The Scottish Play

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.

Calman, Have A Go If You Think You’re Hard Enough

Another Scots Independent column, albeit one somewhat overtaken by events - the 'Lib/Lab suicide pact', as one of my colleagues put it upon hearing the news that Nicol Stephen had followed Wendy onto his party's backbenches.

Still, the thrust of it still stands - However much they might wish it otherwise, the devol-unionist blethering classes can't simply wish away support for independence; it's high time we learned what 'more powers' might actually mean; and that while the Calman Commission may indeed turn out to be a crock, it's still a gift for the SNP.


Do you remember the Calman Commission? Oh, come on… pay attention at the back, there. The Calman Commission – the one the unionist parties set up to produce options for constitutional change, right after they’d spent an entire election campaign saying no such changes were needed? The one which is now costing you as a Scottish taxpayer some £500,000? Still nothing? Oh, well…

This abstraction of your hard earned tax money started life as a plain ‘review’ before becoming, to the reported irritation of Gordon Brown, a ‘Commission’ on the future of Scottish devolution. Meantime, the Scottish Government’s ‘National Conversation’ on the future governance of Scotland continued along its merry way, boycotted by those behind Commission for supposedly being a ‘front’ for Independence.

There’s a crucial difference between the two processes, though. While the Government’s ‘Conversation’ has remained open to the possibility of people opting for a ‘settlement’ which falls short of Independence, Calman has excluded the independence option from the outset.

Amusingly, the first set of minutes state that “the Commission starts from the position that Scotland should remain a distinctive part of the United Kingdom”, before immediately contradicting itself by saying “The Commission will consider the distribution of powers between the Scottish Parliament and Westminster without preconceptions”. So, no preconceptions at all, then, except for those they already have…

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Commission was set up in response to, and with the sole intention of trying to stymie the Scottish Government’s National Conversation. However, despite the shared aim of stuffing the SNP which exists in Labour in Holyrood and Westminster, the Commission has since its inception struggled to gain acceptance in Westminster.

The lack of enthusiasm for constitutional change starts from Gordon Brown down. Backbench Labour MPs are openly scathing, not least because they can see the erratic and unreliable hand of Wendy Alexander on the tiller, and because seeing themselves, as they do as still being ‘in charge’ of Scotland, they feel this is playing into the SNP’s hands.

In a sense, they’re absolutely right. If it hadn’t been for the SNP taking power, the Commission would never have been established so to that extent, its existence and the willingness of unionist parties to consider further powers is testament to their fear of being left behind by public opinion.

However, the most troublesome questions are not concerned with the principal of ‘more powers’ – that bit is easy. Rather, it’s the question of ‘which powers’ that is about to bedevil participants. I can’t wait to see how the respective positions of no-change unionists are reconciled with the federalist position of the Lib Dems. They may agree on what they don’t like – independence and the SNP – but what is it that they actually do agree on? And what about engaging with the public? Well, you know, I get the feeling that we’re not really all that welcome.

Public meetings have been ruled out as being too easily ‘hijacked’, and submissions which stray beyond the remit of the Commission (i.e. mention independence), may not even be published. The ‘experts’ on the Commission, some no doubt selected for their ability to bring empty minds to the problem, will deliberate, ruminate and cogitate. They will then hand down their findings to a populace which will remain forever grateful for being spared the temptations of independence, or the burden of being asked their opinion in advance.

That said, it’s still hard for me to see how the cause of independence can emerge from this twin processes of Calman and Conversation anything other than enhanced. Since the SNP took power, a direction of travel has clearly been established on constitutional reform and expectations set accordingly. Already, the Commission has every indication of resulting in a soggy, lowest common denominator compromise which satisfies none of the participants, let alone the rising aspirations of the voting public. It’s elitist, exclusive, top-down and prescriptive – the very antithesis of the democratic processes which were supposed to become the hallmarks of the new Scotland.


But here’s the rub. Since by definition the SNP will agree with every power recommended for northward transfer by Calman, to a large extent the Calman participants will be doing our work for us. For the SNP, the outcome will never be enough, but for Labour, the outcome is one on which they will never be able to agree as a final destination. And unlike independence, whatever Calman produces can’t be delivered without the consent of non-Scottish MPs.

On present evidence, that support is almost entirely absent. If Calman runs into the sand just before the 2010 Independence referendum, the British state will have been shown to be incapable of further reform, and people will cast their votes accordingly. On the other hand, if it does come up with a package of proposals, it will just whet the appetite for what seems likely to come. All told, it’s hard to see this as anything other than a win, win for the SNP.

Much as some might wish it otherwise, the issue of Independence won’t disappear on a whim of the devol-unionist blethering classes. There’s nothing so powerful in politics as an idea whose time has come and if those behind Calman really wanted to remove the legitimacy of a move for Independence in this Parliamentary session, they should have taken part in the Conversation so that the resultant fell some way short of what the SNP may have liked.

But they haven’t, and all told, that’s probably for the best. Calman was, in a former guise, the Chief Medical Officer for England. For a medical man, he seems to be taking an awful long time to recognise that his patient's case is terminal.

S&I Elsewhere - An Invisible Giant

Maybe unusually for an SNP economics anorak, I don't write all that often about the North Sea. However, with oil prices and the UK public finances as they are, and in the aftermath of this BBC Scotland documentary, it's an issue once more creeping up the agenda.

This was written for the Scots Independent newspaper a week or so before 'Truth, Lies, Oil and Scotland' was broadcast north of the border (It's on the BBC iPlayer for a few more days for anyone who missed it). In the event, the programme was no-where near as incendiary as its title. However, when you've been told as I have by middle aged oil workers that despite the decades of production to come from the North Sea and into the Atlantic, that there's a shortage of young people coming into the industry because they all think the oil's going to run out tomorrow, you begin to realise what a good job people did in the 70's and 80's of persuading Scots, against all the available evidence, that this was just a transient windfall.

