Scots and Independent

The Last Post

2011-03-22T17:16:00.004Z

Today saw the dissolution of Holyrood prior to May's Scottish Parliamentary Elections. It also, for other reasons, seems like an opportune time to draw the curtains similarly on my blogging efforts here at 'Scots and Independent'.

My reasons for doing so are many and varied, but one stands out in particular - I'm about to make the transition from unpaid keyboard basher to full time journalist with one of the local titles up here in Aberdeenshire. While blogging, alongside my commitments as a columnist with the Scots Independent newspaper has undoubtedly helped me to hone a writing style, I'm no longer sure that blogging will be quite so attractive after a day spent writing professionally to meet deadlines!

I'm sad about it in a way, but it's also a necessary step. While blogging as a candidate was a pastime fraught with difficulty, leaving you just one ill-advised posting away from tabloid notoriety, it was still something which I enjoyed immensely. It was also relatively easy and often great fun to blog from the position of being a parliamentary researcher at the heart of Holyrood and Westminster. However, continuing with the partisanship you can exhibit when the mood takes you in the blogosphere would sit uneasily with the need to cover news stories impartially and to be prepared to discomfit all sides equally when the occasion demands it.

It's been an interesting ride since I started out in 2006 - a period which has allowed me to chronicle the lead-up to the election of the first SNP government and its first four years in office. Blogging has also put me in contact with some great people over that time, as well as opening up some fantastic writing opportunities elsewhere, whether for books, e-books, magazines, other websites such as WalesHome or even on one occasion, The Guardian.

Blogging is and remains in my view a great medium and certainly from my perspective, the past four and a half years has been made all the more enjoyable because of the audience and the interaction which came along the way. Nevertheless, all good things must come to an end, and I must say that in this case at least, it's happening in circumstances which I can genuinely say I'm happy about.

It would be a wrench to leave the Scottish blogging community behind entirely, and I fully expect that the occasional grumpy retort will still appear next to my name in the comments sections of Scotland's better blogs. However, as far as my own substantive efforts are concerned, the fat lady has, for the moment at least, sung her last.

Thank you one and all, and at the risk of being accused of emulating Wendy Alexander in any way, have a fun election - whichever party you intend to take up cudgels for!

Richard

S&I Elsewhere

2011-02-24T09:31:00.001Z

I have a piece up today on the excellent WalesHome website. Please drop by and take a look.

The Big Society?

2011-02-21T23:17:00.004Z

Ask ten different Cabinet Ministers what they understand David Cameron's 'Big Society' to mean and you're likely to end up with ten rather waffly but competing answers. As far as asking the man himself, right now, it seems to be an exercise about as rewarding as nailing jelly to walls.

At various points, Cameron has defined the Big Society as being about "devolving power to the lowest level so neighbourhoods take control of their destiny", and "opening up our public services, putting trust in professionals and power in the hands of the people they serve." At other moments, he has fleshed it out as providing the means for 'groups' to "run Post Offices, libraries, transport services and shape housing projects".

The impressionistic nature of the policy certainly gives a passably convincing response to the charge that in common with Margaret Thatcher, modern Tories still believe there is no such thing as society. 'There is such a thing as society', intone the Cameronistas, 'it's just not the same thing as the state'. Ask those on the political left, however, and you're likely to get a fairly unanimous reaction, where it's viewed as little more than 'a figleaf for Tory cuts'.

While there might be a fair bit of substance to that charge, I can't help but feel that it's one which risks diminishing the role which volunteers of all kinds play in society. For one thing, we've got a strong tradition of volunteering in Scotland and are quite used to the idea of the third sector and charities providing services in our communities, with or without the aid of government money. There's also nothing intrinsically wrong with the idea that government should enable individuals to step in to do that which the state can't, or which private business either won't or perhaps shouldn't.

When we think of volunteering, it's probably of something like the WRVS running the cafe at the local hospital, or a community transport service, rather than filling in for the full-time professional agencies of the state. However, why shouldn't it also encompass the work of Retained Firefighters or Special Constables? The RNLI has always relied on volunteers, while the work of First Responders in assisting the ambulance service across rural Scotland has helped to save many lives in situations where minutes really can be the difference between life and death.

In a small way, I volunteer myself as a member of one of my local Rotary Clubs. Each year, through a variety of events, we raise thousands of pounds to support local and international charities. Particularly, we support the efforts of Rotary International to eradicate polio and have taken the lead in Scotland in supporting a charity which enhances early life chances for young children in rural Nepal - a venture for which we were able to gain significant financial backing from the worldwide Rotary Foundation.

Closer to home, we stage mock job interviews, run cookery and music competitions, and send local youngsters on an outdoor education and leadership camp in the Cairngorms. The more green fingered amongst us tend to the community garden which the club opened a couple of years ago, and take turns cutting grass at the old folks home. But while we might do a lot, we're never going to be in a position, even alongside thousands of others, to ever try and replace Aberdeenshire Council's education or social work departments, far less the efforts of the Department for International Development. And nor would we want to even try.

Volunteering can bring much to the table that central or local government will never be able to and should not be expected to, but there are limits. The main block to volunteering isn't usually money or even suitability – it's about having the time to give, and finding a suitable outlet through which to give it. We live in a society where many are underworked and many more find themselves overworked. In that regard, there's a lot which can be done to assist more people who might welcome the opportunity to volunteer.

The right to ask for flexible working, for instance, now exists. However, it's much harder for small businesses to offer this flexibility than it is for larger businesses. Even something as basic as offering greater support to employers to allow those who wish to volunteer, or who need to work unconventional hours to look after a child or older relative, could transform the quality of life of millions of people.

Why, for instance, should someone on Jobseeker's allowance, be penalised through the withdrawal of benefit for working more than 16 hours in a week? Equally, why is it that the most experienced in our workforce find it so difficult to scale back their hours as they approach retirement, without jeopardising either their jobs or future pension entitlements? Our inflexible approach not only creates a disorientating shock when retirement finally comes, it also deprives people of opportunities to find a future role in the community, which would enable them to do something worthwhile while helping others to make the most of what life has to offer them.

If you want to look at it this way, we already have a 'Big Society' in Scotland, supported by thousands of volunteers and community minded individuals who expect nothing in return, but we won't make that society bigger or better simply by making the state smaller. We could, however, with the judicious use of some policy levers currently out of reach of Holyrood, begin to make it easier for more people to make their contribution. Now that would be a society worth being part of.

Boom!

2011-02-02T14:09:00.003Z

It's always a delight to see a good slapping handed out to the deserving in the letters pages of our newspapers. Here then, for your amusement, is a letter from Professor Neil Kay, in connection with recent nonsense-mongering over any proposed tax powers which don't concur with the conculsions of the Calman Omission:

I WAS interested in the arguments by six economists led by Professor Anton Muscatelli Principal of Glasgow University (Perspective, 31 January) apparently challenging the argument by Professors Scott and Hughes Hallett that fiscal autonomy would lead to economic growth.

In 2005, I was signatory to an open letter from 13 economists titled "Increased Fiscal Power Essential", it argued that "Increased fiscal responsibility is essential for the prudent management of Scottish government spending and, ultimately, of the Scottish economy …Scottish politicians under the current regime have no incentive to improve Scotland's economic growth … for a small open economy on the periphery of Europe, an ability to alter the incentive structure is crucial".

One of the co-signatories to that letter was Prof Muscatelli, then Professor of Economics at Glasgow University.

I have to confess that I find it difficult to find much difference between the sentiments of Muscatelli (2005) and Hughes Hallett and Scott (2011), and it is not clear to me what of substance has happened in the last six years for Muscatelli (2011) to apparently reject or forget the arguments of Muscatelli (2005).

EMERITUS PROFESSOR NEIL KAY

Economics Department University of Strathclyde

Boom!

A World Dis-Service

2011-01-27T11:00:00.003Z

As a nat, I often find myself in an uncomfortable position when it comes to broadcasting. If life were straightforward, I'd be against the BBC and all its works, except for its Scottish outpost at Pacific Quay, which I'd argue ought to be bolstered to become a broadcaster in the mould of RTE or Norsk Rikskringkasting.

As it is, if you can set to one side the bumptious metrocentricism of David Dimbleby and the general default lack of knowledge about Scottish issues on the occasions where they intrude upon the 'network', generally speaking, the BBC is still one of the best broadcasters there is. Sadly, I find that my biggest gripes are with BBC Scotland, which dumbs down relentlessly, and which in its news and current affairs output, all too often tolerates the advancing of individual agendas which sit ill at ease with a requirement for political impartiality.

A treatise on the state of Scottish broadcasting is something for another day, though. What's prompted me to put fingers to keyboard this morning is the news that the BBC World Service is to face a cutback in its services, with the loss of 650 jobs, 5 separate language services and potentially, 30 million of its 180 million listeners worldwide.

I've blogged before about the importance of soft power when it comes to winning hearts and minds around the world. To my mind, an institution like the World Service, which educates, informs and broadcasts pretty well impartially to people around the world in their own language, is more useful than the Foreign Office when it comes to winning influence, and worth any number of Trident missiles when it comes to earning meaningful international prestige.

If life were straightforward, I'd probably feel like crowing a little over what is yet another loss for British standing in the world yet somehow, I can't help but feel a little sad about this news. An independent Scotland, for better or worse - largely better, I would say - will inherit a great deal of shared experience and outlook from our time in the UK. The public service ethos in broadcasting and the undoubted ability of certain British institutions to win cultural influence around the world, which the present Cameron Government seems to be so cavalier towards, is one thing which I hope might find a more congenial home in an independent Scotland.

Sadly, the evidence is that presently, our own broadcasters are barely up to the task of catering for Scottish needs, let alone competing on an international level. Increasing the broadcasting spend in Scotland and launching a dedicated Scottish digital channel to counter the undoubted draw of London's residual broadcasting capital may help matters, but it's unlikely to be the whole solution. That's going to require a shift in leadership and mindset which, unfortunately, money might not be able to buy.

The Empire Strikes Back

2011-01-19T15:09:00.012Z

The controversy over the treatment of Professor Andrew Hughes-Hallet and Professor Drew Scott by the Scottish Parliament committee scrutinising the Scotland Bill shows little sign of abating.

It's certainly irregular, if not downright discourteous to invite witnesses to submit evidence, ignore it completely, then try to quiz them on a matter which the committee has already decided is to be separate, without giving notice that this is what you intend to do. It's also disappointing that the Committee appeared to want to spend more time scrutinising a policy which it won't be helping to legislate for, at the expense of examining the Bill which it is responsible for.

While the anemic response of Presiding Officer Alex Fergusson to the complaint of Professors Scott and Hughes-Hallett was perhaps sadly to be expected, the decision by Professor Alan Trench, a man who appears to hold no particular brief for the SNP, to also withdraw is one which ought to dismay anyone hoping that the Bill might receive the sort of expert, impartial guidance that it so badly needs. The sniping partisanship of certain MSPs after the event has also done little for the Parliament's public image.

Today's Scotsman leader writer, presumably Bill Jamieson, is grasping frantically at the straw left behind by Professor Lars Feld – namely, that tax freedom does not of itself lead to increased growth. Of course it doesn't – if the Scottish Parliament got full fiscal autonomy and taxed at 100%, the economy would crash – a point so crushingly obvious it really shouldn't need to be stated.

It's a truism to state that it is government spending and increased freedom on how to spend resources, rather than tax freedom per se which drives growth. Yet it is true only up to a point. GDP is the sum of government spending plus investment plus consumption plus exports minus imports. Although the tax system isn't a factor in that equation, it's simply daft to claim that this is the end of the matter.

As the Professor points out, economic growth is driven by a number of factors away from tax and tax collection mechanisms. The quality of human capital is one, the ability to exploit physical resources another, as is the ability to take advantage of technological advancements, to be able to transport goods and services effectively, the existence of law and order and a legal framework which protects individual and property rights, together with the ability to access market information and to share ideas freely.

For all but the most ideologically pure libertarian, however, Government remains an important factor. One way government might made be more efficient by fiscal autonomy is to spend money more effectively. For if government is encouraged to be more efficient, it can get more bang for buck in its spending, which could be expected to increase economic activity. This can lead to a further positive economic effect by freeing up more resources to spend, or it can give all or some back as a tax cut, which will either be spent on consumption, or saved and used for investment. All of which helps to make GDP higher than it might otherwise be, resulting in benefits for government, private individuals and businesses.

Our present system doesn't reward the Scottish government with higher tax revenues if growth is enhanced. Barnett creates a disconnect, sending back to Scotland an ever decreasing percentage of public spending in England. Cut spending on, say, universities, and Scotland experiences an equivalent cut in funding, whether it wishes to follow the policy or not. Sad to say, Calman would do exactly the same.

The trouble with Calman and the resulting Scotland Bill is that it set out with a destination in mind and then tried to bend the evidence to fit. It's dispiriting to see the same vice being exhibited in committee by those for whom constitutional change is simply a means of trying outflank the SNP, rather than seeing it as something which could be beneficial on its own terms. It's particularly distressing for those of us who want to see a mature, self-governing Scotland that some of our supposedly better MSPs appear to consider it fair game to engage in guilt by association attacks against those whom they deem to be politically unsound.

"UK taxman killed off Tartan Tax"

2011-01-16T10:16:00.006Z

Well, well, well. After the ridiculous parade which lined up to claim that the lapse of the tartan tax represented an SNP 'betrayal' of devolution, what do we find in today's Scotland on Sunday?

UK taxman killed off Tartan Tax

Published Date: 16 January 2011
By Eddie Barnes

Political Editor

THE Scottish Government could not have implemented the Tartan Tax even if it wanted to because the revenue authorities were unable to collect it, new documents have revealed.

The power to vary income tax by up to 3p in the pound was granted to the parliament in the devolution referendum in 1997. But the documents show that, after the 2007 election, the incoming SNP administration would not have been able to implement it because of major problems and delays in a new computerised collection system being introduced by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

The flaws mean that the Tartan Tax - a key devolved power - will not be available to ministers until 2013 at the earliest.

This news leaves a veritable rogues gallery of MSPs with sizable quantities of egg on face. However, what of BBC Scotland, which did its damnedest over several days to make a controversy out of a story which was always - being charitable - complete rubbish? Your gast will be flabbered to find no mention of the story as yet on the BBC Scotland website.

I can only assume that they're preparing for tomorrow, where it'll lead GMS; see Kay Adams spluttering indignation right through her phone in; treat us to a suitably frowny Jackie Bird on the TV bulletins throughout the day; before offering up an incredulous Gordon Brewer on Newsnight Scotland to lambast Michael Moore and the aforementioned rogues for telling porkies, prior to offering a suitable mea culpa on behalf of the BBC for getting things so badly wrong the first time round?

I do hope so. Meanwhile, in other news, I'll be waiting at my window with similar levels of expectation, just in case 675 Porcine Squadron of the RAF decides to fly in formation past my house this afternoon.

Deeper and Down

2011-01-14T18:25:00.005Z

Can anyone honestly say this comes as a big surprise?

Sales of the Daily Record have fallen below 300,000 for the first time, according to figures for December.

Circulation across the whole Scottish market declined in 2010, with national daily titles seeing an average drop in sales of 6%, while Sundays dropped 7%.

Among the titles to experience the biggest decline were the Scotsman, down 8%, and the Herald which fell by 7%.

The News of the World also saw its circulation fall by 37,000 to 261,000 during the year.

As an Aberdeen-supporting SNP voter, the future of an Old Firm obsessed Labour propaganda rag like Record matters not one bit to me. As for the Herald and the Scotsman, it's clear that with the declining quality of the bits in between the adverts, their proprietors are reaping in abundance what they have sown.

It's food for thought that despite the febrile near daily monstering the SNP has taken from all these titles over the past four years, independence support sits at 40%. Meanwhile, the party can still poll nearly 15 times higher than the Scotsman's daily circulation and well over double that of the Sun and the Record.

If *only* there was a way for all those clever newspaper executives to shore up their failing businesses, perhaps by enhancing the appeal of their titles to those who might inherently be inclined to try and buy Scottish wherever possible... any suggestions?

"Of Course, They Know They Can Trust Us Not To Be Really Impartial"

2010-12-20T14:18:00.003Z

The above is a quote from Lord Reith, who wrote those words in his diary following the decision by the Cabinet not to take control over the Corporation during the 1926 General Strike. In light of some of the bare-faced faleshoods perpetuated by the Corporation's Scottish outpost over weather and tax powers, as well as the belligerence of certain presenters when confronted with the existence of SNP Ministers, little seems to change.

The piece below is due to appear shortly in the Scots Independent. As the noise against the SNP reaches a shrillness unparallelled since Gordon Brown's baseball-bat approach of 1999, it's time to start returning a few of these serves with interest...

Winter's Here – So Let's Get The Gloves Off

Summer, according to the Rolling Stones, was the time for fighting in the streets. Clearly no-one had bothered to share this information with the student demonstrators in sleepy London town just before Christmas, as a minority opted to vent their anger by rioting against the coalition government's plans to lift the cap on tuition fees in England's universities.

As the debris is cleared up and a winter of discontent falls upon us as surely as snow which the BBC fails to forecast, the time is right for the SNP to get the gloves off. For make no mistake, a thoroughly competent and responsible SNP Government which has played scrupulously by the rules since coming to office, needs to start punching back hard against a political and media establishment which seems willing to stoop to any level of misinformation in order to try and discredit it.

In all the talk of enhanced powers for Holyrood, who amongst us knew that weather and the freezing point of salted water had been secretly devolved to become the responsibility of the Scottish Government? The ministerial demise of Stewart Stevenson, together with the nonsense over the readiness of Holyrood's pocket money tax powers which no-one planned to use, has given us an object lesson, as if any were needed, in the willingness of the Holyrood opposition and the Westminster government to grandstand when it suits.

All's fair in love and politics, though, and thanks to the talents of the SNP ministerial team, navigating the choppy waters of minority government has been made to look rather easier at times than it actually is. The opposition has, of course, always been able to bring proceedings to a grinding halt whenever they wanted. Increasingly, the temptation will be, as over minimum alcohol pricing, to try and do the same in the remainder of this parliamentary session, trying to claim as many apologies and ministerial scalps as they can along the way, whether justified or not.

The overhet nonsense over Holyrood's useless tax powers, just as with the Megrahi release, allowed the opposition to pull together motions compiling a list of grievances against the government, while declining to put forward the alternative proposals which would have surely fractured their little coalitions of convenience. Parliament can unite to pass a motion declaring the moon is made of cream cheese if it so desires. It doesn't make it so, yet the resulting fall out from these occasions generates headlines for days afterwards, which our friends in the media are then only too happy to try and draw wider inferences from.

The election will be won outside parliament, but it can certainly be lost in the television studios. The ridiculous slant of certain BBC Scotland presenters over the weather was as nothing compared to their partisan fanning of the flames over the 'lapsing' of the tax powers. No thanks to the BBC, we now know that the powers had been mothballed by the previous Lib/Lab coalition, long before the SNP took office. We also know that the Secretary of State for Scotland was on maneuvers, as he tried in vain to cut the feet from the SNP critique of the inadequate Calman tax proposals, while attempting to circumvent long-standing Treasury funding statements to leave Holyrood with the bill for paying to administer them.

However, the willingness of an obedient BBC Scotland to run after this particular stick the instant that Moore bellowed 'fetch!', ought to give any remaining supporters of the licence fee pause for thought about whether the Corporation can any longer be trusted to report impartially. Mike Russell's recent demolition of Gordon Brewer on Newsnight had nationalists cheering into their cocoa - we need to see more of this in the weeks and months ahead, and to tackle square-on the confrontational approach and apparent determination of certain programmes not to give the SNP position a fair crack of the whip.

The opposition, as well as the BBC, is in danger of crossing a line in public credibility. Whether over Megrahi, tax powers which no party intended to use and which are soon for the chop anyway, or indeed the weather, voters can spot nonsense and opportunism a mile off. As they decide who to praise and who to blame in May, we need to be making our case vigourously, without giving any of the quarter that our opponents are clearly not prepared to give to us.

As well as robustly defending our positives, the SNP also needs to rediscover the ability to showcase the paucity of its opponents. Writing of First Minister's Questions recently in The Herald, Rab McNeil put it superbly in describing the way Labour members conduct themselves: “Every week, starey-eyed, purple-faced, vein-straining hatred abounds.” And that's before you even consider averting your gaze from the supposed better performers on Labour's front bench to what lies beyond.

The SNP government has a great story to tell about how it has protected services and prioritised public investment in the face of deep Westminster cuts. However, a record of competence and mild-mannered pointing out of the error of the ways of others will not be enough to defend this against a sea of belligerence, feral opportunism and lack-wit populism. To get our message across and advance next May, we need to leave the emollience of the civil service briefs behind more often and start putting to good use the cold political steel we developed from years of hard opposition slog.

Hammond Must Go!

2010-12-18T11:36:00.003Z

From BBC News:

North-west England travel warning after heavy snowfall

Hundreds of vehicles spent the night stranded on the M6 after a lorry jack-knifed in the snowy conditions.

Ambulance bosses warned of delays reaching patients in some areas, while transport operators said there was severe disruption to services.

Liverpool's Premier League match against Fulham and Wigan versus Aston Villa are both called off.

Up to 10in of snow fell in parts of Cheshire, Lancashire, Manchester and Merseyside on Friday night.

It caused widespread disruption on the roads and the M6 crash happened at about 0030 GMT, leading to tailbacks and stranded vehicles on the M61, M62 and M58.

Both Heathrow and Gatwick are shut too. Since snow was forecast, there's really only one honourable route for the transport minister to take. Following the inevitable tabloid hounding, and with BBC North West presenters baying for blood at the head of the charge, Phillip Hammond must surely do the decent thing and resign immediately.

What? Hammond's a Tory Minister and this happened in England, you say? And the BBC has done its job of reporting the facts without the greetin-faced editorialising we normally expect from the Scottish outpost? Oh, that's all right, then. As you were...

Tomorrow's News, Today

2010-12-12T13:00:00.006Z

As support for Scottish Independence hits 40%, with 44% against, an early draft of a political story certain to appear in tomorrow's Daily Mail/Daily Record/Scotsman etc reaches me. I hope they won't mind if I steal their thunder by posting it up here in advance...

SALMOND REELS AFTER FRESH INDEPENDENCE VOTE BLOW

The SNP was left reeling last night after a fresh opinion poll showed that a majority of Scots continue to resist their separatist agenda to rip Scotland out of the UK.

In a political body blow to First Minister Alex Salmond, the results of the survey, newly released by pollsters TNS, show that support for independence has soared by a disastrous 9% since 2009, rising from 31% to 40%. Support for the union meanwhile continues to remain steady, dropping to 44%, with 16% of respondents unsure.

Phillip McCludgie, Labour MSP for Brigadoon Central, last night said that the result was 'another nail in the coffin' for the SNP's dreams of a separate Scotland.

“Alex Salmond will be choking on his porridge this morning. These results are a disaster for the SNP, and confirm that even after his Mugabe style power-grab in 2007 when he unfairly managed to persuade more people to vote SNP than Labour, he still hasn't managed to convince Scots to back his mad plans.

“Everyone knows that independence would be a disaster, with higher debt and spending cuts needed to bail out global banks with the word Scotland somewhere in their name. This would obviously be different from the higher debt and spending cuts of the LibCon Coalition, and very different from the much fairer higher debt and spending cuts which Labour would have brought in if we'd won the election.

“A referendum would just be an excuse for those haggis-bashing wierdos to run around shouting 'och aye the noo' at one another, and distract everyone from the important task of sorting out the complete hash Gordon Brown made of running the economy... er, I mean securing recovery in these difficult times for hard-working families.”

Scottish Conservative Leader Annabel Doily welcomed the results as a boost ahead of next year's elections, and said it proved how 'obvious' it was that Scots continued to reject independence.

“These figures just go to show that the SNP is living in a fantasy land”, she said. “It's obvious that independence remains hugely unpopular with ordinary Scots. That's why we're right not to have a referendum, because if people did vote for independence, then it would upset the overwhelming majority who time and time again say in these polls that they oppose separatism.

“It's time that Scots stood on their own two feet and took some responsibility for their future. We in the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party will never resile from our long-standing and solemn commitment to do everything we can to get in the way of that happening.”

We couldn't be bothered to get a quote from anyone in the SNP at the time of going to press.

© All Scottish Newspapers, between now and May.

Coming Soon - To A Doorstep Near You...

2010-11-25T22:26:00.003Z

This weekend, on a doorstep not far from your own, a bell rings. Outside, four figures in search of the householder's vote stand huddled against the cold…

Householder: Yes?

First Visitor: Hello, I’m Iain Gray. Leader of the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament.

Second Visitor: And I’m Annabel Goldie. Leader of the Scottish Conservatives.

Third Visitor: How do you do? Tavish Scott. Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

Householder: I see. And who is that jumping around behind you, trying to grab my attention?

Fourth visitor: [Excitedly] My name’s Patrick Harvie! And I lead one of the major parties in the Scottish Parliament!

HH: Of course you do. Right, what can I do for you all?

All: [Chorus] We want to tell you about how awful John Swinney is, and what a terrible mess the SNP has made of Scotland’s tax varying powers.

HH: Oh? Why’s that?

IG: He let the Scottish Parliament’s Tax Powers slip!

HH: Goodness! All by himself? And how did he manage that?

AG: He didn’t pay a bill to HMRC which would have allowed the tax powers to be used.

HH: I don’t understand. How can a minister in a government with no powers over the Scotland Act change the terms of that Act simply by not paying a bill?

TS: Er, well, he can’t. But it means that the tax powers can’t be brought into effect as quickly as he said they could.

HH: Ok. But none of your parties even want to use the powers...

PH: [Interrupting excitedly] Mine does!

HH: ...2 MSPs want to use the powers while 127 others don't. So why should John Swinney be spending taxpayers money to maintain at peak readiness a system which wasn't going to be used anyway?

All: That’s not the point!

HH: So how big was this bill that he didn’t pay?

All: Erm, about seven million pounds.

HH: I'm confused – if spending around £7m on the National Conversation was such a waste of money, why would spending money on this be any better?

All: Because the people voted for it so that it could be used if necessary.

HH: Well, what about the fact that Mr Swinney was trying to negotiate a deal with HMRC to ensure the power could be used immediately from next May, but that the HMRC systems were inadequate for the purpose without that £7m being spent. How does that square with the charge that he deliberately let the power slide?

All: But he was in charge. And he didn't tell us what he was doing. So it’s all his fault!

HH: Maybe. But what have you to say about the first response from the UK government to Mr Swinney regarding his querying of this £7m demand coming in a press release from Michael Moore? Isn't there supposed to be a 'respect agenda' working here?

All: Everyone knows that it's always the SNP that starts fights with Westminster.

HH: Doesn't sound like it in this case...

IG, TS & AG: You sound like a raving Nat.

HH: Look, do you want my vote or not?

IG, TS & AG: [Mumbling] Sorry...

HH: Right, moving on. This power is about to be scrapped by the Westminster government anyway, and replaced with the Calman tax powers. What’s the point in maintaining it under those circumstances? And if Scotland is expected to pay for the costs of a tax power that no-one ever intended using, which government is going to end up footing the bill for the Calman tax mechanisms?

