Some Blog Love

Having been tagged by Jeff in his recent ‘Top Blogs’ post (and since I’m now able to get my head through the door of the house again after receiving such a lofty accolade), it’s time to continue the chain. After all, break a chain-thingy like this and as any fule kno, not only will you lose your job, all your hair will fall out as well, with further misfortunes too gruesome to describe following in short order.

This is by no means a list of my favourite or most read blogs, since if you’re Scottish and into politics it’s probably a given that you already have people like Brian Taylor, Mr E and Guido on your blogroll. There’s also a fair bit of overlap between Jeff’s choices and what some of my own would be were I to conduct the same exercise, so I’m deliberately avoiding duplication. Finally, I’m leaving out favourite blogs either defunct, on hiatus or in the early stages of a transition, which sadly, at present excludes Scottish Patients, Reactionary Snobs and people exclaiming Whoopdedoo, wherever they may be.

With that understood, and in no particular order, here then are ten blogs which in my view, are examples of the genre which rise above the ordinary:

Calum Cashley (SNP)

I’ve know Calum for years, and his idiosyncratic sense of humour often as not chimes well with mine. Not only that, he’s a smart cookie, frequently digging out the nuggets of information which become tomorrows’ newsprint. Without doubt, the best connected SNP blogger in Holyrood.

Cllr Andrew Burns (Lab)

One of the good guys. An opponent of mine at the local elections in 1999 (I lost), he makes his points well, avoiding the ad hominem which plagues the blogs of many elected members. Hints of a life outside politics as well.

Tom Harris MP (Lab)

For my money, the best blog written by an elected politician in the UK, never mind Scotland. Pithy, personal and pleasingly indiscrete. I hope he’s keeping a diary…

Scottish Futures (Ind Nat)

Über-thoughtful blog, hosted by Scottish polymath Pat Kane. Home to articles from sundry McChatterers like Prof Chris Harvie, Gerry Hassan and Ian MacLaren. Never less than thought-provoking.

Normal Mouth (Lab)

Another Labour blogger, this time from west of Offa’s Dyke. Cerebral, not afraid to criticise their own side when they see fit, and takes an interest in Scottish politics to boot. Essential for anyone interested in Welsh politics, especially when read alongside….

Adam Price MP (Plaid Cymru)

Highly rated Member of Parliament for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr. Bilingual posts - a bit serious but worth reading.

Burning Our Money

Frighteningly well informed commentary on matters Treasury related - clearly has far too much time on his/her hands. Number of default attitudes towards Scotland which inhibit objectivity from time to time, but don’t let that put you off.

Clairwil

If she’s not already on your blogroll, add her immediately.

Man About The House

Family, politics, life in general – the musings of a stay at home Dad.

Richard Havers

Former airline executive with a dislike of windfarms, now living the dream as a writer and guest house owner in the Lammermuir Hills. Seemingly exhaustive knowledge of post-war music and counts a Rolling Stone amongst his friends - would be on my fantasy pub-quiz team for those reasons alone.

And that’s my duty done. Except for a sneaky reference to two other sites I’m involved with which don’t really count as blogs, but which merit a mention for the contributions of others – Destination, set up by Julie Hepburn, and The Flag In The Wind, the online presence of the ‘Scots Independent’ newspaper. Here endeth the plugs :-)

Something From The Weekend

Just back from a very productive weekend out on the stump. Let's see... on Friday, there was the SNP golf day in Ellon, which as well as letting 11 teams have a great day out, looked like it raised a tidy sum for the Gordon campaign; I took a trip to Rhynie during the day to visit a post office which is in danger of having its working hours cut back from 37.5 to just 8; then at night, there was the chance to meet some of the movers and shakers of the Collieston and Slains Community Trust, who are seeking to build a new Community Hall for their village (please take a look at their site and read about how much they've achieved so far - it's really quite remarkable).

On Saturday, there was the Ellon Fire Station Fun Day, where one of the highlights (apart from the BBQ) was a demonstration of how a casualty is cut free in the aftermath of a car accident. It was good to meet the high-heidyins of Grampian Fire and Rescue; to run into fellow Blogger Cllr Mark MacDonald who sits on the Grampian Fire Board; and also to spend some time with another chap whom you may recognise if you watch to the end of the second video :-)

Almost every time I'm in Huntly, it seems like there's some kind of big event on and this weekend was no exception. Today, it was the 'Music in the Square' festival, which as the name suggests, saw the town square being given over to music and dancing.

It was great to run into folk whom I've got to know over the course of the campaign so far, and also to meet new people like fellow fiddler Paul Anderson for the first time. I remember hearing him absolutely walk away with the seniors competition at the Strichen festival nearly 20 years ago and hoping that one day I might be able to play to his standard. I think I've done allright music-wise since then, but that may be an ambition permanently out of reach! He was performing later in the day - sadly, I didn't have my fiddle with me to join in the sessions promised for afterwards, but there's always next time.

We had to knock the music and dancing on the head for a couple of hours to have our monthly Gordon SNP Constituency Association meeting in the ex-Servicemen's club, but afterwards, we went for a walk round the square with the First Minister. He gets a tremendous reaction wherever he goes but this was truly exceptional - he could barely walk 10 yards without being stopped for a chat or to have his picture taken on someone's mobile phone... manna from heaven for the candidate seeking introductions when given the task of walking around with him!


Anyway, this weekend saw the culmination of a rebranding of Huntly, which has seen the town get a clever, stylised variation on its traditional stag's antler crest. However, the highlight of the afternoon was a communal rendition of the Waterboys number 'Room To Roam', inspired by Huntly-born George MacDonald's poem of the same name, which has been adopted as the town's 'anthem'. You can get a sneak peek here:

If you look closely, you might even catch a glimpse of Waterboy Mike Scott himself, resplendent with red guitar in the middle of the stage, leading the performance.

All in all, it's been a great weekend. Flying back south tomorrow and going back to work is going to be a bit of a grind...

Off The Rails

Hmm... maybe it was a good weekend to be away from London!

Caught...

Please read this - not only is it a hoot, it really tells you all you need to know right now about the integrity of Scottish Labour's spin operation, the woeful standard of their research and the sheer contempt in which they appear to hold our collective intelligence.

The Electoral Commission's New Broom

Is it just me, or has Douglas Fraser, Scottish Political Editor of The Herald, missed the real significance of his story from this morning?

"A referendum on independence could lead to unfair and unbalanced campaigning by political parties if it were called by Holyrood, it has emerged".

That part of it isn't a new story, I'm afraid. Under the direction of Prof. Sir Neil McIntosh, the Electoral Commission in Scotland had a public position, perhaps one born of diplomatic politesse towards the former Lib Lab coalition but a public position nonetheless, that it was outwith its scope to oversee any Independence referendum organised by Holyrood, meaning that any rules over campaign expenditure would not be enforceable. This I know, because I once asked Prof. McIntosh that very question when I worked at SNP HQ.

