Alba Matters

FAO: anyone who thinks BBC Scotland are not biased against independence

2012-01-22T16:57:00.000Z

Many who support independence came to the conclusion long ago that BBC Scotland is inherently biased against independence, something which is supposed to be dead-against the BBC's own charter, which states that it must remain impartial at all times. Sometimes it can be difficult to come up with concrete proof that the bias is there, especially when trying to prove it to someone who is also inherently biased against Scottish independence. Usually, the claims are dismissed as nationalist paranoia, but I think BBC Scotland have just let slip a very definite, easily demonstrated example of their inherent bias.

On 2nd November 2011 (i.e. less than three months ago), Citigroup announced that they felt having the referendum towards the end of the SNP's second term in government was creating huge uncertainty amongst potential investors in Scottish renewables. The BBC pounced on it in the same way I would pounce on the last block of cheese in the world, putting it as their top story in Reporting Scotland, and writing this article on their website. The key quote from the article is thus:

It argues the referendum process will "create huge uncertainty" at precisely the moment when big investment decisions in renewable projects will need to be taken.

Now, this fitted in with the narrative that the UK Government were currently trying to promote, as this was exactly the same time that Gideon Osborne was trying to tell us that the "uncertainty about the referendum" was damaging Scotland's ability to attract investment from businesses. Needless to say, he never provided the name of even one business that had said as much to back up his claim, whereas Alex Salmond was able to rattle off a plethora of international companies that were more than happy to invest in Scotland. Citigroup's statement seemed to back up the unionist case, though, so BBC Scotland ran with it like it was the word of god.

Fast forward three months, and we're at the beginning of what will be a rather long debate about Scotland's constitutional future. This is a debate which requires fact to overcome fiction, because this isn't going to be a referendum about a pointless little change to the voting system - this is about Scotland's future. So we can't afford to have the public being misinformed by wild speculation that has absolutely no basis in truth, or spurious allegations about what Scotland can and can't afford. Most importantly, we need balance - the media could perhaps get away with bias against independence when it wasn't a main issue, but now that it has become the big story in Scotland, they need to show a bit of responsibility and report the facts.

So it was interesting, then, that at 15:59 on 20th January 2012, Citigroup released the following statement, which, while cautious, certainly seems to be more of a help to the case for independence than the case for the union:

We certainly do not rule out a break-up of the UK over time. ONS data suggest that an independent Scotland would have a slightly better fiscal position than the rest of the UK [assuming Scotland gets its geographic share of oil and gas receipts]. Scotland could have a viable future as an independent country, although there are a lot of questions that would have to be resolved before that happens.

Now, let's be perfectly honest here, this is huge. Not only are one of the world's biggest financial institutions saying an independent Scotland is "viable", they're actually saying our fiscal position would be better than that of the rest of the UK. If you're looking for evidence that Scotland is on the road to ruin if we vote for independence, then you'd best steer very clear of this sort of statement.

And this is exactly what has happened. The only trace of this statement I can find in the media is this article in the Telegraph (scroll down to 15:59 in the timeline). I got home from work on Friday expecting to see this as the top story on Reporting Scotland, because if Citigroup's opinion on the referendum itself is top news, then surely their opinion on the possible outcome of that referendum is a far bigger story? But no, complete radio (well, TV) silence. Not a peep. If it wasn't for the SNP tweeters I have on my Twitter feed, I wouldn't even know about it. Try putting "BBC Scotland Citigroup" into Google and you will find no trace of any article referencing this new Citigroup statement. It's as if it doesn't even exist...

So, to those of you who doubt that BBC Scotland is inherently biased against independence, how do you explain this one?

A different quality of debate? Not likely.

2012-01-15T03:40:00.000Z

It's depressing how quickly the independence debate has descended into petty squabbling, character assassination and downright lies. I'm talking, of course, about the Joan McAlpine incident. I've been an admirer of Joan for some time - her articles are informative, her blog was always interesting (until becoming an MSP slowed down the updates), and the contributions from her in the Holyrood chamber that I've seen have been excellent (I particularly enjoyed her contribution to the Scottish Studies debate). She's never come across as the knuckle-dragging, swivel-eyed, drooling anti-English type of nationalist that she is being portrayed as, so when I heard that she'd called people who didn't believe in independence "anti-Scottish", I was more than a little surprised. Of course, she said no such thing, but this is how it was being reported on Twitter.

What Joan actually said in the chamber was:

"I make absolutely no apology for saying that the Liberals, the Labour Party and the Tories are anti-Scottish in coming together to defy the will of the Scottish people"

Now, what exactly is so bad about that? She's clearly talking about the MPs of those three parties and how they acted in the House of Commons the day before, and if their behaviour - the coalition conspiring to impose sanctions and stipulations on the Scottish Government's referendum, thereby denying the Scottish people the referendum they voted for in May, and Labour backing them to the hilt - is not anti-Scottish, then what the heck is it? Pro-Scottish? Some of the contributions would be lucky to make it past moderation on the Scotsman comments pages, and the treatment of the SNP MPs was even more disrespectful than normal.

Now, I highlighted part of her quote in bold because this was the significant part that Douglas Alexander chose to omit when reading his version of the quote on Question Time. What he read was:

"I make absolutely no apology for saying that the Liberals, the Labour Party and the Tories are anti-Scottish"

Was there a full stop, comma or other predicate-ending punctuation or word there? I think not, so he's not giving a full quote. Now, being the snivelling little toad that he is, he claims that this is what Joan McAlpine said. Well, it's certainly true that she "said" this insofar as these words came out of her mouth, in the same order that he quoted them - but it is not what she actually said. By leaving out the rest of the sentence, he has fundamentally changed the intent behind the words. No longer is Joan criticising the behaviour of MPs in this one incident; suddenly, she is saying that those parties are quite simply anti-Scottish by their very nature, ingrained into their DNA. But his is not what she was actually saying.

If the chinless, rodent-cheeked member of parliament for Paisley & Refrewshire South had misquoted Joan, claiming that she had uttered words which had not come from her mouth, he would be accused of lying. Well, I don't see what is so different about misquoting someone by deliberately omitting words in order to change the meaning behind what the person said. There were things said in the Commons on Wednesday which, if you quoted them in full, do indeed display a contempt for Scotland, and are therefore anti-Scottish; and in the actions taken by all three of these parties, it's very difficult to see how they would actually defend against the claim of being inherently anti-Scottish, if this was indeed the criticism being made of them.

Joan's only crime has been in not realising that unionists are just begging for nationalists to say something that can be taken out of all context and twisted into some alternative meaning. She should perhaps have realised that calling their actions anti-Scottish was bound to lead to unionists jumping on their high horses and making out that she was actually calling everyone who voted for these parties - and eventually everyone who is against Scottish independence - anti-Scottish (although I don't remember her mentioning UKIP or the BNP...?) Still, hopefully it's just a rammy that will be chip paper next week.

But what about the three unionist parties she mentioned? Are they indeed anti-Scottish? Well, you'd be hard pressed to find a Scot that doesn't think the Tory Party is fundamentally anti-Scottish - I doubt the poll tax will ever be forgotten as long as there are Tories around to remind us of it - and the Lib Dems have unfortunately tainted themselves by association. As for Labour? Well, they may like to think that they are the traditional party of Scotland, but if the jury wishes to see evidence of Labour being anti-Scottish, then let's call on our first witness, the esteemed Mr Craig Murray.

The prosecution rests.

This does not bode well for the "different quality of debate" that the worst of the two MPs called D. Alexander called for on Question Time, nor does this video from Tom Harris, Labour's Shadow Minister for Internet Trolling, or indeed just about anything from Harris' Twitter feed of anti-SNP bile. So in keeping with the low bar they've set, I'll say this: Douglas Alexander is the worst kind of human being imaginable. He has the mannerisms of a PR robot (please just stop the hands-holding-imaginary-sheet-of-paper thing), and behaves like the snivelling, snot-nosed brat in class who pulls the hair of other kids while the teacher's back is turned, and then claims innocence when the teacher turns around just in time to see the real victims retaliating. He is a disgrace to his profession, achieving a level of transparent falseness that is surprising even for a politician. You, sir, are a completely loathsome individual, and you can quote whatever piece of that you like, because I mean Every. Single. Word.

Too many councillors are not fit for purpose

2011-10-28T02:11:00.001+01:00

We all know about how inept Edinburgh City Council has been in regards to the trams project, with Gordon MacKenzie himself admitting he and his colleagues didn't have the skills to run the project. I don't know if ECC has a history of such ineptitude, but being an Aberdonian, I know all about rubbish councillors, as Aberdeen has a long history of poor planning decisions. Labour had completely decimated the council finances before being ousted in 2007, selling off council properties for a fraction of what they were worth. But even the current lot are no good - they continue to push ahead with the City Square project in spite of apparent public opposition to the project, just because some rich guy who believes he should be in charge of making "informed decisions for the masses", is waving £50 million in their faces, and they've just spent £70 million revamping Marischal College for themselves, only to find out that they can no longer afford to demolish St Nicholas House. It's quite ridiculous that the former leader of ACC, John Stewart, put forward the motion to demolish the building as soon as possible, without actually checking the funds were there to do it.

It all leads you to the conclusion that many of the people who are serving on our councils just aren't up to the task. To be fair, you get what you pay for, and the standard rate for a councillor (in Aberdeen at least) is a paltry £16,234. That's not the kind of money you pay someone who is supposed to be helping run a city. I'm a firm believer that elected politicians should be doing their job because of a desire to serve the public rather than to make money, but you've got to give people a decent wage to live off of. This is why councils are full of retirees (who are just topping up their pension), part-timers (who have other, better-paid interests), and those who are merely treating it as a stepping stone to greater things. I'm sorry, but what does a retired teacher or an ex-social worker know about dealing with projects costing millions of pounds? Not much, if Aberdeen and Edinburgh city councils are anything to go by.

I don't know what the solution is - after all, I certainly wouldn't advocate handing the reins over exclusively to ex-businessmen, who won't even need to be wooed in order to serve businesses more than people - but there's got to be a better way. How can we continue to entrust people who are demonstrably incapable with large sums of public money? Maybe the answer is to just remove the ability of councils to lead big, expensive projects and leave them to just make sure local public services are running properly. Would that work?

Douglas Alexander: he devolves, but he doesn't... Revolve

2011-10-14T17:20:00.000+01:00

So, today's title is a pun on a line from series one episode one of I'm Alan Partridge about the phrase "evolution not revolution" ("I mean, that is me - I evolve, but I don't... revolve" as he tails away realising the ridiculousness of his words). Basically, I was watching last night's Newsnicht on the iPlayer, and as soon as I saw Douglas Alexander (how dare he defile my name?) on the preview shot, I knew I was in for some entertainment.

Douglas Alexander is probably one of my most hated members of Labour in Scotland - it's a close call between him, Jim Murphy and Margaret Curran. I still remember the BBC giving him airtime for his odious little rant against the SNP directly after securing his seat in the 2010 election, and there's just something very slimy about him. This episode of Newsnicht was a great reminder of his "qualities". I was particularly irritated by his constant Blairesque closed hand gestures - he looks like he's trying to drive a car half the time - which are completely unnatural and only used by manipulative people who have been trained in how to make your body language appear to be positive.

But what really irked me was when he claimed he had always been a "devolutionist". Now, this term has been getting trotted out a lot recently, specifically by slimy Labour toads who want to make on that they're not obsessed with keeping Scotland chained to the UK (hi there, Ken Macintosh!) even though they clearly are. Let's be clear here: devolution is a means of keeping Scotland in the union. Some people may think this is being too simplistic, and that there is indeed room for people who believe that Scotland should have more powers, but just not the ultimate powers of independence. Fair enough, but if that is truly the case, then you have to explain which powers and how soon you think Scotland should get them. Devolution is merely a process by which to transfer powers between Westminster and Holyrood. To say you "believe in devolution" without saying what more you believe should be devolved is no more acceptable than saying you "believe in social justice" without actually explaining how you're going to go about getting it (hi there, Ken Macintosh!). In fact, if the reason he avoids telling us what else should be devolved is because he doesn't think anything more should be, then he doesn't believe in devolution at all - he believes in the status quo.

So to those in the Labour party in Scotland who would have us believe they're progressive by calling themselves "devolutionists", I say this: back up your words by telling us what should be devolved and, more importantly, campaigning to get it done; otherwise, just admit you're a plain old unionist.

A couple of interesting details about the referendum emerge (met with predictable unionist derision)

2011-10-11T14:21:00.001+01:00

I'm pleased to hear the independence referendum will allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote on it. It has always seemed bizarre to me that a 16 year old can legally have sex, get married, start smoking (or is that 18 now?), and drive a motorbike, but cannot have their say on who should be running the country. This effectively says that voting requires far more responsibility than starting a family - yeah, sure it does. So, it is fantastic that 16 and 17 year olds will get to participate in potentially the most important vote of their lives, the consequences of which will shape their lives far more than those of pensioners, some of whom may not even be around to see the results of their vote.

So, it saddens me that arch-unionist Hamish McDonnell feels the need to imply that there is some sort of gerrymandering going on, by using loaded language to describe the measure, such as:

"...in an attempt to maximise nationalist support for the break-up of Britain..."

"...just one of a number of schemes the SNP leadership is working on to maximise their chances in a referendum."

Why can't the guy just report the facts, instead of having to put his unionist spin on it? This paragraph in particular just screams out "IT'S A FIX!!!!!!!!!!1111111111oneoneonewunwunwun":

Alex Salmond has made it clear that he intends to use his majority in the Scottish Parliament to drive through a new, lower voting age for the referendum because he knows that younger Scots are generally more nationalistic than their older counterparts.

I'd like to see when and where Alex Salmond "made it clear" that he was doing this just because younger voters tend to be more nationalistic. I suspect this is Hamish being his usual self. Shame on you, Hamish. Shamish?

On a similar note, the Express is reporting that Big Eck is thinking of having a second question on the referendum, and telling us that this is the SNP "wavering". We then have FAILED outgoing Labour leader Iain Gray and DISGRACED ex-Tory leader David "Taxi For" McLetchie telling us that this is the SNP admitting they won't win the referendum and that they're trying to move away from independence. What utter rubbish. McLetchie is particularly revealing about the disdain he holds for the Scottish electorate:

“By offering this option, Alex Salmond is depriving Scotland of the decisive answer it requires.”

No David, by offering this option, the SNP are allowing the people of Scotland to vote for what they actually want. Polls show that support for independence, increased powers within the union and the status quo are split roughly equally. With that in mind, it's pretty sensible to offer people the full range of options so they can properly tell us what they want. Otherwise, you get a situation like the AV referendum, where people were being asked to vote for a false choice, as many (like myself) were really wanting to vote in favour of PR, but this option was not on the table. In a straight choice between independence and the status quo, many people may vote for the status quo when really they do want increased powers, but not to the extent of independence.