All: [shuffle feet and whistle]

HH: I see. So what difference did not paying this money really make to the overall timescale of when the powers could be used?

IG & TS: [examining shoes] Erm… now you come to mention it, not a lot.

HH: And why’s that?

IG & TS: Er, our parties mothballed the power back in 2000 when we were running the first Scottish Executive.

HH: I don't remember hearing about that at the time. Did nobody think to tell Parliament?

IG & TS: No, but that was different.

HH: Why, exactly?

IG & TS: Look! It just was, alright? You are a raving Nat...

HH: So let me get this straight. You want me to get irate about John Swinney not spending £7m on maintaining a facility to raise a tax that none of you ever intended to use...

PH: [Irate] Except me!

HH: OK, which none of you - except him - ever intended to use; which had been mothballed a decade previously; which was about to be replaced anyway; for him not telling Parliament what was going on even though Parliament wasn't told a decade ago that the mechanism had been mothballed; and for not confirming to Parliament something that the last Lib Dem and Labour finance ministers should have known anyway at the time they left office?

All: Yes!!!

HH: Goodbye. [Slams door, whilst shaking head]

Green Climate Spin - Unravelled

2010-11-14T20:18:00.002Z

When it comes to 'Green' politics, I'm pretty much like the Burd, just as I am when it comes to the Scottish Greens themselves. Those feelings came to the fore again yesterday, when a Google alert popped into my inbox highlighting a Green press release. 'SNP CLIMATE SPIN REVEALED', screamed the headline. Thinking it had to be at least worth a read, I followed the link.

The gist of their argument is that the Scottish Government claims to have reduced CO2 emissions by 21.2%. Yet, with their magnifying glasses and floppy-eared deerstalkers on, the Greens have noticed that this excludes 'unallocated' emissions from offshore North Sea oil and gas platforms, which if included, would allegedly reduce that figure to 16.7%. Quite outrageous, I'm certain you won't agree, although to be fair, they do make one reasonable point: namely, that some offshore emissions, for all that they are 'unallocated', do take place in Scotland.

To arrive at this figure, they allocate 90% of offshore emissions to Scotland, on the basis that this is the 'SNP's own figures' for allocating the revenues. Now, this may be a minor point, but it's not the SNP's figure.

This figure came originally from Professor Alex Kemp of Aberdeen University, and it varies in line with the price of oil and gas. His last estimate was that 84% was the correct estimate for revenues. However, that's just nitpicking, since the main flaw with this attempt at allocation is that revenues are not the same as emissions. The fact is that no real attempt has been made to allocate emissions based on location. While that data may not be readily available, although emissions are likely to be significant, there's no way of telling whether 90% is a fair estimate or not. For the record, I'd suspect it's not.

Another blooper comes in the claim that 'Even these [unallocated] emissions do not count the climate consequences of burning the oil and gas extracted, merely those associated with extraction and production.' That's probably because they're included in the 'allocated' emissions in the report being referenced.

However, the real howler is a constitutional one. While emissions do take place in Scotland's waters and would indeed be the responsibility of an independent Scotland, unless I've been asleep since the passing of the Scotland Act, oil and gas remains reserved to Westminster. There is therefore next to nothing that the Scottish Government can do within its powers – even it it was a government comprised entirely of Greens – which would have any effect whatsoever on offshore emissions. As such, it is just plain wrong to try and allocate these emissions when assessing the effectiveness of Scottish Government measures to reduce greenhouse gases.

Think about it. If you're being appraised at work, in order for the process to be fair, you can only be assessed on those aspects of your performance which are within your control. To do otherwise, like the Greens are trying to do here, is like assessing whether Mark McGhee is making a good job as Aberdeen manager based on the league position of Aston Villa.

Of course, the doubtful methodology and conceptual errors are incidental to the wider point that the Greens want to try and make, which is that the SNP is somehow 'addicted' to oil – as daft a charge as you're ever likely to hear made on the stump. Presently, oil and gas meet 75% of the UK's energy needs, and provide nearly half a million jobs. Even if all our electricity were to come from renewable sources starting tomorrow, there would still be a huge reliance on oil and gas for heating, transport and industry. If there's an addiction to oil, it's one which we all share, unless we wish to see the industry shut down overnight.

The irony is, if we are to meet our renewable energy targets, it's going to need the manufacturing base, the engineering expertise and the infrastructure which is only found right now in the oil and gas industry. If Scotland stands ready to lead in the emerging renewables sector, it's because of this indigenous advantage as much as it is to geographical location.

Anyway, I'm delighted to have the Greens set this out as a dividing line. Whatever constitutional status eventually becomes Scotland, or however close we really are to that most nebulous concept of 'peak oil', the North Sea is going to be a major source of employment and energy needs for the forseeable future. It would be fascinating to learn how the Greens would like to see us reduce our oil dependency within a timescale that wouldn't render them hypocrites on the issue of how successful the Scottish Government has been on reducing emissions.

Reasons To Be Cheerful - 1, 2, 3, 4....

2010-11-13T17:32:00.005Z

You can call me cynical if you like, but I think there's a big dollop of the herd mentality and perhaps a more than a little wishful thinking in the current received wisdom that Labour is somehow coasting to victory in next May's Scottish elections.

Jeff gives some interesting reasons from Sweden over at Better Nation as to why Labour's current position may not turn out to be the winning one that its own people and some allegedly disinterested commentators so clearly hope. However, there's more than a few reasons closer to home to suggest why this might also be the case. Never being one to miss a chance to stick my head above the parapet, here's just a few of them.

The first reason is the polls themselves. While Labour enjoys a lead right now over the SNP, there's good reason to doubt the weighting of some of the polls suggesting that this is so. However, even taking polls at face value, the SNP, astonishingly for a party in government, is still consistently polling higher than it was at this stage four years ago.

Admittedly, the SNP was still ahead of Labour at that stage. However, the fact remains that Labour's lead has not come at the expense of the SNP. In the aftermath of the Con Dem tie-up at Westminster and the nose-diving of the Lib Dems fortunes in the polls, it's pretty clear that Labour's present advantage has been built on taking support from those who no longer agree with Nick.

Given the First-Past-The-Post boundary changes and the volatility of the list system, it's tough to go on anything more than gut instinct unless you're prepared to don your anorak and make a forecast based on the individual ballot box results from the 2007 elections. However, if you assume a significant shift from Lib Dem to Labour, you have to imagine that seats held presently by the Lib Dems like Dunfermline West and Edinburgh South look likely to fall to Labour.

All other things being equal, that would put Labour one ahead of the SNP, assuming that Labour didn't go on to lose list seats in Mid Scotland and Lothian in consequence. However, with the changes in Aberdeen South to take in parts of Kincardineshire, you'd have to assume that the SNP would also fancy its chances here. Which would make it even-stevens, providing that a slightly increased SNP vote can make sure that any shift from Lib Dem to Labour doesn't trouble SNP constituency members in the central belt who are sitting on slim majorities from last time.

The real unknown is in the regional lists. With there being no apparent coalescence of the hard left vote around either Solidarity or the SSP and seemingly little shift in the Green vote, any fall in the Lib Dem list vote could put some of those lower list positions in play. However, given Labour's constituency dominance in Glasgow, Central Scotland and the West, even if constituency seats do fall, it's hard to see the SNP slipping back if the list vote remains solid. Similarly, there is room for the SNP, which topped the list vote in the Lothians last time, to pick up another list seat ~~with Margo MacDonald standing down~~ if Margo MacDonald stands down.

So, if it's hard to see an SNP advance, it's also hard to see where any significant fall would come from. That's where other political factors come into play... can the Lib Dems claw back some of the support that they appear to be losing to Labour between now and May? Can the SNP make a successful pitch for those Lib Dem voters scunnered with their party's role at Westminster? And how will personality play when voters make up their minds about who they want to lead Scotland for the next four years?

I expect we'll be hearing quite a bit about the respective merits of Alex Salmond versus Iain Gray over the next few months. However, the interesting bit for me is how the rest of ministerial team shapes up against their opposite numbers. Nicola Sturgeon against Jackie Baillie at health is no contest, while John Swinney's command of his finance brief regularly reduces Andy Kerr to shouty incoherence. Mike Russell easily swats away all-comers, and stands head and shoulders above (I had to look this up) Des McNulty. It's seldom difficult to distinguish between Johann Lamont and a ray of sunshine, but sheer ability places Alex Neil a country mile ahead of her. Finally, the idea of shoogly bandwagon jumper extrordinaire Richard Baker replacing the robust Kenny Macaskill as Justice Minister ought to be enough to bring any thinking adult out into a cold sweat.

Then there's the matter of policies and general approach. Labour has done itself no favours with its opportunistic approach to minimum pricing. Their approach to knife crime is a joke, and their opposition to increased police numbers puts them dead against a policy which has seen a marked reduction in crime. Having spent four years decrying first local income tax and then a freeze in council tax, their apparent determination not just to persevere with this most unfair of taxes but to see council tax increase during the present downturn, alone deserves to see them given short shrift.

Westminster will also play a factor. With impending budget cuts, it's simply not credible for Labour to announce billions in spending increases without saying what they will cut to pay for it all. Nor is it credible for the party which led us to the brink of economic catastrophe to decry the spending reductions being made by others, which they made necessary and would have had to see through themselves if in Government. Given their cack-handed approach to each and every budget under the SNP to date, it's hard to imagine Labour adopting a position that is any more honest or intelligent this time around.

Finally, at least for this post, there's the matter of the tone of voice which the party projects. Iain Gray, whatever his other qualities, strikes a consistently carping and negative tone, which goes down badly. All too often, whether under Wendy Alexander or Gray, their policy stance has been a binary calculation that if the SNP is for something, then they have to be against it.

The overall tone over the past four years has been one of gripe, groan and moan, alongside a refusal to accept their responsibility for the mess of our military entanglements and the fiscal devastation created by Gordon Brown. The voters know it too, and in the absence of anything positive to say, it's by no means a foregone conclusion that with a Con Dem coalition in London, that Scottish voters will when it comes down to it return to a Labour Party that has given plenty of good reasons not to vote for it.

So Labour's lead is weak, while the SNP core support remains strong. The SNP has governed well and has a team of credible and experienced ministers who can readily see off their opponents. Labour, unforgivably for a party seeking a return to government, remains dangerously weak on policy and on answers on how to deal with the downturn. With the scrutiny which the next few months will bring to their overwhelmingly negative prospectus, that, above all else, is why there's all to play for between now and May.

Decline and Fall

2010-10-26T09:45:00.002+01:00

It’s been pretty galling over the past two years to have to sit and listen to the gloating of certain unionist politicians and pundits, utterly convinced that the restrictions placed on an SNP minority government has meant that the spirit of the times is back with them.

The assertions of conceptual superiority have flown thick and fast. We've been told, seemingly without irony by those who led us neck-deep into the big muddy of Iraq, that an independent Scotland would have no standing or influence in the world. We've also been hectored that Scotland couldn't afford to maintain current defence spending, at the same time as the UK presides over a £4.5bn defence underspend in Scotland.

It's hard to take lectures about a credible defence posture from a government set to deliver us aircraft carriers with no aircraft to carry and submarines that can't seem to tell where the Isle of Skye is. However, it's harder still to take lectures about economic prudence and competence from a political establishment which has led the country to the brink of financial ruin.

Gordon Brown designed the very system of financial regulation which has served us so badly. However, that didn’t stop Labour politicians who very pointedly failed to properly regulate the banks they were responsible for, from castigating the SNP for apparently failing to regulate Icelandic banks the SNP self-evidently wasn’t responsible for. Nor did it stop them from slating the SNP for failing to act in areas of the macroeconomy where by Labour's own devolutionary design, the Scottish Government had no powers to act anyway.

No more. October 2010 is the month where the case for devolved Scotland in the Union unraveled in spectacular style. Britain's decline has been inexorable and long-term for a century or more, but rarely, if ever at all, has there before the recent defence review and Comprehensive Spending Review, been a series of events which have exposed so cruelly and so quickly the gap between the rhetoric and the reality of the nature of the modern British state.

The defence review has been little more than a cost cutting exercise dressed up as grand strategic design, which will see Britain unable to fight another Falklands war. As if the carrier position weren’t farcical enough, we will sacrifice 4 frigates and their abilities to keep sea lanes clear at a time when piracy has returned to the seas.

Further big power pretensions remain in the ongoing £100bn commitment to Trident. Yet with the scrapping of the Nimrod replacement maritime patrol aircraft, the government has sacrificed a key element in keeping safe from potential hostile forces the one Trident submarine on patrol at all times. Incredibly, at a time when Russia is probing Atlantic air space several times a month with bomber and reconnaissance aircraft, there also now hangs a question mark over the future of RAF Lossiemouth as a fast jet base.

Yet if the defence situation is dire, the economic situation has also come home to roost with the comprehensive spending review. Tory Chancellor George Osbourne and his Lib Dem mini-me Danny Alexander have managed what previously seemed impossible – uniting Labour and the SNP in a consensus that the spending cuts are coming too quickly and go too deep.

The outcome of the CSR means that Scotland faces a dismal future of cuts which will deflate the economy and create a further widening of inequality. A swingeing cut in university funding south of the border, to be filled by massively increased student contributions, will have an inevitable knock-on effect in Scotland through Barnett. It’s the final proof, as if any were needed, of how unbalanced our economy has become, and the growing gulf in expectations north and south of the border of what the state is there to do.

Through lazy overreliance on easier Empire markets, a potent cocktail of toxic labour/management relations in the 60's and 70's and suicidal economic policies in the 1980's, Britain cast aside manufacturing to become dangerously over-reliant on the turbo capitalism of the square mile. All the while, through follies like Iraq and Trident, we've been bankrupting ourselves diplomatically and economically, all in order to underwrite the global pretensions of a Westminster oriented political elite, who's sense of prestige and self-worth is inextricably bound up in the idea that somehow, Britain still matters.

The pretensions of this elite have rendered Britain a failed state. Once unifying institutions like the Post Office are to be privatised to help pay the bills. Even the so-called national broadcaster has become a slave to Government interference, rendering it unable to reflect the diversity of the state which pays for it. Anything that there might have been worth saving about Britain’s politics – an ethical Labourism, one-nation Toryism, Scottish Liberalism - has all been trampled underfoot by a metropolitan power grab.

If we can't rely on the British state for economic stability, for international prestige, for defence, to be a force for good in the world, as a force for modernisation and social progression, then what on earth is it for? More to the point, with our own Scottish institutions of government in place, why do we allow our own ambitions any longer to be subordinated, when we could get on with building a state better attuned to reflecting the aspirations of the nation we want to be?

The gentle, almost unspoken social union, the familiarity of ties of family and friends will remain, but Britain as a political entity deserves to be put out of its misery. Under independence, just like now, our ambitions may be constrained by a lack of resources or by our own limitations. At least we’ll never be held back by the decisions – or delusions - of anyone other than ourselves.

Nae Mayor

2010-09-11T12:53:00.002+01:00

Long-term advocate of elected Mayors, Ross Martin, asked in Wednesday's 'Hootsmon' whether there was room at the top for 'strong leadership' (i.e. Elected Mayors)in Scotland's cities. In his piece (behind the paywall, sadly) he asks us:

“Do we have a single political personality to match the gung-ho dynamism of New York's former leader Rudolph Giuliani, the bold character of a Boris Johnson or the direct political purpose of a "Red Ken"? These city leaders make a real difference when they combine their own character with real political power. Sadly, our city councillors simply don't have that political power to impose themselves and their programmes in the same way that these leaders of real world cities do.”

Now, regardless as to whether we do or don't have similar 'personalities', some might question whether having all-powerful characters like these at the helms of our cities would be in any way a good thing - some people like me, for instance. Those same people might also question the value of comparing Scotland's cities to London, Paris and New York rather than to cities closer in size like Oslo, Bilbao or Stuttgart. However, that's by and by – Martin's objective was clearly to pick high profile examples of Mayors in action so as to illustrate his point about individual leaders being able to put their stamp on a city.

An old favourite argument then rears its head. I paraphrase, but it runs something like this:

London's elected Mayor was instrumental to the introduction of congestion charging, which has been a good thing. Edinburgh doesn't have an elected Mayor, and its former Labour administration failed to bring in congestion charging. Therefore, to get anything big done, Scottish cities need elected Mayors.

As arguments go, it's plucked straight from the political school of thought that says 'we need to do something, this is something, therefore we must do it'.

The argument regarding congestion charging shows a certain lofty contempt for voters. Firstly, it's by no means clear that Edinburgh's congestion problem would have been solved by a deeply flawed toll scheme. The way the 2 cordons were drawn, when I lived in Edinburgh I could have used the car all week around town for work and leisure without ever once paying a toll, but would have been stung any time I returned home after leaving the city.

It was only ever proposed to try and part-fund a third tram line, and given the complete balls that TIE has made of the first one, thank goodness their ambitions were constrained. In the end, our existing system worked perfectly to reflect opinion – there was a lack of unanimity in Edinburgh City Chambers, and Edinburgh folk saw through the PR guff and voted accordingly in the resulting referendum. Frankly, the idea that all we needed was an Eric Milligan with executive powers to get us to see the merits of what was being proposed is insulting and preposterous in equal measure.

The concept of elected mayors plays to the fallacy of the strong political leader, who bestrides their bailiwick like a collosus, sweeps away opposition and pointless bureacracy, galvanises opinion, builds partnerships and inspires us to ever greater civic heights. It's a technocratic, rather than a democratic argument, which ignores what happens if, rather than this shining specimen of civic virtue you instead elect an incompetent rascal to preside over an emasculated local authority. It also, surprisingly for someone like Ross Martin with a background as a Labour 'moderniser' in local government, ignores what our existing structures allow us to do.

Back in the 60's and 70's, Edinburgh was a drab and declining city, with the Edinburgh Corporation a byword for dull conservatism. The District Council which replaced it wasn't much better, and despite the presence of young talents in council politics over that time like Alastair Darling, Malcolm Rifkind and George Foulkes, it took a dynamic group of Labour councillors at District and Regional level (they were New Labour before the term was invented) in the early 80's to get the city moving.

Daft projects like the Western Relief Road were killed off and the regeneration began of gap sites, particularly around Lothian Road. Gradually, through the 80's and 90's, Edinburgh regained her dynamism, and without having anything like the government financial support available to other cities over that time, managed to develop significant assets like Cameron Toll and the Gyle Shopping Centres, Edinburgh Park, the new Financial District, the Festival Theatre and the EICC.

Eventually, this cadre ran out of steam. Keith Geddes left the council and narrowly missed out on getting elected to Holyrood, before making a career in quangoland and in PR. George Kerevan concentrated on academia before turning to journalism and crossing over to the SNP. Angus Mackay, once tipped for a glittering career in local government, saw his future in the Scottish Parliament and made it to Finance Minister, before being knifed first by Jack MacConnell and then by the electorate of Edinburgh South.

Without people of similar calibre, Labour limped on for a few more years, with ideas no more inspiring than building pointless guided busways, painting bus lanes green and excavating to create some more retail space under Princes Street. When PR was introduced, they were cut back down to the minority status their support had long merited, and a new administration emerged with a mandate to clear up the mess that he been left behind. In other words, Edinburgh's experience, shows that dynamism, while cyclical, can be created and sustained by group effort, without the need for a single all-powerful leader.

If we want dynamic cities, we need ideas, a group of people to take them forward, and an engaged electorate prepared to reward the virtuous and vanquish the scoundrels. If Edinburgh, or any of our other cities are experiencing a long-term lack of direction, what we need is a decent debate about the role that cities play in the lives of their residents and all who come to work rest and play there, the nature of the services that their local administrations provide, how different sectors can work across boundaries for the common good, how to work towards economic and ecological sustainability in the present environment and perhaps most important of all, rethink what people can do for themselves and others in terms of building a strong social fabric.

It strikes me that the best way to bring that about is to have a more pluralistic political culture which encourages more diverse voices. Reducing a city to a single powerful voice and concentrating power in the hands of officials, no matter how well intentioned they might be, is unlikely to create the cacophony of diverse voices and ideas that we need. Having elected Mayors – a kind of Lord Provost on steroids - will not do a thing to improve our governance, nor will they provide the momentum to change our cities for the better, since the factors required for this are far more complex than simply putting an Admiral with shinier medals on the bridge.

Nae Mayor, Ross – put this idea back in the box.

Unintended Consequences?

2010-09-06T12:19:00.002+01:00

I see that Hamish Macdonnell is busy arguing in today's Hootsman that by making independence a key issue at the next election, the SNP risks scaring off those voters who backed the party last time but who didn't want a vote on full self-governance. Now, Hamish is a smart fellow, but by regurgitating the conventional wisdom on this point, he's in danger of missing a trick. A couple of tricks, even.

Here's why. Despite the perpetual spinning to the contrary from politicians and talking heads alike, a referendum on Independence is backed not just by those who want independence – it's also backed by those of other opinions who want to see the question put or who simply would like the right to choose. That's why support for a referendum commands heavy majority support, even if independence itself might not.

Now, the reason any bill won't pass right now is because the majority of unionist MSPs won't back a referendum, as it is their right to do. Yet the parties those same MSPs are elected on behalf of are prepared to back referendums on AV and on further powers for the Welsh assembly. It's impossible to argue for referendums on those matters but not independence without leaving yourself open to a charge of hypocrisy.

Even if you're agnostic on the referendum question, the contradiction is apparent. If you feel strongly enough about it, then that's a pretty good recruitment sergeant for the SNP. After all, what politician ever lost votes by making it clear they trusted the good sense of the voters to decide an issue for themselves? Or put it another way – what politician ever gained votes by telling voters that they should butt out of an issue and leave it all to the grown-ups to decide for them?

However, here's the killer for Hamish's argument. Through their entrenched opposition, might our unionist politicians not be making it easier for unionists to back an SNP government whom, the independence issue notwthstanding, they might actually hold in high regard?

Think about it. By going into the next election pledging to vote any referendum bill down, then any subsequent unionist backsliding on the issue notwithstanding, voters who don't want either independence or a referendum will almost certainly be spared the prospect. As such, they will be as free, if not freer than they were last time round to vote SNP, safe in the knowledge that the SNP won't be able to deliver a referendum alone.

Ah, the law of unintended consequences. Dontcha' just love it?

J'accuse - Iain MacWhirter

2010-08-26T23:14:00.008+01:00

How did this ever come about? How did Edinburgh become the biggest welfare state in history? By what divine right did it gain access to unlimited sources of public funds just at the moment when Britain is on the verge of national bankruptcy through excessive public spending?

The wailing sound above which comes from atop a columnular high horse in today's Herald is that of Iain MacWhirter. As he goes on to disparage the city I called home for almost 30 years and an industry in which I worked for 6, I think a riposte of some kind is in order. But first, if you haven't already, go and take in the flavour and fact of his epistle. I'll stick the kettle on while you do...

Finished? Then we can get down to business of taking his argument to bits. First of all, he's just plain wrong to contend that Edinburgh is sustained by public cash to anything like the extent that he does. The House of Commons Library helpfully provide some stats on this front for Westminster seats on mainland Britain and although they're from 2008, the proportions will still hold up pretty well.

While Edinburgh South is top of the GB pile having 67% of workers in the public sector, that compares to a city-wide average of just over 30%. Edinburgh South, of course, contains nearly all of the jobs at Edinburgh University. Therefore, if you base your observations of Edinburgh's economy on what you'd see during a bus journey from, say, the King's Buildings to Potterrow passing the National Library and Historic Scotland on the way, then you're unlikely to get a very representative view of things.

For the purposes of comparison, Glasgow and Aberdeen are both at around 30%, with Dundee on 37%. Overall, the Scottish total from these figures is 30.3%, which isn't too out of step with the Scottish Government's figure, which is calculated on a different basis, of 27%. For what its worth, up here in Gordon, which takes in some of the northern suburbs of Aberdeen, the figure is 12%.

So if his argument about the size of Edinburgh's public sector is as overdone as a steak burned to charcoal, what about his substantive point regarding the banking bailout and the financial sector?

The fact that RBS was based in Edinburgh is incidental, as was the fact that most of its problems would have instead been Barclays had they won the battle to take over ABN Ambro. If the bailout hadn’t happened, to avoid a worldwide contagion there would have needed to have been a bailout from other UK or overseas investors. The alternative was a firesale of assets – i.e. people’s mortgages and businesses all over the UK being flogged off to the first bidder to try and avoid meltdown. As such, the bailout propped up a great deal more than just banking jobs, be they in Edinburgh or anywhere else for that matter.

Unaccountably, he goes on to place part of the blame for Edinburgh's supposed dependence on the public purse to the Scottish Parliament, pleading bizarrely “mea culpa along with the rest of us who argued for devolution. Naively, we thought this might benefit Scotland as a whole, but we forgot the lesson that when you follow the money it invariably resides where politicians lie.” On that front, you can include me out, Iain. Bringing St Andrew's house under proper democratic control while providing a forum for national debate and lawmaking has been an unqualified good.

Let's leave aside the fact that Edinburgh was an administrative capital long before devolution, and that Holyrood had no power over the banking crisis, either in terms of the response or the failed regulation beforehand. His argument seems to be that since most of Edinburgh's top 10 largest employers are public sector and that 'some brewing' takes place, it’s therefore public cash that keeps the private sector going. Frankly, that argument is nonsense on stilts.

As a wee aside, thanks to the brewing reference, I'm willing to lay a pound to a penny that his source for this was Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Edinburgh

There's no reason to doubt the figures – only his conclusion. The public sector has some big employers in Edinburgh, which provide jobs for plenty of people who live outside and travel to work in the city. What his use of these figures ignores is the less obvious private sector activity going on in smaller entities, which collectively dwarfs the public sector. As you can see from the earlier spreadsheet, where Edinburgh is concerned, there's around 93,000 public sector jobs and 211,000 in the private sector. Notwithstanding the fact that some of those public sector jobs are national rather than local, you still need some heroic multiplier effects to argue that 93,000 sustains 211,000 rather than the other way about.

Just think on the few acres down at Westfield, near Gorgie, where you'll find Wolfson Microelectronics, which makes chips for every iPhone in the world, alongside a large distillery, a kitchen manufacturer and chemicals firm Macfarlane Smith. Go down Calder Road into Wester Hailes and you'll see Burton's biscuit factory. In the north, you'll find BAE Systems. Around Lothian Road, you'll find Standard Life (Edinburgh's 6th biggest employer), Scottish Widows (9th) and Baillie Gifford – significant parts of the financial sector that have stayed profitable, even if it doesn't suit Mr MacWhirter to acknowledge it.

There's too many other enterprises to mention, but we can go right down in size to our SMEs and all the mom and pop enterprises like the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and the white vans of the self-employed parked on the streets of comfortable but unpretentious parts of town other than Barnton or the Grange. It's that which makes the Edinburgh economy go round just as it does everywhere else – with people borrowing, investing and getting on with providing goods and services to make a living, whatever life throws at them.

Generally, I find much to admire in Iain Macwhirter's writing and often find him a rare voice of sanity. Here, though, he's barking up the wrong tree entirely. Cut the service sector some slack Iain and reflect on the fact that despite the tales of gloom Edinburgh, and Scotland, continue to have a robust economy thanks to interdependent private - and public - sectors.

Fail, Caledonia!

