Adam Tomkins School of Impartiality

Adam Tomkins, Professor of Public Law at the University of Glasgow, is a semi-regular pundit in the Scottish media. A unionist to the bone, he is never the less portrayed as an impartial expert when invited onto current affairs programmes or when writing in the press, and was especially visible recently when the Scottish Government published its proposed timeline for Scotland becoming independent after a Yes vote in 2014. This Scotsman article is a perfect example, and with Tomkins presented as an impartial third party who is commenting on the proposals as an academic expert rather than a "unionist stooge", it gave the No campaign plenty of material for discrediting the Scottish Government's document, littered as it is with words such as "disingenuous", "ruinous" and "irresponsible", and all coming from someone who, very handily, has a Professor at the start of his name so that the public know that he must know what he's talking about (even though he blithely repeats the "14,000 treaties" claim that is so preposterous that even the UK government ended up having to admit it was rubbish.

Anyway, in case there was anyone out there still convinced that Tomkins has any semblance of impartiality in the debate, he's very helpfully started his own blog, complete with the following explanation in the "About this blog" section:

I am a Unionist. I am opposed to Scottish independence. I am British (not English; not Scottish) and I do not want my country broken up.

So, I think we can all agree that's pretty categorical. Anyway, someone linked to this post on Twitter, and obviously I felt the need to reply, because it's just complete and utter unsubstantiated guff. The idea that this man is a suitable commentator when the media is looking for an impartial academic expert on anything related to independence is, as they would say in Germany, ficken lächerlich. Which, naturally, means we'll see more of him, not less of him. Anyway, at the time of posting, Tomkins has yet to see fit to publish any of the comments on his article, and I know for a fact I'm not the only one waiting because the URL on the postback said my comment was number 2 (not a number 2). So, for posterity's sake if nothing else, and in case he never publishes it, here it is.

Well, thanks for showing that seasoned academics are just as capable of spinning rubbish as the rest of us. It's a bit disappointing, mind, because we always like to think that when we see someone with "professor" or "doctor" in their title that they'll be giving us the results of proper analytical research, rather than spin that could have come from a bog-standard politician's SpAd.

"And, now, note this. The SNP opposed both the moves to create devolution in 1997-98 and the moves to enhance it in 2009-12."

This is simply a lie, Adam. The SNP were a key component of the YES-YES campaign in 1998. Indeed, there are stories of areas where SNP volunteers did all the legwork because there simply weren't enough Labour campaigners to do it. On the other hand, the Tories formed the official No campaign (as is their habit in referendum campaigns...). And while Labour may have given a united front in 1998, they had more than their fair share of naysayers, not least Tam Dayell. It's also difficult to imagine Alistair Darling - who campaigned against devolution in 1979 - being the most vocal supporter in 1998...

As for 2009-2012, the SNP took no part in the Calman Commission because it was expressly designed to find a way of keeping Scotland in the union, which is against SNP ideology. It was part of its mission statement, for god's sake - "...and continue to secure the position of Scotland within the United Kingdom." Criticising the SNP for not taking part in that would be like criticising the Greens for not taking part in a commission whose mission statement specifies "...and to enable continued use of fossil fuels for as long as possible."

And yet, what happened when the actual act was being put through? The SNP government tried to get MORE powers added to it - suggesting after their emphatic win in 2011 that there were areas of crossover between parties in Holyrood for devolving things like broadcasting and the Crown Estates - and, in the end, passing a Sewel motion to allow the UK government to enable the legislation. Pretty strange behaviour from a party that apparently "opposed" the legislation. 

If we can't trust academics to tell the truth, then who can we trust?

The voting behaviour surrounding UN resolution 67/19

(or "why do the Pacific Islands hate Palestine?")

I've recently become obsessed with doing the geography quizzes on Sporcle, partly because all the talk of how many independent countries there are in the world etc piques my interest in world geography, but mainly because I like being able to give pointless answers when geography questions come up on Pointless. So naturally, I was intrigued to see how the world voted in the recent UN vote to give Palestine official non-member observer state status, particularly when I noticed a couple of trends. Let's go through the continents one-by-one and look at how it went. I should point out here that my definition of which continent a country is part of is generally based on the Council of Europe, so that means Russia, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are included as part of Europe, even though they span both Europe and Asia.