The first 30 years of revenues have been peed up against the wall. The kneejerk reaction to Alex Salmond's call for just 10% of the current North Sea windfall (not 95%, not even a percentage of the total tax take) to be invested in an oil fund for Scotland, should tell us all we need to know about how important the resource, and its revenues continue to be to the UK Treasury. It should also tell us why so many of the British political classes are so opposed to Scottish Independence - the cheek of some in continuing to claim subsidy as an argument for Union while raking in the taxes, still takes the breath away.

An Invisible Giant

What is it about the oil industry that causes many otherwise sentient minds to shut up shop? To some, North Sea Oil has been about to dry up imminently for the past 30 years. To others, it would have been ‘selfish’ to see the revenues as being anything other than British. Some, meanwhile, prefer a zero sum view that because a resource is finite, no benefit can arise from its use.

Ill-informed negativity masquerading as insight and wisdom isn’t only a feature of Scottish politics, but with oil and gas, it seems to be the default position for many. Although the wealth brought by the North Sea is clear to anyone who works in the industry, its economic significance has routinely been played down, leaving many in Scotland with a false impression of how big the industry actually is.

Perhaps one of the reasons for this is because with one or two very obvious exceptions, the onshore signs of the industry are few and far between for the majority of Scots. It’s simply never become part of our iconography in the way that Ravenscraig or Clyde shipyards did – remarkable, when you consider that the offshore industry is worth something like a sixth of total Scottish economic activity.

[Scottish GVA without oil = 96% of UK GVA including oil. Scottish GVA including oil = c. 110% of UK GVA including oil]

Figures from the UK Offshore Operators Association show that in 2006, the industry invested more than £5.5 billion in the North Sea; spent a further £5.5 billion on operations; and contributed £9 billion in direct taxation to the Exchequer. It employed, either directly or indirectly, some 480,000 people across the whole UK – with 380,000 jobs related to domestic production and a further 100,000 to the export of oilfield goods and services.


That latter number is of particular significance to Scotland. Thanks to the experience gained over the past 40 years, Scotland is now a major provider of oilfield goods and services throughout the world, with exports growing at 10% per annum and worth some £4bn every year. Like financial services, this is another Scottish industry with a truly global reach.

But it's not just onshore that our visibility of this giant is restricted. When it comes to UK economic data, North Sea revenues are always included in overall UK accounts, but excluded from the Scottish accounts as 'Extra Regio'. This means that when a Scotland shorn of oil and gas revenues is compared with a UK figure which does include these revenues, Scotland is made to look relatively less prosperous than she actually is.

One of the most flagrant examples comes when measuring the size of the Scottish public sector. We’re often told that Scotland enjoys Scandinavian levels of public spending, yet pays only UK levels of taxation. The statistic used to back this up is that Scottish public spending exceeds 50% of GDP, while UK spending is sitting at 43% - a statistic from which we are then invited to believe, entirely falsely, that the Scottish public sector is uniquely inefficient and further, that Scottish public spending is being subsidised from elsewhere in the UK.

Let’s leave aside the fact that even if resources were being transferred to Scotland by the Treasury, present UK debt levels mean it would be being done with money borrowed internationally. Let’s also leave aside for a moment the fact that with 1/12 of the UK population being spread over 1/3 of the UK landmass, it’s always going to cost more to deliver the same quality of government services in Scotland than it would in more densely populated parts of the UK.

When you include the 90% plus share of North Sea revenues which would accrue to a Scottish Treasury, Scottish spending isn’t above 50% of GDP – it’s 41% - lower than the equivalent UK figure. In fact, pull the same stunt of removing those North Sea revenues out of UK accounts completely and the UK would have failed even to meet the Maastricht Eurozone convergence debt criteria from 2003/04 onwards.

It was in 1999 that the late Donald Dewar stood before the Scottish Grand Committee and intoned gravely that the $10 barrel of oil would be with us ‘for the foreseeable future’. Today, with greater competition for resources and increasing consumer demand, high energy prices and the challenges which flow look like they are here to stay. With our surfeit of renewables potential, and with as much to come from the North Sea as has already been extracted, Scotland is almost uniquely well placed to ride out the transition to this new world of energy insecurity.

We’re looking now to the second age of the North Sea, founded not on the prodigious rates of extraction of the early 1980's, but based on the high prices which make development of smaller resources worthwhile. However, the capital needed to maintain this success is both finite and highly mobile. To make the most of the remaining opportunities in the North Sea, government is going to have to focus on how to maintain an environment that makes Scotland at least as attractive to investors as other fields throughout the world.

Labour, with little or no affinity for the industry or those who work in it be they 'fat-cat' or 'roughneck', has only ever seen it as a convenient source of cash when the books won't balance. A Scottish Government could never afford to be so cavalier. This surely bodes better for the long-term future of the industry than the erratic behaviour of Whitehall debt junkies, desperate only for their next fix of corporation tax revenues.

Going Soft On Independence

One of the main arguments deployed against Scottish independence is loss of influence. Scotland would be trading being part of a big country to be a small country, we are told. Influence in the world is all about willingness to use armed forces; having a permanent seat on the UN security council; having Trident - the implication being it's only the big boys that count when it comes to making friends and influencing people.

On the surface, it's a tricky one to argue against. For centuries, it was the countries which were most successful at mustering power on land and on sea which were best able to secure resources and influence over others. However, with the rise of 20^th century nationalism, the decline of the British empire and the rise of the USA, we began to see that it was not necessary to threaten or occupy a country in order to gain access to its resources or influence its people.

We learned that free trade could be mutually beneficial; that countries could expand their influence by working together in alliance. We even began to see that the brute military power of countries with the ability to destroy the planet, brought no guarantee of success even when brought to bear against smaller and supposedly 'inferior' forces. Admittedly, some of our recent leaders may not have learned very much from this, but the lesson was there for those prepared to see it.

Today, the world, as ever, is in flux. As US power wanes, we are heading for a multipolar world. Declining US influence means declining UK influence, at the same time as we see the rise of China and India. It's hard, for me at least, to avoid the conclusion that engaging effectively and winning influence in the world's emerging countries, is going to require a humility and openness for which even a century of steady British decline has failed to prepare our Westminster elites.