2010-08-24T13:13:00.004+01:00

Six weeks without posting. Has it really been that long? Anyway, as a pot-boiler, here's my latest epistle for the SI.

Despite being a proud son of the city, I’ve never been much of an Edinburgh Festival person. If pressed why, I’d put it down to my own days as a musician, where after playing solidly with my band most of the week during summer, I was more inclined to want to spend a Saturday night in the pub with friends, in preference to trawling around the city in search of a bit of culture.

With that said, I love the atmosphere of the city during festival time. It really is impossible to be immune to the cacophony of creativity which emerges from the capital each August. While I only went to one Fringe show this year, one of the productions in the official Festival which I regretted not being able to see was ‘Caledonia’, a play by Alistair Beaton performed by the National Theatre of Scotland.

It's based on the story of the Darien scheme, or as the blurb puts it - Scotland's “failed foray into colonialism”. It is a story of “greed, euphoria and mass delusion”… of a “small, poor country mistaking itself for a big, rich country - an ancient story for modern times”. Even if the marketing weren’t so unsubtle and self-flagelatory, the parallels with the present financial crisis would be blindingly obvious.

Darien is widely held to be a failure, a cause of shame - the final, conclusive proof that collectively, Scots just weren’t up to it. However, what’s forgotten is the initial Dutch and English backing for the project. The very existence today of the Panama Canal stands as testimony to the wisdom of using Panama as a trade route to Asia. Yet if the concept was sound, the execution was not. In the end, despite the malaria and the unpreparedness of the settlers for their conditions, it was the eventual opposition of the English and Spanish colonial powers to a palpable threat to their dominance which finally did for the adventure.

There’s no doubt the crushing blow which the aftermath of Darien had on Scotland and it’s a tale worth telling, just as it is worth pondering the path it set Scotland on to union with England just a few years later. It's also worth pondering how, with a shared monarch, Scottish interests were subordinated to those of England and how in the free market now offered by the EU, the rationale for a narrow British Parliamentary union has all but disappeared. However, what’s been puzzling me is the split personalities which some seem to adopt when discussing the production, as evidenced in a recent feature on Radio Scotland.

Scottish colonialism as an independent country was exploitative and bad, we were invited to conclude, as if that, as much as Darien's eventual demise rendered our forbears as collectively unworthy. However, fast forward a few years and as part of the United Kingdom, Scotland was one of the most successful colonial powers in the world – an enterprise which the reporter appeared to suggest was somehow worthy. I’m really not sure there are enough hours which could be spent on the psychiatrists couch trying to get to the bottom of that contradiction.

And in fairness, that's not the impression that the writer or the director have given in interviews of how they see the play and its context. In fact, it's what they have to say when speculating about the impact that Darien may have had on the national psyche, insofar as it exists, which is arguably of greatest interest.

As director Anthony Neilson said in a recent interview with The Scotsman's Chitra Ramaswamy: "Scots aren't seen as being the most optimistic of people". "The sense of humour is fatalistic. But it's interesting that there was a moment when we weren't like that. A moment when we came together and had this spirit of fervour... and then it went wrong. What part did that play in the psychology of the nation?"

What part indeed? We Scots often seem to have a strangely ambivalent attitude towards success. However, it's our attitude towards anything which is not successful which is particularly lacerating, especially when it comes to the personalities of those involved. Sometimes, it seems that the greatest shortcoming any Scot can have in the eyes of some of their compatriots is not to fail, but to inspire in others a hope which fails to come to fruition.

It's an extraordinary mindset when it manifests itself. The overwhelming desire not to be taken for a mug; the near certainty that things can't be done or that new ways simply won't work; which leads us to be excessively sceptical of opportunity where it may exist or the possibility of success. The wisdom of crowds can be scant at the best of times – the cynicism of crowds sadly less so.

All human achievement and discovery has resulted from failure as a learning, iterative process, coupled to the determination to try again. We need our dreamers, our visionaries and those who can think big thoughts. Rather than castigate or ridicule those who face setbacks, whether in sport or business, when they encounter a lack of success, we should be mature and reflective enough to let them try better next time, and whether they manage it or not, to benefit collectively from their experience.

There is seldom anything to regret in failure, only in not having tried. If we were looking for a motto which would serve Scotland better in the modern age than the truculent and spiky Nemo Me Impune Lacessit, it would surely be to Fail Often, Fail Better, and Succeed Finally.

What's Left Worth Conserving?

2010-07-08T16:06:00.004+01:00

No apologies for the light blogging - it's summertime, after all, and I'm on my first proper break from work in about 3 years. Now that the election is well and truly over, job hunting is once again at the forefront of my mind right now, as unemployment beckons at the end of August.

In the meantime, here's my latest column for the Scots Independent, written last week, which picks over the Westminster electoral carcass of the Scots Tories. It's a subject which has attracted the wailing and gnashing of teeth in recent days of journalistic personages no less prominent than Iain Martin and Alan Cochrane, although neither managed to be as thoughtful as Harry Reid in his piece for the Herald yesterday.

Scotland needs centre right representation, but does it need the Conservatives? And for so long as the party has supporters like 'ShetlandTory' (see comments in Iain Martin's piece) babbling from the hospital bed that "the electorate of the nation that produced Adam Smith wants it to be the North Korea of the North Sea", you have to wonder whether there really is anything there worth saving.

My good public reputation was tarnished irreparably a couple of weeks ago by a newspaper, which made an unwarranted and vile slander against me. Frankly, I don't know if I'll ever be able to hold my head up in polite company again. If I had any money at all I'd see them in court.

What was this vile calumny perpetrated against me? I'm outraged to say that in a recent report on a talk I'd given to a community group in Oldmeldrum, the Press and Journal described me not as a former SNP candidate, but as a former Conservative candidate. Since then, my world has collapsed.

I now get stared at in shops. Neighbours cross the street to avoid me, and already the hate mail has started to arrive, some of it recognisably from my own family. Even my cat has taken to shunning me, except, of course, when there's the prospect of food on offer.

Joking aside, there's no doubt that even if the label 'Conservative' is no longer as politically toxic as it was in the 1980's and 90's, the party is still going nowhere in Scotland. Even when on course to win South of the Border at the recent General Election and with the resulting positive media coverage, Cameron's Caledonian brethren struggled to make it above 17% in the polls, and were lucky to hang on to their single Scottish seat.

There's no doubt that a relentlessly negative campaign by the Labour Party entrenched Scottish voters into a 'Stop the Tories' mindset, despite the fact that not even a clean sweep in Scotland for Labour would have kept Cameron from Downing St, given Labour's refusal to work with any other parties in Government. As such, we have a Tory Prime Minister elected on the back of English votes, and with it, some uncomfortable questions for the Scottish Tories from their southern colleagues about their effectiveness.

Already, the recriminations have started. An independent commission has been set up to examine the party in Scotland. At least one key staff member has been shown the door. There are whispers of a purge of the candidate list; that Annabel Goldie's days are numbered as leader; that the party may be given new autonomy from London, and that it might even change its name in a bid to find new appeal amongst Scottish voters.

All well and good. But who, might we ask, is the individual being tasked with dragging the Scottish Tories kicking and screaming into the 21st century? Why, none other than septuagenarian peer Lord Russell Sanderson - a Scottish Office Minister at the height of Margaret Thatcher's unpopularity. There's nothing like having the right man in place for a job like this, and let's face it, he's nothing like the right man for a job like this.

From an outsider's perspective, a cleansing of the MSP stables and a change of leader might be no bad thing, provided, of course, that what they plan to replace them with represents an improvement. Similarly, a name change might help dull antagonistic associations with the party, although you also have to be changing something more fundamental than the name if it's to be credible. Without a change of substance, renaming the 'Scottish Conservatives' as 'Scottish Reform' or whatever seems little better than rebranding Windscale as Sellafield.

While the bit about greater party autonomy has got people interested, no-one seems to have harked back to a report which was compiled by Lord Strathclyde for the party back in 1997, following the Tory wipeout earlier that year. As a consequence of that report, the Scottish Tories became the most internally devolved of all the unionist parties in Scotland. Since then, the party has, constitutionally at least, enjoyed almost complete policy freedom. The point is that it has failed to use it.

Why? Simply, the problem, ironically for a party which used to hector others about the need to stand on their own two feet, is that it suffers from a complete intellectual and financial dependence on its London HQ. Lord Strathclyde threw open the door to the cage over a decade ago. Since then, the Scottish Party has cowered away at the back, lacking the confidence to embark on a route which might not come pre-approved from London.

Ultimately, the problem isn't structures, or finances, or what the Tories call themselves. Their problem is institutional, being too dull to say anything of interest to eachother, let alone the wider public. Financially and organisationally wedded to London, the idea that a Scotland could exist which paid its own way and set its own priorities, represents a conceptual leap well beyond all but perhaps a couple of their current MSP group.

I have a friend who is fond of pointing out that the opposite of love, in his view, is not hate but indifference. I think that captures a large part of the Tories' problem - it's not that people particularly dislike them any more, its just that they are largely irrelevant, and in consequence, people are now indifferent. They have little of interest to say, and don't look or sound like they represent modern Scotland.

Maybe an organisational revamp, a clearout of high heidyins too long in situ and a requirement to live within its means based on Scottish donations might provide the bracing does of reality needed to bring the Tories back to life. Losing the kneejerk unionism by fully embracing fiscal autonomy and an Independence referendum, even if not independence itself, would also show a confidence in Scotland which might just encourage Scots to show some confidence once again in the Tories. It would certainly throw down the gauntlet to a Labour Party which in Scotland, is even less able to stand on its own two feet than the Tories in their current state.

Make yourselves relevant and stop giving people reasons not to vote for you is a decent rule of thumb for any party. It's something Scotland's Tories would be well advised to remember, regardless as to what this commission may or more likely, may not come up with. Frankly, right now, it would no more occur to most Scots to vote Tory than it would for them to start walking around on their hands in public with a sparkler placed unconventionally.

I've Got Mine

2010-06-16T16:44:00.001+01:00

Well, my one's arrived...

A Mandate To Oppose

2010-05-24T12:50:00.008+01:00

Over the past few weeks, I've found myself at odds with an argument being put forward by some folk with whom I usually agree. It concerns the 'mandate', or lack of one, which the LibCon coalition has in Scotland, and whether or not pointing out their lack of majority support constitutes a 'grudge and grievance' agenda better suited to the 1980's.

Wherever you stood politically the 80's was an eventful time, with the sense of great issues of principle being tussled over at home and abroad. For those able to adapt to the dramatic social change, the personal possibilities seemed limitless as old orthodoxies, for better or worse, were torn down. With the ending of the Cold War and the redrawing of the European map, it seemed that a new age of self-determination, liberated from the stifling power politics of the post-war period, was set to be ushered in.

Culturally, Scotland flowered in opposition to the Tories. Denied devolution in 1979 by the unwillingness of a weak Labour government to take on its backbenchers, the home rule cause was galvanised and emboldened, with the sense of there being a different Scottish polity taking hold across the unionist/nationalist divide. With the argument being advanced, even by staunch unionists that the Scottish people were sovereign, the idea of the Tories, by then reduced to 11 seats out of 72 holding no mandate to govern Scotland, took hold in the popular imagination.

To say that the present situation in Scotland is not like the 1980's, as Gerry Hassan has done several times since the election, is certainly accurate, if a bit of a straw man. Circumstances for the moment are quite different – for one, Scotland now has her parliament and seems increasingly at ease with herself, in contrast to the brittle assertions of difference once used as a common currency by Scotland's social democratic left.

The second difference is that the current Prime Minister gives the impression of being a far more emollient character than Margaret Thatcher, who managed systematically to irritate and ultimately alienate white collar 'middle Scotland'. Thirdly, and crucially if you are to believe those disparaging the no mandate argument in its newly resurrected form, the Tories are in coalition with the Lib Dems, who following the election have a combined total of Westminster seats and votes double that of the SNP.

This is true, although why the SNP should be chosen here as the yardstick by which legitimacy is measured is beyond me. However, whether in votes or seats, the Lib/Con coalition falls well short of a majority on both counts. Leaving aside the discomfort which a number of Lib Dem voters must be feeling at their party's shotgun marriage with the Tories, the parties combined still have only one more MP than did Margaret Thatcher at the height of her crisis of legitimacy in Scotland, following the 1987 'Doomsday' election.

Another reason why this argument is bunk is that while the SNP was allowed by parliament to form a Government, if it wants to legislate, it still has to gain the support of a majority of parliamentarians elected within Scotland under a proportional system. Compare and contrast with the LibCons, who have gained their ability to govern Scotland solely through the combined strength of their First-Past-The-Post performance in England.

There is also a fourth dissimilarity which is not being spoken about, but which makes all the difference right now. Simply, the new LibCon government hasn't yet had a chance to do anything unpopular, and most people will for the moment be inclined to give them benefit of the doubt. It's only when the effects of controversial decisions – such as the impending and well-trailed spending cuts – begin to manifest themselves that people will start to question the wisdom of the government, and the level of support it has for its agenda.

If the new LibCon government is shrewd, it will live up to the rhetoric of its self-proclaimed 'respect' agenda by behaving consensually and recognising the limitations of its Scottish mandate. In what are being trailed as some early 'wins' for this approach, it is being hinted that progress might be made on releasing the £180m from the Fossil Fuels levy to Scotland, and on granting borrowing powers to Holyrood. Evidently, a nationalist 'grudge and grievance' agenda can become an agenda of 'respect' when carried out by a unionist!

So, the mandate issue, just like the funding issue, is one which is very much alive and lurking away in the undergrowth, however much some might like to assert otherwise. However, where they are on to something is in identifying that an obsession over the matter right now would look premature, and runs the risk of making anyone who uses the argument too forcibly look peevish and out of touch.

There is a further risk, which is in fairness nailed very effectively by Hassan. Throughout the 80's and indeed the 90's, home-rulers of all stripes seemed far better at defining themselves by what they were against policy-wise rather than in terms of what they were for - something which arguably left us with a hangover of unrealistic expectation when we finally got our parliament. If we approach the new Westminster government solely in terms of the comfortable slogans of yesteryear, we run the very real risk of repeating that mistake, and slowing the progress to independence in consequence.

With that said, the mandate argument still deserves to be made and heard as a corrective to aspects of the of the Lib Con administration's agenda, and could very well prove to be a useful restraint on the untrammeled power of a Westminster Government. That’s something which Scots of all persuasions might become grateful for in the not too distant future – whether they voted for the coalition parties or not.

Peering In From Outside

2010-05-17T12:17:00.001+01:00

Oh, goody. From The Times:

Coalition creates 100 peers with Lords deal

David Cameron and Nick Clegg will create more than 100 peers to ensure that controversial legislation gets through Parliament.

The coalition government has agreed to reshape the House of Lords, which is currently dominated by Labour, to be “reflective of the vote” at the general election. That saw the Tories and the Liberal Democrats together get 59 per cent.

None of Labour’s 211 existing peers can be removed, so the coalition must appoint dozens of its own to rebalance the upper chamber. Lib Dem estimates suggest that the number of Tory peers would need to rise from 186 to 263 and Lib Dem peers from 72 to 167.

Here's a better idea, guys. Instead of more jobs for the boys and snouts in troughs, how about scrapping the Lords entirely, or if you really must keep it, making the place elected instead? So like, y'know, voters get to decide who we want in a 2nd chamber, rather than having it stuffed full of other people's cronies?

The Lib Dems would be likely to reach into local government for some appointments. Party donors could be rewarded, although the Lib Dems have ruled out putting any with non-dom tax status in the second chamber.

That's a shame. Lord Brown of Absentia has a certain ring to it, don't you think?

What A Difference 2 Years Makes

2010-05-14T13:51:00.004+01:00

Not that there's anything wrong with pragmatism and being able to sink your differences, but this makes me chuckle:

At the Lib Dems' 2008 spring conference, Nick Clegg said: "The day before I was elected leader, Mr Cameron suggested we join them. He talked about a 'progressive alliance'. This talk of alliances comes up a lot, doesn't it? Everyone wants to be in our gang. So I want to make something very clear today. Will I ever join a Conservative government? No." Nick Clegg is now deputy to Prime Minister David Cameron.

H/T: The First Post

One Week On

2010-05-13T22:01:00.005+01:00

This time last week, I was contemplating a shower and a change of shirt before heading out to the Gordon Constituency count at the AECC. Not by that stage in the expectation of winning, since I'd been feeling for a couple of weeks that despite our formidable local campaign and the strong support we were getting, things had just swung too far away from us nationally for us to be able to pull it off.

The TV debates and their total domination of the news agenda for 3 weeks saw admirably to that, as did the unfathomable determination of the media to puff up the Lib Dems, and in Scotland, a tendency approaching the pathological to portray the SNP as little more than marginal grievance-mongers. In the event, the Lib Dems fell back, and the best you can say for their campaign is that they more or less held onto the ground they won in 2005. Meanwhile, in spite of the obstacles put in front of us, the SNP held what it had won in 2005, and regained second place in the national share of the vote.

Only winners and outgoing MP's were due to make post-declaration speeches at the Aberdeen count. As soon as the first few ballot boxes had confirmed my suspicions as to how things were going to turn out, I sought an opportunity to congratulate Malcolm Bruce in person before the declaration. When the opportunity presented itself it wasn't a difficult thing to do, as I have always had a certain regard for him as a politician, and on the many occasions where our paths crossed during this long, long campaign, we've always got on very well. I even had occasion to write a press release for him a few months ago, but that's perhaps a tale best kept for another time!

In the event, while we didn't win in Gordon, we recorded a strong result. Despite not taking the support we'd hoped from the Conservative and Labour candidates, both of whose support held static, the chunk we took out of the Lib Dem vote saw us jump from fourth to second place. In the event, it was the highest ever vote for the SNP in the seat for Westminster, both in total and in the percentage share of the vote. It was the 2nd largest anti-Lib Dem swing in Scotland – 7.6% in favour of the SNP. It also saw Malcolm Bruce re-elected with 36% - his lowest ever share of the vote in the seat – taking his majority from 11,026 over Labour to 6,748 over the SNP.

And so, when the result finally came in at just before 5 in the morning, the curtain came down on what has been, for me at any rate, a life changing couple of years or so. The curtain has also come down on Gordon Brown, who in the event, left office with great dignity. His departure was inevitable, even if his party's departure from government was entirely its own doing, leaving us with a coalition which few in Scotland would have countenanced before, far less wanted afterwards.

Despite the Conservatives sub-contracting Scotland out to their new Lib Dem partners, this coalition has only one more seat than had Margaret Thatcher after the 1987 'Doomsday' election. And before anyone starts throwing Gerry Hassan's latest nugget of wisdom at me about this not being the 1980's, the point is intended to be illustrative.

We are not – yet – embarked on a course of cuts which are 'deeper and tougher' than anything managed by Margaret Thatcher. While we're not going to see the negligent and vandalistic industrial devastation of the 1980s being bankrolled by our own resources, there is an enormous risk that in their mutual desire for cuts in capital spending and to continue with wasteful items such as a replacement for Trident, our shiny new Con Dem nation will see recovery snuffed out and opportunities for future growth squandered. There really is no sense of recognition from either party that Britain's inexorable post-Empire decline has left it an over-centralised and hyper-indebted mid-ranking European power with creaking infrastructure, which suffers from a dangerous overreliance on the City of London, and labouring under an exaggerated sense of its own significance in the world, which it is no longer capable of underwriting, whether economically, militarily or diplomatically.

Despite promises of respect for Scotland and further powers for Holyrood, the new coalition will be judged in deed and not word. In that spirit, it would do well to recognise the limitations of its 'mandate', and seek to govern in its areas of responsibility with the same spirit of consensus-building as has marked the past 3 years of minority SNP Government in Edinburgh.

No party, least of all Labour and certainly not the SNP, has a monopoly on good ideas and legitimacy to govern. With that said, while wishing the new government no harm, I can't help but wonder how the election might have gone in Scotland had people known that Labour would fail their voters by refusing point blank to work with other parties, and that the Lib Dems were prepared not just to support the Tories, but to join them in Government.

Perhaps more to the point, how will this play at the next Holyrood elections? We've less than a year to go to find out...

ConDem Nation

2010-05-12T12:48:00.001+01:00

H/T mydavidcameron.com

“We Will Not Soil Our Hands”

2010-05-11T18:57:00.004+01:00

The more observant amongst you may have noticed by now that I’m not a Labour voter. There’s a number of reasons why this is the case, only some of which relate to a tendency since childhood to be suspicious of anything purporting to represent a majority view.

In common with most Labour members, I’m no socialist and never have been, although I’m certainly happy to be described in most respects as a social democrat. There are many individuals in the Labour party whom I admire. In fact, despite my suspicion for him as an individual, I found much to support in what Tony Blair’s Labour government did in its early years.

I was also firmly on the gradualist wing of my party when such distinctions still mattered. All things being equal, then, I could probably have found myself sitting fairly comfortably in the Labour Party, making steady progress on home rule, if only I’d been prepared to ignore that troublesome itch for independence. But then, all things aren’t equal here, and never have been.

From my perspective, there’s a deeply unattractive insularity about the party, which comes from being entrenched in swathes of governance over many years and being able to distribute patronage, thanks to an unrepresentative voting system. With binary simplicity, there are 2 core electoral messages and two only – Vote Labour to get the Tories out, or vote Labour to keep the Tories out. Sophisticated or inspiring it most certainly is not.

This tribalism reached a particularly low point in the late 1970’s, when a young rising Labour star by the name of Helen Liddell, in her capacity as Scottish General Secretary, declared that Labour ‘would not soil our hands’ by working with the nationalists in trying to deliver a ‘Yes’ vote in the 1979 devolution referendum. While Liddell is long departed from the shores of Scottish politics and not much missed, I’m sure I wasn’t alone in hearing more than a faint echo of her words in the statement made this morning by Douglas Alexander, putting paid to the notion of a ‘progressive’ alliance involving the SNP at Westminster.

"I can assure you”, yipped Alexander to the BBC, “I have had no contact with the SNP, nor has the chancellor, the Scottish Secretary or the Prime Minister because there are fundamental differences between the Labour Party and the Scottish National Party. Personally, I can't envisage circumstances in which we would enter into agreement with the Scottish National Party."

Alexander aside, the writing looks to be on the wall for a progressive alliance anyway, not least because of the reluctance of Labour MPs to sit down with the Lib Dems or concede any more than the Tories on electoral reform. However, for a party which still bangs on about the manner of their losing power in 1979, the hypocrisy is astounding. Everyone else can be criticised for working with the hated Tories, but now Labour itself refuses to work with anyone else, ensuring a Tory government by default.

In consequence, the Lib Dems seem set to roll out the welcome carpet in Downing Street for David Cameron, which will be reddened in ample time for his arrival by the blood from the PLPs bout of mass hari-kari. While the Lib Dems will have a rough time explaining that pact to their Scottish members, should it transpire, Labour should reflect whether it really dislikes the SNP so much that it is prepared to surrender Scotland and power to the Tories without so much as a whimper.

But My Dad Voted Labour, And So Did His Dad...

2010-04-30T17:48:00.001+01:00

Too busy for proper blogging right now, so here's a nice little picture for you all instead...

And That's Except For Viewers In Scotland...

2010-04-28T15:45:00.001+01:00

Paxo Stuffed

2010-04-27T16:15:00.000+01:00

I once sat next to Dr Eurfyl ap Gwilym at dinner, and can confirm that he probably is the sharpest knife in the drawer. *Big* mistake, then, for Paxman to try to sneer, condecend and assert without foundation his way through this interview with the man who is Plaid Cymru's economics adviser.

Paxman clearly didn't know who Dr ap Gwilym was before last night. Bet he'll remember in future!

Lib Dem Fudge and Fall-Out

2010-04-22T23:45:00.007+01:00

We had the first proper hustings of the Gordon campaign last night in Ellon Academy, organised by the community council. A good couple of hundred people turned out to hear a wide ranging debate on subjects ranging from the current economic situation to how the various parties would approach a parliament where no party had an overall majority.

However, one issue dominated, whether the subject was defence or the economy, and that was the future of Britain's nuclear 'deterrent'. As you'd expect, both myself and the Green were against a £100bn Trident replacement, while Labour and the Conservatives were in favour. The curiosity was the Lib Dem position, which claims to be against a 'like for like' replacement.

It smacks of a classic Lib Dem attempt to be all things to all people, allowing them to hear exactly what they want. To those who support nuclear weapons, it gives the impression that the Lib Dems are in favour of a British nuclear weapons system – just not Trident. Meanwhile, to those who support doing away with British nuclear weapons, it can give the impression that just like you, the Lib Dems also support disarmament.

The fact is that it is the first of those statements which represents their real position - the Lib Dems support British possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Which begs the question – if not Trident, then what delivery system would they have in its place?

It's worth taking a short walk through the history of British nuclear weapons at this point, and why we arrived at having a submarine based system. Initially, British weapons were freefall bombs, deployed by the RAF using V-class bombers. However, bombers are vulnerable to counter measures, whether by opposing fighters or surface to air missiles. For that reason, a number of missile-based systems were considered instead.

The trouble with both bombers and land based missiles in the UK, however, is that both are highly vulnerable to a first strike from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. This made submarines, which can remain mobile, undetected, launch their missiles while underwater and survive a nuclear attack on the UK, the obvious method of delivery. Although the UK retained a stockpile of 'tactical' freefall nuclear bombs well into the 1990's, so it was that first Polaris, then Trident, became the main means of delivery.

But back to the Lib Dems. If the UK were to have a nuclear weapons system which was not Trident or similar, it would need to involve a new fleet of bombers or land based missiles, both of which would retain exactly the same vulnerabilities which led to the adoption of Polaris. With international treaties prohibiting the use of either outer space or the sea bed for the deployment of nuclear weapons, a submarine based system remains the only practical option.

A cruise-missile based system could be adopted, although the range of cruise is considerably shorter at 3,000 miles than the present Trident system at 7,000 miles. Cruise is also limited in the size of warhead it can deploy. A ballistic-based missile system therefore continues to provide the greatest flexibility.

If a ballistic system is chosen, then that clearly requires a class of submarine capable of launching the missiles. If the deterrent is to be operative 24/7/365, then four vessels, as are available presently, will also be needed. It's a brutal, grim logic, but given the infrastructure already in place, a variation on the present Trident system will be far and away the cheapest and most effective option if you wish to retain a British nuclear weapons system with the current capability of being able to ride out attack, and also be able to attack or retaliate anywhere in the world.

From a personal point of view, I believe that replacing Trident risks leaving us both financially and morally bankrupt, while offering us little or nothing in the way of tangible security benefits. No matter how many anti-nuclear votes the Lib Dems might think they can harvest on the sly, or what they might like us to believe regarding the chimera of cheaper alternatives, there really is no clever-clever alternative out there waiting to be discovered by Menzies Campbell and his 'review' which has been hitherto overlooked by lesser mortals.

Ultimately, the decision about whether or not to possess WMD is a matter of principle and not tactics. Maybe that's why the Lib Dems are having such difficulty wrestling with it.