Europe

Europe was pretty evenly split between voting in favour of the motion and abstaining, with the Czech Republic out on its own as the sole "no" voter. The main trends here are that the Nordic countries all voted in favour (no surprise there), as did all the Eurasian countries mentioned above. There's a bit of an east-west split in the mainland of Europe, with the west generally voting in favour and the east generally abstaining, although that depends on your definition of "east". Germany and the Netherlands' abstentions made me think there might be some politics around the US's foreign-based nukes, but the fact Belgium, Italy and Turkey all voted in favour blows that idea out of the water. You could certainly draw a line between the Dutch-Belgian border, taking Germany into the "east", snaking round Austria to the west and stopping at the coast where Italy meets Slovenia, and you'll see a pretty clear split, with just the playboy states of Andorra, Monaco and San Marino being anomalies. In fact, I've made a crude drawing to show that the cowards of Europe* form a pretty nicely self-contained landmass.

(As you can see, I've excluded Scotland, since our government has made it clear it would have supported Palestine's bid if we had a vote, but the Northern Irish and Welsh governments have not, as far as I can tell, made any such proclamations. And Ukraine only escape by dint of not being present at the vote.)

Oh, and it's worth noting that Serbia was alone amongst the former Yugoslav states in voting for it (Kosovo not having a UN vote, of course), which presumably is some sort of overhang from the various troubles there in the 1990s.

*This is not entirely serious - I've always been a fan of Germany and eastern Europe. But they DO all have splinters up their bums...

Asia

As you might expect (certainly in the middle east), Asia was almost unanimous in backing Palestine, with Israel being the rather unsurprising sole voter against, and just Mongolia, South Korea and Singapore abstaining. There doesn't seem to be any instantly obvious reason for this, until you do a bit of digging and find that Mongolia and Israel have forged close links in education and agriculture, and Singapore has a history of close links with Israel. As for South Korea, perhaps it's as simple as trying to keep the USA onside in terms of the North-South Korea situation (although I expect that's not exactly difficult...)

Africa

Africa is one of just two continents (the other being South America) where nobody voted against Palestine. On top of that, just five African nations abstained, those being Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo (as opposed to plain old Republic of the Congo), Malawi, Rwanda and Togo. I always imagine that places which have a recent history of colonisation are likely to favour other nations declaring independence or making bids for statehood, and this perhaps backs that idea. On the other hand, perhaps it's simply because many African nations don't recognise Israel as a state, and obviously it's not exactly rocket science why the Islamic African nations support Palestine.

North America

Right, here's where you can start having great fun trying to work out the motives behind the votes, generally through decades of aggressive US foreign policy pissing loads of countries off. The vast majority of central America - most of whom have been subject to interference from the USA at some point over the past 60 years - voted in favour of Palestine (and perhaps countries in Europe should start looking at just how many friends the US has thanks to its many "interventions" throughout the 20th century). Guatemala and Haiti abstained, although Guatemala historically has strong ties with Israel anyway, and Haiti received significant aid from Israel in the aftermath of their earthquake, so it should perhaps come as no surprise that both countries would be sympathetic to Israel's position. I can't really think of any reason why the Bahamas and Barbados were the only Caribbean countries to abstain - maybe relations with the US are particularly strong in those two former British colonies? - but it's certainly no surprise that Panama voted with the USA considering the history between the two countries since the US invasion in 1989. Perhaps if Panama was governed by the leftist PRD, things would have been different.

Heading further north, the USA was obviously never going to vote any other way than against Palestine, and it's hardly a surprise that Mexico voted the same way as the majority of the central nations. But I think the big shock for a lot of people was Canada, since people assumed Canada was a fair country, almost a sort of North American equivalent of Scandinavia, and it seems a bit odd seeing them voting with the USA on this. Still, they have their reasons, whatever you think of them.