Whatever Lyndon B Johnson may have had to say about influence, hearts and minds are seldom won over these days by hard power alone. This is where 'soft power' comes in – the ability to influence others through culture, values and ideology rather than threat, violence or other forms of coercion. Yet for a state which was once described as having lost an empire but had not yet found a role, paradoxically, the UK has actually been remarkably effective post-1945 at building up its soft power around the world.

Respect for British institutions waxes and wanes. However, the institutions which work most effectively overseas are often not the traditional outlets of diplomacy, but those such as the BBC World Service and the British Council. While refusals to accept the limitations of hard power - such as the Iraq misadventure - alongside Labour's blatant attacks on the independence of the BBC, have helped undermine British standing in the world, the reputation of those institutions endures as a result of being built up over many years and the lives they have touched over that time.

Independence would mean Scotland leaving these institutions behind, at least in their present form. This gives us a tough act to follow in many respects, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. In fact, in many ways, Scotland is already well placed to build up a soft power which reaches the parts that no British institution can.

Firstly, independence would force a fundamental reappraisal for everyone on the British archipelago of who they are and who they want to be, but that is also a process which would demand great honesty. For better or for worse, Scots have had a huge and disproportionate impact on the way our modern world has been shaped. We can't, after all, re-write our history – we're as much a part of the history of the British Empire and recent ill-advised military adventures as our larger neighbours to the south.

Scotland is firmly part of the English speaking world. Nearly 9 out of 10 schoolchildren in the EU learn English, with at least 2 billion people around the world having either full or at least some understanding of the language. Our universities help teach the world, both by bringing students to live in Scotland and through distance learning. People around the globe are as curious about us as we are about them, which gives us a huge potential audience for our cultural output.

We also have the Edinburgh Festival, which has for decades been much, much bigger than the city or even the country which spawned it and gives us a cultural profile which any independent country would envy. Whether its to do with television, film, theatre, music, books or politics, for one glorious month, the world comes to us. As if this embarrassment of riches weren't enough, our three weeks in the sun means that whatever we happen to be thinking, planning, doing economically, socially or culturally in Scotland, is at the same time brought to the attention of the rest of the world.

Blessed may be the peacemakers, but they can through their actions achieve more influence than the warmongers. Previous SNP manifestos have committed the party to the establishment of a Scottish peacekeeping college, as well as a European Peace & Reconciliation Centre. The opportunity to enhance the global diplomatic capital which already exists is there if we wish to take it. None of this can physically stop a tank rolling across a border of course, but by opening minds, building links, by helping people to understand that they each have a stake in the future of each other, such approaches can be far more effective in building peace, security and prosperity than any number of nuclear warheads or Security Council resolutions.

With independence, we won't be starting from year zero. We will have a set of institutions, ideas, outlooks, values and histories which our forbears have built up, and which we ourselves will continue to build upon. Taking the 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.

With our history, experiences of empire building and retrenchment, centuries-long exposure to industrialisation and 'globalisation', history of immigration and emigration, outlook, culture, philosophical, religious and epistemological traditions, we have a truly unique voice and perspective we can bring to bear. Set alongside our intimate understanding of the Anglosphere, who in reality could argue that Scotland wouldn't be a soft power superpower if she chose to become so?

Laugh if you like. These days, you don't need to be a military giant or even have pretensions of being a military giant to have influence. When it comes to power and influence it's no longer about the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog that counts.

You'll Have Had Your Holidays, Then?

Well, if that was my holiday, I suppose I've had it. It's been great to have some time off, and I dare say I've even managed to use some of it fairly productively: a Christmas seeing a range of aunties, uncles and cousins; a night out with my mate Brian - a friend from school whom scarily I've known for 21 years, but who is seldom around when I am nowadays; a night out in Edinburgh with some old workmates from Scottish Widows; an extended New Year away with SNP friends involving good food, good wine, good chat, good song and the chance to play my fiddle for the first time in months... I even got some of my 'homework' for Westminster done into the bargain.

I'm off back south tomorrow, so I'm spending the morning at my flat in Edinburgh, cleaning up my clutter of the last two weeks to get it ready for a new tenant. I'll go out for the papers in a bit, and maybe try and sneak in a quick couple of pints in the afternoon with Richard the catsitter. Then it'll be time to get my case packed up, and sort out what train I plan to leave on tomorrow morning. Hopefully the journey will be a little bit smoother than last time, but the travel stories haven't been getting any better with the New Year...

Anyway, personal musings and trivia aside, this blog is supposed to be about politics. Since I'm still feeling nice and chilled and full of the spirit of goodwill, I'm not really in the mood for expressing huge enthusiasm for the righteousness of my chosen cause, or for pointing out the folly of all others (give it a couple more days!). Instead, here's an article from the Seattle Times on the state of the (British) union. If you forgive the clumsy metaphor about traffic islands at the start, it's a reasonably astute and fair-minded assessment of where Scotland stands, from a long-time overseas observer.

To see ourselves as others see us indeed. A happy and prosperous 2008 to all.

In Brussels

I've been in Brussels for the past few days, for a bit of Xmas shopping and to visit SNP colleagues at the European Parliament. Given that Belgium has, as of today, been run by a caretaker government for precisely six months, I must report that it seems to be coping remarkably well. The shops are busy, the Grand Place is packed with tourists, the restaurants are full - and all this at the beginning of a week when the European Parliament is about to up sticks to Strasbourg.


The only hint you might get that something might be up is the (modest) number of Belgian flags hanging from windows in the capital. This is primarily a demonstration from the Francophone administrative elite - and not really a gesture to be found repeated in the Flemish speaking areas outside of Brussels.

I've spent most of the last couple of days in the company of Lachie Muir - a friend since we were in the SNP Students together in the mid-nineties. Lachie's been working in Brussels for variously the SNP and the European Free Alliance, for nigh-on six years now, and a shrewder observer of the Scottish and European political scenes you would struggle to find. His take on it all is that we're unlikely to see Belgium dissolve into its constituent parts any time soon, but that the problems of how to deal with Brussels notwithstanding, it is still happening slowly.