This is about saying to the voters "it's your referendum, so we're giving you the choices you want to vote for". McLetchie, in his unflagging support for the union in its current guise, would prefer to deny a large proportion of the electorate the option they truly want. Such actions do not bring people towards your own point of view - they're more likely to push them away. Think about next time you're hailing a taxi, David.

Whether Murdo wins or loses, the centre-right must split in two

2011-10-10T13:27:00.000+01:00

What will happen to Murdo Fraser if he doesn't win the Scottish Tory leadership contest? Having spent the previous few months saying that the Tory party in Scotland is dead and the centre-right needs a new party to represent their views, can he really stay in the Tory party under Ruth Davidson, Jackson Carlaw or Margaret Mitchell?

It's interesting that Murdo appears to have the support of the majority of Tory MSPs. What this is essentially saying is that the majority of people elected to serve under the Tory banner in Holyrood no longer believe in that party. If one of the other three wins, then these MSPs are effectively going to continue living a lie. How can these people credibly ask voters to give their vote for a party that they themselves do not think is fit for purpose?

If Murdo Fraser loses, I can only see two options for him: 1) slink into the background in the same manner as a former leader, or 2) leave the party. If he chooses option one, then he might as well start looking for jobs in the media as the Scottish Michael Portillo. If he chooses option two, however, then he would have to decide if he just remains as an independent (perhaps still taking the Tory whip?) or going about creating that new party he wanted.

This final option would be the most interesting, because there is then the question of why all these MSPs who backed Murdo's bid for the leadership under a new party should also remain with the Tories. The way I see it, Murdo has opened Pandora's box, and so now the new party he has talked of must come to fruition. It would be absurd for these MSPs who said they backed his vision to suddenly say "err, sorry mate, didn't really mean it. We're going to stick with the winning team, even though we've all correctly identified them as losers."

Let's be clear about this: this isn't like the SNP, where you can vote for them even if you don't support independence. A vote for Murdo is a vote for the dissolution of the Tory party in Scotland and the creation of a brand new party. These people aren't voting for Murdo to be the leader of the Tories - they're voting for him to take them into his new party.

This could all become very interesting. I've looked at the scenario here of Murdo losing, splitting off into his own new party anyway and his followers joining him. The reverse could also happen, where Murdo wins, he creates his new party, but then the question is asked of those who didn't originally believe in his vision: "what changed your mind? Who invited you?" Regardless of the actual result, we are now looking at two distinct groups in the current Tory party in Scotland: those who want a fresh start and a fresh party that finally embraces the realities of Scottish politics; and those who want to keep banging their head against the brick wall, pretending that devolution is just a minor mishap and blatantly believing things should go back to how they were pre-1999. Either way, surely the only credible outcome is a new party, headed by Murdo, and the current Tory party, headed by Ruth Davidson or whoever?

We're used to splits on the far left: are we looking at a genuine split on the centre-right?

iDespairAtHumanity

2011-10-06T20:33:00.000+01:00

I find today's outpouring of grief over Steve Jobs' death genuinely saddening. I always get annoyed by mass public displays of grief when someone famous dies - I find them incredibly tasteless, as they seem to be more about the person putting on the display than the person who has passed away - but this one seems particularly disheartening. It's one thing to prattle on about how great you think someone was, or what a great person they were (and I'm seriously grateful that Twitter and Facebook didn't exist when Princess Diana was smeared across a tunnel in Paris). It's quite another to say that they "changed the world", "changed people's lives" and other such hyperbole. Seriously, do the people making these statements actually understand the meaning of these words?

Now, maybe I'm just being a bit of a "negative fish", as a friend of mine called me the other day; but it seems to me that this tells us something about the state of society today. People's lives are "changed" by the ownership of gadgets. What is it about the iPhone that has changed people's lives? It can't be the ability to communicate over long distances, because that was Alexander Graham Bell. It can't be the ability to make phone calls on the move, because that was someone in the 70s, and if we're talking about making mobile phones truly everyday pieces of equipment, then I think Nokia or Motorola would point out they'd been selling them en masse about ten years before Apple entered the market. So what has the iPhone done that we weren't doing pre-2007? Well, the truth is "nothing new", as Apple's main strength was always doing existing things well, rather than true innovation. But if you had to credit the iPhone with "changing" something, it would be giving people something to play about with when they're bored.

That's it.

I've also seen people crediting Apple with "changing the way we listen to music", but people had MP3 players long before the iPod, and platforms for distributing MP3s online were around long before iTunes - the only thing iTunes can truly be credited with doing is convincing people to pay for music when it looked like people were all going to download stuff for free, which did more to save the bottom lines of record labels than it did for any music consumer (especially thanks to DRM). If anything, the music industry is in a far worse shape today than it ever has been, and music has been seriously downgraded in value, being little more than a sound file you listen to before shuffling to one of the thousand other tracks on your player.

So, people's lives were changed by being able to check Facebook on the bus and being able to be more fickle about their listening habits (remember when you had to spend the whole day making do with whatever CD you put in your CD player in the morning? WOOAAHH!!! Talk about barbaric!! How did we ever survive?) Makes you feel proud to be part of the human race that we care about such important things in life.

But it's worse than that, because as I've already said, Apple didn't invent any of these things - they merely made them look nice and shiny. They convince people they're buying a superior product by charging more money for lesser technology. They feed into people's desires to be part of the crowd. There's a quote by my favourite lyricist - Richey Edwards from Manic Street Preachers - which goes:

"We got signed to Sony for a lot of money, but none of us bought anything, except portable CD players and stuff. Then, two months later, another one came out that was thinner and I bought that one. It was no value to my life, it just means I have a smaller CD player."

He's quite right that having the latest gadget adds no value to your life. So why is it that people get so excited about owning the latest Apple release? I know people that think Apple are amazing, that all their products are amazing, and that they pretty much wish everything they bought was made by Apple. The iPad is the ultimate triumph of the consumer-obsessed culture we live in - it does absolutely nothing that people couldn't already do with their smartphone or laptop, and indeed, it's essentially a phone which is too big for your pocket, or a laptop that you can't do much with, depending on which way you look at it. Yet people bought it just because it was Apple, and they're still buying it. If Apple tried to design a sleeker, more user-friendly version of a wooden stick (called an iStick, of course), then people would buy it in droves.

Steve Jobs leaves behind a wife and kids, as well as probably hundreds of friends and colleagues who will have genuine reason to mourn his loss,and I feel sorry for these people. However, those people tweeting #iSad or posting Facebook updates about how much he changed their lives would do well to forego the tawdry over-reaction and mourn something else that they've truly lost - the entire point of their existence. Because if a man who made some gadgets you tinker with really had such an impact on your life, then it's not much of a life to begin with.

Must I share a planet with these people?

First come, not served

2011-09-20T13:29:00.000+01:00

Somehow, this blog was voted number 23 in Total Politics' Top 25 Scottish Blogs. I'm a bit puzzled since I flip between bursts of blogging and months of silence, and it's hardly a hub of commenting activity. Nevertheless, even if it was just my own solitary vote that got me this "prestigious" award, I feel compelled to get back into it. So I'll start things off with an email I've sent First Bus in Aberdeen.

Picture the scene: young (?) Doug has just begun a new job, with a lunch break that actually enables him to leave the office for longer than ten minutes. He powers up Market Street (a big hill) to the First Bus Travel Centre, ready to purchase a season ticket, in an effort to avoid having to fork out £4 every day for the privilege of travelling on the busiest bus route in Aberdeen, which often overcharges people and regularly puts on buses that are far too small for such a "popular" route, giving commuters a chance to experience what it's like to be cattle being transported across the country in a big, mobile shed.

He gets there, and is met by a massive queue. Undaunted, he waits his turn, upon which time he eagerly asks to purchase a month's season ticket, expecting the nice lady to say "certainly, just look into the camera and say 'cheese'". Alas, he is informed that he should have brought a passport photo with him, because First have not heard of these new-fangled 21st century gizmos commonly referred to as "web cams". Desperate not to leave empty-handed, he buys a £20 fare card, which will last, at most, five days.

"All is not lost!" he thinks, as he goes home after work to check their website, expecting to be able to buy a season ticket online by submitting a photo electronically. After all, this was how he got his cinema pass last year. But wait - First Bus's website is monumentally useless! After getting through the bad spelling and chronic under-informative nature of the site, it emerges that any season ticket bought online would still require the purchaser to put in a passport photo once the ticket is received, thereby rendering it just a delayed version of the first failed attempt at getting the ticket.

Annoyed, Doug decides to inform First Bus of his disappointment, in the form of an email. We shall see if he gets a reply, but in the meantime, here is the content of the email:

Dear First Bus

I find it bizarre that you still require passport photos for new season tickets. I went to your travel centre today to buy a new season ticket, expecting to have my photo taken using a webcam. Over the past 10 years, I have had photocards for two universities, five gyms, the offshore industry's Vantage system and three work ID cards. Each of these has taken my photo using a webcam, meaning there was no faffing about with passport photos, and no need for me to know beforehand that I had to turn up with one already. But alas, when I went into your travel centre, I found that you still use 20th century technology, and thus I was not able to get a season ticket as I had not gone to the bother of finding a passport photo booth somewhere, to get four photos for about £4, only one of which I'll use.

I thought perhaps I would manage to buy one online, by just submitting a photo. After all, this was how I was able to buy a cinema pass last year. But again, your site appears to lag significantly behind the rest of the world.

It wouldn't be so bad if you had a photo booth in your travel centre, meaning anyone unfortunate enough to turn up without a passport photo would not have a wasted trip.

I suppose I'll drive all the way over to Sainsbury's just to get my photo taken there. Actually, maybe I should just take my car to work instead of the bus, and bypass your outdated system entirely. What do you think?

Yours Sincerely

Doug Daniel

What to do about the trams

2011-06-23T10:09:00.000+01:00

We're told that the Edinburgh trams would cost £700 million to finish up to Haymarket; £770 million to finish to St Andrew's Square; or £750 million to cancel altogether. That certainly makes it sound like the best option would be to finish it up to Haymarket, and it would be tempting to say that if it just costs another £70 million to extend it along Princes Street, then we might as well just do it. But can we really believe these estimates when all previous ones have been wrong, and how on earth can it cost so much money to cancel it?

I would imagine that government/council contracts given to private companies should be worded something like: "This is how much you will be paid to build this thing. You will not get a penny more. If you use up all the money before the project is complete, then that's your fault, and you will still finish the project as agreed. If you don't, then we will take you to court and sue you for the cost stated in this contract." Of course, they're clearly not, since this sort of thing keeps happening. The SNP seem to be far better at getting value for money than Labour and the Tories ever have been - the Millennium Dome, NHS IT systems and Holyrood all spring to mind - but of course, this project was first started under the previous administration, and the SNP were forced to continue with it due to all the opposition parties voting against them. It's a shame it came up so early in the parliamentary term, because if it could have been left until a couple of years along, then chances are the government would have felt secure enough to put their foot down and cancel it anyway.

It amazes me that anyone thought this project would cost what it was meant to, but then the unionist parties have had plenty of occasions to learn the lesson everyone else already knows. I have no idea what the Scottish Greens' excuse is, except dogmatically thinking that trams are great. The thing is, it was never a good project. £545 million for a single tram line? One that the people of Edinburgh overwhelmingly didn't want? One that was replacing a perfectly good bus service? How was that ever good value for money? It's not even going to end up where it was originally meant to finish.

A really interesting figure to see would be how much it would cost to have the project completed as originally intended, as this would really highlight the extent of the mismanagement of the project. It was meant to cost £545 million to build the line to Newhaven, and now we're told that it would cost over a third of that again to just cancel the project. That just doesn't make sense. Just like the aircraft carriers that cost more to scrap that to build didn't make sense. There is something crucially wrong when governments can be held to ransom by private companies like this, and something needs to be done about it, especially since Labour will probably be in charge of public spending again some day. We need controls in place that stop future governments from allowing private companies to underbid in order to get contracts and then treat the projects like blank cheques.

Germany abolishing nuclear power (and other stories)

2011-05-30T16:17:00.000+01:00

Interesting couple of stories in the news today. The first is that Germany's government has announced that all the nuclear power plants in Germany will be closed by 2022, having previously (i.e. before Fukishima) decided to extend their lives by an average of 12 years. I'm pleased to see my second favourite country (the first being Scotland, obviously) taking the right stance on nuclear power here, although it seems they were heading for this direction anyway, since ministers were only wanting to keep the plants as a "bridging technology" until they had better renewable energy generaton. Germany are much more advanced in their views of the environment than the UK, of course, since they've had Greens in the Bundestag since 1983 and Greens in government between 1998 and 2005. Contrast this with the UK, where one solitary Green MP won a seat in Westminster in 2010 for the first time. In Scotland, of course, we've had Green MSPs since the start of devolution, and it's generally acknowledged that an independent Scotland would be nuclear-free. But this just highlights how out-of-touch the unionist parties are in supporting nuclear power (as well as nuclear weapons - Germany does not aspire to possess nuclear weapons, or "Deutschland strebe den Besitz von Atomwaffen nicht an", to be more exact, even though it possesses the capability to make them.) When will Labour and Lib Dems get with the programme? I don't include the Tories, since we all know fine they won't go anti-nuclear anytime soon.

The second story that caught my eye was this story about traces of the legionella bacteria being found in the water tanks of two ScotRail trains. I can't say I'm masively surprised, as I find ScotRail's toilets to be the most disgusting places on earth, and that's when they're actually working (I've been on more than one ScotRail train where the toilets were out of order, meaning anyone caught short had to wait until the train stopped at the next station and move to the carriage at the front).

As far as I'm concerned, the news that one in three toilet systems tested in the UK had traces of legionella should raise serious questions about how private train companies maintain their trains, and hopefully lead to them being forced to take hygiene more seriously (trains are often disgusting). Even better, just take them back into public ownership...

Oh, and a third story that interests me, considering my most recent blog: the news that Qatar is being accused of buying the 2022 World Cup. Hopefully it will be found to be true, and the 2022 World Cup can be reallocated to a country more deserving of it, which means Australia, given that the other three bidders - USA, Japan and South Korea - have all hosted World Cups relatively recently. In fact, I think it's disgraceful that Japan and South Korea actually thought they should get to host again just 20 years after last doing so - whatever happened to giving others a turn?

English media and FIFA corruption - right battle, wrong reasons

2011-05-28T10:15:00.000+01:00

FIFA corruption is one of the top news stories on the BBC at the moment. Corruption has been rife in FIFA for decades, but the English media is only now making a big issue out of it. Of course, we all know exactly why this is - because England isn't getting to host the 2018 World Cup, so now they're following a bitter agenda. It's the correct course of action, but for entirely the wrong reasons. Do we imagine that they would be following this line so hard if England had won the bid to host the World Cup?