No, the big story is surely that in interviewing Prof. McIntosh's successor in Scotland, former BBC Scotland Controller John McCormick, there appears to have been significant movement from this earlier position on oversight of a referendum. Viz and to wit:

"If the Scottish Government came to us for help, advice, or to run the referendum, then we would be willing to do that," he explained.

That's quite a departure, though no less welcome for that. Nonetheless, this is liklely to have two very significant outcomes. Firstly, following their contortions regarding the bringing it on or otherwise of a referendum, Labour spokespeople have been spinning frantically that they support a referendum - it's the SNP which doesn't want an immediate vote, but that anyway, the SNP's proposed question would be unacceptable, so they won't commit to supporting a bill.

Labour has yet to say what would, in its collective view (assuming such a thing exists right now), constitute an acceptable form of wording for the question. Now that the Electoral Commission is happy to get involved, including over the wording of the question, they really are running out of excuses not to back whatever emerges.

Secondly, and potentially even more significant, is that if the Electoral Commission were to oversee the referendum at the request of the Scottish Government, both sides would then be subject to spending limits. Now, Wendy Alexander's erratic nature notwithstanding, who would have thought a year ago that a minority government would have looked this likely to get a majority in parliament for an independence vote, far less make sure that the campaign couldn't be drowned in floods of cash from South of the Border?

That, my friends, looks like a bit of a result for the SNP. It also looks like Douglas Fraser has underplayed what would have been one of the political scoops of the year - but than again, that's probably why I don't have a job as a mainstream political journalist.

Mercurial

If this isn't true, then it certainly ought to be :-)

Monday Caption Contest

Busy week ahead on just about every front, so in lieu of proper blogging, here's a caption competition for you all:


Fire at will...

Stayin' Alive?

"Going nowhere,
Somebody help me,
Somebody help me yeah"

Tom Harris Is Back

Delighted to see that Tom Harris MP has made a return to blogging. His used to be one of the blogs I visited most frequently (often partisan, but quite funny and always well-written), before he pulled it last year after, if I remember rightly, landing in a wee bit of hot water for something he'd written about the SNP.

He sometimes used to dismiss the SNP as being anti-English (which is a real peeve of mine, particularly when it comes from people who should know better) and on that basis, I was prepared to thoroughly dislike him when I came down to work at Westminster. It was pleasing then, if momentarilly disconcerting, for me to find out that when the cudgels are put away, he's a genuinely nice guy. It doubtless says more about me than it does about him that this should have have surprised me even slightly - I suppose that's why you should always try to seperate the argument from the person making it.

After being introduced by one of the SNP MPs in the Strangers Bar a few weeks ago, I asked him if he'd any plans to restart his blog. He didn't quite say no, but expressed a bit of regret that time pressures had meant he'd had to stop. So, I don't know if I'm in any way responsible for his starting back again, but a blogging minister who genuinely writes his own posts, as opposed to the bromide served up by certain of his colleagues in the name of blogging, has to be a good thing.

Wendy and Douglas - Right All Along!

At the last election, Wendy and Douglas Alexander claimed that an SNP Government would cause chaos and confusion over an independence referendum; would force the ‘average family’ to forfeit nearly £1,000 more of their hard-earned income to the government; and would split families apart north and south of the border.

One year on, I see now that it was all true. Only, who would have sussed that the Alexander siblings were describing their own impending fate and that of the Labour Party, rather than that of Scotland?

Scottish Blogging Roundup

I took a shot at compiling this week's Scottish Blogging Roundup. There's some cracking posts for you this week - please go and visit.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye!

A big 'thank you' this evening to National Express East Coast and to South Yorkshire Police. Why? Well, I'm on a train just now to Kings Cross (spent the weekend in Gordon, got to be in the Commons early tomorrow morning, can't afford an early flight). At Durham, a shower of tanked-up Manchester City fans from Colchester (??!) got on, sore from an 8-1 cuffing from Middlesbrough. They then proceeded to spend the next hour or so cursing, passing wind, regaling us with tales of their mates who got lifted earlier, and urging a fellow passenger to expose herself for their gratification, all to the general annoyance of everyone else within ear and nose shot.

Even after the guard gave them a couple of warnings to pipe down, they refused to take the hint, except perhaps for the one who had already passed out. Anyway, come Doncaster, there were half a dozen of South Yorkshire's finest waiting for them. So, a night in Doncaster beckons, even for the comatose one, who when he came to, showed commendable solidarity and got off as rest of his mates were ejected.

Have to say, I loved the tannoy announcement afterwards, which apologised for the delay and referred to the ejection of some 'unruly characters'. Anyway, the comments section is open... what is there to do in Doncaster after 10pm on a Sunday night when you've got work 200 miles away the next day? :-)

Focus Leaflets: Fibbing All Year Round - Guaranteed!

My folks have been trained to keep back all the political leaflets they get so I can have a read of them whenever I visit. The Lib Dem 'Focus' leaflets (delivered free to every home!) are always a favourite, and since the area my parents live in has been treated as something of a 'makeweight' down the years, shunted between the Murrayfield, Corstorphine and Stenhouse areas of Edinburgh to make up the voter numbers as and when needed, we've had more than a few from the various local Lib Dem 'personalities' over that time.

Anyway, the latest 'Focus on Murrayfield' has plopped through their door. Page 1 brings us the glad tidings that "The first Liberal Democrat-let council budget for the city has been approved". However, before you cheer too wildly, inside there is a dark tale of political skulduggery, the likes of which you might use to terrify young children who won't eat their Brussels Sprouts. You see, the Conservatives voted with the SNP in Holyrood to pass the Scottish Government's budget! And by so doing, they "have done what they said they would never do and have played fast and loose with the union".

Clearly, then, it's only the stout-hearted unionists to be found in the Lib Dems that can be trusted not to deal with the dirty nationalists. But hang on - who is it that's in coalition with the unionist Lib Dems in Edinburgh, who allowed them to get that budget through that they were so proud of back on page 1? Why, it's the SNP of course...

So, Lib Dem principals remain intact when they do a deal with the SNP in the City Chambers, but when the Tories support the SNP budget, that's them undermining the union? Honestly, just how stupid do the Lib Dems think people really are?

Take Your Partners By The Hand...

Is it wrong to be so easily amused? :-)

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Fun For All The Family

A few more thoughts on the Labour Independence referendum fiasco...

Firstly, there's no good way to look at this for Labour. Basically, Wendy Alexander and Gordon Brown's positions are mutually irreconcilable. Something's gotta give, and as Alex Salmond says, it's most likely to be Wendy.

Secondly, Brown, by claiming at PMQs that Wendy had said that which she hadn't, and that the SNP were at fault (t'was ever thus...) for 'breaking' a manifesto pledge (we haven't), he's 'inadvertently' misled Parliament.

Thirdly, how can you call for a referendum on Scottish Independence (even if you now say that's not what you were doing), and justify not having a vote on the Lisbon Treaty?