What does a state coming apart feel like? I have to confess, I'm not all that sure. Disagreements between the central and devolved governments are par for the course around the world, as are disagreements over policy and resources - what matters more is how they are dealt with. There'd also likely be, or have been, some major change in the circumstances which gave rise to the existence of the state. There would be low grade bickering over politics and proxy matters like sport, which would occasionally bubble over to take on a significance which they scarcely deserve. I suspect you'd also start to see a greater assertion of the sub-state identity, counterbalanced with demonstrations of support for the status quo.


Belgium ticks most of these boxes, as indeed increasingly does the UK. In fact, today saw the Daily Telegraph carry a lengthy interview with Conservative leader David Cameron, to mark the launch of its campaign to 'Call Yourself British'. Very sensibly, he points out to the Telegraph's largely English readership that the union provides Scotland with no financial pot of gold, and urges caution amongst those south of the border who would rail against perceived Scottish advantages. However, he shied away from any concrete proposal to resolve the West Lothian Question, and when asked to set out what the Union meant to him, chose not to look forward, but instead fell back on the imagery of WWII.

Rather insultingly, the Telegraph editorial disparages English nationalism. Yet its definition of Britishness was also backward looking and full of bombast. In a sign that it just didn't get it at all, it hinted that what had put the Union under threat was the temerity of the Scots in opting for self-government, our support for whoever was playing England in sport (not guilty-never have been), and in our 'apparently favourable' financial treatment.

According to the paper, us Brits possess a shared temper and outlook, which 'many across the world find admirable, even enviable'. And our Britishness is rooted also in 'our shared institutions and values - the sovereignty of Parliament (what happened to sovereignty of the people?), the primacy of the law and the independence of the judiciary (as opposed to all those lawless foreign Johnnies you find over the Channel, I suppose), the proud traditions of our regiments (even those recently disbanded, you presume), and the freedom and vigour of our media (ha!).

In fairness, I think I'd find difficulty in coming up with a list of things which made someone distinctively Scottish. However, even John Major would have struggled to express it in a more spirit crushing and hackneyed way than the Telegraph has managed. Fundamentally, I'm attracted by the civic notion that anyone can be Scottish no matter where they come from, providing that they want to be. I'm uncomfortable instinctively with the notion that to be Scottish or English is to be in an ethnic state of mind, and that we can only be inclusive toward others when we see ourselves as British.

That to me seems to be holding out a second-class identity to those who choose to make their lives here - that an immigrant who comes to London from overseas can become British, but can never be English. Englishness is there, it is latent, it is tangible. If Britishness is on the way out the door, it strikes me that the process is not going to be reversed by trying to suppress people's sense of Englishness.

At present, Englishness is being ceded by default to a ragbag on the political right. It needs to be reclaimed, and to become synonymous with some of the virtues being claimed currently for Britishness. I'm happy getting on with building a new and more confident Scotland, but a more reflective Englishness, shorn of the baggage of Britain, would have an invigorating part to play in helping people on both sides of the border decide both who they are and what they want to become.

Turn On, Tune In

Now this does sound interesting. Tune in to BBC Radio 4 tonight at 8.30pm GMT to hear how Scotland and rUK might go their different ways, in 'A Beginner's Guide to Separation'.

I don't care much for the title (separation from what other than governance from Westminster, for goodness' sake?). Nonetheless, if this BBC 'Magazine' article preview is anything to go by, the actual content promises to be as neutral as it gets.

Will Sentiment Endear It?

I went out twice this last week and met two different girls – let's call them Jenny and Louise. Jenny I met at a pub quiz and we started chatting after a friend and I had shoved our way into their team. After the friend had headed off, Jenny and I spent an hour flirting gently over what remained of the quiz. Then it suddenly started getting heated and serious.

Sadly, I mean in a political sense. What on earth was independence all about, she demanded? Weren't we all Brits together? Independence was all about borders and barbed wire, surely? What on earth did we want to cut ourselves off like that for? We had a Scottish Prime Minister for goodness sakes. Did we really dislike the English so much that we could no longer share a country with them?

Curses. And it had all been going so well, too.

Sensing there was no way to laugh this one off quickly and therefore resigned to a discussion about politics, I gave a quick rationale for the union as seen from 1707. The Scots wanted free trade, which was about to be denied them by the English and the Spanish, while the English wanted to secure their troublesome northern border against the threat of invasion from France. Leaving dynastic and religious concerns aside as most of us have, 300 years on, we were in a free trade block of over 500m peoples, with full access to global markets. The threat of a French invasion of England also seemed, well, remote these days, despite the fact that London can now be referred to with some accuracy as France's fourth largest city.

Over that time, Scotland had retained her unique legal, educational and ecclesiastical independence – institutions which for better or worse had shaped our country differently to the rest of the British archipelago. Scotland had always been administered differently, and as the scope of the state expanded, rather than incorporation, there was administrative devolution in 1885. The Scottish Parliament had brought proper parliamentary accountability to that administration. Accordingly, it was difficult for me to see why that administrative and political independence shouldn't also be extended to economic policy and international relations, especially when we can see on many issues that the opinions and interests of Scotland and England don't always coincide. In the end, Independence simply represented for me the single constitutional settlement superior to all others.

I appreciated that there were strong feelings, but that all my English friends and family members would still be there after independence, and my relationship with them unchanged. The economic, social and cultural links which we all valued were things which transcended politics anyway. Those which were worth preserving and which enjoyed public support would continue to thrive. Scots would still watch Wimbledon and Eastenders, and England would still be rubbish at football. For all that I had in common with folk from Wales, Northern Ireland or England, or for that matter Canada or the USA, Britishness really wasn't part of my identity, but if it could be said to be, it would be in the same sense that a Swede or a Norwegian was Scandinavian. Fundamentally, I was more concerned about the person you were than I was in where you were from.

And as for borders, Ireland had one of the most heavily policed and fortified land borders in Europe until the end of the troubles. Now, you can cross from one side to the other without even seeing a sign to tell you that you'd done so, other than to tell you you were now in Monaghan instead of Fermanagh, or Donegal rather than Tyrone. If we were 'all one people', did she feel the same sense of alienation about the existence of the Irish Republic? (No).