Gordon Fuel Campaign

2010-04-11T11:34:00.008+01:00

Regular readers of the local press in Gordon (or even those who tuned into Alex Salmond's SNP Conference Speech) will know that I've managed to make a few waves recently over the differences in the price of fuel between Aberdeen City and the Shire, notably between the supermarkets. It's a real bone of contention locally, where people can see little justification for the often 3-4p per litre price diference which there is over a distance of less than 20 miles.

However, the biggest contributory factor in high fuel prices is the tax that's levied by the government. A flat rate of duty, with VAT on top, means that almost three-quarters of the price we pay when we fill up goes straight to the treasury. And with prices now at £1.20 per litre or more (over £5.50 a gallon, or $7 per US gallon for my American readers) - something which impacts upon the cost of everything transported by road - it's rapidly becoming one of the defining issues of this election.

And so it was that yesterday, I was out on the stump in Huntly with a certain local MSP and some of our activists, highlighting the impact of high fuel prices on motorists:

[Pic credit: Alan Milligan]

Worryingly, the Lib Dems are swerving all over the road when it comes to their own tax policies. In a recent Politics Show interview, party leader Nick Clegg argued that the 3p duty rise planned for 1 April should go ahead, only to be flatly contradicted by his 'Chief of Staff' 15 minutes later in the Scottish segment of the programme - a shambles which was repeated a couple of days ago when Clegg and economic spokesman Vince Cable contradicted eachother over VAT increases [follow the link - it's a lovely picture!].

However, their confusion over fuel duty kind of pales into insignificance when compared with the policy that they really want to introduce - road pricing, with charges of up to 13p per mile for using a car.

It probably looked great over a breakfast table in, say, Twickenham, where you are spoiled for choice when it comes to public transport. However, in large parts of Scotland, not to say the Gordon constituency, a car is a necessity, whether for getting to work, for doing the shopping, or simply for meeting family obligations.

To give an example of what policy would mean for local families, think of someone who uses their car to commute the 30 mile round trip from Ellon, Oldmeldrum or Inverurie into Aberdeen. That would mean a bill of nearly £1,000 per year, just for getting to work. If you travel down the A96 each day from Huntly, that bill would be £2,300 every year. It's a policy which sits in complete defiance of the way life is lived in the North East, and indeed across swathes of Scotland where the Lib Dems currently have Westminster representation.

We're having a great campaign here in Gordon. In addition to continuing to fight for fair play on fuel, I look forward to contrasting my party's policy with that of the Lib Dems - who will simply end up pricing off the road the least well-off motorists, who also have the fewest practical alternatives to the car.

The YSI in Gordon

2010-04-08T17:14:00.003+01:00

I'm not one for regurgitating press releases on here as a rule, but it's been a busy day, so my concience for doing so on this occasion is completely clear!

Young Scots Help Gordon SNP Off To Flying Start

Gordon SNP Westminster Candidate, Richard Thomson, was joined in Inverurie this morning by a contingent of young SNP activists, to fire the starting gun on the election race in the constituency following the dissolution of Parliament.

The youth activists, some from as far away as Glasgow and Stornoway, visited the Gordon Constituency as part of a Scotland-wide tour which will see them visit several Westminster seats where the SNP hopes to win at the coming General Election.
Their visit marked the start of the formal campaign as activists began distributing some 40,000 copies of the party’s local newspaper - the ‘Gordon Standard’ – to individuals and households all around the Westminster constituency. Together with local SNP members, some 5,000 copies were delivered around Inverurie in a single morning.

Speaking afterwards, Mr Thomson said:

“We’re absolutely delighted to have the support of the Young Scots for Independence today. Their presence reflects the energy and enthusiasm with which we’ve been campaigning over the past few years in the Gordon constituency, as we aim to repeat the success which Alex Salmond had in 2007.

“Our newspaper highlights the many positive achievements of the SNP, both locally and nationally, since the party entered government, and how a strong SNP presence at Westminster can deliver results locally. Our local team already has a strong record of action, and together with an active and engaged SNP MP, we can really begin to deliver results for the North East – particularly if as the pundits expect we end up with a balanced parliament at Westminster.”

Speaking after the day of action, Inverurie resident and YSI National Organiser Jennifer Harkins said:

"I’m delighted to be out campaigning for Richard today, a real local champion for Gordon. He’s running a great campaign here, listening to local residents and doing a lot to champion fair fuel prices for the North East. We’re happy to lend a hand as his campaign gets well underway.

"Activists have gathered from across Scotland to campaign in Inverurie, hitting home our message that it’s only SNP champions like Richard who can protect Scotland from the savage cuts outlined by the Lib-Dems, Labour and the Tories. With more Nats at Westminster like Richard, the SNP can block cuts to Scotland and to the North East."

Horrendous Lib Dem Failure of the Day

2010-04-03T16:40:00.004+01:00

Oh dear. It seems that my post below has confused poor old Stephen Glenn, prompting him to pen a rather silly attack on me for my supposed belief that the SNP somehow 'picks fights'.

For the avoidance of doubt, Stephen, and since you haven't yet managed to publish my response on your blog, the post was, in the light of the recent Scottish Affairs Select Committee Report on UK inter-governmental relations, ridiculing those who claim that the SNP 'picks fights'. A category into which it appears Mr Glenn, whether willfully or otherwise, now falls.

I hope that Stephen will either acknowledge what is either an error on his part or own up to a feeble attempt at misrepresentation, but I'm not holding my breath. It is an election after all, and he is a Lib Dem.

'Picking Fights' - Part XVIII

2010-03-31T11:05:00.012+01:00

***IRONY ALERT***

Warning - for the benefit of Lib Dem blogger Stephen Glenn, the following paragraph contains traces of irony...

We all know how the SNP Government picks endless fights with London - it's all the party exists for. Manufacturing endless conflict where previously there was nothing but a well-oiled Rolls Royce of a home civil service machine, all with the aim of fostering division so as to aid the nefarious process of splitting up the most perfect form of governance yet known to mankind.

It's certainly what a monstrous clamjamfry of lazy journos, intellectually moribund talking heads and shrilling unionist pols in search of a decent argument would have you believe. However, today sees a report published, from the most unlikely of sources, which surely once and for all places a hermetic seal on this argument before burying it 200 feet down a concrete-lined shaft.

The Scottish Affairs Select Committee, stappit fu' of dangerous and insidious Scot Nats like Ian Davidson, Lindsay Roy and David Mundell, has today published a report entitled "Scotland and the UK: cooperation and communication between governments". It finds as follows (emphasis mine):

Daily communication between the UK and Scottish governments at a ministerial and official level appears to work well. Problems only tend to occur where civil servants in Whitehall are less used to dealing with devolution issues.
A devolution champion within each UK Government department at senior level should be introduced to maintain higher levels of devolution awareness amongst staff.
The Committee says it is important that the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Scottish government work together to improve communication where possible.
Robust debate and discussion between Ministers is healthy and the resumption of Joint Ministerial Committees is to be welcomed. However, greater transparency of proceedings is needed to allow scrutiny of intergovernmental cooperation.
Opportunities for participation by Scottish Ministers in European Council meetings should be provided by the UK government, where appropriate and where there is agreement on the negotiating line.
An updated Memorandum of Understanding between the UK and the devolved administrations is long overdue; the 2001 version did not provide adequate guidance on how disputes should be resolved – as demonstrated during communications between the governments on the UK's negotiations with Libya on the Prisoner Transfer Agreement.
Communications between Whitehall and Scotland at an earlier stage during the negotiations between the UK and Libya could have produced a more satisfactory outcome with a possible carve-out of the prisoner transfer agreement for Mr al-Megrahi. Lessons should be learnt from this.

So there you have it. Given a gilt edged opportunity to hammer the Scottish Government and by extension the SNP just weeks before an election, the Committee opted not to - because the evidence which they gathered did not for a moment support the preferred narrative of 'picking fights'. Notable also is the support for what the Scottish Government has been saying all along re Lockerbie and the attitude of the UK Government - particularly Tony Blair - who refused even to respond to letters from the First Minister on the subject of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement.

The report, if you fancy reading the whole thing, runs to a healthy 126 pages. It should be compulsory reading over Easter for Her Majesty's loyal opposition, whether they happen to be members of a parliament - or even members of the press corps.

The Universe, Dark Matter and Labour

2010-03-24T22:34:00.002Z

This is brilliant:

I watched a very interesting programme on BBC2 this week- Horizon. It took me back to the days when the BBC could be relied upon for quality, informative and entertaining programming.

The subject matter of the Horizon programme was the cosmos and the observations by cosmologists that our universe seemed to defy the accepted laws of physics.

To paraphrase; heavenly bodies appeared to behave in a fashion that was at odds with how they should have been behaving. All scientific theory, mathematical formulae and accepted wisdom predicted that objects were orbiting at speeds that should have resulted in them being thrown about like the contents of a food mixer spinning without the lid. Also, the universe was expanding at ever increasing speed when in fact the gravitational pull of its constituent components should have now arrested this acceleration.

So, what was holding the universe together?

Well, the scientists had a theory for this, that there must be some kind of force influencing the universe that we can neither see nor detect. This strange phenomenon was termed 'Dark Matter'.

‘Dark Matter’! eureka I thought. For this theory offered an explanation as to how Labour in Scotland have managed to escape the Purcell affair pretty much unscathed. The world of Scottish politics must contain an equivalent force, a force that can lessen the effects of otherwise devastating revelations, gaffes and scandals – I have termed this hitherto unknown force 'Disnae Matter'.

Go and read the rest here on Newsnet Scotland.

Nats, Cleggs and Blank Screens

2010-03-22T11:13:00.007Z

Having managed to catch a bit of the Politics Show Scotland on the iPlayer and get a good old chuckle at Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander contradicting eachother over the thorny issue of fuel duty, I freely admit that my appetite for hearing more of Mr Clegg last night was, well, sated to say the least of it.

However, I learn this morning from a flurry of outraged Lib Dems (okay then - four of them) tweeting to eachother that apparently, their man was given a setpiece interview last night which was carried on ITV. Except for viewers in most of Scotland, that is, where STV found something different to show instead.

Now, I should say that if you're looking for even the slightest shade of Schadenfreude here, you're going to be sorely disappointed because democrat that I am, I'm inclined to agree with them. You won't find here partisan accusations of egotism being thrown at Mr Clegg just because he's been given the rough end of the stick by a broadcaster. He's entitled to be heard, and I can't think of any good reason why his interview was pulled from Scotland, unlike others with David Cameron or Gordon Brown.

Of course, the tempting response would be to point out that since there's going to be a televised election debate between the leaders of the Scottish parties, Lib Dems should just quit whining and accept that Tavish will get his chance to put their case then. However, that would be unworthy and cheap on my part. As it happens, I've got a much better idea for redressing the balance. And if you can imagine a drumroll in the background, here it is...

In order to make up for this democracy-debilitating deficit of Nick Clegg on Scottish screens, why not have a televised debate in Scotland which involves Clegg, David Cameron, Gordon Brown and, let's think now... a representative of the SNP? That way, the Scottish dimension of the UK election can be adequately addressed, Scottish Lib Dems get another opportunity to see their man without having to rely on YouTube or Sky Plus, and the vexed issue of impartiality over the so-called 'Prime Ministerial' debates in Scotland can be laid to rest once and for all.

I think its a winner, and I'm sure it's an issue which can unite Lib Dems and nationalists against the arrogance of broadcasters who ignore the plurality of our great British political system. How's about it, guys? :-)

"After The Crash" - Available Now

2010-03-11T13:08:00.005Z

Available free for download, via all good internet connections now...

After the Crash - re-inventing the the left in Britain
Edited by Richard S.
Grayson and Jonathan Rutherford

© Soundings 2010

We believe that now is the time for a new coalition of ideas and action on the centre left, working together to find common ground for change. At the heart of such a coalition is the belief that social democrats, liberals, greens and civic nationalists share a wide range of concerns. We all want to build a society in which individuals have more life chances, and we all fear for the future of the planet. We all believe that a more equal society is absolutely essential to secure these aims, and we all believe that greater democracy is crucial in giving people power, voice and the ability to secure more freedom and a sustainability economy.

Although Labour remains a central part of the progressive future, there are also tens of thousands of members of the Green Party, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the SNP, along with progressive people in no party, who are prepared to discuss this kind of coalition politics. After the Crash is intended to help begin a conversation between these constituencies, so that we can find better solutions to the problems we face than are currently on offer from the mainstream of the major political parties.

Jointly published by Soundings, Social Liberal Forum and Compass, in association with the Media Department at Middlesex University and Department of Politics,
Goldsmiths, University of London. Supported by the Lipman Miliband Trust.

Contributors: Jon Cruddas, Caroline Lucas, Steve Webb, Neal Lawson, Stuart Hall, Doreen Massey, Richard S. Grayson, Jonathan Rutherford, Alan Finlayson, Jonathon Porritt, Leanne Wood, Richard Thomson, Stuart White.

Problems For Union Square - And Shopping Centre Not Very Happy Either

2010-03-10T15:56:00.009Z

Some sad news from Aberdeen:

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott was told by security staff to leave the grounds of an Aberdeen shopping centre yesterday.

Mr Scott visited the city to lend his support to the party’s Fair Deal for Aberdeen campaign, which aims to secure additional government funding for the local authority.

Less than 20 minutes after arriving outside the Union Square shopping centre in Guild Street, the Lib Dem leader was, however, asked to stop canvassing members of the public.

Oh dear. I wouldn't like to be an aide in Tavish Scott's office...

The Daily Fail

2010-03-03T22:19:00.005Z

One side effect of the lack of proper regular opinion polling in Scotland is that whenever a sample of opinion does appear, even if it is just a sub-sample of a UK-wide poll, our rune-readers leap upon it like hungry jackals on a scabby carcass.

I should add a caveat to this - that is whenever the poll represents 'bad' news for the SNP, the particular aspect of the poll being used to justify this slant is picked over relentlessly in our glorious Scottish meeja. Meanwhile, whenever it represents a good result, by comparison, it is nearly always downplayed. Add to that the obligatory comments from the political parties, and no matter what the poll says, good or bad, you have the SNP putting a positive spin on it, and three other parties which go on to rubbish the SNP regardless.

There's a rather self-serving agenda at work here, which is being punted right now for all it is worth by some powerful forces. This agenda is that the choice for Westminster is a binary one between Labour and Conservative – the aim of which of course is to squeeze out alternatives as far as possible in the public mind.

Opinion polls are often used to try and lead opinion. Think on the polls which the Daily Record always come up with from some outfit called 'Scottish Opinion', which always show Labour way out in front after the first week or so of election campaigns in Scotland. Even though the polls never bear any relation whatsoever to the final result, the conclusion we are invited to draw at an early stage is that all other parties are out of contention, and only Labour can win the contest in question.

It's rare, however, to find a newspaper trying to rubbish the findings of its own poll, yet that's exactly what the Daily Mail seems to be up to. In the face of some decidedly unlikely-looking recent sub-samples which showed the Tories apparently neck-and-neck with the SNP for Westminster, the Mail commissioned a full-scale poll from Ipsos-MORI. Unfortunately for those who would see the forthcoming Westminster contest in those exclusively 'yookay' terms, this poll not only showed the SNP well ahead in Holyrood voting intentions, but also breathing down Labour's neck for Westminster.

Rather than relay this information on voting intentions, though, the paper – trumpeting the “more reliable data than other online polls produced in recent days” - found reason to try and portray the data in the worst possible light for the SNP:

Now, you could rejoin at this point that I really shouldn't expect anything better from the Mail and you'd be right to do so. How strange, then, to find that just a day after finding the SNP out in front for Holyrood and in contention for lead spot in the Westminster contest, the Mail was backpedaling, trying to claim that since their numbers were so “at variance” with the small Scottish samples of UK-wide polls, that this poll would now “arouse suspicion it may turn out to be a 'rogue' survey”.

The only 'evidence' of this being any kind of 'rogue' poll is that the Mail would dearly like it to be, so it can present the Tories as being on the up and the SNP as being on the way down. Nice try, chaps, but this goes down as an epic fail on your part.

For the record, and just to irritate the Mail, here are the poll numbers in question, based, lest we forget, on what they described on Monday as representing “more reliable data than other online polls produced in recent days”:

Labour - 34%
SNP - 32%
Tories - 17%
Lib Dems - 12%

And just in case you prefer things this way, here they are again, this time in glorious technicolour:

“I Hope He Gives You Hell”

2010-02-24T16:49:00.009Z

It’s not been a good week for Labour. A Prime Minister accused of bullying colleagues and staff, questions of his equilibrium under pressure going mainstream, and now a Cardinal saying that he ‘hopes the Pope gives Labour hell’ when he next visits Scotland.

Cardinal O’Brien might perhaps have been more inclined to keep his thoughts to himself, had it not been for Jim Murphy’s extraordinary and egregious attempt in a widely trailed speech to portray the Labour Party as being the natural political home for people of faith. Quite rightly, Murphy has taken an absolute kicking from opponents and in the press for his trouble.

In response to the speech, the Cardinal issued a statement which said:

"Any recognition of the role played by faith and religion in society is to be welcomed. However, a tangible example by the government over the last decade that it acknowledged or endorsed religious values would also have been welcomed. Instead we have witnessed this government undertake a systematic and unrelenting attack on family values."

Murphy has managed to provoke a fiercer reaction than even Margaret Thatcher managed with her infamous ‘Sermon on the Mound’ in 1988 to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. On that occasion, the Moderator merely confined himself to remarking to the Prime Minister that she had probably never before appeared in front of an audience which had so many members who were actively praying for her.

Although I’m uncomfortable with public declarations of faith when it comes to politicians, tending to be of the view that their faith or lack thereof is best kept as a private matter, I do not subscribe to the view that religion and politics do not mix, because they can scarcely do otherwise. The experiences which people have and the beliefs that they hold will always inform how they respond to the issues of the day and will always shape their views on how the world should be. While it’s plainly wrong to pretend that religious belief can lead only to one single ‘correct’ viewpoint or that someone's faith should lend their views any additional weight, it would be equally wrong to pretend that our public debate would be anything other than greatly diminished were no religious perspectives to be found.

However, Murphy here has crossed a line. Rather than acknowledge the strength and comfort which he doubtless finds personally in his faith, and explaining how he reconciles his faith with the need to represent others of different faiths and of none, he has tried to claim that his party is the natural home for people of any faith. Even allowing for the fact that we’re just weeks from an election, as political gambits go, it’s shoddy, shabby and sadly, entirely in keeping with Murphy’s MO.

The portrayal of Murphy in the Scottish press as some kind of political genius is something I’ve long puzzled over, probably because I remember him from his days as a hack in the NUS, busily selling the interests of students down the river while trying to secure a seat in parliament for himself. Of course, you could cite the very fact he managed to get away with it as evidence of a genius of a sort. Nevertheless, given his propensity to assert ‘that which is not’ and to continually misrepresent his opponents with any number of straw man arguments, I spent a good number of years trying to work out if he was serially dishonest, or simply lacking in his ability to understand what was really going on around him.

I remember barking him into an uncharacteristic silence during a debate at Stirling University shortly after he was elected in 1997. Banging on about priorities in politics, and explaining to the assembled studentry why it was a good thing that his government was about to withdraw their grants, he described Scotland’s universities as bastions of middle class privelige, to which access could only be widened if young people without financial means were prepared to go heavily into debt to pay their own way. There was, we were told, no money to pay for grants in future, and that the £150m which this move saved would be better spent elsewhere.

At this point, I interjected that just a week earlier, the MoD had agreed to spend £150m on upgrading Trident nuclear warheads. What, I wondered, did this tell us about Mr Murphy’s priorities?

With wisdom worthy of Confucius, the bold Jim pronounced that that money had already been spent, so wasn’t there any more. Indeed so, I acknowledged, but didn’t this show that the money had indeed been there; could have been used to maintain the grant had his government so wished; and that it was simply untrue for him to try and assert otherwise? To this, the answer came that it had already happened and that people needed to ‘move on’ – a plea we’ve heard many times since whenever his government has been caught in a lie.

In the end, I stopped puzzling over the nature of Mr Murphy’s dubious political attributes, and settled on his simply possessing a feral, mendacious cunning and a neck of brass; his inexplicable rise to the patronage of a Scottish Labour Party desperately short of talent, and to the support of a Scottish press corps with a curious willing to puff him up in public to a level of credibility well beyond that which his talents could tolerably sustain by themselves.

The brass neck is to some extent part of a politician’s DNA, of course, even if cunning and mendacity aren’t necessarily qualities to be admired. Having been given the bum’s rush by Cardinal O’Brien for his unsubtle attempts to equate his party with faith and morality, I wonder whether this rather dramatic falling to earth will lead to our inquisitors applying a little more rigour, and in taking a little less obvious pleasure in their own deception, where Mr Murphy is concerned.

It's Not Me, It's You

2010-02-16T22:11:00.003Z

It may only be mid-February, but already we've got a contender for blogpost of the year. Take a bow then, SNP Tactical Voting, for a cool-headed, forensic and long overdue demolition of the Glasgow Herald and its recent political 'coverage'. As the man himself says: "Put simply, a lack of rigour has become de rigeur and when challenged for being sloppy our newspapers decide to just get stroppy."

The late Oliver Brown crafted a great many aphorisms in his time. His comment about the effect Winnie Ewing taking her seat in the House of Commons had on Scottish Labour MPs has entered legend. However, his remark that "All a man needs in life is a good cause, and the enmity of the Glasgow Herald, and he can be sure if he has the first then the second will automatically follow", has seldom in my lifetime seemed quite so apposite.

I'm not going to reel off an extended lament about how much better the Herald used to be than it is presently. Nor is it worthwhile rising to their tedious editorial whinge, in the aftermath of the past week, about “SNP-supporting bloggers and posters who attempt to colonise newspaper comment sections and letters pages”. It's nice to know where you stand, after all, and that your views are henceforth to be regarded by the newspaper as somehow unwelcome.

I don't ask for much in a newspaper. Political impartiality over the piece is preferred, as is a recognition that there's a world which exists beyond the City of London or Babbity Bowsters. Even just one or two interesting columnists will help me tolerate the blinkered shrillness of the others, whose main purpose in life seems to be to keep the letters editor busy rather than to dispense elucidation and enlightenment. A recognition that the SPL exists is always welcome, as is a realisation that it takes more than four teams – the Old Firm and whoever they happen to be playing next – to help make up our national game.

I can just about tolerate the relentless eulogising of Gordon Brown, in both print and picture, in which the Herald has seemed to specialise over the past two years. Its focus on Glasgow may be a betrayal of the broad vision which the late Arnold Kemp had for the title and out of place for a paper with pan-Scottish pretentions, but at least you can understand it in the context of a core readership comprised historically of the West coast mercantile classes. Even its relentless knocking of the SNP might be understandable – it is the government, after all, and it is there to be shot at. Nevertheless, no matter how much it pains me to say it, my patience is just about through with a title which I've read almost daily since I was a student.

The relentless cheerleading for an overpriced rail link to an airport, on the wrong side of the city, which would be isolated from the links which the majority of Scots enjoy to Queen Street rather than Central, and which would only save 5 minutes over the existing bus service, might be forgivable if it weren't dressed up in such an obvious political agenda. The 'Scarred Scotland' strapline over Beauly to Denny was simply a perversion of reality. But even the virulence, absurdity and histrionic self-justification in aspects of recent coverage pales into insignificance when considered beside the Herald's greatest and most debilitating flaw. Quite simply, and there's no way to sugar coat this - it has become deeply, soporifically, almost terminally boring.

It's become a sorry, if latterly infrequent ritual. Skip over the slanted page one lead. Flick past the crime stories. Ignore the Labour puff-piece on the politics page, strain your eyes for the much more important stories relegated to a couple of column inches, if you're lucky. Snooze through the lifestyle pages. Yawn at the banality of the editorial page. Skim past the usual suspects on the letters page. Remember how much funnier the Diary was when Tom Shields did it. Have a glance at the obituaries, see what's on telly later, look in vain for any coverage of the mighty Aberdeen FC in the sports pages and then, if the cat's litter tray is still fresh, consign it to the nearest recycling bin.

I realise that the Herald's problem is me, and those like me. I used to buy the Herald and its Sunday stablemate 7 days a week. In fact, I've never consciously stopped buying it. However, my 100% loyalty has dwindled over the past couple of years or so to the point that, thinking about it, I last bought a Herald 3 Sundays ago. I can't even remember the last time I tried to use the dreadful website. Frankly, there's nothing I've seen over the past fortnight which will be encouraging me to reverse the trend any time soon.

It's a title which no longer speaks to me, even if it's taken until the last few weeks for me to realise it. I dare say I'll still pick it up from time to time, maybe at the station or the airport, or if badgered sufficiently by my SO. I won't say goodbye, just like I never said hello, and my 80p or whatever it is it now costs each day will just stay in my pocket. The only bit I'll really miss is Ron Ferguson's column, and I can read him in the P&J anyway.

It's commonplace to remark that the Scottish media is in a sorry state. I'd like to think that it's worth saving, but it's going to take more than subsidies and retreating into entrenched geographical and political prejudices to achieve that. Let's start with a more generous spirit in reporting culture, trying to have a wider world view, learning to challenge your readership without antagonising them and most important of all, in trying to improve the bits in between the adverts. Maybe someone could let me know if the Herald starts to improve – it would be a great shame to lose touch entirely with an old friend, after all, no matter how much they've begun to grate latterly.

A 'Yes' for Wales

2010-02-09T21:43:00.007Z

Some important news from Wales which you almost certainly won't have seen on our glorious British 'national' news. This evening, the Senedd passed a motion which triggers the process for a referendum to be held on transferring legislative powers to the institution from Westminster. The motion, which required the support of at least 40 AMs, succeeded in garnering the support of 53 in the end, with no abstentions or votes against.

And so begins a process which will see First Minister Carwyn Jones write to Secretary of State, Peter Hain, informing him of the result. The Secretary of State then has 120 days in which to consider the request, and lay a draft order for the referendum, or to respond in the negative explaining why a vote can't go ahead.

A rejection seems highly unlikely. Hain has already said this evening that he looks forward to “beginning the preparatory work”. His Conservative shadow, Cheryl Gillan, has also made it clear that the Tories, should they win the general election in the meantime, will not stand in the way of a referendum. Plaid Cymru, as you would expect, are in favour, while for the Lib Dems, Kirsty Williams has argued that the present settlement is “unsustainable”.

There's no doubting the progress that the self-government argument has made in Wales since the knife edge referendum result in 1997. I stayed up to watch the results coming in that evening, and went to bed in the wee small hours, despondent that the 'No' campaign looked to have won the day. In the event, it took the final declaration from Carmarthenshire to swing it. Seldom has a student hangover disappeared quite so quickly!

The argument for the transfer of legislative powers ought to be unanswerable. The current system whereby Legislative Competence Motions have to be passed in order to give the Senedd powers to legislate on particular matters, is clunky and cumbersome. However, the challenge, at a time of cynicism about politics and politicians, is to set this in a context and narrative which resonates with people. Done properly, and with the cross party support already in evidence, it can give the Senedd, and indeed the whole idea of self-government for Wales, the emphatic legitimising endorsement that so many loud voices have always sought to deny the institution.