South America

So as previously mentioned, no South American country voted against the resolution, and with Latin America  having generally turned its back on the Washington Consensus and embraced leftist politics, it's hardly a massive surprise they generally voted the opposite way from the USA. Not everyone, though - Colombia and Paraguay both abstained, which is less of a surprise in Colombia than Paraguay perhaps, since Colombia is one of the few Latin America countries that hasn't turned to the left (although that didn't stop Chile supporting Palestine). Mind you, Paraguay has fallen out of favour with the rest of Latin America since the coup d'etat removing Lugo as president, so perhaps this is just a result of that. (Paraguay also happens to be the only South American country to recognise the Republic of China, so it's not the first time Paraguay has not gone along with the Latin American consensus.)

Oceania

Okay, this is what really intrigued me about the vote. Oceania is by far the most opposed to Palestine of all the continents, with just three of the fourteen nations voting in favour, and four voting against (six abstained, while Kiribati was absent). New Zealand, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu all voted in favour, but the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau all voted against. This seemed pretty random at first, but it turns out that the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau are all Associated States of the USA, meaning the USA provides defence, funding grants and access to US social services under the terms of the Compact of Free Association agreement. Suddenly, all becomes clear. Meanwhile, although not part of COFA, Nauru is seen as one of the few bankable votes Israel has at the UN.

Two of those who voted in favour have recently forged ties with Iran, with Tuvalu getting involved in Iranian oil imports, and Iran granting $200,000 worth of scholarships for the Solomon Islands; meanwhile, New Zealand seems to be one of those rare countries that actually practices what it preaches in terms of seeking a two-state solution - something countries like Germany and the UK could learn from. As for the abstainers, it's no real surprise that Australia abstained, since it has strong relations with the USA. (In fact, Julia Gillard wanted to vote no, as she has long been a supporter of Israel, but was met from resistance from backbenchers.) I have no idea why countries like Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Vanuatu abstained - perhaps torn between not wanting to look like dicks and not wanting to fall out with neighbouring countries. Either way, it's fence-sitting.

(Having said all that, perhaps it's merely as simple as the fact that the 50th state of the USA is, in fact, in Polynesia... And the US territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are in that area too...)

Persona Non Grata - the latest unionist tactic

I am excellent at arguing with people. I'm a very argumentative person, particularly online, having wasted large swathes of my late teens and early twenties on music forums, where emotions tend to run high as people bicker about their favourite bands and why your favourite band is awful. This was especially true of the official Manic Street Preachers forum - of which I was once a moderator (a power I gleefully abused by correcting people's posts if they couldn't spell properly) - which ended up getting shut down because of the "robust" nature of debate on the forums (I didn't say we were good moderators...) It's for this reason that I've always found the "Cybernats" business rather ridiculous, because it simply betrays a total ignorance towards the psychology of debates conducted over distances, particularly when people are protected by the cloak of anonymity. Let's be perfectly honest, internet discussion forums and social media are exactly what you would get if radio phone-in shows didn't have producers to filter out the more nutty callers. As a result, I find the hysteria over rammies about independence rather silly.

However, something altogether more sinister seems to be emerging from the unionist side of the debate, something way beyond silly name-calling and the everyday ad hominem attacks that have thus far characterised the anti-independence argument. This is touched upon today by Ewan Crawford in the Scotsman, in an article discussing the negative nature of the NO campaign. He mentions that non-politicians have been criticised for just doing their jobs in a way which unionists have decided is helping the independence case. But it's not just Peter Housden and Martin Sime who have been attacked recently. Remember Willie Rennie attacking the decision to have Martin Compston as the "posterboy" for the Glasgow 2014 games, for having the temerity to (Shock! Horror!) support independence? The first comment on this Scotsman article today about Brian Cox being announced as an ambassador for the Edinburgh Lyceum Theatre follows this theme.