It's been pointed out before that all this dispassion and rationality sometimes makes Richard a very dull boy, but that's the way it is. I do get fired up emotionally and culturally about independence, but to be honest, that's never enough on its own – it's got to be both head and heart as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, this was logic in a head-on collision with feisty sentiment, and my argument did seem to placate her, but only slightly. It upset her that anyone could want independence, but I'd be lying if I denied that it upset me that my views on Independence (unexpressed all evening until that point, as it happened) had upset her.

As Walter Bagehot said of the mystique needed to sustain royalty, you do not let sunlight in upon magic. The same is true of the economic and constitutional arguments surrounding the union (at least it is if you are a unionist), for once you do, the internal contradictions of a state which has lost its reason for being become all too apparent.

Let's forget about the mad, the bad and the frankly dangerous to know (3rd article down). However poorly Gordon Brown may have articulated it in the past (2nd article down), for many people, there are huge emotional attachments to the idea of the union, even if not to the reality. Debating the economic and constitutional arguments might be all very well, but there's a sense almost of hurt building up in England that the Scots might be in some way about to reject them. Now that's no argument against independence, but it's one factor which nationalists would do well to try and ameliorate in whatever ways we can.

Anyway, I'll finish with Louise – a sociology student from London doing her dissertation on Scottish Nationalism. I'd been invited along by a mutual friend to their post-lecture drinks session as a 'primary source', if you like. Her choice of subject might have been unusual enough on its own, but when she outed herself as a supporter of independence, my curiosity was piqued – what on earth had prompted a London lass like her to give a moment's thought to Scottish Nationalism, far less to support it so strongly?

Her answer was poignant. Her father, who had passed away while she was very young, had been Scottish, and despite marrying a Londoner and bringing up his family in the city, had remained a passionate supporter of independence. She was proud of her heritage, and wanted to know more about the movement to understand a bit more about what had burned inside her father. We moved on to other subjects as the evening wore on, but her tale moved something inside even a cynic like me.

So, one for, one against, and in the end, I'm not sure how my reasons for supporting independence come close to matching the intensity, felt from different sides of the argument, by Louise and by Jenny. Ultimately, you can't let your future be governed by sentiment alone. Nonetheless, it's certainly a factor, and one we shouldn't discount, no matter what side of the debate or the border it comes from.

A 'Scottish Spring' In The Step.

The cause of Independence gained a new and very welcome convert over the weekend. Writing in the Scottish Edition of the Sunday Times, Gerry Hassan – a mainstay of Scottish Labour sympathising policy groups; leading thinker; political 'futurologist', and prolific writer and columnist - has thought the previously unthinkable and completed a personal intellectual journey from unionist to independista.

Wendy Alexander once said famously in an email to Jim Sillars that the Scottish Labour Party had not contributed a single idea to the wider Labour movement in over a century. Although that was maybe a bit harsh, there was still more than a grain of truth in the observation. However, if anyone could be said to be putting some intellectual meat on the bones of New Labour in Scotland, it was Hassan. Although he has not endorsed any other political party, for such a progressive and enlightened thinker who was so steeped in the Labour Party (he was a member for 24 years) to have rejected such a central plank of their orthodoxy and political platform, is nothing short of a hammer blow, not just to Wendy Alexander's remaining credibility, but more significantly to the credibility of the UK.

If the UK can no longer command the philosophical support of someone like Hassan, it really is endgame for the British state. Putting aside a lifetime of belief to embrace that which you previously opposed and doing so publicly takes a hell of a lot more intellectual and personal courage than most of us realise. So welcome, Gerry, and well done. Great to have you onboard at last :-)

(I typed out his ST article on my flight into Gatwick this morning. As such, any typos in what follows are most likely to be mine...)

Alex Salmond this week made the prediction that Scotland will be independent by 2017 and set out to woo the waverers he needs to achieve this. He has made these sort of predictions before, but this time things are different with the Scottish National Party (SNP) in power in Edinburgh and the Union slowly cracking up.

The argument for independence and the merits of the Union has been going on for centuries, and in contemporary times since the breakthrough of the SNP in the 1960s.

Scotland has changed dramatically and in many ways for the better, while England and the whole notion of the UK has changed for the worse. This is why I have finally come round to the view that independence is good for Scotland, the UK and internationally.

Scotland has gained a degree of self-government. Edinburgh has become a capital city with a purpose. The nation feels a more thriving, confident place. It is less white, and more at ease with diversity and multiculturalism. The arrival of an SNP administration has played a part in this change. It almost feels like a Scottish spring.

Given that many of the arguments for Scotland remaining in the union were based on finances alone, and on Scotland being incapable of governing itself, where do their proponents turn to now?

In reality, whether Scotland becomes independent or not has never been about the money. This has always been a smokescreen. It was always the case that if unionist politicians were to find that Scotland could be viable independently, they are not going to turn around and say they got their figures wrong and change their views.

The same is true of SNP politicians. If the Scottish structural deficit, post-independence, proved to be a chasm, they would not change their positions and settle for the union. It is also not about what happened in the past. The rights and wrongs of the 1707 should have little bearing on whether Scotland should be independent. Instead, we should be looking to the future.

It is striking that those who now make the case for independence are internationalist and outward-looking, whereas unionists tend to cling to British insularism and the politics of fear. It never used to be so. Nationalists used to invoke couthy, romantic notions of Scotland, while unionists felt the UK was the future. Unionists such as Gordon Brown and Douglas Alexander love to wax lyrically about the progressiveness and uniqueness of the United Kingdom. They talk of a land that is a great big melting pot of multiculturalism and international values and a force for good at home and abroad. This is the kind of British chauvinism which the Labour Party has bred since it was born, ignoring the other diverse countries in the world and turning a blind eye to how we look after our own people, let alone the consequences of how we act in the wider world.