Personally, I think it was completely the right decision to give the 2018 World Cup to Russia, and to snub England. I also think it was the wrong decision to give the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, and think it shuld have gone to Australia instead. If anything should have started alarm bells ringing in terms of corruption, it was this second decision, not the first one. Here's how I think World Cup hosts should be determined:

1. It's the WORLD Cup, so we should be trying to be geographically inclusive.
Until 2002, all World Cups had taken place in Europe or the Americas, generally swapping back and forth between the two. 2002 was in Asia, 2006 was in Europe, 2010 was in Africa, and 2014 will be in South America. It looks likely that this general sort of pattern will continue from now on. 2018 was basically going to be in either England, Holland or Russia. It was obvious straight away that it should go to Russia, because Eastern Europe has largely been ignored as a destination for the World Cup, despite the strong history Eastern Europe has in international football thanks to the USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Not only that, but Russia was the only country of the three that hadn't hosted before. People may point to Italy, Mexico, France, Germany and Brazil as examples of second-time hosts, but there are extenuating circumstances for these: Mexico only hosted in 1986 because the original hosts pulled out; there aren't nearly as many South American countries as in other continents, and Brazil are probably one of the few that are actually capable of holding a modern World Cup, with all the trappings that are now expected (Argentina? Uruguay? Both have hosted before too); and Italy and France's second-times were when there were probably still only a few countries that could realistically host the World Cup (or at least when France won the bid, anyway). Germany? Well, to be fair, it was just West Germany that hosted in 1974, so it was probably about time a united Germany held a tournament. That's another point actually - England hosted Euro '96, so they've had a major tournament quite recently.

So surely Qatar fits this description, since the Middle East has yet to host a World Cup? Well, they're ruled out by the next point:
2. Hosts should have previously qualified for a World Cup.
To me, this is an absolute must. Since the host qualifies automatically, that's one less space for everyone else to get in. That's how it should be, and there's no problem there when it's a country that would have qualified anyway, or at least one that at least stood a half-decent chance of doing so. But it's not fair for a country with no real footballing history or chances of qualification just waltzing into the tournament on a freebie at the expense of other nations that could bring something exciting to the tournament. What footballing history does Qatar bring to the 2022 tournament? Absolutely nothing, unless you consider their position as THE WORST TEAM IN THE WORLD on the MegaDrive's FIFA '95 to be footballing history. Seriously, the only reason I knew Qatar existed when I was younger was because it was the team I played against when I felt like scoring loads of goals.

One of the best bits about the World Cup is seeing how well the hosts do, and the reactions of the home fans as they progress. Euro 2008 and World Cup 2010 both lacked something, and I don't think it was coincidental that these were the first tournaments where the hosts had failed to progress to at least the second round. Once the hosts are out, it feels like it could be any other tournament. 2010 almost worked because it felt more like Africa's tournament rather than just South Africa's, so Ghana's exploits almost filled in for the hosts. This won't happen in 2022. Qatar will be pummelled in every group match, and there will be no one else to substitute for them, because the only other Asian qualifiers will be Japan, South Korea and China (who are Far East, rather than Middle East, and therefore not really the same thing) as well as Australia (who shouldn't even be in the AFC qualifiers, but never mind). If there is room for a 5th Asian qualifier, then it will be a disgrace, as the AFC teams have not given enough reason to be given more qualifying spaces than CAF and CONMEBOL. So as soon as Qatar are out, it will revert to a tournament that could be getting held anywhere.

Incidentally, Australia pass both these tests - Oceania has yet to host a tournament, and Australia have given good accounts for themselves in previous tournaments. That's why 2022 should have been given to Australia. So if anything should have prompted a sudden urge in the media to investigate funny goings on in FIFA, it was Qatar - a nation with absolutely no footballing heritage but lots of money - being made hosts for 2022 instead of Australia. Russia was the only choice for 2018, so England can stop whinging, and their media can stop boring us with their petty, vindictive campaign.

The Queenie Question

2011-05-25T10:06:00.000+01:00

This post at Better Nation reminded me that I had intended writing a blog post about the monarchy last week, before the injunction business made me forget about it.

There were two monarchy-related things which happened recently that showed the two sides of the argument over whether or not there should be a monarchy. One was the Queen's visit to Ireland, and the other was the swearing in of new MSPs at parliament.

I was pretty skeptical about the Queen's visit to Ireland. I didn't see the point of it, and it seemed to me that all it could do was generate a sense of unease. However, it turned out fine, and in fact it seems to have actually been quite good for UK-Ireland relations, perhaps finally providing a bit of closure over the atrocities the UK carried out in Ireland in the early years of the last century. So it seems to me that the Queen is actually pretty good at her job (well, she has had several deades of practice...)

However, don't go thinking I've done a turnaround of John Lydon proportions here. When Holyrood's MSPs were being sworn in, I felt the same sense of disgust that I have felt every time I've seen people having to swear allegiance to an unelected head of state. Here were people voted in by the public to serve the public, and they are having to swear allegiance to the Queen. Even those that are strongly republican are forced to speak the words, albeit with a clenched fist, in order to allow them to take their seat in the chamber. That just doesn't seem right to me, and I feel for those republicans, as I would find it very difficult to say the words that they had to say.

Anyway, it appears that an independent Scotland will probably start off with the Queen as head of state. As a republican, I should be against this. However, I consider the union to be far more damaging to Scotland's future than an unelected head of state. I could live with Scotland having the Queen as head of state initially (it doesn't seem to have done Canada or Australia any harm), and then either vote for a republic, or just decide not to have a successor when she dies/gives up the throne. Presumably we would then have an elected president as head of state, the first of which would almost certainly be either Alex Salmond or whoever delivers Scotland back to independence (hopefully the same person).

But why exactly do we need a head of state? I realise countries need someone to represent them at certain events, but why can't this just be under the remit of the First Minister? Like many things, people's idea of what constitutes a head of state is defined by the examples of Britain and the USA - if we don't have a monarch, then we must have an elected president like the USA does, with those same powers that the US president wields. But there are other examples in the world. France also has an elected president, but then that's because the constitution of the French Fifth Republic was set up very much in the image of the US system. What about Germany, which just happens to be my favourite country that isn't Scotland? Well, Germany also has a president as head of state. However, unlike USA and France, the German president is very much more in the vein of the Queen, in that the German president has no political power and is merely a ceremonial head of state. The person that represents Germany at the same kind of events as the French and US presidents is the Chancellor, currently Angela Merkel. The German Chancellor is just the German version of the First Minister, the head of government. Why can't the head of the Scottish Government act as Scotland's representative on the world stage in the same way?

I suppose the only argument against this is when you have a situation like earlier this month, where Iain Gray was in with a chance of becoming the First Minister, despite being deeply unpopular with the Scottish public. The fact that Alex Salmond was a far better candidate for First Minister than Iain Gray was certainly one of the reasons leading to the SNP's emphatic win, but do we really want to leave that to chance in future? Certainly, one of the easiest ways to eliminate the arguments about the 2011 election being a "presidential election" is to have an actual elected president. But then it comes down to the decision about who wields power, and how much power that constitutes.

Scotland needs to decide if it would want a head of state in a similar vein to existing examples, or to create an entirely new type of head of state. As a result, there is a lot to think about. Enough, I would suggest, to warrant the head of state question being a debate in its own right, rather than being pegged into the independence debate, which is why I support the idea of leaving it as a separate decision from independence.

A new dawn, but the same old unionist hypocrisy

2011-05-08T15:23:00.000+01:00

I used to find it quite amusing the way unionists speak about independence as if it would make the walls cave in and open a doorway to hell; however, some of the commentary I've read over the past few days has been more disturbing than amusing. The SNP have won a majority, and as a result, they will now put forward a bill for holding a referendum on independence, which they are completely entitled to do, as it was in their manifesto this time and the last. These are facts, unescapable, undeniable facts. Failure to hold a referendum in this term would be the surest way of seeing them being the Lib Dems of 2016, as party members would think "well, if you're not going to do it with a majority, then when will you do it?" This would soon be followed by the founding of a new nationalist party, and set back Scottish independence several decades as neither would be electable for several elections (see the continued floundering of the socialist parties for details.)

So all we're saying here is that a party has won an election, and as a result, they will be implementing something from their manifesto. Nothing unusual there. So why are unionists hell-bent on throwing water on the fire? So far, I've seen the following arguments being put forward or implied:

Nationalists have mistaken this huge nod of approval for the SNP as proof that Scotland wants independence
For various reasons, there is still doubt that the SNP will introduce a referendum bill this session
There are legal issues which would stop a referendum bill from being passed

The first of these takes the form of constant reminders that people were voting for the SNP, not for independence. The thing is, nobody is saying otherwise. Nationalists aren't stupid, they understand that there is (probably) not currently majority support for independence. But there is excitement throughout the movement, because there are now absolutely no obstacles in the way of an independence referendum, meaning a giant step has been taken towards that final goal. The only people who have ever equated the election directly with independence are unionists, who spent the weeks before the election trying to tell people a vote for the SNP was a vote for independence. So even if nationalists did think this had been a direct endorsement of independence, they would only be taking the unionists' pre-election talk at face value. Perhaps physics teachers should start using unionist arguments around independence as illustrators of quantum physics, rather than Schrödinger's Cat?

The second of these consists of theories that the SNP don't really want to hold the referendum, so will find ways of putting it off; or taunts about the referendum that never was last time round (err, because it was made quite clear that it would be blocked by the other parties?); or just outright denials that the referendum will see the light of day. There really is no logic to this idea, as independence is the SNP's raison d’être, so it's quite ludicrous to think that the SNP won't be putting the question to the public now they have an inbuilt majority to do so. Basically, this is a case of unionists not wanting to face the truth, and seems like a typical case of people trying to convince themselves rather than others.

The third is, quite simply, petty. Having realised that the SNP will take this opportunity to pass a referendum bill, they are scrabbling around to try and find reasons why the bill will be prevented from going ahead. Never mind the fact that the SNP have been given a democratic mandate to pursue an independence referendum, all that matters is stopping the bill from going ahead. It hasn't even been proposed yet, and already there are people like John McTernan trying to torpedo it out of the water. Pathetic.

All three attitudes display bizarre and hypocritical behaviour and thought-processes. This is nothing new, of course, as the very mention of independence seems to send many unionists into a state of complete apoplexy, throwing rationality right out of the window - it's strange what irrational fear can do to a person. But while it there was a degree of humour to be gained from it in the past, what is emerging at the moment just seems sad. Perhaps it's just the shock at the magnitude of the SNP's win, and eventually these people will learn to calm down and come to terms with the fact that an independence referendum is on the horizon. They'll have to really, because despite years of trying to hold back progress, the independence referendum is definitely on its way.

Questions, questions, questions

2011-05-07T11:54:00.000+01:00

There are so many questions that arise from yesterday's election results. For the SNP:

What measures will the SNP introduce first into parliament?
Will minimum pricing for alcohol go through without without a hitch, or will the unionist parties remain unable to back it for no good reason?
Will an alternative to Council Tax be introduced in this session - and could the Greens' Land Value Tax figure?
Will last session's successful team remain largely untouched, or will we see some changes?

For what it's worth, I can't really see how any of the front bench can change. If nothing else, part of the campaign was the strength of the team, so to change some of them around would seem a bit odd. But, more importantly, they truly have done their jobs extraordinarily well. Nicola Sturgeon is a great Health Minister. John Swinney seems like he was born to be Finance Minister. Kenny MacAskill has been unflinching in his role as Justice Minister. Mike Russell has been great as Education Minister, and I suspect the next five years are going to need a politician of his calibre to keep the SNP's key pledge of free higher education. Even Richard Lochead, the least prominent member of the front bench team, is extremely well regarded in his ministerial role for what he has done for fisheries etc.

Council tax has to be changed, but the general consensus was that LIT has been kicked into touch until 2016 at least. Personally, I think we'll see the SNP trying to get big concessions out of the Scotland Bill before they try changing council tax. Then, maybe they'll work with the Greens to implement something like LVT.

Minimum pricing will be one of the first measures to go through, and I expect the Tories will continue to oppose it, mainly because they'll think the electorate haven't really punished them in this election. What Labour and the Lib Dems do is entirely dependent on who becomes their new leaders (if anyone, in the Lib Dem case - see below) and if they can really understand that this result was the Scottish people punishing them for not working constructively in the past.

For the Lib Dems:

Was their decimation down to Tavish's poor leadership, the London coalition, or both? Tavish certainly thinks it's Nick Clegg's fault, and as politicians seem to prefer easy answers (let's face it, Labour always thought 2007 was a snub to Tony Blair, rather than Labour) instead of admitting that they're at fault.
Can they afford to sack Tavish as leader, when they only have four other MSPs?
Can they afford not to sack Tavish, when they have five long years before new blood can be introduced? (Maybe take it in turns - a year each?) It seems Nicol Stephen favours this option, as he stated his support on Newsnicht last night.
Can the Lib Dems bring anything new to the Holyrood table, or are they destined to fade into complete obscurity, eventually fading from the Scottish scene entirely?

I would say they need a new leader. The London coalition did not help them, but the "save our police" campaign was a disaster, and Tavish just isn't a good leader. He gets flustered too easily, and still seems awkward (although amdittedly not as awkward as he was when he first took on the job). Also, he has made it obvious that he is the main reason behind the Lib Dem's stance on the referendum, and this could continue to hurt them. He's got to go. Who to replace him? Obvious choices Mike Rumbles (so glad he's gone) and Jeremy Purvis are gone. It would probably have to be Willie Rennie or perhaps Jim Hume.

I can't see them recovering quickly, though. They're probably hoping five seats is as bad as it can get for them, but if they refuse to act and just blame their bad fortune on the coalition, then they could face a near wipe out next time. Also, do they even have the right to act as a mainstream party now? Five MSPs means they've not even got enough people to shadow the cabinet ministers. They're smaller than the 2003 SSP and Greens, so they deserve no more coverage than the media gave those parties then. It will look even more ridiculous now if future election dbeates feature the Lib Dems but not the Greens.

For Labour:

Will they finally heed the message, first whispered to them in 2007, and now being shouted into their faces? Or will they just give the usual "lessons must be learned/root and branch renewal/we must listen to what the voters are saying" platitudes and carry on as if nothing happened?
Where on earth are they going to find a capable leader of their MSPs in Holyrood, considering that Iain Gray was the best of a bad bunch last time round, and most of the likely candidates have either departed to Westminster or departed to the Job Centre? (Although the way Iain Gray talked about them when interviewed soon after the result was becoming obvious, you'd think they'd departed this mortal coil completely.)
Can the new influx of Labour MSPs provide a more grown up approach to being the main opposition than their predecessors, such as the awful Andy Kerr, whose relentless negativity has seen him uncerimoniously dumped from his East Kilbride constituency? Or are they just younger versions from the same mould?
When will Ed Miliband go, and will this mark the end of London interfering with Holyrood elections?