What about the appointments to the Scottish Police Association board last month, where Jeane Freeman (a former Labour spin doctor, no less) was one of four pro-independence people to make up the twelve-person board? Never mind that four out of twelve is only 33% - the same percentage the media keep insisting support independence. Never mind that there were former and current councillors from the unionist parties included as well. No, it's just the pro-indy folk who shouldn't have been appointed. Support for independence automatically makes you unfit to do a job apparently, regardless of your other credentials (and all three people here have great credentials for the jobs they have been given).

What we are seeing here is a concerted attempt to classify anyone who airs public support for independence as persona non grata. Want a job in a public role? Well, you'd better not even think about supporting independence. Supporting the union is perfectly acceptable, however. That's the right view (in both senses of the word).

The reasons for doing this are obvious, but I like typing so I'll state them anyway. A country having the independence to make its own decisions is just about the most uncontroversial idea you can imagine in politics. Seriously, it is. However, those who oppose it rely on it being painted as an outrageous notion, one adopted only by crazy people you would cross the street to avoid. That's fairly obvious, and it's why unionists are so keen to categorise nationalists as weirdos who have watched Braveheart too many times. In order to keep things this way, however, it relies on the public only seeing independence supported publicly by people they are conditioned to "expect" to support it. So we see the lazy references to the SNP when talking about the Yes campaign, with the underlying message being "well, they WOULD say that, wouldn't they?" We see the references to Alex Salmond and "his" plan to cruelly separate us from the warm embrace of Mother England, while conveniently ignoring people like Patrick Harvie.

Never mind refusing to refer to independence by anything other than "separation", the unionist argument relies on a slavish adherence to the strategy of personalising independence as some sort of SNP vanity project (an obedience the SNP could only dream of, despite its much-discussed, often-derided and somewhat-exaggerated party discipline). Every time a non-SNP person speaks favourably (or even just not unfavourably) about independence, this brings it closer to being normalised. The more normalised it becomes, the less scary it becomes, and the more likely people are to give it a fair hearing and end up voting for it. Once this happens, unionists will have to start arguing the case for the union on equal footing with independence, a feat which is, quite frankly, impossible to perform.

This is why people like Willie Rennie and John Lamont feel so threatened by people like Martin Compston and Jeane Freeman being given important roles. It's not that they seriously think for a second that these people are going to abuse their positions by using them as platforms to extol the virtues of independence. It's simply because having these credible people (who just happen to want Scotland to be independent) in public roles detracts from the message that all independence supporters are swivel-eyed, beardy-weirdy "FREEEDUMMMMM!!!!" shouters. The unionist answer to this dilemma? Cry foul and hope people stop publicly airing support for independence, in fear of being persecuted for it.

It's all very much in keeping with the sort of low politics utilised by snide, immoral politicians like Jim Murphy - but it's far more sinister than the usual playing of the man, not the ball.

(PS - fancy listening to my dulcet tones? Here's me in the latest of Michael Greenwell's Scottish Independence Podcasts.)

Feder ye spikkin' aboot?

Feder... Fit are... Geddit?

Yeah, anyway, this isn't about Roger Federer (in case you got confused), it's about the Lib Dems and their sudden re-embracing of federalism, after years of claiming to be a federalist party, in much the same way students claim to be communists without having actually read the Communist Manifesto. There's nothing wrong with the Lib Dems taking this opportunity to capitalise on public interest on constitutional change to say "hey, what about this thing we've always said we should do?" However, their plan is half-baked, and we all know it simply won't happen anyway.

In short, the Lib Dems think the Scottish public's apparent appetite for "devo max" could translate into backing for turning the UK into a federal state. It's a nice idea, not least because it would attempt to provide a (theoretically) much more permanent solution to Scotland's constitutional problems than airy-fairy promises of unspecified "more powers", but there are a multitude of problems in getting it put into practice, and indeed, how it would actually work thereafter.