While I wish my many Welsh friends and colleagues likely to be involved in the 'Yes' campaign all the best, it's hard not to draw a parallel with Scotland. Here, we're told by our regional franchises of Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems that a referendum on the constitution is no-go. Thanks to this evening's vote in the Commons on electoral reform, that's two referendums which now have the go-ahead to take place during an economic downturn, when people's minds are focused on [insert own self-serving excuse here].

It really shouldn't need to be pointed out, but the legitimacy of our political processes and their ability to respond to people's concerns has arguably never been more important. It's not just about who governs or how they govern, but also the ability we have to influence how we ourselves are governed. Here's to a successful referendum in Wales, and to a similarly successful vote on Independence in the not too distant future.

Update: Hamish Macdonell adds his slant in the Caledonian Mercury.

Underreacting - Again

2010-02-05T19:54:00.011Z

Brace yourselves, people. Start looking out those candles and remember to wrap up warm. It seems that a mishap has just hit Torness Nuclear Power Station, causing one of the reactors, our most 'reliable' source of energy, to shut down. What? You mean that the lights don't go off without nuclear after all? Oh...

It should be pointed out that the fault affected a transformer, rather than anything more critical, and that the reactor shut itself down automatically only as a precaution. However, it does highlight one of the biggest drawbacks of nuclear as a source of power, at least when it comes to Scotland.

The conventional wisdom of the nuke fanatics is that it generates 50% of Scotland's electricity, a myth which I've stamped on before. The truth is that when both Torness and Hunterston are going at full output, they generate something like 35% of our total output, meaning that if one of either station's two reactors shuts down, we lose nearly 9% of our normal capacity. If either station has to shut completely, as happened to Hunterston B over 2006/7, that's the equivalent of losing all the power Scotland exports routinely through the interconnector.

That nuclear is inflexible to demand is one of the reasons it is spoken of in hushed tones of reverence as a way of meeting 'base load'. The flip side of this is that any sudden and unexpected loss of a big chunk of capacity like this can be hard to deal with. The same of course is true of any large power station going out of service. However, the problem is magnified many times where nuclear is concerned, not least because the down time for conventional stations in the event of a shutdown is seldom as lengthy as it is for nuclear.

The loss of a reactor affects the 'levelised' cost - the total cost of the station over its lifespan. Given the astronomical construction costs associated with nuclear power, and even allowing for the fact that the brave, swashbuckling capitalists of the nuclear industry still need the taxpayer to take the decommissioning liabilities off their balance sheet, the lengthy outages common to the UK industry do nothing to convince that nuclear can be considered either cheap or reliable.

In contrast, tidal flow and waves are as predictable as the moon orbiting the earth. If the wind doesn't blow in one part of the country, it will generally be blowing somewhere else. Demand is generally predictable, as is the ability of conventional fossil fuel powered stations, hydro, pumped storage, tidal, wave and wind to match it. A decentralised grid, flat connection charges, feed in tariffs to encourage take up of domestic microgeneration, and greater energy efficiency represent a much more sensible approach than putting so many of our eggs in the nuclear basket.

Nuclear might well be a wise option for countries lacking the ability to sequestrate carbon, or without access to significant resources of wind, wave, tidal and hydro power. They can choose that course if they wish, and be saddled with the financial millstone of decommissioning. In Scotland at least, our comparative advantages, and greatest opportunities, lie elsewhere.
FR43FNFC9574

Transmission (Re)vamp

2010-02-03T22:50:00.006Z

Now that the dust is settling on the budget (passed today - still nothing constructive from Labour, and with fence splinters characteristically needing removed from the Lib Dem body politic), it's time to revisit the brouhaha over Beauly-Denny.

With a great big tip of the hat to the Caledonian Mercury, here's a map which shows the route that the new, upgraded line is anticipated to take:

In all, some 53km of 132kV overhead transmission line between Boat of Garten and Cairnmore in the Cairngorm National Park will be removed. 40km of 132kV overhead transmission line between Etteridge and Boat of Garten in the Cairngorm National Park will be removed, to be replaced by 33kV overhead lines supported by wooden poles, or underground cables. Meanwhile, a further 10km of 132kV overhead transmission line around Whitebridge and around Amulree will be replaced with underground cables.

The new 400kV overhead line between Beauly and Denny won't pass through any of Scotland’s designated National Scenic Areas, meaning that the section of the Beauly-Denny line passing through the Cairngorm National Park will be reduced from 35km to 28km, and will be much closer to the western boundary of the Park.

While mitigation details have still to be worked out, this does rather put some of the more lurid claims about the impact on the National Park into sharp perspective.

A Will To Settle Unfinished Business

2010-01-21T18:15:00.003Z

Hibernation over. Here's a column for the Scots Independent, due to arrive through all good letterboxes shortly...

Devolution – the 'settled will of the Scottish people' according to John Smith, who famously regarded the creation of a devolved parliament as being 'unfinished business'. If you believed the Labour mythologising, that business was finished in 1999 when they and they alone passed the Scotland Act. Scotland had her Parliament, and the precise balance struck between powers reserved and devolved was perfect in front of God, enabling us to have those much fabled 'Scottish solutions to Scottish problems' while retaining all the benefits of our place in the UK.

Although a few enlightened figures such as Donald Dewar were prepared to pay lip service to the idea that devolution was a process rather than an event, a concerted attempt was made to cast the die. Woe betide any unwary nationalist who dared to upset the new consensus by suggesting that the new 'settlement' might not be the final act in the play.

The prelude to this mood music being struck up was there for all to see beforehand. At the 1995 'Great Debate' in the debating chamber of the Old Royal High School between George Robertson and Alex Salmond, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland tuned up his unionist fiddle. Devolution would kill the SNP 'stone dead', he crowed. Attempts by the SNP to build on the powers of the Parliament by seeking independence would be to 'wreck' the new institution, 'without even giving it a chance'.

Nostradamus he most certainly wasn't. But moving on from the political ghosts of arguments past, I have a rule of thumb when it comes to the reporting of opinion polls which canvass on independence. If the poll is portrayed as representing a 'fresh blow' to the SNP, 9 times out of 10 the coverage is hiding something far more interesting behind the headline. And so it is with the latest work produced by the Scottish Centre for Social Research.

The research showed that on a question asking whether Scots wished to become "separate from the UK", only 28% were in favour, with 56% stating a preference for the present set up and a stubborn 8% wanting to see the parliament done away with altogether. Nevertheless, the devil, as ever, was to be found in the detail.

It's an article of faith for many unionists that an independent Scotland would be unable to support itself economically – an obviously false conclusion for anyone possessed of even half a mind and a stamp or two in their passport. Given the steady stream of ill informed newspaper articles and blogposts which take it as an article of faith that Scotland is somehow subsidised by a UK running a record deficit, the numbers are revealing – 31% of Scots believe that independence would improve our economy, 32% believe the effect would be negative while a further third are either unsure or don't believe it will make any difference.

It's clear that the SNP has taken its supposed Achilles Heel of the economy and played opponents to a draw. Seen like that, the prophesies of economic doom and gloom serve only to further entrench the never likely to be converted into their existing prejudices, leaving nearly two thirds of the electorate as fertile territory for the independence message.

Elsewhere, the message is equally positive for the SNP. When it comes to control over tax, almost 60% believe that Scotland should take the important decisions about tax, while an identical number believe the same about the benefits system. Only in the realms of defence and foreign affairs were the numbers reversed, with 60% preferring Westminster control to the 31% who wanted to see these matters managed from Edinburgh.

So, in the space of a decade, Scots have moved decisively away from acceptance of a constitutional settlement which saw taxation, public spending and welfare decided at Westminster, to expressing a view that these are matters which should be managed by the Scottish Government. Even if it still places voters behind where the SNP would prefer them to be, it's clear what the direction of travel is, and which party it is that is exerting the motive force in the constitutional debate.

It's evident that Scottish voters retain an attachment to the idea of the UK, which we can see expressed clearly in those particular numbers. Nevertheless, Scots obviously want to be a lot more independent than they already are, or are being given the chance to be. However, there is also clearly a great deal of 'cognitative dissonance' going on – the psychological discomfort which comes from holding two contrary views at the same time – when it comes to the figures for defence and international relations.

Most Scots were against the war in Iraq, remain opposed to nuclear weapons, and are supportive of Scotland having a direct voice in Europe, even if not yet the wider world. In view of the fact that it is impossible to have control over the procurement of weapons, the deployment of armed forces or the stance which Ministers adopt in international negotiations without independent statehood, there is considerable scope for the SNP to win these particular arguments in the future as well, providing they are set in the context of what independence might mean in practice.

If further devolution happens, it makes independence seem less of a step. With Gordon Brown having kicked Calman into the post-election long grass, if it is shown that Westminster can't even concede modest advances in devolution, the potential for moving the numbers on independence upwards becomes even greater.

But returning to John Smith, it's clear that he was at least half-right. Now, the only settled will of the Scottish electorate seems to be that the devolution we already have is itself unfinished business. It's going to be an interesting few years.

As You Were

2009-12-01T23:47:00.000Z

The received wisdom of Scotland's blethering classes over the past couple of weeks or so has been that the Scottish Government, but in particular the SNP, had somehow hit the skids. The glee in certain quarters has been palpable.

The basis for this observation seemed to be that there'd been a credit crunch. That the SNP hadn't managed to take a rock-solid Labour seat at a by-election. That there'd been a hulaballoo over the cancellation of the rail link to Glasgow Airport. That minimum pricing for alcohol was likely to face defeat in Parliament. That there was still a majority in Holyrood against an independence referendum. Winning 20 Westminster seats was now 'off the agenda', we were told by those who know, just as was independence. Go back to your constituencies and prepare for opposition etc etc.

Mostly, though, it seemed to be because an echo chamber of opposition politicos and unionist-inclined meeja types all agreed with themselves that it would be desirable if this were indeed so.
What was absent was any semblance of a note of caution – I mean, how many times since the SNP started to achieve a leadership position in Scottish politics have we been assured that the wheels have come off what has regularly been described, somewhat inaccurately, as an SNP 'bandwagon'?

Mood music matters in politics. Despite what politicians would have you believe, it's rare that any one single event ever acts as a watershed – instead, it's the drip drip effect over time which alters perceptions and ultimately, voter behaviour. For that reason, it's understandable that people opposed to the SNP and all its works will always do all they can to try and pretend that the party's aims are unpopular, and that its figures and policies are somehow out of step with public opinion, whether this is the case or not.

The problem with this sort of political pyramid selling is that without more people piling in behind to back up the message, if the basic prospectus lacks support amongst the general populace, it quickly falls apart. And so it has, if a new poll published by Ipsos Mori is to be believed.

The SNP has restored its lead in the polls for Holyrood and crucially, for this observer, for Westminster too. When fed into Electoral Calculus, the SNP would on these figures win 16 seats, putting the party on target for its aim of 20. It also puts the support for a future independence referendum running at 75%, even if that is split between 25% who want an immediate referendum which isn't on offer, and a further 50% who say they want a vote at some date in the future.

People will make their own judgments on the so called 'bread and butter' issues, and will continue to take a jaundiced view of the opportunism which sees the main opposition party taking major policy decisions based less on principle than on the perceived tactical advantage they might yield. If Scottish Labour carries on as it has been, alcohol pricing will not be the only touchstone issue where, as Susan Deacon says, the party finds itself 'in the wrong place for the wrong reasons'.

On Calman too, it's back to square one. Labour won't implement any reforms before the next election. Rather than take the initiative now, the party seems willing to risk leaving matters in the hands of a possible incoming Tory government, which has pointedly refused to say what it will and will not implement in the report. The Lib Dems, meanwhile, seem to have got precious little for their efforts. Even after Calman, we still have three parties still holding three different positions, united only by their agreement that they neither want independence nor to give voters a say on which, if any, of the constitutional futures canvassed for Scotland ought to prevail.

For the constitutional debate, read also the policy debate. Everyone, even and especially those in the SNP, recognises that it remains a minority, albeit a sizable one. The difficulty for those who seek to oppose the party at every turn seems to be, exactly as it has been since 2007, in recognising that the non-SNP majority remains remarkably resistant to being moulded into anything coherent.

Just because a majority appears to be against something is no guarantee that a majority in favour of something can be found within those numbers. Both domestically and on the constitution, the debate on Scotland's future has a way to run yet...

What's The Welsh For 'Schadenfreude'?

2009-11-24T21:03:00.003Z

Interesting developments today in Wales, where all hell appeared to break loose after Labour put out a press release declaring that there would be no more progress on a referendum on further devolution until after the general election.

Referendum? Further devolution? Labour? Yes, you read the above correctly. Enacted by a Labour government and supported by the Lib Dems, as a result of the 2006 Government of Wales Act, provision exists for our Cambrian cousins to hold a referendum to decide whether or not the Welsh Assembly should be given primary legislative powers. Even some Welsh Conservatives are now in on the fun, arguing that not only should there be a vote on granting legislative powers, but also arguing in favour of the move.

The statement by First Minister Rhodri Morgan, Welsh Secretary Peter Hain and the Chair of Welsh Labour clearly caught their Plaid Cymru coalition partners unawares. Part of the 'One Wales' coalition deal between the two parties is a commitment to holding the referendum, if it is winnable, by May 2010. In response, Plaid branded the move as a "serious breach of trust" and "completely unacceptable". Things appeared to have cooled down by the afternoon, though, with Rhodri Morgan and Plaid Depute First Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones able to say in an emergency statement following some hasty afternoon negotiations that "all options" on timing were open.

The similarities, not to say differences with Scotland are immediately apparent. With the Westminster Government insisting that there will be no progress on Calman until after the election, and this attempt by Peter Hain to delay a referendum in Wales, the game being played by Westminster Labour is pretty clear. Everything will be put into the deep freeze for now and the election fought on the claim that only Labour can deliver on further devolution in an attempt to try and shore up their vote. This either buys another few years of time in which to do nothing if Labour gets re-elected, or leaves the whole thing for the Conservatives to deal with should they run out winners.

Except, neither Plaid nor the SNP have played ball. The Scottish Government has draft orders in place which would allow for Calman to proceed without any need for further delay. Meanwhile, with Rhodri Morgan due to stand down, Plaid have the option of refusing to back any Labour candidate for the First Ministership who opts to backslide on this aspect of the coalition deal.

But why might Labour, other than its innate conservatism and reluctance to concede any more devolution than it absolutely must to fend off the electoral threat of the nationalists, be so keen to put the brakes on? The answer may lie very close to home, with echoes to be heard in the increasingly shrill cries against holding an independence referendum in Scotland.

Firstly, there's the problem for all of the unionist parties, but particularly for Labour, of being seen to support a Welsh referendum while ruling one out in Scotland. It's a position which holds precisely zero credibility. With public support for a referendum already high, it's a contradiction with which the SNP would need no encouragement to make hay over.

However, the ramifications run so much deeper. Think on the 'neverendum' argument posited by unionists as a reason why Scots shouldn't even be permitted to hold a first vote. Joyously, in section 103 of the Government of Wales Act 2006, it is made clear that if a majority of Welsh voters do not back the transfer of primary legislative powers, this does not prevent Westminster from laying the orders necessary to hold a further referendum in the future.

In just one paragraph, the Labour party in Government, and the Lib Dems who supported the bill on its passage, have enshrined explicitly in legislation the principal that there should be no time bar on holding a subsequent referendum if people vote against. Scotland can't get a vote on further constitutional change, but the Welsh can have as many votes as they like until they deliver what the government considers to be the right answer. Thus, by Labour and the Lib Dems own hands, the neverendum argument, such as it ever was, is killed stone dead.

The timescales promise to be similarly glorious, at least from an SNP perspective since all parties in Wales seem still to be contemplating a referendum prior to 2011. Compare and contrast this position with the unionist advanced argument in Scotland that constitutional ‘navel gazing’ (Calman presumably excepted) is the ‘wrong’ thing to do in a recession. In Wales, we will shortly be hearing the counter argument from a Lib/Lab/Con alliance that only with the further transfer of powers can the measures needed to counter the downturn adequately be taken.

If the Welsh Assembly backs a referendum by the required 2/3rds majority, the Welsh First Minister has to give notice of this in writing to the Secretary of State. The clock then starts ticking – the Secretary of State then has 120 days to either lay a draft of a statutory instrument containing an Order in Council before each House of Parliament, or give notice in writing to the First Minister as to why they are refusing to do so.

If this Assembly vote happens prior to the election, say in mid February 2010, it means that the first thing a Welsh Secretary will have to do post-election is decide whether or not a referendum can go ahead. Whether that person be Labour or Tory, even assuming that matters don't move quite so quickly, it seems likely that just as the unionist parties carry out their threat in Scotland to vote down a referendum bill, the issue will be resurrected almost immediately when matters come to a head in Wales.

Gloating is seldom an attractive trait in politics, but then again, neither is the defence of blatant double standards. Thanks to this piece of three year old legislation, the unionists have slayed every single argument that ever passed their lips against the principal of a referendum on constitutional change, on the principle of having future votes if required and on the principle of having a referendum during an economic downturn.

Peter Hain is due to visit Wales tomorrow, and will doubtless come under intense pressure to explain firstly why today's statement was made, and secondly, to state whether he backs the position as set out this afternoon by The First Minister and his Deputy. It should be fun to watch, but not nearly as much fun as it will be to see Scotland's unionists squirming over why Scotland should be denied a referendum just as the Welsh seem set to prepare to go to the polls.

The twisting and turning in the months ahead will be simply exquisite to watch. Now where's that popcorn?

UPDATE: Plaid Candidate Heledd Fychan seems mildly amused by it all as well...

Huntly - Monday and Saturday

2009-11-07T20:34:00.007Z

Work took me to Huntly on Monday, in the aftermath of the floods which saw around 100 people evacuated from their homes.

Almost a month's rainfall in 24 hours, allied to ground already saturated from previous rainfall, saw the River Deveron rise dramatically overnight as water ran straight off the hills. As the river rose, the burn which flows through The Meadows estate quickly backed up and burst its banks in the early hours of the morning, flooding the neighbouring housing estate and the nearby Meadows care home.

First stop was the Stewart's Hall, where many of those affected were awaiting meetings with representatives of Aberdeenshire Council and Grampian Housing, to try and sort out what could be done until their homes were again habitable. Alex Salmond, who is the local MSP, and Cllr Joanna Strathdee, were also there to offer their support.

With the floodwater beginning to slowly drain away, the clean-up operation was getting underway. However, with furniture, carpets, walls and floors damaged beyond repair, it could be weeks if not months before some people are able to return to their homes. It's hard to offer words of comfort in these circumstances, but amongst the residents I spoke to, many of whom were still coming to terms with what had happened, there was a stoic determination to soldier on and to return to normality as soon as was possible.

Later, Joanna and I went round the housing estate to see for ourselves how the clean-up operation was progressing. We also took a walk along the Deveron down by Huntly Castle, which had by that stage begun to return to its normal levels. Even there, down by the Nordic Ski Centre, the extent of the damage was quite remarkable.

Here's a photo of debris, including planks from the scaffolding which had been on the A96 bridge:

The gravel from the riverside footpath was swept away (above), leaving the trench below:

A flooded car park. The water had fallen considerably by the time this was taken:

The Deveron in full spate, with the riverside path turned into a canal:

However, today saw the second weekend of the Huntly Hairst festival, along with a Continental and Farmers market. I headed along in the afternoon to take a wander round and chat with folk about how the town was responding to Monday's events.

A slightly more sedate Deveron today:

Today's market:

There's a fantastic community spirit in Huntly, and it's been great to see the way that local people have rallied round. However, those still out of their homes are likely to need help for some time to come. Life goes on, but we shouldn't forget that there's still a lot to do to return life to normal for the folk who lost their homes last week.

Taken To Cask

2009-11-06T16:23:00.005Z

Yes, yes. I know it's a lazy shot, but even after a severe bout of the cold and a protracted case of the canny be bothereds, this still makes me laugh:

Yep, in their press release relating to regulations laid in parliament which will improve the labelling of Scotch Whisky, Jim Murphy's full time press officer, working for a part-time department, has managed to mis-spell the word whisky.

'On the rocks', 'spelling disaster for the industry', 'lacking spirit' - insert your own jokes here...

Lib Dems "To Mount Referendum Review"

2009-10-08T18:07:00.002+01:00

Well, well, well. What to make of the news that the Scottish Lib Dems are to re-examine their position on an Independence referendum at their Scottish Autumn Conference later this month?

I dare say that the hooting and hollering will begin in earnest from both Labour and the Tories, amidst claims that they and only they can be trusted to stand up for the union. However, we should be clear. This may only be a first step towards the Lib Dems changing their existing policy, but it’s not of itself a decision to support a referendum, and it’s certainly not a declaration of support for independence.

For that reason, the SNP would be well advised to play it cool. However, the questions remain - after mounting such a staunch defence of the policy last month, why consider changing it now? And what does this say about the state of Tavish Scott’s leadership of his party?

I see 3 possibilities:

• Tavish does this to try and shore up his position. Rightly or wrongly, he believes that the membership backs him on this issue, and so asks them to show dissident MSP, MPs and candidates that the pro-referendum argument is ‘over’.
• Tavish does this from a position of weakness, having had it forced on him by unhappy Lieutenants who can see the political damage it is doing.
• Tavish has belatedly realised that telling people they can’t have a referendum is a vote loser, and is seeking to u-turn in a way which can be presented as having been as consensual and as ‘liberal’ as possible.

It’s pretty obvious that the virulently anti-SNP/anti-independence streak which exists at the top of the Lib Dems isn’t at all representative of most of their members, far less their voters. Similarly, the hard line adopted over a referendum by Tavish Scott has discomfited many, who are instinctively in favour of giving people a vote on their constitutional future.

Certainly, in my experience, it goes down like a lead balloon on the doorsteps, since most people want a referendum regardless as to how they’d go on to vote. It’s also no secret, as we learned from their recent UK conference, that senior lib Dem strategists are concerned that the longer a referendum is postponed, the more likely it is that there might be a successful ‘yes’ vote to Independence.

However, Tavish’s difficulties aside, could there be another factor at work? The Calman Commission, with Gordon Brown showing no inclination to implement even the uncontroversial bits and with David Cameron rowing away from even the merest tweaking of the financial powers, is now the deadest of dead ducks. It was always destined to be lowest common denominator stuff and as was long predicted, was always unlikely to leave the Lib Dems with anything even approaching their preferred option of Federalism.

The constitutional debate in Scotland runs on SNP petrol. Without the prospect of Scots voting for independence, arguments for further devolution lose all force where it really matters – in Westminster. For the Lib Dems to back an independence referendum would flush Labour and the Tories out on Calman, and force both parties to come up with something, and sharpish. So, there’s a sound, strategic argument for the Lib Dems to back an independence referendum as a means of achieving further devolution. But then, that was always the case all along.

The Lib Dems are all over the place on tax, all over the place on spending, and now, all over the place on Scotland’s future. While conventional wisdom would suggest that inconsistency is a bad thing, I think that most voters would welcome just such a policy change, and might just be inclined to forgive Tavish Scott for his inconsistencies on this issue. Who knows, it might even represent the first act in throwing away the shovels with which the party started digging so enthusiastically when its MPs opted to bury Charles Kennedy.

With Respect, Mr Cameron...

2009-10-06T22:02:00.006+01:00

Seeing as it's this blog's third birthday today, it's probably time to break the recent haitus...

...and the recent partisan claptrap about SNP participation in a party leaders' debate seems as good a place to begin as any.

Let's cut to the chase. In the UK, there are strict rules about broadcasting impartiality when it comes to politics. These don't often work to the SNP's advantage when it comes to the balance achieved between 'network' and 'regional' coverage during a Westminster election, but the rules exist, and they're there for a reason.

You would think, therefore, that if a party leaders' debate were to be proposed, that any sensible, fair minded person would have little difficulty in agreeing that the debate or debates which resulted ought to respect and reflect these rules. Ha. Mention the necessity to ensure that parties other than Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems be represented, and out sallies a hellish legion of talking heads in parliament and in print, determined to berate others for their impertinence in seeking to disrupt the binary Westminster agenda, in a vain attempt to disguise their own self interest in skewing and narrowing the debate which would result.

The most substantial criticism, if you can call it that, of including Plaid Cymru and the SNP in any debates is that they are are 'regional' parties, that they don't contest seats in all parts of the UK, or that they're not going to form the next UK government. On the first count, you could exclude the Tories, since the SNP has almost as many MPs in England as the Tories manage in Scotland (zero plays one). On the second, you could exclude every party except the Conservatives, and on the third count, you might as well tell Vince Clegg to save his taxi fare to the studio.

Now, lest anyone think I'm ditching my customary reasonableness here, let me say that I can see perfectly well why people in England might not want to see a debate involving Alex Salmond or Ieuan Wyn Jones. I can also see that a debate involving 5 or more people could quickly become unwieldy. However, if there's to be a 'leaders' debate', then over the piece it has to involve the leaders of all the main parties. Let's call it as it is - to exclude those who happen to sit in government in Scotland and Wales, one of whom just happens to be the longest-serving party leader in British politics, would be an act of base gerrymandering, which would discredit the entire process. Grist to the nationalist mill it might be, but frankly, isn't there a better way for everyone?

A separate Scottish debate involving the branch managers of the Scottish parties would be the answer to a question no-one is asking. Given the prevalence of satellite TV and internet video, it's difficult to see how any English-only debate (because let's be honest, that's all a showdown between Brown, Cameron and Clegg would be) could be kept off Scottish screens. Which is why the best way to solve this problem, once fevered brows have been cooled, would be to have separate debates in Scotland and Wales which include Brown, Cameron and Clegg.

I've no desire to keep the titanic triumvirate off English TV screens, but I have a desire to see that fairness prevails in Scotland and Wales. Voters are entitled to see how all the party leaders perform against eachother, as well as getting an idea of how they would approach Scotland and Wales over the next term at Westminster. Separate Scottish and Welsh debates would ensure that this is exactly what happens.

David Cameron has promised, if elected, to govern Scotland 'with respect'. With all due respect to Mr Cameron, I'm afraid I don't really believe him. However, he could make a good start on changing people's minds by agreeing to come to Glasgow to take part in a televised debate with Brown and Clegg against Alex Salmond.

If the UK's politicians and broadcasters can't come up with a solution to this problem which reflects the plurality of the British political system, it really doesn't say much for the prospects of that system surviving much longer. Come on, Dave. Be a man and admit you've called this one wrong. Let's see just how far that sense of fair play of yours extends...

Overnight Rain

2009-09-04T11:49:00.002+01:00

The road into Inverurie this morning at Uryside. This is normally a field...

The Independence Impact - On Everyone Else

2009-08-28T17:58:00.002+01:00

SI column time again... this time, considering the impact that Scottish Independence would have on the rest of the UK - the theme of a foray I made down to London last weekend, to address the SNP's London branch alongside some august intellectual company...

We all have our own arguments about what Independence would mean for Scotland. In the SNP, it's rare to find a point of view falling short of it being a good thing in every conceivable respect. However, there's one rather significant side-effect of independence which we often overlook – the impact it would have on our nearest neighbours.

Scotland going her own way requires us to establish the identity of a Scottish state and to obtain international recognition. It's often forgotten amidst the spurious claims of isolation which arise from this that the rest of the UK, or rUK, would find itself in a completely new position as well, with the idea that all continues as before left open to serious challenge.