Perhaps Labour can break the habit of a lifetime and start working constructively with the SNP, but I just can't see it. The behaviour of their representatives during the results coverage has not been compatible with Iain Gray's stated aim of making them work with the SNP where they agree on things, and I think if anything, they'll be even worse, with the prospect of Scotland possibly voting "yes" in the independence referendum completely freaking them out. It would be nice to think these new MSPs will be different, but it's likely they will be more Andy Kerr than Malcolm Chisholm. Besides, does anyone think Labour under Ed Milliband has changed? I certainly don't. I can't really see what Labour could try to offer the electorate now, other than absolute devotion to the union, which is going to look like increasingly shaky ground as the SNP shows Scotland what a difference you can make with a positive approach.

As for the next leader, they need someone in the mould of Malcolm Chisholm or Henry McLeish (who they could really do with in Holyrood now - he was the one Labour-affiliated commentator yesterday to be speaking any sort of sense and not just giving meaningless, hollow platitudes). But where to find that? It's more likely to be John Park or perhaps Ken Macintosh - although I'm still hoping they'll press the self-destruct button and choose Richard Baker. Incidentally, if Labour really want to learn their lessons, Baker needs to be kept as far away from their front bench as possible, before being uncerimoniously dumped from the list next time around.

For the Greens:

Has their failure to gain any more seats been a disaster for the party, or have they actually done well just to stay still when everyone else has haemmoraged seats? (Even the Tories got a quarter less than they would have been hoping for.)
Has Patrick Harvie's leadership (yeah yeah, I know, he's co-convener) been a success?
Could the Greens still become the 4th party at the expense of the Lib Dems in the next election?
Will they accept the hand that Big Eck seems to be offering to other parties and work constructively with the SNP, or will they allow road building to cloud their judgement? (One would certainly hope not, but no one is infallible...)

I think the Greens suffered from lack of media exposure as well as the SNP managing to offer the electorate what it wants in terms of "greenness". If they work with the SNP towards the impressive renewables target, then it will do them a lot of good in 2016. If they try to pick a massive fight over the Forth Road Bridge replacement then it could damage them - no one would expect them not to be against it, but they have to be constructive in doing so. The same goes for the AWPR, which is an absolute necessity for Aberdeen.

As for Patrick, I think he did all he could under the circumstances, but the fact remains that 2003 is now looking like an anomily rather than 2007 looking like a dip. Their vote in Glasgow and Lothians may have increased, but not by much, and in Central, West and South of Scotland, they've made absolutely no headway at all. I think they really needed to make a breakthrough in Mid Scotland & Fife. So I suppose the question is whether that 8,000 - 10,000 they get in most regions is a core support that will vote for them regardless of their policies - and thus that their campaign was unsuccessful in gaining new voters - or if they can progress from here?

For the Tories:

Has Annabel Goldie really had a successful campaign, when they still managed to lose seats?
Has Goldie now consolidated her position as leader, or will Tories realise that her "matron" act started looking old towards the end of the campaign, and will prove absolutely useless against an SNP majority

Personally, I would say Scotland has rejected them. Their vote went down - not by much, but down is still the wrong direction. They're claiming it was a good result in comparison to Labour and Lib Dems, but the SNP's result means they needed to gain seats more than ever. The SNP no longer need the Tories to help them get things through parliament, so there is no reason to hold back on ramping up anti-Tory rehtoric and completely isolating them as punishment for the cuts being imposed by the coalition. The coalition is hated in Scotland, and the Scottish Tories will have no choice but to try and defend what is happening down in Westminster, and failing badly. They could suffer the same fate as the Lib Dems in 2016.

What of the socialist parties? Adding together the votes for SSP, Solidarity, Respect and Socialist Labour, there are about 14,000 votes in the regions. But everyone knows the far-left are unable to work together, so the prospect of getting those 14,000 under one party is laughable. As it is, the SSP have dwarved behind Socialist Labour and Respect (well, George Galloway), and even those two are among the Scottish Christians, BNP and UKIP, all of whom are well behind even the Scottish Senior Citizens. It seems to me that the far-left in Scotland is dead.

One final question, for all the unionist parties: will they now finally concede that Scotland is fed up with being treated like a child that cannot be trusted to look after itself? If early comments on Newsnicht are anything to go by, they've still not got it. I'll let you into a little secret, unionists: get your heads out from the sand and understand that if you continue to try and hold back the tide of change in Scottish politics, it'll be more than 69 seats next time. John McTernan's ludicrous suggestion that the SNP can't hold a referendum on independence due to silly legal issues on Newsnicht last night is a perfect example of the unionist fingers-in-the-ears attitude to progressing Scotland's powers. There's a very good chance that certain people will now think that it's downhill from here for the SNP, and that things cannot possibly get worse for the others. Seriously, this may only be the beginning. Just listening to English political commentators on Sky News (I know, I know, but Newsnicht had finished and I really lived up to the tag "political junkie" yesterday, such was my need for political fixes all day long), it's clear that people just aren't taking the issue of independence seriously, and think it is a silly little obsession for a tiny minority of Braveheart-watching Scots. Just watch this space, idiots.

Incidentally, hearing guys offshore speaking about the SNP's record and the idea of independence, it's obvious that there is still some way to go before people stop believing the negative portrayals of independence that have been painted by the media over the past few decades. These are guys who are even SNP voters - one of whom complained about the SNP not doing anything about the A9 when £500 million was wasted on Edinburgh trams, even after I reminded him that the SNP wanted to cancel it - so the battle is not yet won. However, to quote one of my favourite Killing Joke lyrics: "The struggle is long, the struggle is hard, the struggle is beautiful".

(I'm sure I've used that before...)

A night of many firsts

2011-05-06T20:44:00.000+01:00

First re-elected FM; first single-party majority in Holyrood; first time a party has gotten 11 seats - a clean sweep and list seats - in one region; most importantly of all, for the first time, Scotland is going to get to decide whether or not it wants to be in the Union (we weren't actually asked in 1707, after all).

I woke up at 3:45am today to find that the SNP was taking seats in Labour's Glasgow heartlands, and over the next four hours I watched in amazement as the SNP eclipsed their fantastic result in the 2007 breakthrough election, taking seats from every corner of Scotland (except the borders...). With a final tally of 69 seats, the SNP has done the impossible. Before today, not even Labour had commanded an outright majority on their own in Holyrood, which was set up with the explicit aim of making sure no one (i.e. the SNP) could ever command a majority. Well, that didn't stop the SNP.

I start off like that because we already see the anti-independence brigade beginning their attack, namely to tell us "yes, the SNP won... but it's not a mandate for independence!" These people say Scotland doesn't want independence. Well, I've got news for these people. If Scotland wants independence, Scotland will vote for independence; if it doesn't, then it won't vote for it. This will be Scotland's choice, and it will not be swayed by naysayers laying the caveats on thick.

This has been an amazing result, and already we have people trying to get their little digs in - "yes, they won, but..." No no no, there are no buts here. The SNP have won, and that is all there is to it. The United Kingdom government had better watch out, because Scotland has given the SNP a mandate to do all it can to protect Scotland and, more importantly, to make Scotland a better place.

There were still some downsides to today's results - Jackie Baillie is still there, Iain Gray hanging on by 151 votes denied us the "Portillo moment" of the campaign (somehow Andy Kerr being booted out of East Kilbride just doesn't feel the same), and the Greens not managing to make any headway. However, there were far more great things about this result. Personally, I'm delighted to see the SNP not only get a clean sweep in the North-East, but to even get a list MSP. 11 MSPs in one area - that is absolutely unprecedented. The Lib Dems have rightfully been punished for assisting the Tories in Westminster, returning less seats than even their very worst polling results suggested. I'm also delighted to see some of Labour's worst politicians falling - Andy Kerr, Charlie Gordon, Pauline MacNeill - and this is important for the parliament, as Alex Salmond has indicated that he intends to continue working with other parties to achieve things for Scotland, even though the SNP could quite easily stick two fingers up to them all (even Margo MacDonald!) and say "this is what we're going to do, like it or lump it." I wonder how genuine Tavish and Gray are when they say they'll be working constructively with the SNP this session - after all, with an absolute majority the SNP has gained, they no longer have the ability to block policies with their petty partisan politicking. How ridiculous is it that it has taken a majority government for parties to finally agree to work together for the good of Scotland, instead of against each other to the detriment of Scotland?

I'm very excited when I think of what the next five years will bring. Independence referendum? Definitely. Minimum pricing? Definitely. Reclaiming Scotland's waters from the Crown estate? Hopefully. A push to 100% renewable energy? A grand idea, and Scotland was built on grand ideas. This election shows that there are no limits - if Scotland wants something, it can get it. Here begins the dawning of the age of Scotland, an age of hope. Let's do it.

And let's just remember something about the referendum. The SNP went into the last session wanting to call a straight-forward yes/no referendum on independence. They offered to make it a multi-option referendum in order to get backing from the Lib Dems, but Tavish Scott, the defender of the union, was resolute and refused to back down from his position of denying the Scottish people their chance to decide for themselves. Today, the SNP have been given a mandate to hold the referendum they want... And there is absolutely no reason why it should be multi-option. The Lib Dems and others had their chance to let the Scottish people vote for increased powers - and let's face it, devolution max would have beaten independence as people shy away from big changes - but they passed up on it, so the SNP are quite within their rights to hold a straight yes/no referendum on independence. And you know what? I think they can deliver Scotland back to its rightful state.

I have one question: where will we put the statue of Alex Salmond? Or do we wait until he's finished the job and become the first president of an independent republic of Scotland?

Alex, you're a hero for our times. Well done. I salute you, and so does everyone else who wants Scotland to become a better place.

"You'll get your chance, son" (actually, I don't think he will...)

2011-05-04T10:06:00.000+01:00

Last night's debate on STV was great fun. It's a shame that it had to be held in Glasgow again, meaning we've now had two debates in Glasgow and one in Perth, completely ignoring the north and south of Scotland. That might not seem all that important, but bearing in mind that Glasgow is Labour's heartland, it's interesting that STV chose it for both their debates - even using the exact same venue, in fact. You just wonder if the questions would have been a bit different if the debate had been hosted elsewhere - say, the University of Aberdeen for instance, where the BBC hosted their 2007 leaders debate (which I was at, unsuccessfully attempting to get my band's website address on the TV...) There were some difficult questions for Alex Salmond, mainly people with unfortunate circumstances trying to take him to task for things that are not really realistic topics for such a debate - does anyone really expect the First Minister to have detailed information about a dermatology ward in Ayrshire, for example? I don't know about anyone else, but when audience members try to get into a lengthy one-to-one with politicians in a televised debate, I kind of wish the chairperson would tell them to stop wasting everyone else's time. These debates are not about airing personal grievances that are more than likely exceptions to the norm; it's about seeing who has the best policies for the public at large.

That aside, there were some great moments in the debate. My favourite was probably Alex Salmond saying "you'll get your chance, son" to Iain Gray when he kept interrupting him, although the man asking Iain Gray for his suggestions for a sandwich shop came a pretty close second (and the laughter around the hall as Iain Gray tried to suggest he doesn't run away from things was also hilarious). Annabel Goldie's pause when asked why she didn't think the Scottish people should be given a chance to decide our constitutional future was telling, and in fact she needn't have bothered saying anything after that, as she had already accidentally made the point: it's indefensible. The audience's overall reaction to the idea of an independence referendum - clearly in favour - was also extremely gratifying. I was also overjoyed to see someone finally bring up the elephant in the room in regards to knife crime: there is more to crime in Scotland than knife crime!

Tavish Scott yet again reacted to the independence referendum question as if he had been asked which of his testicles he would like removed first. I really don't understand what his problem is, and I'm sure those watching will come to the conclusion that his reactions are completely over the top, particularly his ridiculous assertion that voting for the SNP in this election will guarantee independence for Scotland (oh Tavish, how I wish you were right). I think the constitution section was excellent - Salmond did a good job of making the case for independence being key to changing Scotland's fortunes, although it was unfortunate that Bernard Ponsonby seemed to be arguing for the rather bizarre idea of not having a referendum for independence until after all the detailed preperations had been put in place. After all, one of the main (and worst) arguments against the referendum is the expense - surely it would be far more expensive to spend time getting everything in place in case of a "yes" result, only for a "no" result to be returned? Once the referendum bill is put forward, the SNP will then make the case for independence by sketching out to the public ust what independence will entail, and I would like to think that debate would be a bit more broad than how many foreign embassies Scotland has, and whatever other silly things Ponsonby was banging on about. What is so strange about that?

I've got to hand it to Iain Gray, he's obviously had a lot of extra coaching in the run up to these debates, as he seemed quite confident when talking about jobs near the start, but this confidence soon disappeared as the debate wore on and he started dropping some of his usual clangers, with his stances on certain things looking increasingly ridiculous - Labour abolished youth unemployment in 1997, apparently. Oh, and don't forget that he finally had that conversation with the guy he ran away from at Central Station. What a guy! Iain says he'll talk with anyone at any time, although if you could give him a few weeks to come up wth his answers, that would be smashing. Here's a quick hint for you Iain (not that you'll ever be in a position to use it after this election): don't accuse members of the public of asking you "pointless" questions. It doesn't look very good.

Finally, the STV poll highlighted the most ridiculous aspect about the whole debate, namely that the Greens - predicted by the poll to end up with one less seat than the Lib Dems - were not present. If any party should have been shut out from the debate, it was the Lib Dems. Apart from making himself look ridiculous on a few occasions, Tavish added absolutely nothing to the debate. Labour are obviously going to be included in any debates, and the Tories at least provide a different stance on some things, even if that stance is entirely wrong. But other than trying to turn the election into some sort of "regional control of police versus guaranteed Scottish independence" referendum, he was a complete non-entity. Better to have Patrick Harvie on there at least arguing for different things. Oh well, with any luck the next televised Scottish leaders debate will be over the independence referendum, with Alex and Patrick arguing for a "yes" vote, and Murdo Fraser and Richard Baker (tee hee hee) arguing for a "no" vote.

Oh, one final, final point, in regards to Newsnight Scotland's coverage of the debate: is it a coincidence that their clip of Alex Salmond's answer to the referendum question was clipped just before the rapturous applause that ensued, whereas their clip of Iain Gray's answer contained the significantly less enthusiastic applause that followed his? Coupled with their favourite picture of the leaders (Iain Gray front and centre, ahead of Alex Salmond, with Patrick Harvie constantly cut out completely, despite being in the full version of the picture), it's hard not to feel like it's the usual BBC Scotland pro-Labour bias, which is a shame considering how well Gordon Brewer has been behaving recently.