Fourthly, Brown got hosed in last week's local elections in England and Wales. The very last thing he wants to be doing now is talking about the Scottish constitution.

Fifthly, all of this feeds right into the 'Wendy and Gordon are rubbish' narrative, which is taking root to a quite remarkable extent in the country at large.

There's probably more (only 10 minutes til the fun starts on 'Scotland at Ten' and 'Newsnight/Newsnicht') but that's your lot for the moment. There really is something for everyone in this story!

U-Bendy

I’ve been keeping schtum about Wendy Alexander’s screeching hand-brake turn on an Independence referendum. Not because of any unease or lack of ‘bottle’, as some would have it, but simply because it was such a seismic and unexpected political event, that I thought it would take at least a few days to get a measure of what some of the aftershocks might be.

I was wondering how the referendum u-turn might affect the Calman Commission, set up to try and derail independence. I was curious to see how the Tories and Lib Dems might react once the enormity of the change sank in. I was intrigued as to whether Calman’s recommendations would be put to the vote, or whether they would be left as the fallback in the event of a ‘no’ vote to Independence. It would be fascinating to find out whether Wendy would support a referendum in 2009, but revert to opposing one in 2010. Most of all, could Gordon Brown, the arch control freak himself, really have consented to such a ploy?

Well, now we know. Courtesy of Prime Minister’s Questions, we have learned that when Wendy Alexander called for a referendum on independence, what she really meant was that she was content to wait for the report of the Calman Commission. When she said she had the support of Gordon Brown for her move, she really meant that he didn’t support it at all. And when Scottish Labour MPs said that this was a decision for Labour in Holyrood to take, they meant exactly the opposite.

Shambles, meltdown, burach, farrago, car-crash, fiasco, debacle, SNAFU – choose your adjective or acronym as you wish. The clunking fist has clunked down on Wendy’s head – she can either tell him where to go, or back down compliantly. Either way, she risks losing Brown’s patronage or losing what remaining credibility she has within her MSP group, the wider Labour party and the country at large.

First Ministers Questions should be interesting tomorrow…

Airbrushing History

In The Scotsman of Saturday 3rd May, there were some very strange remarks from Malcolm Bruce MP, my opponent in the forthcoming Westminster election. This was to the effect that following his triumph last year in the Gordon constituency, Alex Salmond had somehow behaved ‘gracelessly’ in his victory speech – a charge Mr Bruce backed up with an accusation that Mr Salmond had neglected to thank the other candidates, or even the voters who had just elected him.

Unfortunately for Mr Bruce, if anyone cares to watch the clip in question (embedded -about 2'00" in), they will find that the First Minister in fact thanked all of the other candidates within 10 seconds of taking his place at the lectern, with his thanks to the voters of Gordon following very swiftly afterwards.

It’s possible, of course, that Mr Bruce’s continued discombobulation at the Gordon result has in some way clouded his recollection of that particular moment. I can only hope he will suffer from no such further confusions with the facts in our exchanges to come.

What The Gord Giveth, The Gord Taketh Away

As threatened/promised, this month's article from the Scots Independent newspaper on the 10p tax rate.

Those who pay close attention to the deductions on their pay slips will likely have noticed a bit of a difference this month. Although it's been long in the pipeline having been announced by Gordon Brown in his 2007 Budget, as of 6 April this year, the basic rate of income tax was cut from 22p to 20p, with the 10p starting rate of tax being abolished to pay for it.

Overall, the effect to the UK public finances was fairly limited. The move from 22p-20p will reduce revenues by roughly £9.6bn, while the abolition of the 10p band – which doubles the starting rate of tax - is expected to bring in £8.6bn. However, the impact on the lowest paid will be anything other than limited. Overall, it's estimated that some 5.3m people – 500,000 in Scotland, including some 324,000 Scots who paid only the 10p rate - will be made worse off by the change.

The main winners according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, will be anyone earning over £18,500. The main losers will be anyone earning less than £18,500 and who either doesn’t claim or is ineligible for tax credits. By way of an example, the changes will see a Labour MP who voted the measure through some £300 better off, while a cleaner earning £7,500 would lose out to the tune of £150 each year. Avanti popolo... it’s a wonder, frankly, that any Labour MPs feel able to look many of the House of Commons staff, who serve them daily, in the eye at present.

Yet in wrapping herself in the red flag and presenting herself as the socialist 'first line of defence', Wendy Alexander stood up at her party's Aviemore shindig to claim that “when you strip away the spin it's clear where the SNP stand. It is not on the side of those who believe in progressive taxation and public spending - but with those who favour tax cuts for the rich and what’s left for the rest”. Ladies and gentlemen, from that single sentence, I think we can diagnose with some certainty that even in opposition, Ms Alexander continues to suffer from the most acute of irony deficiencies.

The disconnect between her words and the actions of her party is jaw-dropping in its audacity and shamelessness. So consumed seem to be some in the Labour party with their own sense of righteousness that they believe themselves incapable of doing anything unjust. ‘We are the people’s party’, they say. ‘Our historic mission leads us to believe in social justice. Therefore, everything we do is, by definition, socially just and for the good of the people’.

In fact, listening to the Prime Minister, he’s even using his proprietorial demeanour to justify the fact that some people may be left worse off by the change. Graciously acknowledging the “debate” his change has provoked, Brown told the STUC in Inverness that "We have done more as a Government in the last 50 years for poverty than any other government”. Leaving aside the fact this sentence can be taken in two very different ways, the attitude seems to be that what the Gord giveth, the Gord can taketh away.

Luckily, most of Scotland moved on from that sort of tribalist mindset last year, leaving Labour to gnash its gums and weep and wail in the burning lakes of growing electoral indifference. Luckily also, at least for viewers in Scotland, is the fact that there’s an SNP government determined not just to deliver improvements in services, but also to let people keep more of their own earnings in their pockets.

While prescription charges go up by 25p in England, they’re coming DOWN by £1.85 in Scotland. Council tax has been frozen for the term of the Parliament. Payments for free personal care are being uplifted in line with inflation. The iniquitous ‘graduate endowment’ tax of £2,289 has been scrapped. Tolls have been removed on the Forth and Tay Road Bridges. A £73m tax cut is in the pipeline for 150,000 of Scotland’s small businesses, which will promote economic growth and help revitalise our town centres. All of this has been delivered in the first year of an SNP government, in the teeth of bitter opposition from the self-proclaimed people’s party.

So, while one party huffs and puffs about social justice and prosperity, there’s a party in Scotland getting on with actively delivering it. Judging by the opinion polls, it’s an approach which is finding favour with the Scottish public, in terms of approval ratings and support for both Holyrood and Westminster elections. Crucially, people now seem to be more open than at any other time in recent history to consider the arguments for Independence. That doesn’t make independence inevitable by any means, but it does mean that there is a momentum building towards further powers which will be increasingly difficult for anyone to stop.

I’m sure that scrapping the 10p rate must have seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, very few politicians would press ahead with something they knew to be a rotten idea. However, this measure has finally undermined for all time the argument that a Labour government in Westminster is in any way a guarantor for the interests of the lowest paid in Scotland.