One of the worst arguments made by unionists against Scottish Independence is to invoke the age of “globalisation” and “interdependence” and patronise nationalists with being out of time and out of tune with the modern world. This is a marvellously insular British argument that ignores what has happened beyond the shores of the UK.

The past decade and a half has seen an unprecedented springtime for national across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. From the Adriatic to the Baltic and Black Seas, an astonishing 23 new independent nations have come into being. Indeed, only days after the recent Scottish parliamentary elections, the small, former Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, which voted for independence in June 2006, became the 47^th member state of the Council of Europe.

Small countries around the world and particularly in Europe, whether newly independent such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, or nations which became independent earlier in the 20^th century, such as Ireland and Norway, have all managed to be successes, economically, socially and culturally. When unionists talk about these nations – and cite the Irish success story or what has happened in Estonia – they want to talk about every factor (church v state, public investment) bar one; the fact that they are independent.

Independence has had a significant impact in bringing about change in all these countries. It may have taken the Irish several decades to embark on the road to prosperity, but the Baltic nations and many others, starting from a more rocky place than Scotland have succeeded in the transition from being part of a transnational empire to independent states.

The road to independence is as much about culture and psyches as it is about economies. Independence provides the Scots with an opportunity to develop a new national narrative, a story which motivates and inspires us, and includes most elements of Scottish society, with a sense of purpose and mission.

This would be exciting and emboldening for most people in Scotland and not without some risk. However, the opportunities are so much more. Scottish independence would be good for Scotland, good for the United Kingdom, dealing a crucial blow to the deformed nature of Westminster and British politics, and good internationally, weakening the Atlanticist nature of British foreign policy.

I would like to contribute a small part to this.

Sunday Herald and SoS back SNP-led Executive

Are my eyes deceiving me? Apparently not, since with varying degrees of enthusiasm, both titles are backing an SNP-led Executive post May 3 with Alex Salmond as First Minister :-)

Let's not be churlish about deciding at the last minute to back what looks increasingly like a safe bet. Fairness, not favours - that's all the SNP has ever asked for from the Scottish media!

Sunday Herald Editorial

Scotland on Sunday Editorial



UPDATE: The Sunday Times and even the Sunday Express (!) are getting in on the act as well:

SUNDAY TIMES

Time for a change

“The Sunday Times has always been a Unionist paper. It may seem strange therefore that we should now come out for an SNP-led coalition. Yet that is our position . . . The choice now is not between the Union and independence, but between a Labour party that has run out of ideas and the SNP which promises more vigorous and imaginative government. We need a change of government, and only the SNP can provide this. Within the confines of devolution, and in the awareness that there will be another opportunity to vote for the Union, we have concluded that an SNP-led coalition is the best option for voters.”

SUNDAY EXPRESS

It’s Time

"Thursday’s poll is all about change, not independence. In his party’s manifesto, Alex Salmond offers ‘fresh thinking’ and there are few who would disagree that this is exactly what the country needs.”

Independence Dealt A Trump Card

Who’d have thunk it? Donald Trump, New York property developer extraordinaire and star of ‘The Apprentice’, has given his views on Scottish Independence to the Sunday Times. Amidst dire warnings from the Chancellor of ‘instability’ leading to a ‘flight of investors’ if anyone other than Labour ends up running Scotland post-May, the man behind a planned US$500m leisure investment in North-East Scotland has signaled that he would feel equally comfortable doing business in an independent Scotland:

“I think Scotland is an amazing place and the people are incredible’, says Trump. ‘ I think if they set their minds to do something, they can do whatever they want. The biggest people in New York are from Scotland. They are a tremendous success. Scotland will always be a success, whether it is independent or not independent.”

Whoops! There goes another rubber tree plant. However, the politics of fear and uncertainty remain to the fore. Edinburgh’s Ian Rankin, author of the Inspector Rebus novels, has spoken out in recent days against independence, on the grounds that he feels the Scots are ‘too chippy’ as a nation to make a go of it. He’s entitled to his view, but I find his ‘we’re not worthy’ argument a very strange one indeed. (That said, he does offer this today).

Scotland and her people, like any country on the planet, are not without their flaws and foibles. But I wonder what sort of ‘purity test’ of the national character, such as it exists, we would have to pass before Rankin would change his mind on this point. I’m assuming he doesn’t intend to include himself amongst those he deems to be too chippy to make a go of it, but amidst the barrage of statistics and claims driving the debate at present, it does seem a rather eccentric contribution to have made.

It’s almost like the ‘subsidised Scot’ argument. They must exist, because Labour and the unionist-minded press never tire of telling us they do. However, confront those making the argument, even amongst voters, and it is never they who are subsidised personally. Oh, no, it’s someone else who’s on the scrounge. They earn every penny and have worked hard for all they've got.

As they probably have, which makes tracking down the subsidised Scot an elusive business indeed. A prime example of the same argument was used on one of the Scotsman message boards today, where one Jeremiah claimed not to understand how the 2.5m Scots in work could ever be able to support the 2.5m Scots not in work (that’s presumably the young and the pensioners as well as the unemployed).

Well, I’ll stick my neck out here and suggest it would happen in much the same way as the 29m Britons in work manage to support the remaining 30m who are not. I’m willing to bet that said punter has never met this fabled subsidised Scot, any more than he or she has ever met their English or Welsh counterpart, who logically must also exist in similar numbers.

I’ll finish with this observation. I went out on Friday night and was quizzed at length by one of the company (an SNP-sceptic) about the current state of political play and on why I thought Scotland should be independent. In the end it was a case of ‘no sale’, but on the grounds that he just didn’t see what independence would do to change things for the better, rather that it was somehow difficult or unviable. A bit like Ian Rankin, but minus the chippiness argument.

That sort of view I can respect. I hadn’t gone out to the pub with the intention of converting anyone, but if I failed on this occasion, it was down to me and me alone – I’ll just have to do better with my pitch next time I get the chance. What puzzles me is why so many capable Scots, Ian Rankin included, seem to set a bar for Scotland that they would never dream of applying to any other nation on the face of the earth?

Right for Scotland?