For a start, the federal UK the Lib Dems appear to be promoting here is one of four federal states. That won't work. It was suggested to me on Twitter last night by a Canadian (brought up in Greece and now living in Scotland) that Canada shows federalism does not require states/provinces/whatever to be of uniform size. Leaving aside the issue of using a country with one of the most prominent independence movements as proof that "size doesn't matter", even the biggest of Canada's provinces does not contain 83.8% of the population. The reason we got devolution in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales in the first place was because England dominates the rest of us. There are no agendas or anti-Scottish/Irish/Welsh conspiracies behind this, it's simply the result of the massive structural imbalance of the UK.

As Iain MacWhirter points out in his column today, the idea of regional assemblies has been floated in England before, and it was a complete flop. The near-unanimous rejection of elected mayors this year also suggests there is little appetite for constitutional reforms in England, even fairly minor ones. So either 83.8% of the population would have to be satisfied with having the exact same say on matters as the 3% who live in Northern Ireland, or England would have to have more representation in a federal parliament than the other three states - which just leaves us back at square one.

The problem with federalism is it is a UK-wide solution to a Scottish problem. The whole reason there is no real appetite for constitutional reform in England is, I would suggest, because the current situation works fine as it is for them. England is not the country which lives off of a "pocket money" block grant, and the spending in England determines what is spent in the other countries of the UK, rather than the other way around. Those who do have grievances with the current situation tend to air them by calling Scots "subsidy junkies", rather than looking inwardly. If it's wrong for 83.8% of the population to force their wishes on 8.4% of the population, it's ten times as wrong for Scotland to tell England how it should be run. This is why Devo Whatever could never have appeared on the referendum paper as a third option, because anything short of independence simply cannot be delivered unilaterally for Scotland without the say so of the rest of the UK.

Now, unionists will say that whatever vision of minor constitutional change they envisage for Scotland doesn't need to be put to a referendum, because it will be voted on in the same way as any other policy, i.e. through party manifestos. This is a nice idea in theory, but in practice we found out a couple of years ago how strongly the Lib Dems stick to their principles when it comes to getting into power - so unless the Lib Dems plan on making the biggest comeback in the history of UK politics, they're not going to be able to push through federalism unless one of the other two UK parties back it as well - which is doubtful at best. Quite simply, the Lib Dems can pretty much promise whatever they like, because no one will take any Lib Dem pledges seriously for a generation.

Ironically, the best - and perhaps only - way for the Lib Dems to get federalism would have been in working with the SNP to get a multi-option referendum. Imagine a two-question referendum:

1. Do you think the UK should become a federal state, thus providing Scotland with more autonomy?
2. In the event of the rest of the UK rejecting federalism, do you think Scotland should become independent instead?

That way, if Scotland truly DID want federalism, we would vote for it, and then the issue of federalism would have to be treated seriously by the rest of the UK. If they don't want it, then fine, we go off on our own and everyone is happy. The alternative is to languish in the status quo, but as the Lib Dems themselves admit that the current situation is unsustainable, then they're implicitly admitting that this is not an option.

But that's not going to happen, so federalism is, in effect, completely undeliverable. But even if it was, why should we even believe it's the answer to Scotland's constitutional issues?

I've already mentioned Canada, which is a federal state with a prominent independence movement for one of the provinces. But other examples among the 29 federal (or de facto federal) countries in the world include Spain and Belgium, the countries containing the two most prominent independence movements in Europe outside of Scotland. You see, federalism is being offered here as a panacea to the independence question - "Don't vote for independence - federalism will give you the best of both worlds!" But if this were true, then why is there still such strong support for independence in Catalonia and Flanders?

The reality is, even if the UK DID go down the route of federalism, and even if England DID get split into ten federal states, there would still be at least 30% of Scotland seeking independence. We'd muddle along for a while, but eventually the same questions would start to get asked - why should Scotland harbour WMDs? Why should we fight in illegal wars? - and there would be no compromise solution left for unionists. Anyone who wasn't happy with Scotland's lot would just have to back independence, and indeed, it needs to be recognised that many of the strongest arguments for voting YES in 2014 are actually issues that cannot be resolved by anything short of independence - the EU, Trident, Iraq, the need for a different Scottish immigration policy.