Wendy Alexander’s argument about the Labour party being a ‘first line of defence’ has been completely shot through. How ironic it would be if, set against the achievements of the SNP government in Edinburgh, this measure were to be the spur for Labour’s remaining pro-independence voters to take the final step towards the SNP. This is a potent retort to a perennial unionist question which few of their number ever want to hear an answer to. It’s 10p, it’s arrived on a payslip near you - it’s the cost of not being independent.

Minimum Rage

There's a debate taking place right now in the Commons on child poverty in Scotland. I fully expect everyone to declare themselves to be very much against it. However, Anne MacGuire has just claimed, yet again, that the SNP didn't vote for the National Minimum Wage.

This didn't tally with my recollection, so I went back to check. And lo and behold, would you Adam and Eve it, she's not being entirely straight with us! When it came to the 3rd reading on 9 March 1998, where the bill was due to be rubber stamped, it would seem that it wasn't only the SNP MPs who were elsewhere - according to the list for the division, the following were absent also:

Let's see... in no particular order, there was no Anne Begg, Jimmy Hood, Tony Worthington, Tom Clarke, Rosemary MacKenna, Brian Wilson, Russell Browne, Ernie Ross, Adam Ingram, Gavin Strang, Malcolm Chisholm, Linda Clark, Nigel Griffiths, Michael Connarty, Mohammed Sarwar, Maria Fyfe... right, that's enough - I'm getting bored now.

But not so bored so as to miss the following. There was no Donald Dewar, and no Robin Cook, Foreign Secretary of the day either. Nor was there any sign of present Chancellor Alastair Darling. Or for that matter, a couple of characters by the name of Tony Blair and, er, Gordon Brown. Let alone the newly elected MP for Stirling, one [ahem] Anne McGuire!

Now, I'm sure they all had good reasons for not being there. In that spirit, can Labour people please stop using this exceptionally silly jibe to try and damage the SNP? If I was a parent of one of the 20% of Scottish children currently living in povery, I'm not sure I'd be very impressed by such a transparent and ludicrous attempt to point-score as we've just heard from the Minister.

Rock Bottom?

Intermittent web access meant I wasn’t able to see much of yesterday’s proceedings at Holyrood. However, after seeing Brian Taylor’s blog afterwards, I caught up today through the Official Report and the BBC’s iPlayer.

Let’s deal with Nicol Stephen first. Clearly, Grangemouth was and remains the story of the day, so he asked a question about fuel supplies and forecourt prices, to which he received an honest and intelligent response. He then went on to, well, read the rest for yourself. I know that every politician wants to grab the headlines, but sometimes, shouldn’t the urge to exaggerate in aid of a headline be suppressed by a higher motive?

And then there was Wendy. Fresh from her indifferent reception at the STUC conference, she decided to continue in what must have seemed like a relatively successful vein. However, accusing the government of offering ‘special access’ to SNP donors was, frankly, beyond pathetic.

The leader of the opposition should be holding the government to account but every week, we seem to end up instead with a display of inept questioning, petulant sneering and post-match foot stomping. She should learn from Annabel Goldie, who manages to get the best out of Alex Salmond week after week, whether she attacks him or, as yesterday, concentrates on a bigger picture.

Someone really needs to have a word, because even the neutrals are starting to remark on her lack of judgement and poor performances. Make no mistake, she owes her position entirely to Gordon Brown. If he were to be thrown out tomorrow, her colleagues at Holyrood would be making sure she wasn’t far behind him.

The afternoon saw a debate on the alleged wrongdoing of Scottish Ministers over proposed Trump development at the Menie Estate, something on which I’ve commented before. However, given that no evidence of wrongdoing could be found anywhere, the cheap innuendo, mud-slinging and partisan language of those behind the report really did leave a bad taste in the mouth. Such brazen playing of the man rather than the ball would have seen a flurry of red cards had it taken place on the football field.

As a measure of the significance of this silly attempted witch-hunt, the story was buried on the BBC website on the Scottish Politics pages, and even then, featured only as an addendum to the story that Aberdeenshire Council had voted to back the project when it came before the forthcoming public enquiry. Which really does sum things up – ‘The dogs bark’, as they say, ‘but the caravan moves on’.

In fairness, the Tories and the Lib Dems were in on the act yesterday, but did at least manage to maintain a veneer of propriety. I’d like to think that yesterday’s display of mindless carping and throwing of vitriol represented Scottish Labour hitting rock-bottom – a point from which they could only improve. These days, though, they quite regularly cease to amaze me…

New YouGov Poll

There's a poll in today's Daily Telegraph which makes grim reading for Gordon Brown. However, I've just got hold of the Scottish breakdown (It's a Westminster poll), which runs as follows:

SNP - 35%
Labour - 28%
Con - 22%
Lib Dem - 12%

Usual health warnings about small sample sizes apply... but the high polling for the Tories aside, they're not so very out of step with recent trends. It may not be the actual numbers which are so important, as the direction of travel with Labour's ratings rapidly heading South as the SNP continue to do well.

Electoral Calculus makes for interesting reading if you plug these figures in. The SNP take 25 seats; Labour would be on 21; there's a mini-Tory revival taking them to 7; while the Lib Dems plummet to 6. Interesting times... :-)

S&I Elsewhere - destiNATION

I'd like to tap the side of my glass and bring you all to order for a brief moment, for I have a couple of announcements to make.

First of all, a happy St George's day to one and all. With any luck, there'll be roast beef in the canteen, and I may even sink away a pint or two of Boddingtons, or London Pride if I can't find any of that, after work as I watch Manchester Utd take on Barcelona in the Nou Camp.


Now, the main business. My good friend and former colleague, Julie Hepburn, she of the 'Bid for Freeedom' blog; SNP Westminster Candidate for Cumbernauld & Kilsyth; wife of Jamie Hepburn MSP and all round good egg, has embarked on a new project. As if she didn't have enough to do already...

It's a website called destiNATION Scotland, which in her words is intended to be "an online forum for progressive political debate from a pro-independence perspective". The idea being to pull together articles, and prompt an online policy debate in Scotland, without having to pay over much heed to the restriction of the present powers of Holyrood.


If you have time, go take a look. If you can bear it, I've contributed an article on local taxation - some of my arguments you may be familiar with from previous posts, but don't hold that against it :-)

I've also been busy writing for the 'Scots Independent' newspaper, this time on the 10p tax rate fiasco. I'll post it here once the paper comes out, but in the meantime, do please go and read what Labour blogger Kezia Dugdale has to say on the subject. I admire her for regularly sticking her head above the parapet, but would it be uncharitable to suggest that for all the spit and fire, there's maybe just the hint of an element of her trying to persuade herself here that it isn't as bad as it seems?