The right wing of Scottish politics seems agog at the prospects of the Scottish Tories withdrawing themselves from the UK Conservative party and going it alone. Fraser Nelson, he of the irritable vowel syndrome, appears to be acting as a conduit for the idea through the pages of the Spectator. Perhaps tellingly, no-one in the Scottish Tory hierarchy is running a mile from the notion.

I’ve blogged previously about my feelings on an independent Scottish Tory Party. While any such venture would play an important part in making Scottish independence a success, it’s something which I would have expected to happen after any vote for independence, rather than in advance. Nevertheless, I sense that this is all kite-flying at the moment and nothing more. If it's going to happen at all, it won't be until after May and until after Annabel Goldie has decided to spend more time with her petunias.

However, the perennial question of ‘independence for what?’ remains. The Strathclyde Commission, held after the 1997 wipeout, gave the Scottish Tories a set-up which allowed them considerably more autonomy from London than Labour, but they've conspicuously failed to use any of it. For that reason, even if they did cut adrift from the English Tories, it would still be the same people with the same tired old ideas trying to run the show, insisting that 'virtual' apron strings remain in place.

Although the Tories would still nominally be unionist under any such arrangement, administrative and policy independence would shoot right through that argument – after all, if you need independence from Westminster to run your party properly, why shouldn't Scotland have independence so the country can do the same? Nonetheless, if there’s anything in this story, it looks like the Scottish Tories might finally be being dragged kicking and screaming into the mainstream of modern Scottish political life.

However, you don't change the culture of a party overnight, so they’ll need to do much more than simply copy the Bavarian model to prove their independence from London. Otherwise, people will rightly conclude that the whole thing is just a cosmetic con trick, a bit like when Windscale was repackaged as Sellafield. Another hiding at the polls is just what the Tories need if any mood for change is to be suitably galvanised.

By George!

Sir George Mathewson, former Chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland and the old Scottish Development Agency, has on today's Scotsman letters page come out in favour of independence and an SNP-led government post-May. It's a timely contribution, since Labour, a bit like a child which has learned a new word, has discovered that a lot of Scots work in financial services and now opts to try and tell them at every opportunity that their jobs would somehow be 'at risk'.

Total garbage of course, and Mathewson, who transformed RBS from a struggling local outfit to the 5th largest bank in the world, is clearly having none of it. I can't wait to see how Labour are going to try and spin this one!

'There are several reasons why I shall vote SNP at the forthcoming Scottish election, the foremost of which is that I believe the SNP offers Scotland the best chance of escaping from the dependency culture that is currently all-pervasive at every level in Scottish life.

'I do not share the fear of independence which is currently being fostered by those who have most to lose by a change in the status quo and those who see Scotland as a source of safe seats, thus guaranteeing their rule over the United Kingdom.

'In addition, comments that have been made on access to the English market are patently absurd. Currently, a huge proportion of the English financial services market is supplied by companies in the United States, in Holland, Germany, Ireland, etc.

'Globalisation is here and Scottish companies have embraced it and indeed have benefited from it.

'Finally, our votes will choose the new First Minister of a parliament which has consistently disappointed since its creation, partially due to the lack of high-quality leadership. The outstanding candidate must be the SNP leader, Alex Salmond'.

(SIR) GEORGE MATHEWSON, Ballintrium, Perthshire

UPDATE: We didn’t have long to wait. Blair has resorted to claiming that RBS is somehow not a ‘real business’, and that Mathewson’s contribution is ‘self indulgent and absurd’. What a deluded fool Blair has become.

Forewarned is Forearmed...

Ho-hum. Tomorrow (Monday) will see the discharge of the latest fusillade designed to convince us all that the Scots are too wee, too poor and too stupid to be Independent. Yes folks, its time for the Government Expenditure and Revenues in Scotland (GERS) report once more.

There's a number of problems with this report, not least to do with the fact it's always out of date by the time it is published (this one will be for 2004/05). However, the biggest problem is its tendency to both exaggerate spending and underestimate revenues raised in Scotland.

Nowhere is this more blatant than over North Sea oil and gas. Even though 95% of these revenues would accrue to Scotland, GERS leaves them out entirely. In calculating a Scottish budget 'deficit' (the figure we are invited to believe is the amount of subsidy coming north), it also overlooks the fact that the UK as a whole is running an even larger (and real) deficit. This alone would render impossible any kind of domestic UK subsidy to Scotland.

One of the other arguments heard most often from unionists is that since Scotland gets more in 'identifiable' spending than the UK average of £7,000 per. head, we are therefore being subsidised by English taxpayers. This is twaddle, so please bear with me while I explain why:

1. The figure has nothing to do with whether Scotland is 'subsidised' or not, since it only deals with spending levels, not the amount of tax revenues raised in Scotland to cover it.

2. It excludes £74bn of 'unidentified' expenditure, most of which actually gets spent in London and the South East rather than Scotland.

3. The differences in English regional identifiable spending per. head are actually pretty big as well:

NORTHERN IRELAND - £9,084.
SCOTLAND - £8,265.
LONDON - £8,037.
WALES - £7,666.
North East - £7,689.
North West - £7,368.
Yorks & Humber - £6,829.
East Midlands - £6,248.
West Midlands - £6,676.
Eastern - £5,864.
South East - £5,959.
South West - £6,634.

With 1/12 of the UK population spread over 1/3 of the landmass, it should not come as a surprise that Scottish ‘identifiable’ spending is above the UK average. However, since London gets £1,000 more per. head than the UK average and the East Midlands £750 less, does this mean that the East Midlands is subsidising London?

Of course it doesn't, and for exactly the same reason that the figures tell us nothing at all about Scotland. But you don’t need to take my word for it. Here, in quotes, is what some prominent Scots have had to say about GERS since Ian Lang brought it into existence during his unlamented Viceroyship:

GERS – In Quotes:

‘I am disappointed that both you and the Chancellor have reservations about publishing the booklet I have had prepared and printed setting out the details of the government’s expenditure and revenue in Scotland. I judge that it is just what is needed at present in our campaign to maintain the initiative and undermine the other parties. This initiative could score against all of them'. Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Lang, in a letter to the Prime Minister dated March 3, 1992.