So, thanks for trying, Ming. But it's not going to happen. There's only one solution for Scotland, and we'll get it by voting YES in 2014.

#MehToNato

Now, I'm sure we all know that during its conference this week, the SNP will debate a possible change to its defence policy, in a proposal which has been put forward and seconded by the two Angii, Robertson and MacNeil. Amongst some pretty sensible detailing of future defence policy for Scotland (which is broadly along the same lines as those outlined in a recent document by the RUSI defence think tank), there is the big talking point of the potential change to the SNP's 30 year stance on NATO membership.

Now, debate has raged on Twitter between fellow nationalists - some think this is a sensible update to the policy, while others think it is a betrayal of SNP values, or simply just don't see any need to change the existing policy. People on both sides feel very strongly about it and there has been a lot of arguing between #YesToNato and #NoToNato. But I think I speak for quite a lot of people when I say that the whole argument can be summed up for me as #MehToNato.

The important thing to remember is that the motion does not call for the SNP to simply sign Scotland up to NATO without consideration. The crucial part of the policy update is thus:

"On independence Scotland will inherit its treaty obligations with NATO. An SNP Government will maintain NATO membership subject to an agreement that Scotland will not host nuclear weapons and NATO continues to respect the right of members to only take part in UN sanctioned operations. In the absence of such an agreement, Scotland will work with NATO as a member of the Partnership for Peace programme like Sweden, Finland, Austria and Ireland."

So, retain membership on OUR grounds. If keeping Scotland nuke-free and being able to opt-out of non-sanctioned wars is not acceptable to NATO, then we carry on as planned in Partnership for Peace. On the face of it, that seems eminently fair, pragmatic and sensible. However, as others have suggested, this could simply be the thin end of the wedge. A more simple argument against the policy change is that NATO is a nuclear alliance, and it is therefore inconsistent with Scotland's anti-nuclear sentiment to be a member.

I have sympathy with both sides of the debate. On the one hand, I can understand the need to present as few obstacles as possible to people for voting for independence, and the feeling is that a refusal to join NATO equates to defence being a weakness in the independence case. Also, the motion is not simply saying we should sign up to NATO - it's saying we should do so only on the conditions that we remain nuke-free and don't get involved in illegal wars. The motion seems like a "best of both worlds" proposal.

On the other hand, NATO feels like an anachronism, an antique concept from the days when the threat of nuclear war breaking out between the US and the USSR seemed palpable, and so countries felt the need to take sides - those on the west joined the US in NATO, and those in the east joined the USSR under the Warsaw Pact. But those days are gone, so do we really want to continue with a military alliance that feels inherently anti-Russian? More importantly, what exactly does NATO membership provide that PfP membership does not? PfP would seem to be what you join if you want to co-operate with NATO member states without being compelled to do so and not having to agree to nukes. It feels like we want to join NATO on the same terms as PfP - in which case, why not just join PfP anyway?

I do feel that there is a slight contradiction in taking some sort of moral stance against NATO on the basis of it being a nuclear alliance... Yet being happy to sign up to PfP, which is a NATO initiative. If NATO is so inherently wrong, why co-operate with it at all? But then if the only reason to join NATO instead of PfP is because the media etc tell us the public think it is a weak spot for independence, should we not be concentrating on winning that argument and showing how it can be an example of how Scotland can do things differently - the whole point of becoming independent - rather than just submitting to it?

So I don't think either side builds a particularly compelling case, certainly not to the extent that I am inclined to throw my backing behind either side with great gusto. On top of that, I'm simply not convinced the public gives enough of a toss to warrant making a change, never mind having a big fight about it. As a result, I am #MehToNato - I lean towards not joining, but I can't say I'm particularly bothered if we do.

Perhaps the most condemning thing I can say about the whole affair is that those who are making the "positive case for NATO", so to speak, have thus far done about as good a job of explaining why we should stay in NATO as unionists have in making the "positive case" for remaining in the union. I've seen plenty of scare stories about "security" and such like and public opinion apparently being against leaving NATO - but I've seen no evidence that we're "Better Together" in NATO than we would be as members of PfP, and no explanation of what NATO membership provides that PfP membership doesn't.