Anyway, here's a quote from the 1997 Labour manifesto, which is worth dwelling on for a moment:

"Our long-term objective is a lower starting rate of income tax of ten pence in the pound. Reducing the high marginal rates at the bottom end of the earning scale - often 70 or 80 per cent - is not only fair but desirable to encourage employment. This goal will benefit the many, not the few".

Couldn't have put it better myself...

Echo Chambers

I'm sat backstage in the press room at the SNP conference at Heriot-Watt university. The auditorium is packed right now, in anticipation of Nicola Sturgeon's big speech.

My only gripe is that we don't have a closed circuit feed from the hall, which leaves us somewhat reliant on BBC Scotland's webcast of proceedings. While our internet access is much better than it has been at similar events in the recent past, we're kind of struggling a bit trying to keep up with events on our laptops.

All our laptop speakers are puny, and the webcast feed is a bit on the erratic side, occasionally cutting out and always reaching different computers at different times, leading to a bizarre echo effect round the room. I wonder if there's time to run back to my room to pick up a set of headphones?

Gordon Brown - A Stranger To The Truth

This little clip sums up everything I dislike about Gordon Brown. Remember, it was while he was Chancellor that he took the decision to sell British gold reserves, at what turned out to be the bottom of the market:




That patronising 'correction'; the passing of the buck (it was those evil Tories again); the refusal to accept responsibility; the deliberate confusion of the facts (I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here - if it's not deliberate, then it's simply worrying that people in his own party have allowed someone with such a tenuous grasp on reality to get this far unchallenged).

There really is nothing there, is there?

H/T Iain Dale

S&I On The Stump

Been out and about in Aberdeenshire the last few days, sorting a few things for my campaign in Gordon, preparing for the upcoming SNP Conference, and knocking some doors for a local by-election in the Troup ward in Banff and Buchan. Not much to report, other than that much as I wish this particular campaign weren't necessary, the response has been absolutely rock-solid.

Anyhoo, tonight we were out in Gardenstown, and in between knocking doors, I managed to snap off a pic on my phone:


Stunning doesn't even begin to describe it.

For Fox's Sake

Jackie, one of my housemates, found a dead fox in our garden about 20 minutes ago. I phoned Lewisham Council to ask whether anyone from environmental health could come round to pick it up. 'No', came the answer, since it's Saturday afternoon and that's out of hours. However, they would see if someone from refuse collection could come round instead.

About 10-15 minutes later, a bin lorry drew up outside and yes, it was in response to our call. Impressed doesn't even begin to describe it - despite the published response times, there might be occasions when you'd struggle to get an ambulance that quickly if you'd dialled 999!

Well done Lewisham Council. Have a gold star :-)

Gordon Brown - Robin Hood In Reverse

As I said last week, I gave Wendy Alexander's Aviemore Conference speech a miss in favour of an afternoon in the pub watching the Celtic-Rangers game. It's therefore with thanks to the Man About The House Blog I stumbled across earlier today that I am able to offer you this little gem from her speech:

“And when you strip away the spin its clear where the SNP stand. It is not on the side of those who believe in progressive taxation and public spending - but with those who favour tax cuts for the rich and what’s left for the rest”.

Now, remind me again… what happened to income tax rates effective 6 April? Oh, yes – the starting rate was doubled for the lowest earners, and cut by 2p for everyone else.


So, that's a tax cut for the rich, and what’s left for the rest earning below £18,500? A higher tax bill…

Does Labour's hypocrisy and willingness to tell porkies about their opponents know no bounds? At least the SNP's local income tax would put some of the money back in the pockets of the least well off that Gordon Brown has just swiped away.

Court Circular

I might as well be the first...

"As the lawyers tell their tale,
Fisher's face at first just ghostly,
Turns a whiter shade of pale..."

Duff Luck

I was asked last night what I thought of Duffy, the Welsh R&B singer who's been top of the album charts for the past 4 weeks. Truthfully, I said I knew who she was, but admitted I couldn't think off the top of my head how any of her stuff went.

Idiot. Given that I was sitting with 3 Welsh people at the time, the reaction was restrained - except for one individual, who accused me of being more like 51 than 31. Ouch!

Anyway, after bursting out laughing (it was a good line), the best retort I could come up with was that I could have said I thought Duffy was great and no-one would have been any the wiser. Stung by the continued scoffing (and the fact I was coming off a clear second best here) I tried to salvage what was left of my credibility by pointing out that my old band, the Canongate Cadjers, had played at 'T in the Park' in 2004 and 2005.

OK, not strictly relevant, but it took the heat off a bit. Anyway, I've no idea if my tormentor from last night reads this blog or not, but just to prove to the rest of the world I wasn't lying, here's some of the evidence:




OK, it was the ceilidh tent and not the main stage, but it was still one of the best things I've ever done - particularly the bits where we got 300+ folk to sing along to our take on the Sensational Alex Harvey Band's version of 'Delilah'. I'm even nostalgic about getting a tennis ball thrown at me just before I was about to take a solo, only to find out afterwards that it had a six-inch nail pierced through it. Rock and roll, as they say...


So, there you are. I might have been a bit too honest for my own good last night, but history still records that the Canongate Cadjers once shared a bill with Franz Ferdinand and the Scissor Sisters :-) Thanks to Alex (the guy playing the box) for mailing me the pics and reminding me of two of the best days of my life.

Rhodes To Hell Paved With Good Intentions

From Holyrood Magazine (The Scottish Parliament's version of Westminster's 'House Magazine', only more interesting) - an interview with Wendy Alexander. Go on - don your crash helmet and take a read.

Before getting involved in politics, I had no conception of how people's words could be edited sympathetically for TV and radio, or polished up by journalists and stenographers before they reach the public domain. Wendy's clearly been left to perform unplugged here by the magazine, and boy does it show.

What shines through is how the interviewer, Editor Mandy Rhodes, seems desperate to try and give Wendy as fair a crack of the whip as she can, yet in the end, just gives up. That in itself is as revealing as anything which Ms Alexander manages to say, or not to say, in the course of the interview...

Grounds For Optimism

Prompted, albeit somewhat indirectly by Duncan, but mostly by dint of having dinner on Friday evening with some Catalan acquaintances, my thoughts have turned to the subject of coffee.

I don't consider myself to be a coffee geek, but I suppose I probably am, at least to some extent. You see, I like my coffee. Very much. It kick-starts the morning for me, it finishes a meal at night, it picks me up during the day. When I moved back into my flat over Christmas, I had my laptop, a 3G datacard, a radio, some basic food essentials and a borrowed cafetière. Some people sneak off during the day for cigarette breaks – I do likewise for a cup with the luxuriant crema floating atop the rich, dark liquid below.

I don't grind my own coffee – that seems like far too much effort, and in any case, it's hard to get it to the right level of fineness for my espresso maker to deal with. Too coarse, and you get a hideous, watery amber-tinged bilge. Too fine, and the 'coffee' will be the person sat next to you as you struggle to prevent a choking fit. Other people do it better on an industrial scale, so mine just comes vacuum-packed from the supermarket.