I'm absolutely gutted that I'm stuck on an oil rig rather than being back home for the election. I'll still be voting via proxy, but I can just tell it's all going to be really exciting. Since I have to be up early anyway, I think I'll get up really early to catch the 6am coverage - with any luck, a lot of the exciting twists will happen on Friday, like last time round.

Devolution Max: no longer an option, thanks to the Lib Dems

2011-04-25T02:29:00.000+01:00

Okay, I know that the latest polls showing the number of seats for pro-independence parties at over 65 are indeed just polls, but let's pretend for a moment that, come 6th May, the Scottish parliament does indeed have a majority of MSPs who support Scottish independence. The SNP wanted to get a referendum on independence in their first term in Government, but were thwarted by the three London parties ganging up to tell us that it was the wrong time for a referendum on independence (which implies that there is a right time - but they never told us when that was) or that in the "current economic climate" we couldn't afford a costly referendum (which is puzzling considering there is a costly referendum on a pointless change to the Westminster voting system on 5th May). However, if the polls are correct, then supporters of independence will have something to get very excited about: a referendum on independence will take place before 2016. But not only will we be getting a referendum on independence; we'll be getting it without having to worry about the vote being diluted by a "devolution max" option, and there is only one party to blame/thank for that: the Lib Dems.

In 2007, both the SNP and the Lib Dems wanted Holyrood's powers to be increased, to varying levels. The SNP wanted a referendum on full independence, whereas the Lib Dems wanted "devolution max". The SNP were willing to work with the Lib Dems by including a "devolution max" option in a referendum, alongside their independence option, but the Lib Dems were not willing to back down from their "NO INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM!!!" stance. If the Lib Dems hadn't been so pig-headed, there could have been a referendum in the last parliament, and Scotland would almost definitely have voted for increased powers but not for full independence. I say this without a doubt in my mind, because the biggest fear people have when it comes to independence is fear of the unknown. So while most people would probably want changes made to the Scottish parliament's powers, many of them would be scared of going too far, so presenting them with an option of increasing powers but remaining part of the union would suit them much more than going straight for independence. I dare say there are many people who would one day support Scottish independence, but would need to see proof that it could work first, via increased tax varying and borrowing powers. This is why the gradualist approach is almost guaranteed to eventually lead to independence.

The Lib Dems shot themselves in the foot last time around. Assuming there is a pro-independence majority in Holyrood after the election, then we will see an independence referendum in the next parliament, and there is absolutely no requirement for that to have a "devolution max" option on it. Indeed, as I have already said, the appearance of such an option would guarantee defeat for the independence option, so it is to be avoided where possible. The Lib Dems could have made a difference last time round, but this time no one will even care what their position is. Without a "devolution max" option on the table, the Lib Dems will be left with no choice but to fall into line with the Tories and Labour in completely opposing the independence referendum, thus making it even less clear what the point of their existence actually is in Scotland. If the Lib Dems' main objective is preservation of the union (and, as I have mentioned previously, all the evidence points towards this being a fact), then they have possibly failed, as a referendum with a "devolution max" win would probably kick independence into the long grass for at least a couple of elections (providing ample opportunity for Labour to get back in power and run the country into the ground to convince people that Scotland really can't stand up for itself), whereas a straight "independence or status quo" referendum could deliver independence within five years.

Lib Dems will probably point towards the Scotland Bill the coalition is trying to impose on Scotland as proof of the Lib Dems taking action to increase Holyrood's powers, but the reality is these changes are going to be disastrous for Scotland, and their impending imposition may even help concentrate a few minds to consider just how exactly Scotland benefits from being ruled from Westminster. The bill could be the Poll Tax of this generation, and we all know what happened to the Tories because of that error of judgement. So, it doesn't matter if Tavish really doesn't now consider an independence referendum to be a deal-breaker or not, because it looks like his party won't be needed anyway. Which may hold true for pretty much every issue over the whole five year parliament...

Lib Dems in Aberdeen South & North Kincardine campaigning on behalf of the SNP

2011-04-22T14:17:00.000+01:00

It's nice to see the Lib Dems doing the SNP's work for them in my constituency, Aberdeen South & North Kincardine. We're all used to the Lib Dems' "only the Lib Dems and Party X can win here" election strategy - the most negative of strategies as it is effectively saying "don't vote for us because of our policies; vote for us because we're not them" - but it seems to ring more hollow than usual this time around. Considering the Lib Dems' current unpopularity, you would have to think that most people, given the choice between the Lib Dems and another party, will vote for the other party.

I'm sure a lot of people receiving this election leaflet will read "only John Sleigh and the SNP can win" and think "I'd better vote for the SNP, then". After all, Maureen Watt came just 2,071 votes behind Nicol Stephen last time around, a man who had not only been a prominent politician in the area since 1991 and incumbent MSP since 1999, but was also the leader of the Liberal Democrats. You take away these factors and things don't look so good for the Lib Dems in AS&NK. Also, John Sleigh polled 5.1% less of the vote in 2010 than Vicki Harris managed in 2005, so I would suggest he's not exactly a vote-winner, possibly down to his youth, and the fact that - without meaning to be derogatory or spiteful - he looks like a bit of a dork.

Maureen Watt, the next MSP for Aberdeen South & North Kincardine. I'd stake my life savings on it. Well, almost.

Oh, and I would urge anyone reading this blog to join in the Alba Voice campaign to protest about a minor change to the UK voting system which will make absolutely no difference to who is elected being put to a referendum, despite the vastly more important referendum on Scottish independence being blocked by the unionist parties. I urge you to join in particularly because I'm having to vote via proxy, and my proxy refuses to spoil the ballot paper for me!!!

(Or if you're not Scottish, remember that there are options for Cornish people and the Welsh, too!)

Tavish Scott mauled live on Newsnight Scotland

2011-04-13T07:59:00.000+01:00

Wow. I'm typing this (but not posting it) just after watching Gordon Brewer put the final nail in the coffin of Tavish Scott's career as Lib Dem leader on Newsnight Scotland (the election result is as much a formality as signing a death certificate), and I still can't quite believe what I just saw. I'm not sure if it was Gordon Brewer being remarkably effective for the first time ever (maybe Isobel Fraser has been giving him lessons?) or if it was just Tavish Scott metaphorically handing him a stick and saying "come on, beat the crap out of me". I think it might have been a combination of the two. Either way, it was possibly the most excruciating and hilarious interview I've seen since the last time I watched an episode of Knowing Me Knowing You With Alan Partridge. Even Gordon Brewer burst into laughter at a few points, and with just cause.

Tavish made the absolutely amateur mistake of thinking he could go into a pre-election interview and dictate the flow. It's blatantly obvious his (only) plan was to go in there and talk us into submission about the Lib Dems' policy of keeping our police forces separate. Let's be clear here: the Lib Dems are asking people to vote for them based on a policy of... not doing anything. To be fair to them, I'm undecided about the idea of merging police forces (although law and order policies are generally formed entirely to deal with Strathclyde's police figures already, I wouldn't want there to suddenly be no regional crime statistics - if that's what would happen under a merged police force - and thus tar the whole of Scotland with the same brush as a "certain area"). However, to base your whole campaign around the idea that everyone else wants to reform something but you don't, seems remarkably negative to me. Use it as a pillar of the campaign, sure; but you need to offer voters something positive to vote for too.

But back to the actual interview. As I say, it was clear Tavish thought he would get 20 minutes to talk about keeping police forces separate, because he kept trying to answer questions as if Gordon Brewer had mentioned that policy. Of course, Gordon was more interested in asking the questions that people really are asking of the Lib Dems. He asked why people should believe anything the Lib Dems say; why the Lib Dems (correctly) accused Labour of hypocrisy on several issues when he had been part of the previous coalition which tried to do things like close Monklands A&E; why they hadn't gotten any assurance from Danny Alexander that their Scottish Water sell-off idea wouldn't result in all the money going straight to the UK treasury; and also what policies would be deal breakers in coalition talks. This last one is particularly important, since the coalitions with Labour in Holyrood and the Tories in Westminster have shown us that several things we might once have assumed to be deal breakers (proportional representation, tuition fees, maybe even nuclear power/weapons) are nothing of the sort. We can see from their only other chance to form a coalition (with the SNP in 2007) that there is only one issue which will stop the Lib Dems from even taking part in coalition discussions: allowing the electorate a referendum on independence. They could have done some good things over the past four years and even had a referendum offering both independence or increased Holyrood powers (independence would have lost, because human beings generally choose the option offering the least change), but Tavish Scott ensured that the Lib Dems never even sat at the table for talks (as he is generally regarded as the main opposition to it). So if anyone ever asks you what the Lib Dems stand for, all the evidence points to just one thing: opposing Scottish independence.

Anyway, Tavish was squirming throughout the whole interview, getting really wound up by Brewer's refusal to accept his rubbish answers and for him having the gall to point out how rubbish these answers were. We didn't learn a single thing from this interview, except that Tavish Scott is not good at answering straight-forward questions. I assumed all the funniest moments from this campaign would be provided by Iain Gray, but I'm not sure if even HE can top that performance. There were points where I thought Tavish was going to just get up and storm off, that's how bad it was getting. He just cannot keep calm under pressure, and that's not what you want from a party leader, never mind a (don't laugh) First Minister. Any potential Lib Dem voters watching this will have been severely put off by this terrible, terrible performance. Lib Dem candidates throughout the country should be very worried, and might want to consider wearing nappies for these last few weeks.

So who'll be the next Scottish Lib Dem leader? Pretty difficult to decide just now of course, since we have no idea if they'll even have any MSPs after the election, but I do hope there are better options than Jeremy Purvis (who was a very slippery character when asked about the Scottish Water idea last week on Newsnight) and the detestable "Shouty" Mike Rumbles. Well, maybe I don't hope so. Lib Dem supporters certainly should, though.

Ever noticed that if you say Mike Rumbles over and over again, it starts to sound like My Grumbles?

Remember the past - you get what you vote for

2011-04-09T10:17:00.000+01:00

The English NHS is on the way to being ruined and effectively privatised. English universities are going to price many prospective students out of further education, because people quite rightly aren't going to want to leave university with debts equivalent to a small mortgage (let's remember that people already leave university with substantial debts in the form of student loans and overdrafts). However, I find it very difficult to feel any sympathy, for one simple reason: you get what you vote for.

Everyone knew before the 2010 election that the Tory party exists purely to service the interests of the rich, and bends down to take whatever big corporations want to thrust in its direction. It's what it has always stood for, and there is absolutely no reason why that should ever change. The Tory party is populated with people who supported the Tory party and decided they wanted to help impose those ideas onto the population. People who believe that public services can be better delivered by private companies seeking a profit for shareholders support the Tories. Therefore, it's fairly obvious that the Tory party should be obsessed with trying to privatise everything. England voted in vast numbers for the Tory party, because the English electorate were stupid enough to fall for the bizarre idea that the Tory party had changed. I'm sorry England, but you're getting what you deserved.

Unfortunately, England's choice has impacted on Scotland. We may be protected from their changes to NHS and university funding, but we still feel the brunt of their cuts due to our block grant (aka our pocket money) being severely reduced, and not being allowed to raise funds how we wish to raise them. Fortunately, we have a government of our own who place the welfare of the Scottish people above all else, and who are more concerned with small businesses than big corporations (evidence: action on small business rates vs the proposed large retailer levy - opposed by all three London parties).

Nothing I'm saying here is new. We all know parties never change, and yet people still fall for their lies when they say they have changed. Parties should be judged on their actions, not on their words. Bob Monkhouse once said "when people find out I'm a comedian they ask me to tell them a joke. When I meet a politician, I don't say, 'tell me a lie'!" Before people go crossing the box next to their usual candidates in May, they should step back and think about their party's record over the past four years, and the parliaments before that.

Labour: opposed the council tax freeze FOUR times; allowed council tax to rise by 60% during their tenure in power; introduced tuition fees; saddled the country with millions of pounds of PFI debt that will be there for decades (including using PFI to build the Skye bridge, and then ending up having to spend even more money bringing it back under public ownership); opposed minimum alcohol pricing in Scotland despite supporting it in England because they were worried about supermarkets making too much profit, and then opposed the large retailer levy that would have, erm, decreased the profits for large retailers; opposed budgets that delivered measures they asked for; forced through the Edinburgh trams, which no one actually wanted (I've yet to speak to an Edinburgher who ever supported them) and which were not at all needed; refused to back a referendum on Scotland's future, despite setting one up for Wales and offering an AV referendum in the UK in a bid to remain in power.

Lib Dems: claimed to have abolished tuition fees in Scotland when really they were just postponed until graduation; supported the idea of local income tax until the SNP proposed it; opposed the large retailer levy, presumably completely unconnected to the fact that their party donors include supermarkets that would have been affected by it; refused to go into coalition with the SNP in Holyrood because of their principled stance on a referendum on independece, but not holding the same principled stance on long-held beliefs like free university education and proportional representation (so at least we know that keeping the union intact is the Lib Dems' only deal-breaker); forced through the Edinburgh trams; refused to back a referendum on Scotland's future, despite supposedly being in favour of increasing the powers of devolution, and also forcing a referendum on AV, which isn't even a voting system they had ever declared any interest in introducing beforehand.

Tories: privatise everything in sight (and will do so to Scottish Water if they get the chance, despite water being absolutely key to Scotland's economic future); opposed the large retailer levy, because of their absolute devotion to large corporations; forced through the Edinburgh trams; currently implementing tuition fees in England and wish to do so in Scotland; currently trying to privatise the NHS in England; refused to back a referendum on Scotland's future, despite giving the UK a referendum on a token change to the voting system.

SNP: froze council tax for four years; genuinely abolished tuition fees, rather than just renaming them the "graduate endowment fee"; abolished bridge tolls on Tay and Forth Road bridges, thus removing what was essentially a tax on people who lived in Fife but worked in Dundee and Edinburgh; oversaw the lowest crime figures in 32 years; abolished prescription charges; tried to halt the Edinburgh trams, but were stopped from doing so; tried to introduce a fairer local tax system, but were stopped from doing so; tried to introduce minimum alcohol pricing to help fight Scotland's alcohol problem, but were stopped from doing so; supported the smoking ban in the last parliament because it was best for Scotland, rather than playing petty opposition politics; wanted to introduce a referendum on Scottish independence and increased devolution powers, but was stopped from even trying to do so.