First of all, let's follow the money, or perhaps even the lack of it. The UK national debt is set to reach £1.4tr over the next five years – something which Scotland will have to take its share of. However, with independence, what remains of the UK will have lost 8.5% of its population and nearly 10% of its tax revenues. It will also lose a large proportion of one of the UK's most obvious economic assets – North Sea oil and gas

Potentially, that is eyebrow raising stuff for the markets, leading to the prospect that rUK credit status may be downgraded. There's no reason why, handled sensibly, this should of itself be a huge problem. However, it carries with it the hint of the prisoners' dilemma – the optimum position is for Scotland and rUK to co-operate and emphasise continuity, but it one side 'defaults', for example, by rehashing previous spats about who subsidises who, it potentially leaves both sides in a poorer position in the eyes of the markets.

The creation of a new tax regime north of the border also creates a dilemma for the rUK Chancellor. As an English speaking country with a well educated population, fully integrated into EU law with good transport links and a well developed market in professional and legal services, Scotland is an attractive place to do business. Every change in the Scottish tax code which gives Scotland a potential advantage will, as with the Irish Government guaranteeing savers deposits in the early days of the banking crisis, put great pressure on the UK Government to follow suit.

But if the economic impact is potentially significant, the military impact is huge. Trident is the UK's main expression of military geo-political power and rUK could certainly afford to maintain son of Trident if it chose. Indeed, it might feel that doing so was necessary to maintain status as a world, rather than a mere regional power. However, rUK would face an immediate difficulty in the event of independence, since the deep water submarine base and armaments depot necessary for its operation would henceforth be based in a foreign country hostile to their presence.

A lack of access to these facilities would be even more debilitating to the integrity of the Trident 'deterrent' than any withdrawal of US support for the system. The facilities at Faslane and Coulport would take years to replace elsewhere, but even then, where could they go? And where would they be welcome? As such, it's not beyond the realms of possibility that independence would also mean the end of an independent UK nuclear deterrent.

Then there is the loss of Scottish service personnel to UK forces. While Scottish Defence Forces would undoubtedly find themselves serving alongside those of rUK from time to time, it is inconceivable that they would be used, as they have been in the recent past, in operations such as those in Iraq. With the UK already stretched, if Scotland's conventional military capabilities were to be lost, rUK would find it impossible to fulfill its present commitments.

All of this would have a diplomatic impact. Nuclear weapons or not, the inevitable consequence of a reduced military capability and ability to deploy it would be a diminished status internationally. At the UN Security Council, it would become increasingly hard to justify continued rUK presence in the permanent 5, particularly when a nuclear armed Indian democracy of 800m sits outside. Although it would be fiercely resisted by the French, pressure may build to have a single European seat, or at the very least expand the number of permanent members.

Then we come to Europe, and votes in the European Parliament and Council of Ministers (CoM). Scotland would see an increase in her number of MEPs, and would for the first time gain representation at CoM level. The impact is on rUK, which given a population loss of 5m, would snap into sharp focus the fact that Germany with a population of 80m would still have the same number of votes as rUK, on 55m.

One solution might be to increase the weight of German votes, although this would likely be unacceptable to the French. Accordingly, the most likely option would be to see a reduction in rUK voting power to the same number of CoM votes as Spain – something which, strange but true, would see Scotland and rUK with a stronger combined influence than the UK at presence.

But how much does this really affect England, Wales and Northern Ireland, rather than a British political class which boasts endlessly of 'special relationships' and 'punching above our weight'? Without Scotland, many of the traditional ties for Northern Irish unionists to the UK become less meaningful. Wales, which frequently looks to Scotland politically, would see that the British state was not indivisible, and may perhaps decide that the 'full national status' accorded to Scotland and advocated by Plaid Cymru is something both attainable and desirable after all.

So whither England, when so much of English identity has been tied up in 'Britishness' for the last 3 centuries? If we Scots seem further down the road to resolving outstanding issues of politics and identity in the world, it's probably because we've been obsessing about it for far longer. England, once de-colonised from the British State, can see a progressive, civic identity emerge, which is able to reflect itself politically and sit comfortably alongside the emerging independence of Scotland and Wales. A nation, hopefully, at ease with itself and its inhabitants, and able to look confidently to the future, without feeling diminished by contrasts with the past.

Megrahi - The Aftermath

2009-08-26T20:13:00.007+01:00

Busy week and busy weekend, hence the recent radio silence. However, I can't let the events of the past few days pass without comment.

I remember vividly the night that Pan-Am Flight 103 came down, and like everyone, the horror of that evening lives with me still. In the years which have passed since, I've come to admire the great dignity, persistence and vigour with which representatives of the relatives, particularly Dr Jim Swire, have conducted themselves. However, following Megrahi's diagnosis and prognosis, Kenny MacAskill had 4 choices open to him – just as any Justice Secretary of any party would:

1.Leave Megrahi to die in Greenock Prison.
2.Send him home to Libya under the Prisoner Transfer Agreement negotiated by Tony Blair.
3.Place him in secure custody in a safe house or hospice in Scotland.
4.Grant him compassionate release.

The Scottish Prison Service is not well placed to provide the palliative care which we are told Megrahi now needs. As such, option 1 was not a choice which could be described as humane, compassionate or realistic, at least by any code of ethics or morality with which I'm familiar.

The US Government had made plain its implacable opposition to prisoner transfer – given the UK Government's apparent reluctance to confirm or deny what, if any, understandings were in effect with the Lybian and US Governments regarding this, it easy to see why this was a less attractive option than either 3 or 4.

After seeking guidance from Strathclyde Police, it became clear that a minimum of 48 police officers would have been needed to provide adequate security were Mr Megrahi to leave prison custody but remain in Scotland. This would be impractical enough for any safe house option, but completely inappropriate in the context of a hospice where other patients expect to be able to die with dignity in the company of their closest relatives. As such, it was in my view rightly dismissed, which left compassionate release as the best and most humane option.

With dreary predictability, the charge of naivety has been thrown around liberally, particularly in the aftermath of Megrahi's welcome home. This is self-serving nonsense, for whatever you think of the decision to release Megrahi on compassionate grounds, the rightness or wrongness of that decision is not affected in any way by the manner in which he was received back in Lybia, however inappropriate we regard that welcome to have been.

I don't envy the position which Kenny MacAskill found himself in. However, genuine naivety is to pretend that any of the other three choice open to him could have been made without consequences. In particular, it would have been naïve to allow Megrahi to return to Lybia under the prisoner transfer agreement – the UK Government's favoured option – only perhaps to see the Lybian Government release him themselves. Far better, then, to release him ourselves from his sentence in view of his medical condition and likely life expectancy.

This was not, as some have claimed, about trying to make a play on the international stage. Rather, it was a temporary overlap between the sphere of international relations and the Scottish legal system, the likes of which we will be very unlikely to ever see again under devolution in its present form. It was inevitable that post-devolution, the decision would find its way into the in tray of a Scottish justice minister at some point.

In terms of political response, the muted criticisms from President Obama and Hilary Clinton were to be expected – they could hardly be expected to say nothing, after all. At home, David Cameron succeeded only in further burnishing his credentials as an opportunistic lightweight. From the likes of Tory MP Daniel Kadjinsky, on Radio Scotland yesterday evening, we hear nothing of greater lasting substance than the plaintive ululations of a post-asteroid dinosaur, not long for Scottish political ecology. And from the other main party leaders in Holyrood, in the words of yesterday's Scotsman editorial [no recent friend of the SNP administration], we saw accusations of opposition “behaviour which was less to do with principle and was more influenced by party political point scoring.”

As squabbles go, it's been all very Scottish – depressingly so - but domestic opinion appears to be hardening in favour of MacAskill's decision – something which I'll bet has only been quickened by some of the less temperate responses we've seen to date. Pride isn't a word I'm wont to use in this case. However, I'm certainly pleased that expedience was rejected in favour of principle, and that we have a justice system in Scotland that whatever its flaws, recognises that justice differs from vengeance, and which can rise above our baser instincts to leave room for compassion, even to those who have shown none for their victims.

S&I Elsewhere - waleshome.org

2009-08-15T10:17:00.003+01:00

I have a new article up on the excellent waleshome.org site. Please go and take a look.

Beginning To Take Notice

Sat 15 Aug 2009 By Richard Thomson

For as long as anyone can remember, the devolution debate in Wales has been towed along by developments in Scotland. But that is changing, and Wales might now set the pace of reform...

Murphy's Flaw

2009-08-11T15:45:00.003+01:00

Another SI article. What is the point of the Secretary of State these days, except to get in the way? And with his 'activist' approach, will Jim Murphy set an example to any incoming Tory government, thereby marking him out as the midwife of independence?

For students of post-devolution politics, the position of Secretary of State for Scotland is something of a conundrum. With Ministers now accountable to a Scottish Parliament, does Scotland need a territorial minister in the Cabinet any longer? More to the point, if the position didn't already exist, would anyone now bother to invent it?
In days past, the Scottish Secretary was the de-facto Prime Minister of Scotland – the Governor-General minus the feather-plumed hat. With devolution, Scottish Office staff were transferred to the Scottish Executive, leaving the Secretary of State without an empire and in search of a role. It created a political impotence which has been reflected in the chest-beating we've seen from Dover House ever since.

As time progressed it became obvious how little of the role was left. Helen Liddell famously found the position so undemanding that she had time to take French lessons. Alastair Darling and Douglas Alexander held the job alongside the Transport brief, while Des Brown juggled it with Defence. It is only with the accession of Jim Murphy that the position has again been given Cabinet status.

Constitutionally, Murphy's job is to represent Scotland in the Cabinet and to administer the block grant, topslicing the costs of his Scotland Office before passing the rest on to St Andrews House. Yet despite this diminished role, the size of the department has increased dramatically since 1999. From having just 20 employees in 2000, it now has over 60 today, and a budget which has ballooned from £3.7m in 1999 to £7.2m in 2009.

His department has issued just over 100 press releases since the start of the year, mostly welcoming initiatives taken by other departments, or announcing that he had appeared in Parliament to fulfill his responsibilities. Yet if this seems languid, it still marks him out as hyperactive in contrast to his recent predecessors.

While the propaganda machine might be in full flow, the more important functions seem to fall by the wayside. Not a peep was heard when the Chancellor imposed his recent increase in spirit duties. £1bn of Westminster cuts are obscured with spurious attacks on the SNP for poor macroeconomic outcomes in Scotland over which the Scottish Government, through Labour's own design, has little control anyway. The role he's created seems to be that of Labour PR man, rather than any kind of useful ally for the Scottish interest at Westminster.

With their Joint Ministerial Committees and 'compacts', Labour quite sensibly envisaged that direct links between Scottish and Whitehall Ministers would be the norm. Even as these structures fell into abeyance through the use of informal party networks, no significant liaison role was ever envisaged for the Secretary of State. Yet it is in this role that Murphy tries to portray himself as the great conciliator, inevitably in the context of mediating between an exasperated Whitehall and a supposedly fight-picking SNP Government.

Recently, he presented himself as having brokered a meeting between John Swinney and the Treasury over how a replacement Forth Bridge might be funded, despite the meeting having been arranged without his help. While others got on with working out how the bridge might be funded, Jim was busy spinning glory for himself from an inconclusive outcome while casting slights on the Scottish Government for the supposed shortcomings in its approach.

It's a tactic best described as pouring oil on troubled waters before trying to set fire to it. If he was a footballer, he'd be the one constantly pulling your jersey, before throwing himself to the ground in theatrical agony and complaining to the referee that he didn't get a free kick for his troubles. Which takes us to the heart of his new role – that of effective leader of the opposition in Scotland.

Labour in Holyrood has been utterly inept since the SNP's 2007 victory, with successive leaders failing to land a glove on a popular administration. It's debatable whether the next Labour First Minister is even elected yet to Holyrood. Lacking anyone with the talent to discomfit an assured SNP, it's fallen to Murphy to try and take up the job.

Even though he gets a free run from a press corps bored with a narrative of SNP success, he's running out of time, since his position depends not on Labour's performance in Scotland, but rather its performance UK-wide. Even if he holds his seat at the general election, unless Gordon Brown can effect a Lazarus-style political resurrection, it'll likely be David Cameron who appoints the next Secretary of State for Scotland. While Labour's ultra-unionists might not be too dismayed at that prospect, it's still a dangerous tack. For through his approach, Murphy has paved the way for an activist Conservative Scottish Secretary, with all that would entail for the remaining legitimacy of the UK.

Under the current settlement, election results mean that whether we like it or not, Labour has a certain legitimacy in Scotland over matters reserved, although this is not something that will transfer to an incoming Conservative administration. Just imagine, if you will, a Conservative Scottish Secretary trying to pull the same tricks, over matters reserved and devolved, in the face of likely stout cross-party Scottish opposition to a Conservative government at Westminster.

It's not difficult to see happening, at least for a time, nor is it difficult to imagine the likely response from Scottish voters. With Margaret Thatcher described as the midwife of devolution, how ironic it would be if in trying to bolster his party and the union, Murphy's example were to trigger the events which led to a yes vote in a future independence referendum.

On The Buses

2009-08-06T11:18:00.004+01:00

It's not often you'll find me linking to something in the Daily Mail, but this Craig Brown piece is just too good to miss:

Hold on tight, it's Gordon Brown the coach driver

Every summer, I like to board a coach and set off on a sunshine tour. This summer, when I arrived at the coach, I was surprised to find that no-one had yet boarded. The queue of holidaymakers was growing increasingly irate with the driver. 'If I did not think I was the right person to be driving this coach,' the driver was saying, 'I would not be sitting here holding the steering wheel.'

Oddly enough, his voice seemed familiar. 'I have the focus, the energy and the determination to drive this bus. I have never forgotten my father teaching me to change gears, to signal clearly and always to do the right thing. I want to put something back into this bus. This is who I am.'

One of the passengers standing outside then asked him through the window where he would be going. 'I believe in coaches,' he replied. 'I believe in roads. And I believe in driving coaches along roads.' At that moment, it suddenly struck me who he was.

Read the rest here.

H/T - Mediawatch

Top 10

2009-07-31T20:57:00.005+01:00

A last-minute dash to the polling station in the Total Politics Top Ten Blogs Poll has yielded the following selection from the Ellon judge:

1. Blether With Brian

All right, he's being paid to do it, but Brian Taylor still sets the standard I'd like to achieve for myself when I decide to be even-handed.

2. Mr Eugenides

He probably doesn't need the vote, but then, who really does?

3. SNP Tactical Voting

Quality and quantity. The undisputed king of nat pack bloggers.

4. Lallands Peat Worrier

Witty, erudite, cultured and always bang on the money. Wouldn't be surprised to learn that he's kind to animals and phones his mother every week as well. His picture is to be found both prominent and hole-ridden on my dartboard in consequence.

5. Clairwill

Thought-provoking and often plain laugh-out-loud funny.

6. The Steamie

Lets David Maddox show that there's more to his repertoire than simply knocking politicians as hard as he can. Also allows Geri Peev to be more prolific, which is always a good thing in my book.

7. Bill Cameron

A place where I find disagreement without disagreeableness.

8. Adam Price

Quite possibly the cleverest MP in the country. Certainly one of the best public speakers, and definitely the most thought provoking blogger in Westminster.

9. Alex Massie

The best thing about the Spectator Coffee House.

10. Leaves on the Line

Didn't get where he is today by wearing underpants decorated with Beethoven, apparently. Another favourite read.

Social Unions

2009-07-27T22:46:00.002+01:00

I entrusted myself to the tender mercies of Nationalised Express this weekend to make a visit to London. The occasion was the wedding of two of my friends, Tom and Jacqui, with whom I used to share a house when I stayed in the city. There was never any question of me missing their wedding. Tom and Jacqui are both very dear friends of mine, with whom I always try to hook up on the infrequent occasions I'm down there now.

Their friendship got my experience of London back on an even keel following an early bad flat experience. Politically, it was an interesting house in which to live. Tom and Jacqui met while working as researchers in the House of Commons – he for a Tory and she for a Labour MP. With a Lib-Dem sympathising lodger and myself as an SNP staffer in tow, we very nearly had the full set represented.

Their wedding was a spectacular affair. The church was grander than many a Cathedral I've visited and the mass, with the addition of a choir, was a world away from the rather more austere, if for me familiar surroundings of the Kirk. Officers from Tom's TA unit provided a guard of honour, before we headed off to the Terrace of the House of Commons for the reception.

However, it was the previous evening which provided a cameo as touching as the wedding itself. Heading pubwards up Shaftesbury Avenue around 9pm, we passed Soho Fire Station. There, in one of the doorways, were two firefighters standing behind a table, collecting for Ewan Williamson of the Lothian and Borders Brigade, who tragically lost his life on July 12 tacking a blaze in Edinburgh's Dalry Road - not far from where I went to school.

Those London firefighters most likely never knew Ewan, but that's not the point. It could just have easily been one of their own watch members who had left a family behind in the line of duty, which is why they were there, collecting change from the late night revellers for someone whom through the bonds of the job they regarded as one of their own.

If it's possible to be both humbled and uplifted in the same moment, that's how what remained of our evening began.

Taking Kerrful Aim

2009-07-21T17:52:00.004+01:00

It's official, then. With the Labour Government voting down the SNP attempt this afternoon to move the writ for the Glasgow North East by-election, the constituency is going to be left without Westminster representation at a time when job losses in the seat are at the top of the political agenda. Had the bid been successful, a poll could have been held on August 20th - long after the holidays had finished. Compare and contrast Labour's reticence and tactical disarray with their dash last summer in Glasgow East, or the impending contest in Norwich.

Consistent? Only in pursuit of what the Labour Party perceives to be its own best interests. Anyway, with lurid headlines about supposed 'meltdown' now wrapping chips and in the knowledge that we're in for a marathon rather than a sprint, it's maybe worth sharing some thoughts about the SNP candidate, David Kerr – a guy I've known for well over a decade, from when we were both in the Federation of Student Nationalists.

The first time I recall encountering him was at a meeting of the Federation's National Council in Dundee in the mid-90's. Right from the off, it seemed pretty clear that he was someone who was going to go places in life. Turned out in a suit while the rest of us slummed it in jeans and rumpled shirts, he reported on his role as a representative to the party Executive.

Speaking fluently and without notes, he held court for a good ten minutes, keeping eye contact with delegates all the time, making it seem as if he was speaking to every person in the room, rather than just a group. Issues had been long mastered, with their complexities distilled elegantly. Even the most pointed questions were handled with courtesy and a slightly wicked but genial humour. By the end of his stint, someone whom a fair number of those present had began by regarding with suspicion had the room eating out of his hand.

His integrity, personal charm and obvious ability ensured that he was held in the highest regard by all sections of the party, even in the old and unlamented pre-devolution days when being regarded as a 'fundamentalist' or a 'gradualist' still mattered. With his ability to communicate, it was no real surprise when he joined the BBC, and even less so when his name began to appear in the credits of Newsnight as the programme's producer.

The biggest surprise, at least for me, was that he 'broke cover' to contest the Falkirk West by-election just as network greatness seemed to be calling. He almost pulled it off as well. However, there's no second prizes in politics and despite his proven impartiality at the Beeb, the career options at the corporation for an unsuccessful SNP candidate were sadly limited. Reading the football scores – BBC Scotland's answer to Siberia - was to be his most public task for a long time afterwards.

I've no doubt whatsoever that David is a candidate whom Labour fear, which likely goes a long way towards explaining some of the nonsense we've seen in the papers over the past few days. They would be wise to do so. His ability to connect with people means he's as happy singing karaoke or calling bingo as he'd be debating the finer points of the Lisbon Treaty. In David, the SNP has a candidate of uncommon ability, who will have no difficulty keeping the focus where it should be – on Labour's appalling record in Glasgow.

As one lady of a certain age put it to me back when he was cutting his candidate's teeth in Falkirk, 'that boy's got it all'. He certainly has, and I can't help but feel it's not going to be to Labour's advantage to give him until November to prove it on the stump in Glasgow.

Made To Give A Flying Pluck

2009-07-10T16:36:00.010+01:00

There’s few more useful skills in life than knowing how to complain properly when things go wrong.

I’m not talking about shouting your head off at some poor underpaid and under-empowered customer service rep, or writing a snarky, self-satisfied letter guaranteed to elicit something equally unhelpful in return. Rather, it’s all about sticking to what’s relevant; not personalising the issue; carrying yourself with a courteous assertiveness and where appropriate, using the right amount of humour.

Having spent a few years working in the complaints department of a big Edinburgh life assurer after leaving university, I know of what I speak. Similarly, having also spent a few years dragging myself and my violin across various continents, when it comes to airlines and musical instruments, I also know of what I speak in this regard.

Luckily, I’ve never had any mishaps. BA has always been excellent, as has Air France. Bizarrely, the worst experience was when I was about to fly from Gatwick to Miami to join a ceilidh band aboard a P&O cruise ship. Despite P&O having chartered the plane for the entertainers joining the ship, a member of the cabin crew was adamant that I wasn’t getting on with my violin since "it could be used as a weapon" (??!), and that it would have to go in the hold instead.

After explaining gently that this really wasn’t a good idea and pointing out that she’d already let another violinist past without demur, off she went to consult with the pilot, never to be seen again. It did make me wonder exactly how she expected me to use it as a weapon, though. Perhaps there’d been a recent spate of violinists bursting into the cockpit mid-flight yelling ‘Fly me to Tehran or I’ll play you something you won’t like’…

Anyway, given the way that baggage gets thrown about, the idea of ground staff chucking fragile and valuable instruments about with no care for their condition fills me with horror. Luckily, a violin can fit in the overhead luggage locker quite happily if the crew and check in staff are agreeable. However, when it comes to something like a guitar, it’s a different story.

Which brings us to our tale. Canadian band ‘Sons of Maxwell’ were en route to Nebraska via Chicago’s o’Hare airport using United Airlines. While on the plane, they spotted ground staff throwing their guitars about on the tarmac. Unsurprisingly, upon reaching their destination, one of the guitars was broken.

Equally unsurprisingly, the band complained and demanded compensation. After a few months of procrastination, United finally said ‘No’ and refused to discuss the matter further. Big mistake – for instead of getting mad or calling their lawyer, the band decided to get even and recorded the following track, which is fast on its way to becoming a YouTube hit:

Anyway, all’s well that ends well. After seeing the video and sensing that they might be about to have a major public relations disaster on their hands, United has decided to reconsider its position and is now in serious talks about compensation. The airline has even gone so far as to ask if it can use the video as part of their staff training. If only the handling of their ground staff had been so adroit to begin with.

So, full marks to Sons of Maxwell for making their point with humour and dignity, and full marks to United for belatedly righting a wrong. I can’t see the songwriter replacing the solicitor any time soon, but it’s still a nice note on which to end the week.

(With thanks to the blogless Russell Horn for the hat tip earlier today)

UPDATE: The band has just posted this short video which brings the story up to date and thanks everyone for their support. It's always nice to see a happy ending where the good guys win and the 'baddie' manages to redeem himself.

So, Was That It?

2009-07-02T11:10:00.005+01:00

So, was that it, then? The Calman Commission – the grand Unionist masterplan – the one which was going to stymie independence and the SNP? The Commission which began with no preconceptions, except that Independence was a bad idea? The Commission that no unionist party saw fit to argue for before the SNP took power? The Commission, in short, designed to improve upon what was already perfection?

You must surely have seen the ecstatic crowds, the cheering throngs ever grateful for being spared the burden of being asked their opinion in advance, hoisting Peerie Kenny aloft? The sundry 3 cheers for Iain, Tavish and Annabel? The melodious sound of a band striking up the Unionist jig to which Alex Salmond would now surely be made to dance?

Nope? Me neither.

Forget all the hokum, flim-flam and flapdoodle about this being an 'intellectually rigorous report'. It's nothing of the kind. Quite simply, it is the result of empty minds being brought to a problem which essentially has no right answer. It is the lowest common denominator solution to how far Labour, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives are prepared to allow Holyrood to progress, carrying with it the pseudo-scientific conceit of being somehow 'evidence based'.

Ah, I hear you cry! But surely there were all sorts of brainy Professors involved! Iain McMillan was there to speak for the CBI! There was even a big Brother contestant to make sure that the kids were who they were down with! How can you be so cynical about such a stellar panel of critical, enquiring minds?

Easy. Just look at the proposals for financial powers – in fact, you needn't bother looking all that closely at all - and it will explode any vestige of belief that we might be dealing with any kind of worthwhile analysis here. Half of income tax revenues raised in Scotland are to stay in Scotland, we hear, in order to improve accountability. Well, cock-a-doodle-doo. What happens in a recession when income tax receipts fall? Why not broaden the base by supplementing this with VAT or Corporation Tax revenues? Why is it a good idea to tether the basic and top rates so that they cannot be altered independently of one another? More to the point, why no control over the North Sea tax regime? Really, if it happens it will be a Potemkin power – there for show and nothing else.

The problem with this power, as many eminent economists have pointed out, including some of those on Calman’s expert committee, is that it removes the certainty of the block grant without substituting it for the benefits of full fiscal autonomy. Without an enhanced funding base, Calman’s funding proposals have the potential to do more harm than good.

While proposals to devolve control over air guns and drink drive limits are welcome, let's not forget that these are areas where the SNP was accused in the past of 'picking fights'. Together with proposals to transfer animal welfare (remember the shenanigans over foot and mouth?), it seems that these are matters which perhaps should, in the opinion of the supreme arbiter, be devolved after all. Is this vindication for the SNP here, or is it simply an approach which owes more to reading back through the papers than any attempt to work out what the best division of responsibilities might be within a union state?

It's exactly the sort of timid and irrelevant stodge you'd expect to get when you seek the resultant of the politically inept but nonetheless enormously self-important great and good. And for that, the SNP should probably be grateful – after all, it now means that people can see exactly how little difference 'more powers' would actually make. This is as little as the British State is prepared to concede – if you want more, you're going to have to vote SNP and keep the prospect of independence at the top of the agenda – it really is the only language they speak.

Even then, as one Commission member put it, 'The potential for long grass is considerable'. How true – the Conservative Scottish Parliamentary Group is split on the matter, while you assume that the Lib Dems would have preferred it to go much further. Meanwhile, Labour are back to their old tricks again, with Jim Murphy claiming that the Scottish Parliament funded report is the 'property' [I kid you not] of the British Government and the parties party to the Commission. Despite there being unanimous agreement across Holyrood about the implementation of certain powers, according to Labour the report can only be implemented as a whole, and to suggest otherwise is SNP politicking.

Which must be news to Calman himself, who has said publicly that elements could be progressed fairly quickly. Meanwhile, there may not be sufficient parliamentary time left to allow Labour to implement any or even some of what has been recommended. Irony of ironies, it may be left to a future Prime Minister Cameron to implement the scheme on behalf of a party that has never entirely come to terms with the devolution we already have.

It promises to be an interesting aperitif to the independence referendum or the 2011 election – whichever comes first.

Oldmeldrum Sports

2009-06-21T13:44:00.005+01:00

I spent yesterday afternoon at the Oldmeldrum Sports, a venerable North East institution. The first event was held in 1930, originally to raise money to buy cocoa for local children! Nowadays, the charitable works extend considerably further afield.

The most famous man in Scotland, pictured alongside the local MSP...