My thing for coffee started when I was about 5. I loved the smell, and since my parents drank a fair amount of instant at home and it seemed the grown-up thing to do, I started on fairly weak stuff. By my teens, though, we'd moved onto using a cafetière, since other methods like percolators and filter machines were a lot of hassle and usually made far too much. I took this relationship away with me to university, only to begin a torrid affair with a svelte Italian stove-top espresso maker instead. They're a dirt cheap way to make great coffee, but I managed to burn my fingers just once too often for it to be anything more than a short-term dalliance.

My current squeeze is an espresso machine with shiny chrome and a steam nozzle which cost me all of £40. I’d gone into the shop armed with more money than sense and with the intention of buying a Gaggia machine or similar, but came back with something every bit as good but a tenth of the price. Given the high street price of coffee, it probably paid for itself after a fortnight… and the house always smells great now too.

But let's return to Friday's dinner. We ordered our espressos, which prompted one member of the group to say how impressed he was at the number of places you could get a good coffee in the UK, but how much he disliked the chains like Starbucks, Costa and Café Nero, which he felt were stifling the market. Now, I'm none too fond of these places either, but I had to disagree with him. Here's why.

In Barcelona, or just about anywhere else in the south of Europe for that matter, there's a great bar and café culture. Small independent family businesses might vary in quality, but most serve the best food and drink they can at the best price they can. If a big coffee chain crashes in with a big marketing budget and an appeal to the young, that's all put at risk as people are, at least for a time, drawn to the fashionable new place with its prime location, funky coloured furniture and wi-fi. People want to buy into the 'experience' and 'lifestyle' they associate with these outlets – something which the 'mom and pop' type of places find difficult to deal with.

Which might be true in large parts of Europe, but not I think here. For years, people all over the British Isles have been prepared to accept the most dreadful crud when it comes to food and drink. In the 80's, coffee was thought to be good if it came with an individualised plastic filter with gothic writing on the side. More usually, it came filter-brewed and in a pot which had been on the go for so long that the liquid inside was in danger of caramelising. In short, more often than not, coffee was expensive, its preparation an afterthought and almost uniformly, it tasted pretty foul.

What Starbucks and others have done, at least to my eyes, is raised expectations and tastes. We now spend far more on coffee than we ever did before, and we buy better when we do – the demand curve shifting to the right, as the economists would say. Starbucks has arguably over-expanded and is now closing outlets. Meanwhile, the little guy has gone out and spent a few thousand pounds on a decent espresso machine for his café, and now serves great coffee made individually to order. And judging by the number of stylish independent cafés which seem to litter our high streets now, it's something which Joe Public seems to like as well.

For me, places like Starbucks provide a pretty humdrum, dull uniformity, and I always tried to avoid them in my telecommuting days for that reason. You know whatever you get is going to be all right, but they feel kind of soulless in a way that no amount of perky staff, promo CDs and armchairs decked out in leather or fabrics of primary colours can overcome. Meanwhile, I see a revival of a lot of small businesses, all of them serving great coffee. And it just wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for Starbucks and their marketing spend making us realise how we were being ripped off by poor quality, and forcing everyone else to raise their game.

It's ironic that Starbucks might not be the ones who really benefit from their present ubiquity long term, but that's the way the oversized chocolate chip cookie crumbles sometimes. It might be the early bird which gets the worm, but in this case, it looks like it might have been the second mouse which got the cheese.

Alexander 'To Go On SNP Offensive'

With particular emphasis on the 'offensive', no doubt. Anyway, like most adult Scots males of my age and fighting weight, I'm going to give Wendy a miss to go and watch the fitba' instead.

Rangers v Celtic... it's a bit like Ken v Boris as far as I'm concerned. The contest will be full of thrills and spills no doubt, but for me it's still a case of may the worst one lose!

One More Heave

There’s a scene in ‘Blackadder Goes Forth’, where the news reaches Blackadder’s loyal but dim colleague, Lt. George St Barleigh, that Blackadder’s plane has been shot down over German-held territory. With George refusing point-blank to acknowledge the strong likelihood that Blackadder may be dead, General Melchett utters the immortal line:

"That's the spirit, George. If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through."

A similar mentality seems to be manifesting itself amongst the Scottish Labour Party as it gathers for its conference in Aviemore. They’ve been cheated out of power and the SNP government is just a horrible nightmare, from which Labour will wake at the next election. The SNP doesn’t understand the modern world, apparently. The constitutional debate can be resolved by 'expert' committee, and a solution handed down to a populace which will remain eternally grateful for being spared the burden of being asked their opinion beforehand. We also stand on the verge of unprecedented prosperity, apparently, but it’s all now being put at risk by those wicked Nats.

The SNP is 'right wing’ when it gets the support of the Conservatives, yet Labour remains pure and true when allied with the same party on different issues. Ending ringfenced funding in local government is a cut in SNP run Scotland, but represents progress in Labour run England. Budgets already enacted still apparently don’t add up. Labour will be in the ‘front line of scaremongeringdefence’ for vulnerable groups they never appeared to care much for previously. And Wendy Alexander will be the next First Minister - why, she’s even given herself 10/10 for her performance as leader in a BBC interview today. What a shame about that minus 22% popularity rating, though…

Luckily, there’s a more sober assessment from a former Labour member available to those in the party with a better grasp on reality. Gerry Hassan, writing in today’s Scotsman, punctures elegantly Scottish Labour’s delusions of adequacy and sense of entitlement. Labour became about maintenance of power for power’s sake, and now seems to stand for very little, he says. He even likens the Scottish party to UK Labour pre-1983 - in need of a second defeat before it faces up to its essential unpopularity. His only words of 'comfort' come when he says that “The party can take succour from the fact that it is doing everything in its power to head to that second defeat”.

I was speaking with a friend the other night on the phone, and we tried to discern what Labour’s strategy in Scotland might actually be. Listening to Brown’s dreary and turgid address this afternoon, I think that my friend was bang on the money in her assessment that Labour’s only gameplan is to try and chip away niche support, in the hope that it transfers to them. ‘Load the blunderbuss with whatever you have, and never mind if most of the shrapnel explodes in your face’, goes the command. ‘As long as some of it hits the Nats we’ll count that as progress!’

But what about the ‘vision thing’? Well, it seems to be very much as you were with the fears and smears. An independent Scotland won’t get into Europe. The SNP want to paint our faces blue and take us back 300 years. You’ll never see your English auntie again. And while interdependence means UK financial markets are buffeted by trends in the USA, a sovereign Scotland would somehow be isolated from all that’s good, and at the mercy of all that’s bad.

Meanwhile, in accentuating the positive, Gordon’s old school had a motto, he met someone who’ll compete at the Olympics, John Smeaton’s a great guy, his cabinet colleagues get to meet ministers and officials from other countries (presumably not narrow ones, though). Global environmental problems can’t be solved by any part of Britain on its own, but can apparently be solved by Britain in isolation. Oh, and they don’t get paid very much in China for making iPods. All of which apparently serve as reasons why we should vote Labour.