When you look at the histories of these parties, it's blatantly obvious who people should vote for. Labour have spent four years conducting themselves like sulking children, refusing to join in. The policies they tell us they back are completely at odds with their history in power, which gives them absolutely no credibility whatsoever. The Lib Dems have a history of lies, whether it's pretending to have abolished tuition fees, pretending to be in favour of increasing devolved powers (we all know the Scotland Bill is a set up), or pretending to stand for anything other than selling out voters for power (let's just remember that this is the SECOND time the Lib Dems have gone back on tuition fees promises, the first being in 1999). The Tories just cannot be trusted to be in charge of public services, and will only ever serve narrow corporate interests. The SNP have voted for what was best for Scotland while in opposition, and have tried to enact policies that are best for Scotland while in government, although often being blocked by the self-interest of other parties. They're not perfect, but at least they've been true to themselves - namely, the party of Scotland and the Scottish people. That alone makes them more worthy of people's votes than the others.

When casting your vote on 5th May, just remember that political parties don't change. Look into the past, and you'll see the future.

Why should students subsidise university research?

2011-04-06T23:14:00.000+01:00

I notice that BBC News (the UK version) was concentrating on Scottish tuition fees today. The University of Dundee's principal, Professor Pete Downes, was today saying that universities will need more funding to compete as English universities begin charging fees that will be the equivalent of buying a brand new car every year. This is nothing new, and neither is his reasoning, but something suddenly struck me about how skewed his argument was.

The argument he is putting forward is that we need to start charging fees at Scottish universities in order for their research departments to maintain their standings in the world. Now, never let it be said that I do not want our universities to be world leaders in research (quite the opposite, in fact), but answer me this: why should university students pay for it?

When people argue that taxpayers who never went to university shouldn't be subsidising those who choose to go to university, it's clearly a flawed argument (after all, I'm pretty sure these same people would be the first ones to moan if we suddenly had no properly trained nurses and doctors, because people couldn't afford to do these courses). However, you can at least see where they're coming from when they make this argument. But if the Joe Bloggs on the street (Jock McBlawgs?) shouldn't have to subsidise students' learning, then why should students have to subsidise university research? After all, if I'm paying tuition fees, I expect that money to go towards the costs of teaching me, not to the research departments.

If tuition fees are ever reintroduced in Scotland, I would expect universities to be forced to break down just how exactly those fees are spent. When I did my second degree at RGU, I had to pay over £1,000 per year. I struggle to see how even that was value for money - I certainly didn't feel like I had received over £1,000 worth of teaching materials and lecture time each year. There is clearly no way it can truly cost £9,000 per year to give a student two lectures per day, two or three tutorials per week, and a few exams at the end. Even factoring in running costs of libraries and course websites, £9,000 is way off the mark.

Again, I'm not saying for a second that we should stop funding research in universities (it would clearly be ridiculous), but let's not use it as an excuse to charge students thousands of pounds per year to sit in lecutre halls sleeping off a hangover, in order to get a piece of paper at the end which is becoming less and less of an advantage when looking for work.

Let's not accept these false arguments in favour of fees without question. If people want to argue in favour of tuition fees, then the costs they base their arguments on must reflect the cost of teaching students, and nothing else. The fact is the SNP's absolute dedication to free education is the only way to go. University research benefits everyone through its contribution to our economy, so let's not lay the burden of funding on students.

Why Iain Gray is - for want of a better term - a complete and utter moron

2011-04-02T01:21:00.000+01:00

This is a video from the Caledonian Mercury. I put it up here, safe in the knowledge that any attempt to give this video a wider audience can only help to ensure that Iain Gray never becomes First Minister of Scotland. Even if you ignore the content, just observe the delivery. This is a monologue - an edited one at that - where all the person has to do is say their piece to the camera, without worrying about being made to look stupid by someone talking over them, or having their arguments completely torn apart on live TV. Just get your argument across succinctly - you can always redo it if you mess a bit up.

But he can't even do that properly.

Watch him stumbling through his spiel, umming and erring his way through it with all the conviction of a teenager who has been asked to read something off a bit of paper he's seeing for the first time in front of a crowded hall of people. This is the man we're supposed to think should be leading us, the man we're supposed to be sending in front of world leaders as the face of Scotland. It's embarrassing, and to be perfectly honest, it's insulting that Labour thinks so little of Scotland that they think this complete and utter moron should be our leader. This is the standard of politician Labour think is worthy of Holyrood.

Say what you will about Cameron or Clegg (please do, in fact), but at least they can rattle off a few words without sounding like their brain is slowly shutting down right in front of you. How are you supposed to have any confidence in the truthfulness of this man's words when he sounds like he barely believes them himself? Especially when he espouses such rubbish as saying Scotland deserves a government that won't be "distracted by referendums on independence." Remind me, Mr Gray, what was it that stopped the SNP being able to do the things they wanted to do over the past four years: was it because they spent all their time working on the independence referendum your party refused to back; or was it because your party blocked things like minimum alcohol pricing for petty, partisan reasons? What Scotland really deserves is a constructive opposition party that will hold the government to account when it does things wrong but also support it when it is trying to do things for the good of the country, rather than just opposing things for the sake of being able to gloat about how they didn't manage to get certain things done when the next election comes around.

Idiot.

Renewable energy: it's not about the environment

2011-03-25T12:32:00.000Z

There's something about renewable energy that I feel needs to be properly addressed in the public sphere, in order to convince certain sections of the public of the necessity to one day achieve a state of play where 100% of our energy comes from renewable sources.

I'll lay my stall out here by saying that when it comes to the climate change debate, I'm very much on the side of the scientists who tell us man has accelerated the heating of our planet, as opposed to being on the side of the laymen arguments and the corporate-sponsored right-wing pseudo-science that tries to tell us otherwise. Switching to renewable energy sources will stop us polluting the air so much, and hopefully mitigate the effect we're having on the planet. However, that's not even half the issue when it comes to renewables, and I think it does more harm than good to have even a smidgeon of suggestion to the contrary.

What do we mean by renewable energy? If you ask the average person on the street, many of them probably associate "renewable" with "green" (or "environmentally-friendly", as we used to call it). The thing is, we should be associating it with "infinite" and "inexhaustible". The problem with associating renewable energy directly with the environment/climate change is that climate change denialists and people who care more about being able to do what they want without a thought for the consequences for future generations will scoff at the idea of trying to move towards a 100% renewable energy society. However, no matter where you stand on the climate change debate, renewable energy is still of the utmost importance to the future.

My dad is a climate change denialist. In many ways, he's a classic climate change denialist: he's retired, his national paper of choice is the Daily Mail, and he has, shall we say, some very old fashioned views about the world. However, he's also an intelligent guy and worked in the oil industry for over two decades. As a result, he realises that fossil fuels will run out one day, so he understands how crazy it is to continue to base our survival on finite energy sources. "They still don't get it, the good times have gone. Oil is only going to get more expensive" was his reaction to this weeks' budget.

We need to be making more sceptics think like my dad. Many climate change denialists will never change their views on climate change, but that's no reason for them to think renewable energy is a con. The renewable energy debate needs to be completely removed from climate change debate and contained almost entirely within the debate over energy security, with jobs and the economy getting a little bit of a look in as well. The oil and gas will run out one day, but that will only affect us if we continue to heat our homes with gas and run our cars on petrol until the very last drop of oil is squeezed out of the ground. But if we concentrate on basing our economy on renewable energy, then we'll be fine. In fact, we'll be more than fine, because while other countries are tearing their hair out trying to work out where their energy is going to come from, we'll be able to wean ourselves off fossil fuels with ease, and then people will look to us to help with their problems.

Nuclear energy is touted as a solution to the impending energy crisis, and even after the problems in Japan, there are still people extolling the virtues of nuclear power. This is another reason why the environment should not come into the energy debate. The claims that nuclear energy is "green" because it releases less carbon dioxide into the air than other forms of energy production are dubious at best, if not outright lies. They are predicated on the (wrong) assumption that there is no carbon dioxide used in the construction and decommissioning of nuclear power plants, as well as rather bizarrely pretending that radioactive substances are not harmful to the environment. Nuclear power is also a great example of why it's such a shame that the term "fossil fuel" has been somewhat abandoned in energy debates, as people seem to forget that the substances used to generate nuclear energy are mined from the ground, and thus are every bit as finite as wood, coal and oil. I suspect it's probably partly because the average person does not quite understand how nuclear power is generated, and maybe also because the UK is less familiar with uranium mining than it is with coal mines and oil and gas fields.

Just like Nick Clegg has had to take a bit of a back seat in the AV debate in order to stop AV being tainted with the Nick Clegg brush, perhaps environmentalists need to take a step back so "renewable" stops being associated with "green", "leftie" and "climate change"?

Tuition fees: £93 million or £202 million - why does it have to be either?

2011-03-14T20:22:00.001Z

There's one thing I don't quite understand about the tuition fees debate. These figures of £93 million and £202 million that describe the shortfall in funding Scottish universities will suffer depend on what the average tuition fees charged by English universities will be. But why should a larger average of English fees lead to a bigger shortfall for Scottish universities? Surely the shortfall is whatever amount Westminster currently contributes to university funding (and thus the Barnett consequential for universities) minus whatever amount Westminster intends to contribute once tuition fees are in place?

If Westminster kept spending the same amount on universities - but still allowed them to charge higher tuition fees - then there would be no shortfall in Scottish universities, as the Barnett consequential would remain the same. England would be spending more money on universities overall, but the public contribution would be the same. Why are we basing our figures on how much we think universities might start charging people? Are we saying that if English universities are allowed much more access to funds, all the good lecturers will up and leave to go to English universities? If this is the case, then why are we not basing our figures on a European average, as there is nothing to stop our lecturers upping and leaving to go to European universities, or anywhere else for that matter.

Am I being completely dense, or do I have a point and people have just blindly accepted this idea of English universities charging an average of £8,000 leading to a larger shortfall in our universities, without actually thinking about it (as per usual)?

What have Labour done to deserve winning in May?

2011-03-13T14:55:00.000Z

I've been out of the loop a little bit recently in regards to Scottish politics, due to being offshore and therefore not having regular internet access. However, I managed to catch Alex Salmond's keynote speech at the SNP conference yesterday, purely by chance. I thought it was a good speech, especially in its bid to lay out a vision for how Scotland would look as an independent nation, which is needed if independence is ever to become a reality. I found this particularly amusing in context of the studio debate that was going on beforehand, with Andrew Kerr and John Curtice discussing how little noise was being made of independence, and speculating that it was going to be silently dropped from the agenda for the upcoming election.

SNP 1 BBC 0.

After the speech, they then postulated on how difficult it had been getting anyone to say whether or not a referendum for independence would be on the manifesto and suggesting that perhaps it was being sacrificed to make a coalition deal in May more likely, only for Nicola Sturgeon, when asked, to state quite simply that there would indeed be plans for a referendum again.

SNP 2 BBC 0.

Anyway, a good speech, with the most obviously quotable line being the line borrowed from Burns about the rocks melting with the sun before the SNP introduces tuition fees of any sort. They were the words of a man who believes in the ideal of free education, an ideal that he considers to be one of the fundamental aspects of how Scotland treats its people, and showed the kind of passion that is sorely lacking from other party leaders in Britain, except perhaps Patrick Harvie or Caroline Lucas. Certainly, if you try to imagine the same kind of phrase coming out of the mouths of David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg or Tavish Scott, they would just sound false. I leave Iain Gray out of that list, because he'd probably stumble through the sentence halfway ("£1.2 million, or £7 million, or £26 million, or another of the figures that have been thrown around like, erm, erm, erm... SNOWSTORM!!!!"), so would just sound stupid rather than false.

What worries me, though, is the continuing feeling throughout the blogosphere and media that Labour are still on course for a win in May. Why? What have they doen to deserve it? There are several blogs discussing the notion - brought up in the current SNP party political broadcast - of what the SNP have done for Scotland, but perhaps just as pressing a discussion is: what have Labour done to deserve being winners in May?

Obviously, I'm open to accusations of being partisan, since I'm an SNP member, but I just can't think of anything they've done to deserve being ahead in the polls. Their two most recent policy announcements have just been stolen from the SNP and both are massive U-turns. Labour have never been in favour of the council tax freeze under the SNP government, and it seemed like a cap on increases to council tax was the closest they had to a concrete policy... and yet, all of a sudden, they decide they want to freeze it too? As for tuition fees, it was quite blatant that they favoured a graduate tax of some sort, and as the party that introduced fees in the first place (during the boom times, when they could quite easily have just funded universities out of the public purse), it is completely irrational for them to suddenly turn around and declare that they don't favour students making direct contributions to university tuition (note, of course, that their pledge is only for the duration of the parliament, whereas Salmond's pledge sounds more like an "over my dead body" assertion). Neither of these policies stands up as being even slightly credible when set against their record, and if actions do indeed speak louder than words, then one only has to have a gander at how Labour has voted and acted in the past to see this.

A media of even slight competence would be taking Labour to the cleaners for this (note how the BBC describes it as "an apparent change of direction", as if there is doubt that they were planning council tax rises just a few months ago), but Scotland, as I and others have noted numerous times, does not have a competent media.

Anyway, the point is Labour have not done anything to deserve being put back in power. The SNP may not have achieved all it set out to achieve in 2007, but it's done far better than I think anyone would have expected, or even hoped, when they decided to run a minority government. There have been no massive cock-ups, no sleaze, no scandals, just a very competent government doing all it can in the face of sometimes very petty opposition. If one or more of these things had been true, then you could understand Labour being able to just walk back into power without so much as an original policy idea, but for it to happen despite the SNP doing a good job just sends out the signal that I'm sure many people hoped wasn't really true: no matter what Labour do, Scotland will vote for them.

It's because of Labour that the UK's finances are in total disarray. At both the UK and Scottish levels, Labour have yet to offer any real policies (yet why is it only Ed Miliband that has people speculating on his effectiveness as leader, when Iain Gray is ten times worse?) Labour have blocked moves by the SNP to introduce fairer taxation with LIT, to increase minimum alcohol prices despite every official in the land being in favour of them (and themselves, but only in Westminster), they've forced the SNP to continue with the disasterous, pointless Edinburgh trams project, they've voted against a budget that implemented everything they asked for, and they've even had yet another leader end up resigning over financial irregularities, as well as a multitude of scandals at local government level. They've also been completely hypocritical in talking about an independence referendum being a waste of money, and then criticising the SNP for not wasting money debating it in parliament when the outcome was already assured.

What do Labour have to do for Scotland to finally abandon them? How many of their politicians need to be caught with their fingers in the till? How many lies do they need to tell? How many times do they need to be blatant hypocrites that take the public for fools?

Let's hope the opinion polls are wrong. If they're not, then Scotland will well and truly be a country of severe self-flagellation. It just makes no sense for Labour to return to power in May.