If only Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Finland had a uniform stance on the issue...

(Incidentally, why isn't the hashtag #NaeToNato rather than #NoToNato? Read it aloud and see what I mean...)

Sound the last post

I'm really quite appalled at David Cameron's motives for spending £50 million on commemorations of the Great War. Some of the plans themselves are sound - I would never criticise plans to spend money on museums, for instance - but the language he uses to justify the plans utterly disgusts me. My grandad on my dad's side (who we called Granda Blackpots, since he lived on a farm called Little Blackpots. My other grandad was Granda Crown Street since he owned a guest house on Crown Street - most people call their grandparents by which side of the family they were on, but we've always been a weird family. Incidentally, my mum's granny was called Two Nanas...) served in the Great War, which is probably something most of us can say. He was a stretcher bearer in the Gordon Highlanders and won a medal for gallantry, thanks to his efforts in crossing the battlefields to save the lives of his fellow soldiers - an act of bravery that a selfish, over-privileged rich prick like Cameron could only ever dream of doing. 584,098 Scots served during the war, and it is reckoned about a quarter of them died. Regardless of whether or not they should even have been there in the first place, the fact is it would have been more if it had not been for the efforts of soldiers like my grandad.

So excuse me if I appear to be a bit over-dramatic in using words like "appalled" and "disgust". Apart from the fact that we commemorate the END of mass human slaughter, not the beginning, I was under the impression that we already commemorated the fallen soldiers of the Great War every year, at the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month. I thought the reason for wearing a poppy was to remind us of the men who lost their lives in the Flanders fields, and to remind us never to repeat the same mistakes (some hope that is...) Above all, when we commemorate these soldiers, we are thinking of men who lost their lives because of stupid arguments over territory.

This has nothing to do with David Cameron's much-vaunted "national spirit". Cameron says it "captures our national spirit in every corner of the country, something that says something about who we are as a people". No, it fucking doesn't. If it tells us anything, it tells us we've learned nothing, because we still elect warmongering bastards, like Thatcher and Blair (and don't be fooled - Cameron's zealous continuation of Thatcherism means he is not beyond extending his war on the working classes here to those of a foreign country, like that evil bitch did with the Falklands). It tells us that the elites who run our countries still have no appreciation of what they're doing when they send people out to die, because they keep doing it and continue to worship militarism.

And people still vote for them.

My grandad didn't risk his life saving others so some Tory halfwit could use the tragedy as a propaganda tool to try and prop up a crumbling British state 100 years later. He and half a million other Scottish soldiers got caught up in an imperial war that begun because of Serbs trying to remove themselves from the Austro-Hungarian empire through violent means, and now Cameron wants to use their struggle as a way of suppressing Scottish desire to remove itself from the UK through peaceful means, as well as trying to make people ignore the damage he is doing to the UK as a whole. Anyone who refutes this need only look at the language used by British Future, the Tory think tank which addressed the Tory conference this week to promote this idea:

"This Jubilee and Olympic year has shown how much people value moments that bring us together. As we again wear poppies next month to remember the sacrifice of all of those who have served this country, it is also a moment to consider how we could choose to mark the centenary of the Great War in two years time."

Sorry, but what exactly is it about the clear undertones of trying to recreate the flag-waving of this summer just past that those who defend this idea are having problems understanding? What is it about the clear desire to install a false sense of national pride of Britain, to have people tweeting vacant messages about how great it is to see the country draped in Union flags with "#proudtobebritish" at the end, and going "ha ha ha check the fat Nazi prick Salmond, he must be hating this" that people don't get? Why do people allow themselves to be brainwashed into pretending everything can be solved with a few flags, ignoring the lack of jobs, the cuts in welfare and the dearth of opportunity that a Tory government brings?