I feel weary even writing about this, because it’s all such complete and utter rubbish, and because it’s practically identical to the arguments which Labour trotted out in the run up to last May’s election. If a definition of insanity is ‘doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results’, there would appear to be the most acute of mass episodes taking place currently in Aviemore.

Save Our Mince!

I sat down to do a parody of this, before it dawned that some things speak far more eloquently left to themselves :-)

A Glimpse Of The Future?

It was the afternoon of Friday 7 May 2010. Following some nail-biting recounts, the final results of the UK General Election were in. After months of polls showing a Conservative lead, a collapse in the Lib Dem vote allied to a last minute swing to Labour had resulted in the first hung parliament at Westminster since 1974.

The Tories had a majority of votes and seats in England. Labour, despite suffering heavy losses at the hands of the SNP, still returned 25 MPs from Scotland. There were bitter scenes at election counts, as Labour candidates, victorious and vanquished, vented splenetic attacks on the ‘nats’ and the ‘numpties’ in the Holyrood Labour group, whom they blamed for their predicament. Despite this, those 25 seats were enough to keep alive the hope that they could remain in office.

The Lib Dems, smarting from a halving of their representation, repeated their demands for PR. However, there was no appetite amongst either Labour or Conservative to comply and after what was being seen as a disastrous result, a consensus developed quickly that the Lib Dems were in no position to play for such stakes. As in the aftermath of the Scottish elections, a feeling began to emerge that the Lib Dems weren’t really serious and would rather slink away to lick their wounds.

All manner of previously unthinkable permutations began to be mooted in a bid to break the deadlock. Slowly, attention turned to the sizeable group of SNP MPs. Unthinkably, the arithmetic had fallen in such a way that the SNP could either return Labour to power, or stand aside to allow the Conservatives to form a minority administration, from whom they could then pull the rug at any time.

Days passed. After copious quantities of caffeine and nicotine, rumours began to circulate of a breakthrough. With Labour emissary Douglas Alexander insisting that the SNP take the Labour whip on English-only matters as the price of any deal, and offering only a Commission without timescale on funding arrangements for Holyrood, SNP negotiators found it easier than expected to walk away and let events run their course.

Correspondents filed excited reports from College Green. Gordon Brown, nails bitten down to the quick, was urged by the loyalists in the last ditch to try and form a ‘national’ government. Receiving bad advice from a fatigued inner circle and with willingness to accept Realpolitik in short supply, it fell in the end to Jack Straw and the Cabinet Secretary to break it to the Prime Minister that his time was up.

Things began to move quickly. The Government Jaguar and Special Branch Range Rover whisked David Cameron to Buckingham Palace. As ever, the honeyed tones of a Dimbleby captured the moment for the benefit of an expectant nation. And there, blinking in the sunlight, Britain had its first Conservative Prime Minister in 13 years, albeit one leading a minority administration.

First Minister Salmond was amongst the first to offer his congratulations, even extending an invitation to meet at an early date at Bute House in Edinburgh. Later that afternoon, a grinning Angus Robertson was spotted walking along Downing Street to hold preliminary talks with Cameron, his Chancellor George Osbourne and the new Scottish Secretary.

Despite feverish speculation, in the end it turned out that no deal had been struck. Without the interference of the SNP, the Conservatives were – just - able to legislate in England. However, the SNP presence was enough to secure early concessions on Council Tax benefit, allowing their Local Income Tax policy to be introduced before the 2011 Holyrood elections. Attendance allowance, withheld in a fit of pique after the introduction of Free Personal Care in Scotland, was also subject to a swift rethink.

It couldn’t last, though. English commentators on both left and right began to fulminate about this ‘Scotsgelt’ and demands to scrap the Barnett formula reached a crescendo. The SNP response was simple – their MPs would vote to end Barnett, but only in exchange for greater financial powers at Holyrood. Faced with the prospect of a new election, Tory backbenchers fell swiftly into line with a policy which many of their senior figures had secretly been favourable towards for quite some time.

Meanwhile, the Scottish Government, still riding high in the polls, was looking forward to the 2011 election. Having won fiscal freedom from Westminster, the so-called ‘Wendy Commission’ had been completely outflanked and had collapsed in recrimination. Holyrood’s unionist majority had still voted down the referendum bill, but despite protestations to the contrary, no-one seriously believed that was the end of the matter. For one thing, even if no referendum deal was possible in Edinburgh post 2011, there was now an avenue which could be used to deliver at Westminster.

David Cameron really hadn’t wanted to go down in history as the PM who ‘lost’ Scotland, but eventually, it just seemed like the best option for everyone. With a popular SNP administration in Edinburgh and the party holding the balance of power in London, public opinion had swung against the union on both sides of the border. There seemed little point in delaying the inevitable and by getting rid of Scotland’s MPs, he could get the Westminster majority he craved. In any case, the Tories had opposed devolution all along, and could hardly be blamed for what they had long said would be the inevitable outcome of John Smith’s ‘unfinished business’.

Countries come and countries go, he reasoned through the bottom of a glass of Jura. As it burned on its way down, he reflected that maybe Alex Salmond had been right all along - the Scots would make better neighbours than they had lodgers.

Why I Want Rid Of Council Tax

SNP plans for a Local Income Tax (LIT) seems to have become the target of choice for the opposition now that the budget and council tax freeze have gone through. As if on cue, out is being wheeled by Labour and others the archetypal hard-working, 2-income family, whom we are being invited to believe will under LIT be left subsidising pensioners in big houses who live off bloated share portfolios.

First things first - comparatively few people are in a position to live off their investments, but presenting a more balanced picture wouldn’t have the desired effect in terms of trying to whip up opposition to LIT. However, as a strong supporter of LIT, I thought I’d throw two very real examples into the mix, which have resulted from my own domestic arrangements over the past few years, which help explain my complete disdain for the council tax, or for that matter any kind of property based tax.

I own a flat in Edinburgh, which when I lived there at first, I shared with my partner of the time. As a band ‘B’ property, our combined water and council tax bill came to about £1,200, or £600 each. However, after we split up, even with a 25% single person’s discount my bill shot up to £900 – or about 5% of my household income at the time. I hadn’t become any wealthier in the intervening period and made no more demands of local services than I had previously. However, purely as a result of a change in my personal circumstances, my Council Tax had increased overnight by 50%.

Fast forward a few years to the present. As work for the moment requires that I have somewhere to live in London, I rent a room in a 4 bedroom semi-detached house in Lewisham, in the south-east of the city. Nice as our bit of town is, Notting Hill or Hampstead or trendy north London it most certainly isn’t (actually, that’s probably a good thing). It’s a very diverse area, with a high proportion of young families and a large number of homes of multiple occupancy.

There are 5 of us living together in the house – myself (parliamentary researcher); an IT consultant; a banker who shares a room with his fiancée (who is also a parliamentary researcher); and another banker. Fortunately, we all get on very well, although this may be helped by our different work start times and the fact we have a big kitchen and 2 bathrooms, so it isn’t quite as cosy as it sounds!