This Ain't Peace, It's A God Damned Arms Race

2011-02-25T10:47:00.000Z

I have a question: what uses do guns have, other than to kill and maim people? In an episode of The Simpsons, Homer used a gun to open beer cans, switch off the TV (permanently) and other such bizarre feats. In the real world, however, guns are used to kill people, or at the very least to inflict significant harm on their person. That's it. The A-Team may have gone five years firing thousands of bullets without ever seriously hurting someone; but in real life, bullets kill, and that's their sole intention.

David Cameron is touring the Middle East, denouncing the violence in Libya, while flanked by EIGHT arms dealers. That's 27% of the 30 businessmen who have joined him on his little jaunt. There is no other word for this: hypocrisy. On Question Time this week, Peter Hain tried to defend the UK's sale of arms to countries like Libya by saying that Labour ensured that restrictions are placed on the arms to make sure they aren't used on a country's own people, or on certain targets. This presumably means that there is a list of countries which the UK approves violence to be inflicted upon. "Sorry, you can't have these guns if you're going to use them against Country X. Oh, you want to use them against Country Y? Well, that's okay then, fire away!" You also wonder how this can possibly be enforced, unless UK weapons are so sophisticated that they can be programmed to determine the nationality of the people they are about to be used on, and only allow the action to proceed if they are from a country on the UK's Death List. Peter Hain's words when asked about UK arms being used against these restrictions was "well we wouldn't sell to them again". Wow, that's a great source of comfort.

The point is that the UK should not sell arms to other countries. To sell arms is to sell death, and if the UK sells death, it has no moral ground on which to stand when trying to get "rogue" states to demilitarise. The UK tries to convince other countries not to develop nuclear weapons, but these countries are quite within their rights to turn around and say "but you have nuclear weapons, so why shouldn't we?" The UK government - unable to admit that the British Empire is no more - is obsessed with trying to be a big player on the world stage, which is the only reason Trident will be replaced rather than retired, even though it will never be used (the USA - aka the world police - being the only country ever to use a nuclear weapon on another country). The weapons the UK has sold to countries like Libya may not be nuclear weapons, but the principle is the same: you cannot tell people to do one thing while you do another. Africa and the Middle East are full of former European colonies which have spent their decades of independence amassing arsenals of weapons, which are then used to enforce their rule and eventually to civil war. The UK knew Iraq had certain weapons, because the UK still had the receipts for them. How on earth can the UK claim any moral superiority over dictators when the UK armed these dictators in the first place?

So what exactly does David Cameron think he's doing touring the world with arms dealers? Does he realise he is effectively saying that the UK promotes death? Does he really think that weapons are the right thing for the UK to be trying to export to possible fledgling democracies, encouraging them to spend millions on guns rather than on the welfare of their people? "Overthrow your dictator leader (which we just happen to have supported for the past few years) and then use your freedom to come and buy weapons from us!" It's just not right.

I sincerely hope that when Scotland becomes independent we do not sell a single gun or bomb to another country. We certainly won't have any nuclear weapons.

Should drunk people pay for hospital treatment?

2011-02-11T14:30:00.000Z

This article on the BBC News website caught my eye today. Margaret Watt from the Scottish Patients Association saying that drunken A&E patients should pay for their treatment, because they often abuse doctors and nurses (so because some do this, we charge everyone?) There are a few questions that this raises.

Firstly, I can't really see how the scheme would be workable in practice. Would hospitals attempt to charge people at the time of treatment, or would they have a bill sent to them a few days later? The first option is a non-starter, since most people being admitted will already have spent all their money getting drunk in the first place, plus they might get rather irate at being told to stump up money, and the second option seems a little unfair, particularly if you receive a bill for something you don't even remember...

Secondly, how would they determine who to charge? Would it be anyone who is visibly drunk, or would you be breathalysed? Would it just be people who had drank to excess and needed their stomach pumped or something along those lines, or would it also include those who had become victims of violence? It would seem a bit unfair to charge extra to someone who has been beaten to a pulp while drunk, but some might argue that they wouldn't have gotten into that state in the first place if they hadn't already been intoxicated.

Thirdly, it brings into question what the point of the NHS is. Is it to ensure universal free healthcare without question of circumstance, or is it to provide free healthcare for the deserving only? This idea is effectively saying "drunk people only have themselves to blame, so the burden of provision should be on them, not the taxpayer." I'm not sure I completely disagree with this notion, but it's a dangerous road to go down. You could make a similar argument towards mountain climbers and mountain rescue services - should the taxpayer really be paying for people to be rescued because they've decided to embark upon a dangerous hobby, or should they be made to fund rescue services themselves? Similarly, when these people come into hospital with injuries incurred because they've chosen to do something risky, should the hospital charge them for needlessly using up their resources? Where would it stop? Where would the line be drawn between people who were effectively "asking for it" (because that's essentially what we're talking about here), and people who just happened to be the victim of an accident?

I'm maybe jumping the gun a bit, but I could see this being the road to an American-style healthcare system, with people needing to take out insurance in order to be treated at hospitals. I don't think any of us want that.

A Pair of Counts

2011-01-31T02:24:00.000Z

I was going to leave a comment on Jeff Breslin's post on Better Nation about the count for the Scottish election possibly taking place the next day, but I realised it was going to be a massive rant, so I might as well turn it into a blog post.

It's important that people remember the fiasco of four years ago. I love watching the results coming in on election night so I'm instinctively against the count being postponed, but when I think back to 2007, I remember that I was calling for the count to start taking place on the following day. It's easy to think "och, nothing will go wrong this time", but nobody thought there would be a disaster with the counting last time either.

Holyrood elections seem particularly suited to a next-day count. I remember spending all day at work on the 4th May 2007 checking the results every few minutes, and for large stretches of the day, nothing was changing. Most of the counts had been completed the night before, but there were problems getting the Western Isles ballot boxes collected due to bad weather, leading to a delay in their arrival in Stornoway; and there were seven suspended counts. In the end, we didn't get the result until 5pm on Friday, and I will never forget hearing the result on the radio as I drove home from work that day, reacting as if I had just seen James McFadden score to help Scotland win the World Cup (this was something much more important, though).

This is the thing though. That 5pm announcement of the Highlands & Islands regional list seats just showed what a massive difference a few votes can make on the final election result. It's important that they are counted correctly, so if it takes until the next day to get the result, then so be it. Even if the counts do start as soon as the polls close on the 5th May, I know I'll go to my bed at about 3:30am on the 6th May, not knowing what the final result is. Something will go wrong, because it always does, and it's foolish to think that it won't. Bad weather causing ballot boxes to be stranded on an island, or close results requiring a recount, or perhaps even something entirely random will happen to cause a delay in at least one of the counts. With the Highlands & Islands and West Scotland regions both containing islands, there's scope for bad weather delaying 14 list MSPs being announced, not to mention a handful of constituency MSPs. That's a pretty significant percentage of the seats in Holyrood.

Staying up to watch the election results coming in is one of my favourite things to do (sad, I know), but the fun is spoilt when you have to go to bed without knowing the final result (which is why I always consider taking the Friday off work - why can't elections be held on a Friday, or a national holiday announced for the next day?) So perhaps delaying all counts until the next day would actually be a good thing, even for us political junkies.

One thing is for sure, the AV referendum vote should not be getting held on the same day. It's obvious why this is happening - I think the official line is that it's cheaper to hold two votes on the same day, rather than two separate votes; but the reality is that most people probably don't really give a toss about the AV referendum. After all, I'm very much in favour of electoral reform at Westminster, but I'm finding it very difficult to get excited about the referendum, not least because I keep getting emails from various websites (only some of whom I actually signed up to) telling me to say yes to fairer votes etc, when all we're being offered is a different single-winner voting system, rather than the proportional system we need to truly be able to talk of "fairer votes".

Not only will there be vast differences in turnout between areas where there are other votes (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and parts of England with local elections) and those where there aren't (the rest of England), but it's just unfair to hijack the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections by tacking this referendum onto the same day. I'm still a bit amazed that they've chosen to do this, particularly as it had already been decided that councils elections wouldn't be held on the same day as the Scottish elections any more.

Anyway, I just hope that the ballots for the Scottish Election will be taking precedence during the counts on 5th May, as it's by far the more important vote. Either way, I still intend following Bella Caledonia's suggestion of spoiling the referendum ballot paper.

Burns, Baby Burns (Disco Inferno)

2011-01-25T14:28:00.000Z

It's Burns Night tonight, so I expect that up and down the land, there will be people reciting the poetry of Burns as we celebrate our national icon, a man with a genuine claim to being "the world's favourite poet" (that's what my Kilmarnock Edition says, anyway) and thus someone we're rightly very proud of. I visited the Burns heritage sites when I was in Dumfries a couple of years ago, and enjoyed them immensely. However, ask me to recite one of his poems from memory, and I just can't do it.

Hopefully things have changed since I was at school (1987 - 2000), but if not, it's a pretty woeful state of affairs. I recall our class staging a Burns Supper in primary 5, but that's about it in terms of Burns in my formal education (and even then, I'm not convinced we actually recited any of his poems because the only ones I remember were Conductress and Crocodile by JK Annand... Actually, our teacher recited Tam O'Shanter, so there was one Burns poem in there). Surely if there is any poet that children in Scotland should be learning, it's our national bard, a man revered for his words throughout the globe? Admittedly, poetry wasn't all that heavily featured in my English classes, but I remember reading Seamus Heaney so it's not like there were no opportunities to read Burns. I'm not denigrating Heaney's work, but surely it makes sense to encourage Scottish children to get into Scottish culture?

It doesn't stop there, though. What about Hugh MacDiarmid? I believe Carol Ann Duffy's poetry gets taught, certainly in England anyway, but that wasn't the case in my classes. There was a dearth of Scottish novels too - the other credit class got to read Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song while we read The Inheritors, but as far as I can remember, that was the extent of any dalliances with Scottish novels. I have to say, for an Aberdonian secondary school, it would have been particularly apt to have every class read Grassic Gibbon, rather than just some of us. Lanark, which the Guardian called "one of the landmarks of 20th century fiction", was nowhere to be seen. Nor was anything by Walter Scott or even Robert Louis Stephenson's well-known novels Treasure Island, Kidnapped and Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde. The closest I got to a piece of Scottish literature was MacBeth!

I would then extend my criticism onto history lessons. Scotland has such a rich history, full of significant events that Scottish children should be learning about. However, I don't remember ever being taught about the Jacobite rebellions, the Scottish Enlightenment, Highland clearances or the Wars of Independence. We would know about John Logie Baird and Alexander Graham Bell, but there are so many Scottish inventors, engineers and thinkers that have helped shape the modern world, so you would think every child would leave school knowing exactly who James Watt, Adam Smith, John Napier and Alexander Fleming were and how their work affects us today.

I might sound a bit parochial here, but I just find it odd that Scottish schoolchildren are not being brought up to appreciate their own culture, so they can grow up with the knowledge that we have a heritage that includes one of the world's finest poets and a plethora of important figures in literary and engineering circles, as well as a solid knowledge of our history. If I was a cynic, I might suggest that if people had been given this knowledge when they were younger, it would be a lot more difficult when they're older to convince them that Scotland is too wee to be an independent country and they would be more aware of the fact that the Union is not Scotland's natural state. A "unionist conspiracy" too far? Perhaps, but it's almost certainly a factor in the "Scottish cringe" (would people have these feelings of cultural inferiority if we were shown how rich our cultural history is in school?) which, in turn, certainly doesn't hinder efforts to stymie the independence movement.

I hope I'm wrong and this has just been my own experience and not the experience of others, or that the situation has at least improved. It'd be interesting to know if that is indeed the case. If I'm right though, I hope the new Curriculem For Excellence will do something about it.

Declare independence - don't let them do that to you!

2011-01-12T00:14:00.001Z

Ooh, my first blog of the new year. Starting it off with a Bjork lyric (most of my blog titles are in some way music-related, in case nobody has noticed.)

Joan McAlpine's blog mentions Time Magazine's recent Top 10 Aspiring Nations, and it's an interesting read, particularly when comparing the differing levels of attainment of each thus far. It's also interesting to think about which movements have been missed out. It's clearly not meant to be an exhaustive list (Spain alone could just about fill the list with its separatist movements - according to Wikipedia, anyway), and I dare say that rather than a "Top" 10, this is meant to be an illustrative list to show the variety of movements and reasons for independence. Still, if I was a Welsh nationalist, I'd be slightly perturbed at seeing some university professor's very recent claim for an independent Vermont republic making the list ahead of an independent Wales.

So yeah, interesting list. The blurb says some have more legitimate claims to independence than others, although I would argue that it is not for onlookers to determine the legitimacy or otherwise of any population which feels it is being denied its right to independence. That said, I would argue that Scotland is the nation with the best claim for independence of them all, since we have our own parliament, officially sanctioned sports teams (although other aspiring nations do indeed have their own "unofficial" football teams), our own distinct cultural heritage, our own education and legal systems and, possibly most important of all, an already recognised land border with our neighbours. We may not be the only independence-seeking region with one or more of these traits (as well as others), but I can't think of any other that has them all. It would be insulting to these other regions to suggest that Scotland feels more like a bona fide country to those of us who seek Scottish independence than somewhere like Quebec does to those who want independence for Quebec; but I do feel that it is perhaps the only one which most people throughout the world would already refer to as a country, rather than just a region or . There's very little to be done to turn Scotland into an independent nation - although the benefits it would bring are immeasurable.

So why, then, do I get the feeling that Scottish independence is still years behind many other claims for independence? Why do I feel like we're more likely to see independence for Quebec, Tibet and Vojvodina, or even peaceful resolution for the Basque Country long before Scotland ever votes for independence? With all the nation states that have sprung up since the dissolution of the USSR and Yugoslavia, I can't help feeling like Scotland is the one natural country that just doesn't seem to "get it", like we've forgotten to turn up to a party for small independent nations. You see people in Southern Sudan being given a referendum on independence and you think "how come Iain Gray and Tavish Scott tell us we can't afford a referendum, and yet here are the people of a poor, war-torn country being given the chance to exercise their democratic rights?"

Iain Gray, of course, recently insulted the people of Montenegro by claiming their independence had come about as a result of war and various atrocities (I was going to link to the story from the BBC News website, but strangely enough, there don't appear to be any stories about it on the BBC...) However, what is true about Montenegro and other recently (or relatively recent) independent countries is that their histories do not show them as having last been independent several centuries ago. Most of these countries that came about from the fall of the USSR and Yugoslavia were independent nations in the early part of the 20th century, and it's far easier to convince people that independence is the way forward when there are still people who were alive before annexation. Not so for Scotland.