2009-06-18T07:49:00.001+01:00

Genius - to be found on today's Scotsman letters page...

IF, as Calman recommends, the Scottish Government is granted the right to vary speed limits, I hope it's only by plus or minus 3mph.

Richard Lucas

Edinburgh

Compass - No Turning Back

2009-06-17T21:45:00.006+01:00

I was in London last weekend to take part in the Compass 'No Turning back' conference. It came about through Mark Perryman – the driving force behind the 'Breaking Up Britain' book to which I contributed a chapter recently. Although not eligible to be a member of Compass thanks to my SNP affiliations, I nonetheless was invited along to take part in a fringe event to discuss some of the themes of the book.

I've been guilty in the past of harbouring something of an ambivalent attitude towards the 'metro-left' as I've termed it previously. Partly, that's down to my viewing politics from a primarily Scottish rather than a Westminster perspective. Partly, its down to the lazy assumptions made by some about the 'reactionary' nature of the SNP. It's also partly down to the assumption that 2 party politics is the norm, and that all the faults of the country are down to the other lot – a contention which in my view becomes hard to sustain if you happen to live in a place where Labour has been the effective establishment for half a century.

Although most of the delegates were either Labour, ex-Labour or unaffiliated 'progressives', there was an impressive array of 'dissidents' there, including Adam Price MP from Plaid Cymru, Caroline Lucas from the English Green Party, along with representatives from Sinn Fein and Respect. Coming right after Labour's drubbing at the Euro elections, it was a commendable display of political ecumenicism, matched only by what can be best described as a determination to seize a new agenda for the broad left in what might be the final 11 months of this Labour government.

With some early preconceptions confounded and complimentary copies of the Guardian and New Statesman in hand, off I went to the first session. The speeches from Billy Hayes, Harriet Harman, John Hilary, Caroline Lucas and Neal Lawson were enjoyably passionate, although it was a bit odd from the perspective of a relative outsider to hear the contention advanced that you could in fact fit a Rizla between the future spending plans of the Labour and Conservative parties.

Our Fringe session, 'No Turning Back on Devolution', attracted in the region of about 40 of the 1,000 delegates. In addition to Mark and myself, there was Professor Arthur Aughey from the University of Ulster; John Osmond of the Institute of Welsh Affairs; Sean Oliver, Sinn Fein's Director of European Affairs; and an impressive one-time Labour PPC, Rupa Huq, whom it must be recorded indulged in some quite shameless buttering up of Pat Kane, who himself took part in proceedings from the floor.

My own contribution was based on the theme of how the SNP had approached government, and how this fed into moves towards independence. With the theme of performance in the Euro elections a popular one for discussion, perhaps unsurprisingly, I began with some thoughts on how the SNP had managed to hold and arguably increase its base of support since May 2007 – something which can be put down to a few factors:

The SNP Government is perceived as being a competent manager of Scottish affairs. Ministers are seen as accessible and have likable public persona's. This has won a fair amount of goodwill and support in business, the civil service, the professions and the third sector – much of which was sceptical before not only about independence, but arguably about devolution itself.

Voters like the policies being put in place. Proper funding of free personal care, the ending of back-end tuition fees, the lack of marketisation in the NHS, the promotion of not for profit alternatives to PFI, opposition to ID cards, Trident and Nuclear Power, alongside freezing council tax and business rates, have been instrumental in garnering support from across the political spectrum.
People like the 'breath of fresh air' factor of a party other than Labour running Scotland's affairs, and actually quite like the fact that the government lacks the majority to always get its own way.
Much of it can also be put down to a 'normalisation' of politics in Scotland. Previously, the SNP had been viewed as somehow illegitimate in many quarters. However, the party's very presence in Government had done much to exorcise this. There are budgets which self-evidently do balance and ministers who quite obviously manage to work happily with Whitehall – the sky has emphatically not fallen in, which leaves a lot of people's previous rhetoric looking rather foolish.
When it comes to a referendum, the SNP continues to make the democratic argument for a vote liberated from party politics. While this had been accepted by Wendy Alexander, Labour had now retreated. However, who was to know what the attitude would be in 12 months time. Although there was no referendum majority in Holyrood, a majority outside Holyrood supported a referendum regardless as to how they'd vote given the chance. Support was also finely balanced between those intending to vote 'yes' and those intending to vote 'no'. Again, regardless as to preference, a majority expected Scotland to become independent in their lifetime. This wouldn't deliver independence in itself, but was perhaps an indication as to the overall direction of travel.

While Calman was likely to recommend more powers, it would need Westminster to deliver. With such a short time left to run in the present Parliament, this would likely rumble up to the Holyrood elections in 2011 and through a referendum vote in Holyrood. This meant that everything was building to further devolution and a crunch decision on whether or not the voters should have their say on full independence.

However, even if Calman's recommendations were implemented before the Westminster election, it still couldn't prevent the election of a Conservative government if that were to be the way the polls went south of the border. In that event, the choice at a 2010 referendum or a 2011 Holyrood election would be between a Cameron government and all that might entail, or the chance to build a progressive, nuclear free and self-governing Scotland. For a lot of left-inclined voters, the prospect of independence could become quite a tempting choice.

And so expired my 5 minutes. Although it's familiar territory to anyone in Scotland, these aren't issues which get aired very often south of the border, and it was fantastic to get the chance to air them and to be open to question and challenge. A disproportionate number of those who argue for England to be governed differently define themselves by opposition to the EU, to immigration or the welfare state. If we are to achieve a new but importantly amicable constitutional settlement between Scotland and the rest of the UK, these are discussions which need to take place, and involve a lot more people.

Big thanks to Mark Perryman for making it all happen, and I look forward to getting the chance to do it all again with him at the SNP's London Branch meeting in August!

P.S. Soundbite of the day has to go to Caroline Lucas: “Tony Blair's big tent is well and truly over. Now we need a campsite of smaller tents."

More London

2009-06-14T21:49:00.004+01:00

Been down for the Compass conference, of which maybe more later. In the meantime...

The Euro Political Map

2009-06-08T13:23:00.005+01:00

Last night was a late one for a Sunday, what with staying up for the Euro Elections and all. I'm really pleased to see the SNP topping the Scottish vote, although there's more than a twinge of regret that we didn't get Dr Aileen McLeod elected. Just another 5% would have done it, but nevertheless, the overall result goes to show that 2007 was no flash in the pan.

For Labour, it's the individual stories that are probably more damaging than the overall result: losing the popular vote in all but 3 Scottish council areas; beaten into 3rd place in the English popular vote; coming behind the Conservatives in Wales; finishing behind Mebyon Kernow in Cornwall; and (sadly) what became the story of the night - the BNP picking up a seat in the North west and another in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Anyway, numbers are all very well in charting an election, but here's how people voted in Scotland by local authority:

Incredibly, that's 3 Labour (they 'won' Fife by only 205 votes!), 3 Lib Dem, 4 Tory including East Renfrewshire (where the SNP came a close 2nd to push labour into 3rd - bye, Jim) and 22 SNP.

In Aberdeenshire, the SNP topped the poll comfortably (35%) with the Conservatives second (23%) and the Lib Dems trailing some way behind in third (14.5%). The SNP vote is up over 10% on 2004, with the Lib Dems down over 4%.

That's a 7.5% swing from Lib Dem to SNP since last time - a figure which given their poor showing last time in Banff & Buchan, is going to be even larger when applied to Gordon [declaring an interest...] and to West Aberdeenshire. Again, this suggests that our advances here in 2007 are not only solid, but are being built on.

The results from Aberdeen City were every bit as encouraging for the SNP:

Given that the Gordon Westminster seat has a fair chunk of Aberdeen North in it including Dyce and Bridge of Don, from my perspective, it's all good.

All told, it's hard to see any positives for Gordon Brown in this. As one backbencher said last night, their choice seems to be instant death in an election led by a new leader, or a slow death next June with Brown. Who'd want to take over if that were to be their fate?

Resigned to Defeat

2009-06-03T11:07:00.002+01:00

First Jacqui Smith, now Hazel Blears. This is starting to look deliberate - a good time to buy shares in Nokia?

Move Over, Darling

2009-06-01T22:12:00.004+01:00

Apologies for the corny headline* – I just felt that while it's a gag that's been overused in the past, it's one we're about to see a fair bit of once the dust settles from the European Elections.

Alastair Darling is most high profile MP to date to be caught up in the firestorm over expenses. While the details of his claims needn't detain us here, let's have a quick look at the politics of the situation.

The member for Edinburgh South West (or Pentlands in old money) has, or rather had, a reputation as the safest pair of hands in the Labour Cabinet. While John Reid was the 'enforcer' of choice throughout the Blair years, it was Darling who was left to smooth ruffled feathers in departments and restore a bit of stability where previously there had been uproar.

Never ostentatious or attention seeking in manner, it was his advocate's mastery of the brief which was his strongest asset. Always ready to disarm an attack with a seemingly credible diversion, his could be made to sound like the voice of sweet reason. While John Reid was described once as having the knack for making any old cobblers sound plausible, Darling was the one who could sidetrack you into submission or spike your guns. Many a Conservative shadow was left bemused and befuddled by his deft footwork and seeming ability to dodge any political bullet headed his way.

Always close to Gordon Brown (they had both been around Edinburgh Labour politics for many years before either was elected), he was the natural choice to take over as Chancellor when Brown was elevated to the Premiership. He would even have been an outside bet to take over were Brown to have fallen under the proverbial number 38 bus. However, with the credit crunch and global crisis (it started in America, dontcha' know?), his star has been looking decidedly tarnished of late.

Of course, this isn't entirely fair. If the UK finds itself in straightened circumstances, it surely has a bit to do with the man who was Chancellor for a decade before him – for which step forward one Gordon Brown. As Chancellor, Brown made his own fiscal rules and bent them to suit, cutting down critics with staccato sten-gun volleys of statistics, aided by the covering fire of hear hears from braying backbenchers, most of whom, truth be told, didn't really have a clue what was going on at the Treasury. Nor did those backbenchers particularly care. Everything was fine – it must be true because Gordon says so. Record employment, stable finances, no more boom and bust, lowest mortgage rates for however many years blah blah blah... just so long as all the other parties were being held at bay, it was all good.

Except now they are not being held at bay. If the polls are to be believed, Labour faces a hammering at Thursday's Euro poll as voters seek to exact revenge on the government for the poor state of the economy and to show their disapproval for the expenses scandal. Brown has let it be known in advance that he will not step down as Prime Minister if the results are bad and, being realistic, it's hard to see who in Labour at Westminster might wish to step up to the plate in any case. Labour missed their chance to replace him last Autumn – with capital being made about his being a Prime Minister without the personal mandate of a general election victory, the prospects of Labour offering the country a second 'unelected' PM are slim. As such, the parliamentary infantry will remain bedraggled and demoralised by the prospect of almost certain defeat next year, while those in the bunker stay convinced that the non-existent battalions being pushed around their maps can be steeled once more to 'win the fight for Britain's Future'.

So, if Brown is to stay on, how does he convince us that there can be a new beginning under his watch? How can he show 'courage' and 'leadership' over expenses, while trying to make a symbolic break with the political past of which he is so much a part? More to the point, upon whom can he prevail to partake in a political 'Rite of Spring' to make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good, in the hope that his blood fertilises the soil for a bountiful harvest nest year? Just as Norman Lamont served this purpose for John Major, step forward (or down) Alistair Darling.

It's a dirty business sometimes, and Lamont was hardly a placid presence for Major following his dismissal. As Jeremy Thorpe said of MacMillan after the 'night of the long knives': “Greater love hath no man than this – that he lay down his friends for his life.”

*UPDATE: Actually, I'm no longer sorry at all. Newsnight has just used a bit of 'Move Over Darling' as background music, with Paxo making use of the Thorpe quote in his link. If it's good enough for the BBC...

One For The Connoisseur

2009-05-21T19:25:00.005+01:00

As long-term readers will know, I'm a close observer of Lib Dem election literature. Not because of its quality so much as my having a morbid fascination with the low-grade cunning they use which no other party stoops anywhere close to - for example, claiming to have supported that which they haven't, the selective editing of newspaper quotes to imply endorsement, the transparent ruses of "many people have been saying..." etc etc.

Nowhere is this exhibited quite so brazenly as in the bar charts which they churn out, alongside the 'can't win here' arrow directed at those who are often in fact their nearest rivals. A particular favourite of mine was the one they had in Glenrothes, which actually used the result of the Dunfermline and West Fife contest! I can only imagine the squeals of outrage there'd have been in Lib Dem quarters if I'd decided to barchart the last Banff and Buchan result to indicate SNP momentum in Gordon...

Fortunately, thanks to Alex Salmond and Brian Adam representing every last square inch of the Gordon Westminster seat at Holyrood, that's not something the SNP would ever have to stoop to, even if we were of a mind to do so. It was therefore with some surprise that I saw the bar chart which the Gordon Lib Dems have opted to use on their literature to promote their Euro campaign:

Take a close look. The bar chart, perhaps understandably, refers to the last Westminster result rather than the more recent Holyrood results which if repeated, would also give the SNP a majority on the Gordon Westminster boundaries. The 'can't win here' tactic aimed at the SNP is therefore clearly rubbish. Nevertheless, even if this chart were an accurate reflection of the current state of play, it would still be completely irrelevant in an election which is being counted on a Scotland-wide basis.

Just take a look at the 'It's so close here' heading, though. Normally, the Lib Dems deploy this tactic alongside a chart which they've manipulated to show them within touching distance of those whom they are hoping to unseat. However, this one's above a chart which shows the Lib Dems outpolling their nearest chosen rivals by over 2:1!

While at one level it's interesting to see that they're trying to deny the fact that the SNP has improved its position in this part of Aberdeenshire considerably since 2005, there's a more subtle message in there. When they say 'it's so close here', what I suspect they really mean is that with Scotland seeing her number of MEPs reduced from 7 to 6, with their precarious position in the national polls it's touch and go as to whether the Lib Dems will manage to get an MEP elected from Scotland at all.

Whatever else you might be able to say about Lib Dem election literature, it is nearly always hallmarked by a clear message, whether it stands up to scrutiny or not. This one, on the other hand, tries to claim that those who are winning can't win, while pointing to a closeness which on their own terms of reference, simply doesn't exist.

Fail.

Mucking The Stables Out

2009-05-19T17:47:00.001+01:00

So farewell then, Michael Martin. After a fevered build-up to his statement, it was done and dusted in less than a minute. The brevity and suddenness of his statement spared us, at least for the moment, from the glutinous, treacly tributes which politics tends to reserve for these occasions.

The charge sheet is well-rehearsed elsewhere. However, in his defence, Speaker Martin was generally fair to the minority parties in terms of giving them opportunities to speak in the chamber. He was also excellent at keeping order in the Chamber, letting the setpiece occasions flow with an easy, softly spoken humour.

Nevertheless, weaknesses were there to be seen. He relied heavily on the direction of his clerks during debates. It was noticeable that whenever complex bills were being discussed, it was his deputy, Sir Alan Hazlehurst, who was generally in the chair. And when it came to reform of the procedures of the House, he had become too much of an obstacle to ever credibly be part of the reforming process.

Usually a charming and courteous man, his uncharacteristically stinging rebuke to Kate Hoey last week appeared to galvanise opinion against him. Following his statement yesterday, the succession of MPs seemingly prepared to wound but not kill is what finally did for him.

The TV studios have been filled with ‘friends’ of Mr Martin over the past few days, throwing around accusations of class prejudice and sectarianism at those who failed to back him. This does him no service whatsoever. That goodwill has been exhausted has nothing to do with his not having gone to a fancy school. Quite simply, he had gained the confidence of the House after a shaky start, but went on to lose it through a series of poor decisions. That’s really all there is to it.

That said, the problems with Westminster expense claims didn’t start with Mr Martin, and nor will they disappear with his resignation. The advice offered to him regarding expenses was cross-party in nature (Labour, Lib Dem and Tory). It’s going to take more than a ceremonial beheading to calm people down after the scandal of ‘flipping’, and using expenses for moat cleaning and tennis court repairs.

The best thing which could happen now is for an independent audit of expense claims to take place, so that people can see objectively which claims are legitimate and which are not. ‘Flipping’ must be stopped – and consideration should be given to only allowing MPs in need of a second home in London to rent at the public expense rather than buy.

When the expenses scandal threatened to engulf the Scottish Parliament, George Reid took the problem by the scruff of the neck. Every receipt and claim was published – while it resulted in a few red faces and a couple of high profile casualties, the effect was salutary. Sunlight truly is the best disinfectant sometimes and not only were voters able to see that their MSPs were, on the whole, a pretty honest lot, the knowledge that each claim would be made public doubtless helped a few of the others to temper their desire for reimbursement.

There might be a few more high profile casualties yet before the system can be said to be clean. However, if MPs are going to be able to look voters in the eye in future and reassure them that the democratic system is sound, nothing less than full disclosure of expenses, as we have at Holyrood, will do. That desire for a clear-out might be tough on Michael Martin right now, but as a creation of the establishment, it’s perhaps to be expected that his position would ensure he was amongst the first to be swept away.

Breaking Up Britain - II

2009-05-07T19:35:00.002+01:00

Here's an article from me on the Guardian's 'Comment is Free' website, related to the book mentioned below.

'Breaking Up Britain' - On Sale Now

2009-05-07T08:38:00.004+01:00

One of my projects over the past few months has been to contribute a chapter towards a book on how Britain might look like post-independence, with the emergence of Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland as distinct political units.

The book, edited by Mark Perryman and titled “Breaking up Britain”, has contributions from all corners of the British Archipelago. The contributors have very different views but agree on one thing – the need to consider post-British Union politics and how the relationships which will exist thereafter might look. My own chapter was on the development of a model of civic nationalism and social democracy in the SNP.

I'll put up more details later, but in the meantime, here's the publishing details and a link which will allow you to buy from the publisher:

May 2009 will be the tenth anniversary of the first elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. This was the beginning of a decade of change - which now includes the restoration of powers to Stormont - that is showing every sign of being an irreversible process. Breaking Up Britain is a unique collection of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish contributors, featuring key political activists from the nationalist parties, commentators and campaigners, academics and journalists. Each writer explores the change that the break-up demands in their own nation, but also discusses its impact upon the whole. This dialog of differences is essential reading for anyone interested in the shape of politics and culture after a Union. Contributors: Arthur Aughey, Gregor Gall, John Harris, Michael Kenny, Peadar Kirby, Inez McCormack, Eoin O'Broin, John Osmond, Mike Parker, Lesley Riddoch, Richard Thomson, Vron Ware, Charlotte Williams, Kevin Williamson, Leanne Wood and Salma Yaqoob.

'This brilliant book helps us understand what Scots, Welsh, Irish and English neighbours, freed from an unhappy Union, might look like.' Billy Bragg

Breaking up Britain: Four nations after a Union - Mark Perryman (editor)

ISBN 978 1905007 967 256 pages £16.99 May 2009

Lawrence and Wishart, 99a Wallis Road, London E9 5LN
www.lwbooks.co.uk
tel 020 8533 2506 fax 020 8533 7369
email promo@lwbooks.co.uk.

Some Recent Campaign Pics

2009-05-05T21:19:00.008+01:00

If you want to see pics from the Gordon campaign as it develops, then please sign up for my Facebook group. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek of some recent images:

With the First Responders in Pitmedden (Photo Credit: Ted Bartlett)

Litter clean-up in Inverurie, with members of the Aberdeenshire Litter Initiative (Pic Credit: ALI)

Glasgow Conference (Credit: Tony Grahame)

Glasgow Conference (Credit: Bellgrove Belle)

A Parallel Scotland

2009-05-02T15:52:00.002+01:00

It's a nice afternoon, so I'm away to tackle the front garden with a strimmer in an attempt to turn jungle into bowling green. To keep the pot boiling on the blogging front, here's my latest article for the SI, which should be dropping through all good letterboxes soon.

Imagine for a moment, if you will, that you live in not so much a parallel universe, but a parallel Scotland. This parallel Scotland is identical to our Scotland in every last detail, except one. In this Scotland, the press and media exhibit an ingrained, subconscious bias towards the SNP and Scottish Independence.

I know it sounds fanciful, but bear with me. Were such an unlikely set of events to take place, just what would media coverage of Scottish politics look like, and what would be the overall effect on the body politic?

In our Scotland, you might have seen the post-budget edition of The Scotsman, where Hamish MacDonnell wrote that: “John Swinney sparked further tension with Westminster yesterday when he claimed 9,000 jobs could be lost in Scotland as a direct result of efficiency savings announced in the Budget.” In a parallel Scotland, it might have read “Alistair Darling sparked further tension with Holyrood yesterday when he dismissed claims that 9,000 Scottish jobs would be lost as a direct result of spending reductions announced in his Budget.”

A bit of a turnaround, no? The same facts are all in there, but the emphasis is changed to give the reader a totally different take on events. Now imagine that you'd tuned into Reporting Scotland the previous evening and heard presenter Jackie Bird prompt Brian Taylor to comment on whether the emerging fuss was all down to Westminster 'picking fights' with Holyrood, rather than as she did, express it t'other way about. Inflammatory stuff, which you imagine would elicit squeals of outrage about media bias from Labour and a barrage of complaints to the BBC and the editor of the title concerned.

Let's take another example. In the week the UK Cabinet decided to meet in Scotland for the first time in 88 years, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Milliband decided to attack the Scottish Government for making clear its willingness to use planning powers to prevent new nuclear power stations being built in Scotland. However, since the constitutional demarcations here could scarcely be clearer, just imagine for a moment that Milliband had been told by all and sundry to 'grow up', and to stop Westminster's 'obsession' with 'picking fights' with the Scottish Government.

Now imagine that the reporting of other post-2007 intra-governmental spats had been portrayed similarly – that Hilary Benn had withdrawn Foot and Mouth compensation for Scotland once there was no prospect of an early election; that the DWP was being petty in refusing to allow Scotland to continue to benefit from local tax benefit following replacement of the council tax with a local income tax; or that Westminster had ridden roughshod over Holyrood in negotiating with Lybia to repatriate prisoners without consulting Scottish Law Officers beforehand (sorry Kirsty – not even I can twist my mind enough to imagine you prosecuting that case with any conviction).

Unthinkable, no? No matter how much truth there might be in these observations, it would be like having editorial policy set by Special Advisers and SNP Press Officers. So why, rather than getting a dispassionate middle view which might encourage people to make up their own minds, do we get lumped with the precise opposite so often?

Even allowing for the adversarial nature of political questioning which often demands the positing of a polar opposite, even if only to be knocked down, there seems to be a leitmotif at work that the SNP picks fights with Westminster. Period. Just as there is with the automatic, lazy assumption that uniquely in the UK, more government spending takes place in Scotland than is raised in taxation and proportionate borrowing..

Let's leave aside the fact that it's not really in the interests of the SNP to allow itself to be portrayed as a wrecking influence. For me, the astonishing thing post-2007 has been how few spats have actually bubbled over in public. Privately, Ministers and Civil Servants at Westminster are pretty complimentary about their Scottish counterparts. Alex Salmond has always been feared and respected in equal measure as both strategist and parliamentarian, while Ministers like John Swinney, Nicola Sturgeon and Bruce Crawford have won kudos in Whitehall for their command of their briefs.

So why do we get left with this impression in Scotland that the traffic of aggro flows one way only? The famed 'Scottish Cringe'? The desire to generate interesting copy? Or is it that having been supplicant to the Labour Nomenklatura for so long, the Scottish media is incapable of weaning itself from the teat of Labour's PR machine?

It would be remiss not to point out at this juncture that a few Scottish papers did come out, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, for an SNP led administration in 2007. Just as it would be not to point out that Labour is convinced that BBC Scotland is simply crawling with Nats – you can take from that about the collective state of mind of the Labour party what you will...

No-one forms their political opinions on the basis of the stance of one particular outlet – rather, it's the drip, drip, drip effect over time which has the greatest influence over the susceptible. As such, no-one votes Labour because the Record tells them to, or even votes SNP even because the Sunday Times suggests it might result in more “vigorous and imaginative government.” It's the periods in-between which have the greatest effect.

Returning to our parallel Scotland, the very fact the spin I've given these stories seems so inflammatory is because of the filter through which we're presented with large elements of our news. These filters can be broken – think Labour's past theme that SNP 'sums don't add up' – when self evidently they do. I also think that once Labour is booted out of office in London, that there's likely to be a very big change in the way Scottish politics is reported at home, which might lead to a similar change in how Westminster/Holyrood 'disputes' are portrayed in future.

Some of which might be good for the SNP. Nevertheless, I've no more desire to read an SNP version of Pravda than I have a unionist version, whether that occurs through design or more likely, laziness and a desire not to stand out too far from one's peers. The question remains, though - wouldn't democracy be so much healthier if we achieved balance not through competing extremes, but by having our journos remember that comment is best left to the editorial and the columnists?

Budget Thought

2009-04-22T22:10:00.003+01:00

Too many thoughts about the budget to put them down now, but there's one piece of spin which deserves to be nailed right here and now.

I'm going to pick on Alex Massie. Not because his is or will be the most egregious example of it at work - far from it - there'll be plenty Labour and Lib Dem figures trotting it out with varying degrees of skill and understanding between now and the election. Simply, I'm singling him out because his is the link I have to hand.

The contention is that a cut to the Scottish block grant is justified, since if efficiencies have to be found elsewhere in the UK, then they should have to be found in Scotland also. Fair enough, but one based sadly on the incorrect premise that the Scottish Government isn't already seeking to make efficiencies.

In fact, the Scottish Government is looking for savings of 1.5% each year within its budget, and using the savings to help fund initiatives like the council tax freeze and the Small Business Bonus scheme. Rather, what's coming down the line is an actual cut to the Scottish budget, which will mean having to find even more efficiencies over and above those already being found if current spending lines are to be continued.

It's a legitimate argument to say that more efficiencies could be found, but to start from the premise that none are being found currently and will only occur as a result of a budget cut, is misleading to say the least. I don't suppose it will stop Jim Murphy trying to argue it, though.

Incidentally, it's interesting to see congruence between Labour at Westminster and the SNP Government that the true scale of the spending cuts facing Scotland will, as the SNP has always said, be in the order of £500m, which kind of destroys Iain Gray's apparent freelance contentions yesterday that the Scottish budget would continue to grow in real terms. If Brown accepts his own premise that you can't cut your way out of recession (as his deputy appears to), it's strange that that's the course he's decided to set for Scotland.

UPDATE: Alex Massie responds.

A Twitterer Twitters

2009-04-15T13:48:00.001+01:00

Like Jeff, I've finally given in and set up a Twitter account. Not to get down wiv da kidz or any of that rubbish – just simply because it's caught up with me as something that it might be fun to try out.

My uptake of social networking stuff has sometimes been slow, but always deliberate and definite when it's happened. I never saw the point of IM and still don't, even though the program probably still lurks somewhere on my computer. It's like an unimportant email, except carrying with it the impertinent expectation of an immediate reply else you convey the impression that you're ignoring the person who has just intruded into whatever it was you were doing. If it's a short message you want to pass on immediately, send a text. If you want a chat, why not just pick up the phone?

