nation. To pull down the statues, is to turn a blind eye, put plaques on the wall, and own our dark history, that of slavery and exploitation. Now is the time to write our history, stand up for what’s right, and call out the wrongs.

Division, division, one thing in common we are all human beings. That person on the street, with nothing to eat has nothing to do with immigration but everything to do with Political greed. Open your eyes and look ‘right’ to ‘left’ you’ll see your all knee deep in the same social mess. Grown up in the schemes with basic means, as a child you are encouraged to dream. Middle class kids surrounded by “professionals” becomes the aspiration of that suburban settle, of Uni and gap years, houses and kids, the house in a catchment area that feeds successional bliss. What happens when profession is violence and drugs, well, is that not what Downing Street does? There’s a difference I hear you say, you’re correct my friend, but one has you secured in number 10 for the long-term, for others a 10x10 peter! On release, you’ll have a choice, but not a meaningful one, as you’re libbed, that standard issue plastic bag in hand, sentence served you’ve still not earned the right to have a voice. Meaningful choice only takes place when you have the means to also exit a place, to start afresh, write off debt, turn your back on the only tribe you’ve ever met. That’s a dark, dark place to be met, pass me the bottle, pass me the drugs, to escape this place and take me to the abyss. Along the way, you’ll be offered help, support even, to fight your problem of the drugs and alcohol, prescribed the drugs sanctioned by the state, sealing your fate. The benefit state is all too late as we line the pockets of the pharmaceutical billionaires. Don’t get me started on the alcohol state, much needed revenue from the blight of state, the violence and abuse from its by-product of hate.

Look on the street, there’s no differentiation at play, on the street of stratification, not race. Brought in on boats, grew up in a close, the only thing they did wrong was where they were born. Undecided status, unentitled existence, or of no fixed abode then you don’t have a code. Without a code you’re living without hope, striving for consistency, you choose a no fixed abode existence.