‘Caution should be applied in the interpretation of the fiscal deficit. This is the difference between two large numbers, both of which are estimates and subject to large margins of error’. Dr John Rigg, Scottish Office Senior Economist, Autumn 1996.

‘The SNP claims the Scottish Office figures are distorted. The party has a point.’ The Economist, 26th October 1996.

‘Nationalists have a point when they allege the whole GERS exercise was designed to engender fear’. Alf Young, The Herald, 21/1/03.

‘Nationalist or Unionist, whether you trust GERS or not analysis to date reveals a budgetary balance that is not wildly out of line with contemporary experience in other economies in Europe’. Alf Young, The Herald, 21/1/03.

‘It tells us nothing, I would argue about the situation under independence’. Dr Andrew Goudie, Chief Economist, Scottish Executive, The Times, 21/1/03.

Away and Foulkes Yourselves

Well, that was the Labour conference in Oban. Anyone tuning in to hear what the party had to say about health, education, the economy – the ‘real issues’ which Labour always used to tell us were the ones which mattered – would have been sorely disappointed. Instead, rocked by a series of opinion polls which show the SNP in contention for next May and support for Independence at high levels, Labour’s leading lights treated us to a series of vitriolic set-piece attacks about borders, barriers and bogeymen everywhere.

What a contrast with the SNP conference, where there was a palpable sense of a party putting policies in place for government. Maybe that’s why the SNP had over 1,200 in the Perth Concert Hall to hear Alex Salmond set out his stall, while Labour had to bus in schoolchildren and tame trade unionists to make the 500 seat Corran Halls look full for the TV cameras.

First up was the egregious George Foulkes, who always reminds me of ‘Squealer’ from Animal Farm – the pig sent out by the other pigs to explain away why they are becoming ever more like the humans they replaced, and to question the loyalty of anyone who harbours the slightest doubts as to their good intentions. And when that order comes in, whether from Tony Blair now or Vladimir Romanov as in the past, wee George always springs fearlessly into action.

Leaping excitedly from trotter to trotter, no contention is too ludicrous, no argument is too facile for him to try and advance. However, even as his bluster reaches levels liable to endanger shipping round our coasts, I find it hard to dislike him. An object of ridicule he may be, but he’s a completely laughable and peripheral individual, worthy more of our pity than our dislike.

One person I have no such difficulty with is Douglas Alexander, a man of such ability and charm that he is still to date the only person ever to drive me into any kind of agreement with Dr David Starkey. Similarly with John Reid, a swaggering little thug who clearly has the intelligence to engage with the Independence argument, but conspicuously chooses not to do so.

In claiming that the SNP is not ‘fit for purpose’, Reid makes the spectacularly trite point that international terrorism, organised crime, mass migration and the environment do not stop at the border. Of course they don’t, but then neither do the consequences of his government’s misguided policies on these challenges. The actions of this government in Iraq have unquestionably made the world a more dangerous place. However, to use that new danger as justification to continue the union is like the defence used by the little boy on trial for the murder of his parents, when he begs the court for clemency on the grounds that he is an orphan.

But despite that strong late contender, the prize for the most nauseating piece of self-serving hypocrisy must go to Tony Blair himself. Blair flew in to Oban from Belfast, having spent the morning urging accommodation with those who had waged an armed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland. After basking in delegates' appreciation for only the briefest of moments and with barely a pause for breath, he then spent the rest of his speech lambasting the entirely peaceful and democratic nationalist movement in Scotland.

Does he think no-one will notice the contradiction? As a politician who has placed himself in the vanguard of the global ‘war on terror’, just what sort of message does he imagine he is sending round the world with this latest intellectual contortion? I know it’s all about securing the ‘legacy’, but does he not feel even slightly ridiculous breaking off from a group hug with Sinn Fein and the DUP to try and knife the SNP’s peaceful, inclusive and moderate ambitions?

Anyone looking to Gordon Brown for a positive endorsement of Britain would have been left waiting in vain also. Independence was a 19^th century concept and interdependence was where it was at, he told us. Families would be ripped asunder and our global universities and businesses would wither on the vine without benign government from London. Globalisation would be something for an independent Scotland to fear, we were told. Something only to be embraced from behind the walls of fortress Britain.

Maintenance of power for power’s sake is the unspoken mantra. The question is, are we prepared to allow Labour to subject us to another 4 years of drift and complacency off the back of their tribal dislike of innovation, or do we give the SNP a chance and consider Independence in a mature and thoughtful manner in a democratic referendum?

By opting for Independence, maybe we can find better ways of representing the things that do genuinely unite people on these islands. I’ll bet that in the battle of values we are being promised, the dignity of self-government and nation-building offered by the SNP will prove a damn site more enduring than the self-interest and infinite self-absorbsion offered by Labour's 'Scotia Nostra'.

Gordon Brown - the enemy of free speech?

Some interesting stuff in the papers this morning. allmediascotland has an opinion piece from former political editor of The Herald, Murray Ritchie, on the current state of the Scottish press. In a wide-ranging sweep of the current travails of the market, Ritchie retells the story of how Gordon Brown and his representatives on earth withheld advertising revenue from the Herald in 1999, for their temerity in trying to be even handed when covering Labour and the SNP.

But that's all in the past, isn't it? Well, it seems that these gangsterish habits die hard. Scotland on Sunday carries a piece on how Cardinal Keith O'Brien has provoked Brown's wrath for his comment last month that, if it was the wish of the people, he would be "happy" to see Scotland become independent. According to 'Labour sources', the talks were designed to 'pressurise' the Cardinal over his comments on independence. "There was a question of whether he [O'Brien] had really thought it through," the insider said. The suggestion that the talks were 'more offensive than charm' also appears...

It's desperate stuff from desperate people, who are finding that there's nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come. Meanwhile, over at the Sunday Times, Ben Thomson from Noble Group, rubbishes the idea that either greater fiscal powers or Independence would not be good for Scotland. Oh dear. Can he expect to find a horse's head in his bed now as well?