Texting I got from the off, having harumphed for a year or more previously that my pager was expensive to use and wouldn't let me reply similarly. Consequently, I was texting away as early as 1995 when it was still very much a minority sport - with instructions for use buried away at the back of your phone manual. You couldn't even send texts between UK networks to begin with, unless you surreptitiously used an overseas message centre. When Vodafone put a stop even to that for a time in 1996, I remember being told on complaining that 'there was no demand' to send texts between networks. Hmmm... they caught on in the end, though.

'Friends Reunited' I signed up for right away, but got bored with very quickly. It was like a virtual school reunion, sparing you the horror of ever actually having to attend one yourself. All it needed was a checklist of whether you were married, had kids, your job title and income bracket, the car you were driving and holidays planned, and you could be reinforced as a success or crushed as a failure from the comfort of your own home. Job done, but not worth more than a log in or two a year at most.

It's the personal recommendations that counted most to me when it came to social networking proper, which is where Twitter comes in, after getting a gentle nudge from a friend in the comments a few posts ago. I still don't really get it, except at the level of a Facebook status update, or for a short blast about something newsworthy. If you're Iain Dale, it lets you advertise your latest meeja appearance, although whether anyone would hang similarly for details of my next appearance on Original 106 news is perhaps debatable. Using it as a feed to tell people about your latest blogpost I don't really get – mainly because I always just go to the blogs I'm interested in anyway so if I see the post being advertised in a tweet, I've probably already seen it, or would have seen it anyway. As for using it as a news wire, we shall have to see. I think I'll still be relying on my radio and the BBC News site for some time to come.

So, despite a lingering suspicion that the past participle of tweeting would be post-watershed, I now do so, adding to the relentless electro-chatter of trivia being fired around the globe. I've even done the obligatory following of Stephen Fry although scandalously, he's thus far declined to reciprocate. I've no idea if it will be of any interest to others, but it costs nothing – let's see how it goes.

Is Labour becoming the 'Nasty party'?

2009-04-14T22:28:00.004+01:00

I was speaking to a guy from Sweden a couple of weeks ago, who was part of a group visiting to examine tourism in the north of Scotland. He was accompanying a politician from Gothenburg who happened to be a former member of the Committee of the Regions. Guessing my politics, he suggested that it might be useful for me to know that this politician was a Liberal and that as such, the closest party to his views here would be the Lib Dems.

I set out to explain that because of differing views on the constitution, this wouldn't necessarily mean that the only place his views could be found would be in the Lib Dems here. He laughed and said he already knew this – and so flowed an interesting conversation on conflict management in small state politics and the relative tourist propositions of Scotland and Sweden.

It's the conflict management bit that's set me thinking, though. We're all aware of Labour's sodid smear-blogging attempts to target top Conservatives and their families. However, looking to Scotland, we also, sadly, have our own little outlets of unpleasantness. None have yet attempted anything like appears to have been envisaged for Red Rag, but if you glance at them even occasionally, you can probably guess from their overall tone at what I'm about to start driving at.

Confession time - we all have unworthy thoughts on occasion, even if self-censorship usually keeps the less salubrious of them away from the public gaze. That's neither good nor bad – it's just the way it is. In smaller political units, like Scotland or Sweden, there's usually a tendency towards accommodation or greater passive acceptance of others' views, simply because prolonged and protracted personalised political conflict alongside a determination to always see the worst in your opponents can be so draining otherwise.

Is this a noble thing to do? Does not trenchant 'honesty' and forthrightness give you an air of passionate authenticity and therefore, the mark of the 'straight talker' who simply 'tells it as it is'? If there's attacks to be made, is it not better simply to have these things out in the open?

Part of me says yes, in that it gives neutrals the chance to come to their own conclusions, and therefore the same opportunity as me to feel or express distaste – the 'give them enough rope' argument. However, another part of me wishes it were otherwise.

I don't claim the SNP has always been innocent in any of this – the bitterness of being on the way down as others enjoy the sunlit uplands of public approval has been common to all parties at some point. However, I also believe that recent years have seen the SNP adopt a tone of optimism and consensus-seeking not always reciprocated by others, especially Labour.

As I said, if that leads people to judge them more harshly, to their detriment and the SNP's benefit then from a purely partisan point of view, I should probably be quite content. However, I can't help but feel that the vitriol and increasingly desperate personalised attacks simply leaves us and our collective discourse all the poorer.

Happy Birthday To Us

2009-04-07T23:58:00.002+01:00

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the Scottish National Party. It might surprise some to learn that the party has been around for so long given that most history books don't have much to say about the SNP until the late 1960's. However, as Scotland's current party of government, there can be no doubt that it's come an awful long way since 1934 – and what a journey its been.

From the early days of the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association and the eventual merger of the National Party of Scotland and the Scottish Party (an offshoot of the Unionist Party), the SNP faced an uphill battle against the prevailing politics of union and empire. However, Dr MacIntyre's short-lived 1945 triumph in Motherwell proved a harbinger of what was to come. The societal changes of the 1960's and parallel organisational advances brought talent to the party, resulting in the steady growth which led to Winnie Ewing's breakthrough at Hamilton in 1967 and what has since been a period of continual parliamentary representation for the party.

Oil fueled the party's fortunes in the 1970's, just as the SNP's success drove Labour and the Conservatives to seriously contemplate home rule. However, the weakness of the Labour Party at Westminster and inability to control its backbenchers saw devolution fall and with it, the Labour government. The SNP fell back dramatically at the resulting election and entered the 1980's a divided and marginalised force.

The party managed to hold itself together, though, and the social democratic strand of thought began to take precedence over centrist tactics. As discontent grew over the lack of a mandate for the Conservatives to govern Scotland, the party began to pick up support once more. Following a triumph at Govan in1988, the SNP saw its vote rise by 50% at the subsequent election, allowing it to enter the 1990's as the main challengers to Labour.

With the Westminster pendulum swinging back to Labour in 1997, the new government legislated swiftly for devolution. While Labour and the Lib Dems formed the first post-devolution administration, the SNP established itself firmly as the main opposition and by extension, the government in waiting. Credibility was built up and although the party fell back in 2003, the organisational reforms made in the interim allowed the party to gain in strength and to capitalise on the unpopularity of the Labour/Lib Dem administration in the 2007 election.

For a party funded solely by its members and lacking the support of any newspaper, taking power, however narrowly, was an astonishing achievement. There's never been any shortage of loud voices over the past eight decades, in Westminster and elsewhere, prepared to use the full authority of their standing to talk the party down and predict its demise. Yet despite all this, it is in government and on the verge of presenting a referendum bill for independence that the SNP celebrates this most auspicious of anniversaries.

Those loud voices have accused the SNP and its followers of many vices down the years. It might have been tempting for some in the party to go down the route of Anglophobia but it didn't, instead proposing an inclusive citizenship policy and an impeccable model of inclusion and civic nationalism. It might have tempted some to go down the road of violence as in Ireland, yet here the party stands, on the verge of achieving what it set out to, without so much as a punch having been thrown. The national movement has always been wider than the SNP, of course, but the party still deserves enormous credit for shaping a civic rather than ethnic goal for independence as part of what has been unquestionably the best behaved nationalist movement in the world.

From a position of imagined moral and intellectual superiority, there are some who will still try to argue that nationalism (by which they invariably mean Scottish rather than their own brand of British nationalism), has inherent deficiencies, or somehow goes against modernity. These assertions are as threadbare as they would be in reverse. Exactly as Scottish nationalism was once caricatured, public expressions of Britishness now more than ever seem to be defined by vacuous platitudes, perceived external threat and misty-eyed romanticism.

There's nothing at all inevitable about independence, yet the ground has shifted irreversibly. Scotland is now closer than it has ever been to re-establishing independence, and with a peaceful majority which will accept the outcome either way. That's not a situation which has arisen by accident – rather, it's the result of decades of patient argument made by Scottish Nationalists of all backgrounds and abilities, imbued with the simple belief that the best people to govern Scotland are those who've opted to make their lives here. The Scottish narrative of a small, prosperous, socially-just, peaceful, culturally rich nation which is respectful of difference, democracy and international law, and which has resolved its political status peacefully, could provide no more compelling example to the rest of the world, and is one which many other stateless nations in less benign circumstances would be wise to follow.

The SNP has given voice to many visionaries and pragmatists down the years to allow Scotland to progress to become the modern, inclusive nation she is today. As Scotland mourns one of her finest scholars and the SNP her most steadfast supporters, here's to those whose efforts have gone before, who despite their patient labours, are no longer around to see the fruits of their work in delivering a Scotland which has become increasingly at ease with itself. Truly, we stand on the shoulders of giants.

Prof Neil MacCormick

2009-04-06T15:16:00.009+01:00

Like all nationalists, I’m saddened to learn that Professor Sir Neil MacCormick lost his battle with cancer at the weekend.

Prof Neil was of that rarest breed – MEP, Emeritus Professor, renowned expert on constitutional law, member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, bagpiper – a successful academic politician with hinterland to compliment his outstanding intellectual achievements.

I will miss his warmth, wisdom and the incredible lightness with which he carried his learning. Particularly, I remember an evening in the Edinburgh SNP club where he spoke to us on the emerging EU constitution, which he had played a key role in helping to formulate.

We approached from slightly different standpoints - he passionately pro-EU, myself perhaps less so. His willingness to engage in a courteous philosophical meander with a truculent young pup on the pros and cons of the extent of the accountability which existed between Commission and Parliament, is something that will always stay with me.

It was that courtesy which was extended to political friend and ‘foe’ alike which I think will be missed most. His was an approach to politics which placed foremost a desire to engage with and convert those with whom he disagreed, rather than bludgeon them with partisan assertion. He was also an uproariously funny speaker, especially in private.

The lament at times like this is that the country is a poorer place for someone’s passing, or that we’ll never see their likes again. In mourning his death, we should also celebrate a life lived well and the outstanding contributions he made to law, politics and his country.

Scotland is a better place for the optimism, scholarship and devotion to sharing knowledge which marked his life. Those who knew him, even if like myself only slightly, can say that they are far the richer for having done so.

North Sea Tragedy

2009-04-01T20:24:00.005+01:00

The news from the North Sea of this afternoon's helicopter crash is just awful. Of the 16 men on board, 8 bodies have been recovered with the remaining 8 so far unaccounted for. The light is now fading and with it, you have to imagine, despite the benign conditions this evening and the best efforts of the rescuers, fades also the remaining chance of finding survivors.

This afternoon's tragedy is a reminder, as if any were needed, of the terrible cost we sometimes pay for harvesting the North Sea. Please spare a thought this evening, if you can, for the husbands, fathers and sons who have lost their lives, and for the families to whom they won't be returning.

Something For The Weekend

2009-03-27T22:30:00.002Z

Something daft to start off the weekend...

Hauled Up By The Rector

2009-03-26T10:00:00.006Z

The town I now call home has been in the news a bit of late. Ellon, or more accurately, the state of repair of its Academy, seems to have attracted the attentions of none other than Iain Gray, Leader of the Labour group in the Scottish Parliament, or if you prefer, ‘Leader of the largest parliamentary group not represented in the Scottish Government’, to give him his Sunday title.

There are a few issues on which Labour likes to claim a monopoly of concern, of which perhaps the most trumpeted yet least justified is education. In particular, during their time in office together with the Lib Dems, the number of schools being either built or refurbished became the statistic of choice to demonstrate just how much more they cared about Scotland's future than did anyone else.

A school which started life under a Labour led administration is a ‘Labour School’. Not an ordinary, common or garden ‘school’. Not even a ‘Labour/Lib Dem school’, but a ‘Labour School'. This delusional annexation of the public good for sectional interest has even led the party to claim that not a single school project has been initiated by the SNP since taking office.

In fact, something like £1bn of school projects have commenced since the SNP took power. Some, yes, will have had their genesis prior to the election, but the fact remains that just as new schemes are progressing, the monies to build those signed off by Labour are being found under the present administration. Much of this is financed through the conventional capital allowances of [shock, horror!] local authorities – in other words, the way we used to build schools before the false God of PPP/PFI came along to bamboozle the credulous and enrich the unscrupulous.

Although PPP was never ruled out by the Scottish Government as a means of financing projects, the fact that the liabilities are due to come back on balance sheet has removed any advantage which the initiative might ever have brought. The cost of capital under PPP was always excessive, and with the Westminster government now having to offer to bail out PPP projects thanks to the drying up of the capital markets, it’s pretty clear that as a funding mechanism, it’s dead in the present climate.

Anyway, to our tale. The present main building at Ellon Academy opened in 1979. It was cobbled together by the then Grampian Region based on what was an existing design for (I think) Dyce Academy, in order to meet the needs of what was, thanks to the oil boom, a rapidly expanding town.

The big problem was that it wasn’t only Ellon which was beginning to fill up with new houses and young families. The same was true of a swathe of East Aberdeenshire and it wasn’t long before the Academy had the highest school roll in Scotland, serving 22 ‘feeder’ primaries. This put a great deal of pressure on the building and temporary accommodation had to be provided for pupils – a situation which lasted until the new Meldrum Academy was opened, which allowed for numbers to ease somewhat in Ellon.

The nature of the school building and the heavy use to which it has been put over that time means it’s now nearing the end of its useful life. The signs of wear and tear are obvious as you walk around. Given the difficulties of refurbishment while the school is in use and the dubious value in any case of refurbishing the 1970’s main building, the need for a new school on a new site is obvious.

Aberdeenshire Council has now brought forward detailed proposals for a new Academy. Some £3m has been set aside for initial architectural works, and the new building, together with replacements for Kemnay Academy and Means Academy in Laurencekirk, will be funded out of the council’s capital budget.

From this, I hope I’ve been able to make it clear that although the present state of the Academy buildings is one which has built up over a considerable period of time, the wheels are now in motion for a new school to be built. Which makes it all the more surprising that Iain Gray should have chosen to use the school as a political football at FMQs recently.

After admitting that he didn’t know very much about Ellon, Gray chose to lambast the state of the school buildings, in a crude attempt to taint the Government in the constituency of the First Minister. There was, he told Parliament, a ‘plan to refurbish Ellon Academy under the previous Executive’.

This came as news to one Ellon resident – past Rector of the Academy, one-time Councillor and former member of the Education Committee, Alan Cameron. He wrote to Mr Gray last week, pointing out that not only were his claims that there were plans to refurbish the Academy under the previous administration completely untrue, but that it was only under the SNP government that any monies had been allocated towards replacing the school:

Dear Mr Gray

I note last week during First Minister’s Questions that when making comments about Ellon Academy you claimed “a new school would have been built under the plans of the previous Labour-led Executive.”

This is completely untrue.

As you may be aware I served as Headteacher of Ellon Academy between the years 1981 and 1996. I also served on the Education Committee of Aberdeenshire Council between 1999 and 2007 and am well aware of the need for a replacement school building.

I was extremely disappointed that Ellon Academy was not included in the Outline Business Case submitted to the Scottish Executive in December 2001.

In 2004/5 the school appeared on Aberdeenshire Council’s own list of 24 potential school projects they viewed as a priority. However, no funding was attached to this list and it is simply not credible to claim that “a new school would have been built”. In fact it was never on any Scottish Executive programme.

Indeed it is only under the SNP in Government that progress has been made. Aberdeenshire Council have confirmed that the first time any funds have been made available for the Ellon project is this year and they have identified £3.3million within their current Capital Plan for preparatory architectural works and site acquisition.

I’m sure you never knowingly misled Parliament and think it appropriate that you issue a public apology as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely

Alan Cameron

Gray decided to visit the Academy last Friday, and responded to Mr Cameron by repeating his fallacious claim that the Government hadn’t commissioned a single school since coming to office. However, although the present lack of a new building was the fault of the SNP, the fact that a new Academy hadn’t been built under eight years of Lib/Lab government was because “it was up to councils to prioritise and make up the programme which schools got built”.

Aha - so by Gray’s own admission, it was the council’s fault between 1999 and 2007 rather than the Lib/Lab government, but became the SNP Government’s fault instantly thereafter! But it gets better still, when Gray claimed that “if Labour was still in office there would have still been a programme with a level playing field and real progress could have been made building a new Ellon Academy.

So, in the space of a week, Gray has gone from saying there ‘would’ have been a new academy, to saying only that there ‘could’ have been a new academy – which as we all know there’s now going to be anyway. Which leaves us where, exactly?

Well, Ellon will in due course get a building which matches the ambitions of the pupils and teachers inside it, and not before time. However, it’s no thanks to Iain Gray, either in Government or in opposition. For him, this issue was never about Ellon Academy or the well being of the staff or the pupils - it was always about trying to score debating points against Alex Salmond at FMQs. In the end, he couldn’t even manage to do that bit right.

I've long suspected from his performances at First Minister's Questions that Gray is receiving some very poor advice from his backroom staff. Having made a complete fool of himself and likely very few friends on his daytrip, I suspect it’s the last that either Ellon or its Academy will be seeing of Mr Gray for quite some time.

Gordon SNP Facebook Group

2009-03-25T17:29:00.005Z

It's been a week with too many distractions for blogging. However, just to reassure you that I've not been slacking in any way, here's a couple of links to show that my eye has simply been on some other more important things.

There'll be more from me on Labour's Ellon Academy related shenanigans later, but I've embargoed that post until the morning. In the meantime, please feel free to head over to my new-ish Facebook Group: Elect Richard as Gordon's Next MP. Sign up as a member, and you too can be in the vanguard of helping the SNP meet its 20 MP target :-)

The Scottish Play

2009-03-17T20:54:00.003Z

Given that it's supposed to be all 'hands to the pump' in the present economic crisis, you have to admire the sheer chutzpah of Lib Dems in demanding that the SNP forget about independence, while seemingly talking of little else themselves.

The spin and the cycle can be summed up thusly: talk of constitutional change is bad right now if it concerns Independence, but is tickety-boo if it's concerned with 'further powers', whatever that means. Independence is a distraction in the present crisis; will put at risk recovery when it comes; and will be deemed pointless in an economic upswing which shows, we will be told, that Britain is working. In short, it's always going to be 'not the time' for any constitutional option which the Lib Dems decide they don't want the people to have their say on, in the vain hope that eventually, Independence will become the constitutional choice that dare not speak its name.

Genies and empty bottles spring to mind, almost as readily as does this little skit from Blackadder. Given the evident discomfort of the Lib Dem leadership to talk of referendums, I wonder if they go through a similar rigmarole each time the word is mentioned? I do hope so :-)

P.S. I admit I'm coming a little late to this, but in light of some of the present mince which there is about, I can't recommend this post from Julie Hepburn highly enough.

zzzzzzzz

2009-03-13T20:50:00.007Z

So... Sir Menzies launches some kind of setpiece attack about something or other, yet it's my old colleague Craig who tops the news after winning the Maryfield by-election in Dundee for the SNP...

Well done Craig ! :-)

Those That Can

2009-03-12T00:16:00.008Z

I was delighted to see one of my former Primary School teachers on Reporting Scotland this evening. Maureen Tremmel, or Mrs Tremmel as she always was to me, is now Headmistress at Gullane Primary, where pupils have just won a national cookery award.

To win, the pupils cooked, sourced and prepared a meal using local food, even visiting a local pig farm in the process to learn how to make sausages. All good stuff, and TV interest notwithstanding, just a little bit different, I'll bet, from how the same part of the curriculum will be taught elsewhere.

I encountered a few inspirational teachers along my way through school. Straight away, I can think of Mr Wood and Mrs Brydon, both Heads of the Music Department and Conductors of the school orchestra; Mr Tillie, the Head of Geography; Mr Savage, the Head Teacher of History, who would probably be quite chuffed to know that even though the timetable meant I had to drop his class in 3rd year, I still ended up with a degree in his subject; Mr Wilson and Miss Scotland in the English Department, and Mr Simpson in Physics - all of whom spurred me on in their own particular ways. However, I'd have no hesitation whatsoever in placing the redoubtable Mrs T, my teacher in primaries 6 and 7, right up there at the top.

Why? Simply, without a word of exaggeration, she is one of that rare breed who was born to teach young minds - really. She treated every one of her pupils, and I mean every one, like the individuals they were while brooking absolutely no nonsense whatsoever. She encouraged us to think in shades of grey, to challenge, to express ourselves, and once the work was done, invariably to her exacting high standards which could push you well beyond what was required just to simply 'get by', drew out hidden talents in us all by giving us the absolute freedom and trust to go and discover things for ourselves.

Maybe there was a touch of the Jean Brodies at work. You always felt special as part of her class – somehow trusted, mature, adult. Her confidence and presence rubbed off, helping turn us into the young adults we were inevitably going to become. And knowing the challenges that would come as we entered high school, no matter what the guidelines did or didn't say, she had the foresight and interest to encourage us to work ahead of the class as we felt able, so that we'd be as well prepared as possible academically for the jump that was to come.

Particularly, I remember the gentle nicknames, the obvious affection for all her pupils and interest in their lives outside school, the class debates, the time I was allowed to spend on art and music, the class trip over the water to Pittencrieff Park, the party the class organised for her in strictest secrecy before we left for high school... only in retrospect can I see that perhaps more than any other teacher I ever had, she epitomised that 'leading out' process of what is within, the very educto root from which we derive the word education itself.

Lots of people become teachers, most of them I'm pleased to say very good ones. However, there's precious few who have the sheer natural talent and obvious love of the job which Mrs Tremmel did. The very fact that the purple prose can still flow here, even after two decades have passed, might in some way serve as a testament to how fortunate I think the pupils and parents at Gullane are to have a teacher like her in their midst.

Simmering Away

2009-03-04T18:24:00.004Z

I've been trying to avoid commenting on matters financial of late. After all, who could not be chilled to the marrow, indeed disgusted to the very core of their being, at recent disclosures on remuneration? What could be more galling than seeing an individual who helped precipitate the collapse of some of our best known financial institutions being able to walk away with a gold-plated pension scheme, tacitly approved by government and bankrolled by the same taxpayers who will be left to sweep up the resulting economic carnage left in his wake?

It's absolutely disgusting, and frankly, no matter what the law says, someone should intervene to stop it. But that's probably enough for now about Gordon Brown's future pension arrangements. There's bigger issues to concern us, after all.

A post about the politics of the financial crisis has been brewing for a while, but every time I've sat down to do it, somehow I've just got so far and stopped. I think that's largely because I've found it hard to adequately express my distaste at the sheer neck demonstrated by senior figures in the Labour Party in pointing the finger of blame at everyone but themselves.

That's not to deny the trans-national nature of the present situation – far from it. However, with the whole 'it started in America' meme, alongside the depiction of Scotland and the so-called 'Arc of Insolvency' - effectively using British weakness and failure as a justification for the constitutional status quo - sometimes, there just isn't enough Brasso in the world to go around.

You can say what you like about Fred Goodwin and let's face it, many have done exactly that over the past week. However, there's something deeply hypocritical about the way Labour has tried to scapegoat bankers in general and Mr Goodwin in particular as a diversion from the bigger picture. After all, capital is amoral - in going on the acquisition trail and in lending freely in the mortgage and unsecured debt markets, bankers only did what they were allowed to get away with by the regulators.

During the resulting growth and profits spree, the Labour Government was happy to hoover up the corporation tax receipts. The consumer debt boom went on buying up imported goods and in fuelling an unsustainable housing bubble. Meanwhile, huge public spending increases seemed to disappear to little discernible effect, with billions squandered on the dripping roast of PFI.

Even before 1997, Labour was keen to get in with the City. In one of his first acts as Chancellor, Brown tore up the old model of discrete regulation by the Bank of England, only to replace it with prescriptive box-ticking and a glossy brochure industry. He crowed about new models of regulation and harangued others for not following suit. Sadly for us, Brown's 'light touch' also meant soft touch. With responsibilities blurred and with few having the understanding or the ability to adequately quantify risk, the dangers grew. Armed with the twin mantras that 'boom and bust' had been abolished and that we were only 'borrowing to invest', Broontania marched fearlessly toward the guns.

Ah, but Brown led the world in responding to the crisis, bleat the apologists. Even Paul Krugman entered the fray, much to the delight of the Brownies. Well sorry, but not even a Nobel Prize in economics offers a guarantee against talking nonsense periodically.

Let's examine the evidence - in response to the banking crisis, Brown had the opportunity to lead when Northern Rock failed. However, instead of allowing a private sector takeover by Lloyds TSB, Brown dithered for 6 months before opting for nationalisation, on the grounds that allowing for a takeover on a weekend was anti-competitive. Compare and contrast this with the swift and decisive manner in which the US Government allowed Bear Stearns to be taken over and through the swift recapitalisation of insurer AIG.

When it came to liquidity, the Bank of England reacted more slowly than the Fed or the ECB. In guaranteeing deposits, Gordon Brown trailed behind the much sneered at Irish. On stimulus, he was also well behind many other major economies, and as Eddie George says, Brown's earlier borrowing ultimately left little room for stimulus, with the eventual package representing 1% of GDP as opposed to the USA's 5%.

Brown's Labour has been behind the curve on every major response to the crisis, yet still the courtiers preen and posture in spite of this. While the Tories have been attacked with the idiotic 'do nothing' line in England, understandably, it's been the SNP which has born the brunt of Labour's ire in Scotland. After breaking their own call for unity late last year, they launched a series of attacks on the Scottish Government for not acting on matters where it has, by Labour’s own design, little powers anyway.

Whether it's spurious attacks on jobs or investment, the Labour line has been simple – just leave the complicated economy stuff to the big boys in London – they know what they're doing and anyway, youse could never afford a national debt like ours. Meanwhile, Labour's Scottish spokespeople exhibit prolier-than-thou cretinism, trying to associate real world experience outside politics with ideological unsoundness and the sort of cosiness with the financial sector which Brown himself was only too keen to cultivate over the previous 2 decades. Whether it's over paintings or political 'pedigree', the game has been, however implausible it appears in reality, to try and somehow pretend to be on the side of the people.

The less said about Iain Davidson's foray into the art world the better. However, with his acceptance speech as Leader of the Labour group in Holyrood, Ian Grey managed to make a life lived well sound less like a principled set of career choices in service of his fellow man, and more like an extended penance to exorcise repressed middle class guilt. It's like being back in the students union – an experience hardly dissipated by a Secretary of State and Holyrood party spinners steeped in the swamp of NUS/Labour Students politicking.

In the much-vaunted 'court of public opinion', the verdict is that Brown's is a government which has lost all direction or semblence of coherence. It is pitifully, woefully, even dangerously out of its depth. It is devoid of ideas, denuded of principle, absent even of endearing personalities. In Scotland, it has long since ceased to be a Labour party and is now simply the anti-SNP party, infected with the canker-ridden sourness of temper tantrums that flow from someone having ‘stolen’ their sweetie.

Somewhere in the 80's or 90's and we can no doubt all point to different dates or events, the Labour Party became solely about the pursuit and retention of power. Entrenched in swathes of Scotland on a minority share of the vote by the first past the post system, there was no competition to drive out the cliquishness, clannishness and petty rent seeking which came to scar it. Swept out of office in 2007 and with municipal power bases weakened by the plurality of PR, it found itself unable to distribute patronage as it once had.

Without economic credibility, Labour in England has lost its reason for being in power. Without power and patronage, Scottish Labour lost its reason for being a long time before.

Peat Worrying

2009-02-24T17:37:00.000Z

I may have a new favourite blog. If you haven't already, please do.