The Great War had nothing to do with the "Blitz spirit" that people talk about from World War II to convince us that the thing that makes Britain great is that we "pull together in times of adversity". But it had everything to do with the failures of the Age of Empire and the stupid desire of powerful elites to keep hold of territory, regardless of the death that it entails. Commemorations should be about the people who died from all nations, not the foolish causes their national leaders sent them to die for. The Great War was not some British triumph - it was a global fucking tragedy where everybody lost, and fuck David Cameron for trying to use it for political gain.

I shall leave you with my favourite line from the best song my ex band, Stroszek, ever wrote (Sound The Last Post, from the clip above). It's something leaders could do with bearing in mind before sending people out to territorial wars.

"Falling for this soil" is not the question
But whether for this dirt you could ever kill someone

Media's universally rank analysis of university rankings

Labour have been telling us that Scotland can't afford to continue not charging students to study at university. Well, I say "telling", but the reality is they've been suggesting it and then backing off, going "oh we didn't actually say that, we just want to start a debate". Anyway, like the obedient little lapdogs they are, the Scottish media has acknowledged the hat tip from Labour and, as usual, gone out to try to find stories that back Labour's (implied) position up. So we see stories like this, telling us that the recently-released Times Higher Education World University Rankings show that Scottish universities (apart from Edinburgh) have slipped down the rankings, with Aberdeen, Glasgow and St Andrews all slipping down the Top 200, and Dundee slipping out of the Top 200 altogether. We are also told that this is because Scotland doesn't charge students tuition fees, and to stop this rot, we need to re-introduce them.

Well it's bullshit, absolute fucking bullshit.

Here's a link to the Times Higher Education website, showing analysis of how countries have fared in terms of total rises and falls in the table. If the implications of the right-wing media (which the BBC is apparently part of) are to be believed, then basic logic tells us that we'll see countries which don't charge fees going DOWN, and countries who do charge fees going UP. Needless to say, the reality doesn't pan out that way.

Now, I don't have a complete list of which countries in this table do and don't charge tuition fees, but I DO know that Switzerland, Japan, the US, Canada, France and England ALL charge university fees, whereas neither Sweden nor Denmark charge fees. So even a quick cursory glance reveals that you simply cannot say that a country's performance in this table is directly correlated to whether or not they charge tuition fees (especially since there is an even spread of free and fee-charging countries on both sides - Ireland don't charge either, whereas Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands do).

One trend that we DO see, however, is a shift from the old powers (US, UK, France) to the emerging economies from the Far-East - China, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong. You also see Australia, which this year was dubbed the "wealthiest nation in the world" and predicted to be the best performing highly developed economy over the next three years. You see The Netherlands and Germany, who have weathered the financial crisis better than most nations in Europe. Most of all, you see that THERE IS NO SINGLE OBVIOUS TREND.

Damn the media to hell for attempting to mislead the public in the way they have - because to not even point out that the UK as a whole has suffered while pointing out that Scotland has, is completely dishonest. The BBC are particularly guilty, with this blatant misinformation:

The UK was the second best represented country overall in the rankings, and three English universities were in the top ten.

But while the University of Edinburgh climbed from 36th to 32nd, Glasgow University fell 37 places to 139th, while Aberdeen dropped 25 places to joint 176th.

It is, of course, accurate to say that the UK is second-placed in the list. But how can any journalist seeking to be taken seriously not point out, in the same breath, that the UK is also second-placed in terms of how many universities have fallen down the list? It does, however, point out how many Scottish universities fell. The obvious conclusion? Scottish universities have performed worse than the rest of the UK - which would be a complete lie.

So, don't believe the pish being spouted by the media. Don't fall for the false "no tuition fees = lack of funding" equation. Remember that the only reason English universities need to charge students in the first place is because the Tories have cut their funding by 40%. They are not getting £9,000 extra per student - they are just getting that money from students' parents rather than from general taxation.

And most importantly, whenever you see or hear something on the BBC, check the source to make sure they haven't hidden some pretty basic facts. If it's anything to do with Scottish politics, chances are they will have.