Based on salary alone, the five of us probably have a combined annual income of between £250,000 - £300,000 (I should make clear that myself and the other researcher lag quite some distance behind the rest). However, as a band ‘E’ property, the bill for us all comes to just over £1,500 – or £300 a skull if we split it 5 ways – just 0.5% of the total household income. It’s quite a difference from the £900 I used to get stung with for living on my own in Edinburgh, and an obscenity when you consider the couple with two pre-school kids over the road who have to pay an identical bill out of just one income.

And that in the end is my beef. Council tax hits households with low incomes disproportionately. Since it is based on the value of the house, there is little correlation between this and one’s ability to pay. Worst of all, the eventual bill you end up paying hits those who live on their own the hardest.

While being young, professional and childless means we don’t make huge demands of the services of Lewisham Council, on balance, we’re happy that we’re making a contribution towards policing, parks, adult education, libraries, schools, trading standards, refuse collection, the fire brigade, social services etc in the area. Splitting the bill 5 ways makes us better off financially, but I don’t think any of us would object seriously to being asked to make a bigger contribution given that we’d all be more than capable of so doing.

There will be winners and there will be losers in any change to a tax system – something which those calling for council tax revaluations and extra bandings and additional rebates would be wise to remember. Instead of conjuring up grotesque, false spectres of families being downtrodden by the supposedly idle rich, Labour and the Conservatives should be honest enough to explain why they believe that the rich man in his castle should pay a lower marginal rate of tax than the poor man at his gate.

Block-Headed

A couple of posts ago, I took umbrage at James Purnell MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for his assertions that Scotland would forfeit some £400m of Council Tax Benefit if we were to replace the Council Tax with a local income tax.

His argument, you may remember, was the rather trite 'if there's no Council Tax there's no Council Tax benefit'. You can therefore imagine my delight this weekend to read in the Sunday Herald the revelation that, as this Treasury 'Statement of Funding Policy' document from 1997 makes clear (point 7, page 39), Council Tax benefit is post-devolution to be regarded as part of the Scottish Block grant.


So, was Purnell misleading us earlier, was he poorly informed, or was he simply trying to throw his weight about and scaremonger? It scarecely matters now - with the release of this Treasury document, we have what I believe is often called called a 'slam dunk'.

When Is A 3-Line Whip Not A 3-Line Whip?

Nick Clegg has put a 3-line whip on his Lib Dem colleagues to abstain on tonights Commmons vote on whether there should be a referendum. 'Sounding the trumpet and marching his troops fearlessly towards the fence on which they are to perch', as Tory MP Michael Ancrum put it earlier.

However, it seems that at least 3 of Clegg's frontbenchers are set to defy the whip and resign their posts this evening. The word is that to try and stem the anticipated tide of further resignations, he has now given dispensation to his junior spokespeople to vote for a referendum, but without forcing them to resign if they do.

By trying to make a false choice between a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and a referendum on the EU itself, Clegg has made his party look opportunistic. By putting a 3-line whip on an abstention (I ask you!) and refusing to support amendments which would let his party get their referendum, he's made them look ridiculous. Now, by backing away from his earlier threat, he's made himself look weak and incompetent, and his party irrelevant.

You couldn't make it up, but it seems that if you're Nick Clegg, you can certainly manage to muck it up. Where's Vince Cable when you need him? :-)

Belated Update: Orkney & Shetland MP Alastair Carmichael has quit the frontbench, which means the Lib Dems will be on their 4th Scottish Spokesperson in 2 years.

The LIT Hits The Fan

Imagine, for a moment, that rather than reheating the school dinners prepared in a distant central kitchen each lunchtime, your local authority decided instead to invite some local food shop owners to operate out of their school dinner halls. The idea behind this would be to sell a healthy choice of meals and sandwiches prepared locally, which would be of a higher standard than the usual canteen fare.

In order that no-one loses out, the council decides to put all the money spent funding free school meals into a new voucher system, so that all previous beneficiaries of free meals may continue to buy food of equivalent value. Despite some initial concerns, the idea turns out to be very popular with pupils and parents alike.

Whatever you think of the idea itself, it would at least swap one system for another, while making sure that all monies in the previous free school meals scheme continue to benefit those they were intended to. However, imagine then that in a fit of ideological pique, the Government decides that since this renegade local authority won’t be offering ‘school meals’ any more, it won’t if it goes ahead be getting the money it used to for the provision of free school meals. Seems a bit rough, doesn’t it?

OK, let’s do another one. Imagine every police force in the country receives an additional grant from central government to enforce a nightime curfew on the under-18s. The initiative is supported with great gusto by the senior officers in some forces. However, other forces are less keen, and are reluctant to be seen to be ‘victimising’ the law abiding young.

Together with their police boards, these forces decide instead that the grants they receive for the curfew would have a much better impact on youth disorder if they were spent instead on school visits and mounting extra patrols at weekends. Miffed at the rejection of their pet project, government then decides to punish these forces by withholding the additional funding.

Both of the situations I’ve described are, of course, entirely fictitious. However, they do resemble very closely the situation faced by the Scottish Government in its dealings with Westminster over the withdrawal of attendance allowance following the introduction of free personal care. More recently, they resemble the weekend’s sabre-rattling from James Purnell over the threatened forfeiture of council tax benefit if Scotland proceeds with the introduction of a Local Income Tax (LIT)

"When there is no council tax then there is no council tax benefit," Purnell told Scotland on Sunday (As an aside, does this mean that if the LIT were simply renamed as the Council Tax, the DWP would continue to cough up?). However, council tax benefit comes via the Department of Work and Pensions and is paid for through general taxation, which, judging by the last glance I took at a payslip, people in Scotland are expected to contribute towards as well. It is designed to cover the Council Tax liabilities of those on the lowest incomes, and as such, is part and parcel of the local government financial settlement.

If Westminster was to bring in an alternative to the unfair Council Tax in England, the benefit money currently available would surely remain so as part of the overall local funding arrangements. For that reason, it would be no skin off anyone’s nose in Whitehall to allow this money to continue to come to Scotland to help finance a different system of local taxation, since we’ve already paid our share towards it.

Together with the ubiquitous ‘source close to’ describing the Scottish Government of acting like ‘big babies’ over the whole thing (seriously!), I think we can safely put this little skirmish down to Gordon Brown taking the huff and trying to show us all who’s still boss in Scotland. The irony is that having died in the last ditch defending the hated council tax at the last election, Labour in London is basically forcing its Scottish comrades to fight on exactly the same ground next time round as well!

I always expected Labour to go around picking fights with the Edinburgh administration while trying to blame the SNP – I just thought they’d be smart enough to choose their ground a little more carefully. I’ve no doubt there’ll be disagreements in the future where the respective jurisdictions of Holyrood and Westminster overlap, when the public will decide that the SNP is chancing it. This, however, I don’t think is going to be one of those occasions.