You could spend weeks reading up on the various different histories of these nations, how they were annexed or colonised into the various empires and what their claims for independence are. It's all very fascinating stuff, especially when you start finding out that countries you thought had existed forever didn't actually come into being until relatively recently (I was astounded the first time I found out Germany had only really come about as a proper nation state in 1871, and until playing Assassin's Creed II last year, I had always taken it for granted that Italy had been how it is today since the fall of the Roman Empire - maybe I should have done geography or history instead of modern studies at school?) But when you do spend a bit of time doing this, you perhaps begin to see why Scottish independence isn't a blindingly obvious choice for some people. We seem to be one of the few aspiring independent countries that hasn't really had any major changes to their national status within the past 400 years. Most of these countries have a long history of passing between various kingdoms and empires, whereas Scotland has been part of the same kingdom and empire for several centuries. Stability is great and all that, but leave things the same for too long and they become stagnant. It's time things were shaken up a little, and for Scotland to join the party - being a colony of an empire is so last century. Let's get there before other nations do, otherwise we're just going to get left behind.

(Incidentally, one thing that really annoys me while looking up all these wee aspiring nations is when you come across ones that have declared independence for themselves, yet are "unrecognised" by most or all UN member states. What right do other countries have to say "no, you're not an independent state - you're still part of that other country"? It's one thing for North and South Korea to not recognise each other as legitimate nation states and claim themselves to be the sole government of Korea, but what business is it of the UK to say "no, South Ossetia, you're not independent - you're part of Georgia", especially when even Russia recognises its independence? I can't help thinking there is a default policy of not recognising fledgling independent states for fear of Scotland trying to do the same thing. The UK wouldn't be the only ones doing that - Argentina are one of the few nations that are honest in their reasons for not recognising Kosovo, as they fear setting a precedent that the Falklands Islands might pursue. Maybe I'm just being a paranoid Cybernat, though - after all, you could just as easily suggest that UK recognition of independent nations is predicated solely on whatever Russia says, and then saying the opposite. Whatever the reasoning, these arrogant foreign governments certainly aren't taking any notice of the fact that the people have spoken.)

Lib Dem Ministers: two-faced, or not so bad after all?

2010-12-22T12:23:00.001Z

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this business of recording Lib Dem MPs speaking candidly to undercover reporters about the coalition, nor the revelations that have come out as a result.

First of all, I don't know if I really agree with doing it in the first place. It's always quite fun when politics takes on the guise of a soap opera, and this certainly has the hallmarks of a Christmas episode of Eastenders - I can just imagine the coalition sitting down to eat Christmas dinner together, when suddenly the Telegraph (who are also inexplicably invited) suddenly put a DVD in the player and reveal to the Tories exactly what their Lib Dem lovers really think about them. All that's missing is the drum beats at the end.

That's all well and good, and I'm sure the journalists will be patting themselves on the back for getting these scoops, but I can see where this will lead. It's already difficult enough to get politicians to be truthful, so it's nice to see that even ministers are prepared to speak candidly in front of constituents at their surgeries. That's going to stop now though, as MPs will go into their surgeries thinking "is this a reporter?" and make sure their every word is guarded. I'm not quite sure how this helps the cause for creating a more open atmosphere in politics, and to be honest, I think this is an abuse of trust by the journalists, as surgeries should be for constituents to get answers from their MPs, not for journalists to try and get a story on the sly.

Secondly, I'm not sure how the Lib Dems actually turn out after all this. Up until now, the general public's opinion of the Lib Dems seemed to be approaching an all-time low; people thought they had been dishonest in making pledges which they went back on, and were desperate for power, at any cost. Morals? Pfft, what morals? The backbenchers might have seemed like they had been pulled along slightly, but I for one was of the opinion that the Lib Dem ministers were positively revelling in the coalition and were fully-fledged Tories in all but name.

That evaluation doesn't necessarily hold so true now, though. Their actions may not have changed, but we can at least see that there truly has been some soul-searching going on, and many of them have been rightfully uneasy with the decisions they have ended up taking. I must confess that I thought they had taken these decisions lightly, so I feel I've perhaps been a bit unfair on them.

So the image that is being portrayed is of a coalition in crisis, with the Lib Dem partners deeply unhappy with how things are going and ready to splinter off at any moment. The reality is we're seeing that these Lib Dem MPs are perhaps not quite as bad as we thought - they've done what Michael Moore describes as "the worst crime a politician can commit", but not quite with the glee, gusto and wanton abandon that many/most of us perhaps assumed.

So, personally, I think the Lib Dems are looking a bit better from this. Still wouldn't vote for them, mind. Labour aren't doing themselves any favours either, with the way they've pounced on it. This could have worked in their favour, but they've just resorted to the usual petty politicking, which is particularly unacceptable in Vince Cable's case, since he now won't be able to block Rupert Murdoch's attempts to continue his mission to own the world's media. Idiots.

(Of course, Lib Dem MPs could just have been speaking rubbish, telling these "constituents" what they thought they wanted to hear...)

It's educational (is it, though?)

2010-12-16T22:49:00.000Z

Excellent blog by Joan McAlpine today (no surprise as she's one of the top Scottish bloggers), where she writes on the bizarre decision by BBC Scotland to cover the university funding proposals from the point of view of English students, rather than from Scottish students. It's yet another example of BBC Scotland coming at a story with the sole mission of finding an angle that allows it to continue its anti-SNP propaganda campaign, but it's an angle that does not stand up to even the smallest amount of scrutiny.

Riddle me this: if a media outlet ran with the story "Chinese students paying more to study in Scotland", would a single Scottish tax-payer give a toss? No, they wouldn't; they would say, "well, quite right too - why should I be paying to educate another country's students? That's their own government's responsibility, not mine." Regardless of whether or not we think Scotland and England are separate countries (I would assume - and hope - that anyone reading this blog would be of the same opinion as me, that I am no more English than I am German), the fact is that when it comes to devolved matters, England is every bit as foreign a country as China, Mozambique or New Caledonia. There is no anti-English sentiment in the proposal (and it is just a proposal) to make English students pay more tuition fees at Scottish universities, just as there is no anti-Chinese sentiment in making Chinese students pay for their tuition in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is elected by Scottish voters, voters who elect MSPs to represent their interests, not the interests of people whose own government has failed them. It's THAT simple, it really is.

On the subject of universities though, I have to say I'm becoming increasingly disillusioned with them. I have a BSc Computing Science from the University of Aberdeen, and a BEng Electronic & Telecommunications Engineering from the Robert Gordon University (or at least I would do if I had paid the graduate endowment fee in 2005, which I refused to do). For a start, since it was my second degree, I had to pay for the BEng every year anyway, but even if I did formally graduate, my degree would barely be worth wiping my arse with - it was a rubbish course, and the very fact I managed to pass it despite having absolutely no interest in it whatsoever speaks volumes for how difficult it was (unless I'm just a complete genius). If you can get a degree with minimal effort and no interest in the subject matter, then what does having a degree actually say about the competence (or otherwise) of the graduate?

I have, of course, used my original computing degree more in my career thus far. Even then though, I strongly believe I gained a significant proportion of the working knowledge I have in Java programming from my first job, especially as that involved having to essentially re-learn Java as I hadn't used it for over two years; and most of what I would use in a software development position now is knowledge I have gleamed from the jobs I have had, and not what I learnt in university. The job I currently have is completely unrelated to either degree however, which had me thinking about other people I know and where their degrees have taken them.

I would say most of the people I know went to university, but I'm not sure most of the people I know are in jobs that required a university education (except perhaps in situations where employers have artificially stipulated a degree as a requirement, even though the job itself clearly does not require one), and even less of them are in jobs directly related to their degree. I know people who did law, accountancy, chemistry, computing, engineering, medicine, architecture, biology, geology, land management, sport science, business management, nursing, politics, corporate communications, and a whole host of other subjects. However, the number of lawyers, accountants, chemists, engineers, doctors, architects, biologists, geologists, land managers, sport scientists, business managers, nurses, politicians and corporate communicators I know can probably be counted on one hand, or certainly on two (a bit unfair to count computing scientists in there, since that would include former colleagues, who are obviously going to be computing scientists). I do, however, know plenty of people who are in a job that their degree didn't help them to get - the restaurant manager who started off as a waiter, for instance, but who studied politics and international relations; or the recruitment consultants who studied business management and sports science.

What's my point? Well, the UK government's spiel is that their tuition fees are not going to be a barrier for people from deprived backgrounds going to university, because the fees won't be up front, and they'll only pay them off after they reach a certain pay threshold. That's lovely and all that, but it still means people leaving university with tens of thousands of pounds of debt, for a degree which, if my anecdotal evidence is even close to being typical across the UK, will prove useless to the majority of these people in their future careers. If I had £27,000 - £36,000 of debt just now, I would feel pretty negative in regards to the future, and I would be looking back on my decision to go to university with a great deal of regret at having wasted so much money.

You see, as soon as you put a price on something, you have to justify its worth. It has to give value for that money. Do degrees offer value for money? I would say a resounding "NO", certainly on the whole, anyway. Stuff like law and medicine are obviously things you really need to have spent some years studying in order to follow your chosen career path, but for me, there are a great many degrees which do not offer anything like value for money - and I'm not just talking about the infamous "Mickey Mouse" degrees that people love to deride. People are going to say that Scottish universities will suffer without the proper funding in place, but I would question why people should be expected to pay out tens of thousands of pounds for a degree which has a very good chance of proving to be effectively worthless.

Tuition fees and university funding in general should be a part of a much wider debate about what the role of further education actually is, who should and should not be partaking in it, and who the real beneficiaries of a university educated populace/workforce really are. For that last part, I would say "society" and "businesses, especially those who require prospective employees to have a degree so they don't have to bother training people themselves".

BBC Scotland's "unique" take on the Megrahi WikiLeaks

2010-12-08T23:25:00.000Z

Interesting details arise from the cables on WikiLeaks regarding Megrahi's release from prison. There's a lot to go with if you're a journalist looking for a story to write. Do you go with the fact that Labour's public position of being against the release was completely at odds with their private position of practically begging for it, in order to keep Libya (the country containing the largest amount of known oil resources in Africa) sweet? Or do you go with Libya trying (and failing) to bribe the Scottish Government with "treats"? Maybe you go for the fact that the disgraceful, blatant implications made by US senators a few months back that Megrahi's release was somehow related to BP's business interests in the region were clearly miles wide of the mark?

Well, if you're a BBC Scotland "journalist", you obviously don't go with any of these. No, BBC Scotland "journalists" apparently approach any story with one thought in mind: "how can I turn this into an anti-SNP story?" These have been the paranoid thoughts of SNP bloggers and commentators for years now, but I really don't see any other explanation for their bizarre decision to run with the story that "oooh, Alex Salmond said HE would have the final decision on the matter, so that means when Kenny MacAskill said it was his decision alone, he was... LYING!!!!"

I thought I'd seen it all yesterday with BBC Scotland trying to blame Stewart Stevenson for the weather, but this really takes the fucking biscuit. Oh my god, you mean to tell me that the Scottish Government doesn't go announcing big decisions before running them past the First Minister first? WHAT KIND OF FUCKING LUNATICS ARE RUNNING OUR COUNTRY???? How the FUCK are we meant to blame Alex Salmond for big decisions the Scottish Government make if they aren't all being run past him first? What kind of fucking leader is he? SOMEONE MUST BE SACKED FOR THIS!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GIVE ME STRENGTH, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, BBC? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?????

This reminds me of one of the biggest injustices in my academic life, where I had a stunning essay marked down purely because I didn't use 1.5 line spacing in the essay. I thought that was anal retentiveness of the highest order, but this - THIS - is just ridiculous.

How can we possibly take BBC Scotland seriously any more? I know people should not have been taking them seriously for many years, but this goes beyond biased reporting - this angle on the story was about as relevant as their stupid end story, which was essentially "oooh, what do you wear out in the snow? Do you wear a sensible hat, or a silly one? Let's cross the River Clyde from Pacific Quay and ask some people, so that we don't have to bother finding proper news outside the Central Belt." There is only one word that adequately describes the BBC's angle on this story: propaganda.

The BBC should be protected - because it's far better than the commercial alternatives - but the Scottish news and politics section needs a complete overhaul, especially if we're serious about getting a "Scottish 6" news programme. The mind boggles when you try to think how Jackie Bird and her vehemently anti-SNP/Independence comrades would fill that extra half hour. They make Sky News's Kay Burley and Adam Boulton look like reasonable people...

The SNP have the full force of the Scottish mainstream media against them in their battle to win the next election. Even coming away as the biggest party again is going to take a massive amount of effort. Let's hope they somehow pull it off, because I don't trust any of the other numpties to run Scotland properly.

(Note: the essay in question was given rave reviews by everyone else who read it, but everyone's essay was being marked by three other random classmates, meaning your result was the average of the three marks... Except in my case, since I only had mine marked by two people, and the lecturer's response to my indignation at being marked down because of this idiot was "is the score really so important?", which was in keeping with the points he was trying to get across in the lectures, as a maximum score wouldn't have had a bearing on my overall mark for the course. Fuckwit. I suppose I should have just said "because my sense of self-worth is based entirely on my academic achievements", but I didn't.)

Not the Sound of the Underground

2010-12-06T13:27:00.000Z

A rare non-politics blog post today, as it's the time of year for one of my main petty bugbears. No, not Christmas - it's the BBC's Sound of 2011 list.

I was in a band from July 2005 to April 2009 (well, technically we've never officially split up, but there's no chance of a reunion any time soon), and we were pretty damned good, even if I do say so myself. However, we never really came anywhere close to "making it", despite the fact (or perhaps because of it) that we put a lot of effort into making our songs as varied and meaningful as possible. We probably only had ourselves to blame (there's a little in-joke there that a grand total of three people in the whole world would stand any chance of getting, on the off-chance that they came across this blog) as none of us were particularly great at self-promotion, and looking back, there were a lot of things we should have done differently. However, that doesn't stop me feeling like a bitter, twisted old man when I see new bands appearing that are nowhere near as good as we were, but have infinitely trendier haircuts.

It's not just sour grapes that make me hate the annual "Sound of..." list, though (although I dare say it's a part of it). The list purports itself to be an attempt to guess who the big breakthrough acts of the next year are going to be, and that the BBC (and those involved in compiling the list) are out there, scouring the country for new music and exciting new bands. The reality is, it's nothing of the sort. If the list were truthfully named, it would be called "The list of bands that will be shoved in your face over the next 12 months", or "The list of acts that record companies have decided will be big next year".

The list is not a prediction, because predictions require an element of chance, as you might predict wrongly. That won't happen here. The list is a statement of intent - these are the acts you will be listening to next year on the radio and on the TV. These are the acts whose songs will get stuck in your head, and you will end up downloading them. These are the acts that the music press will cover endlessly, and attempt to indoctrinate their readers into liking them. This is how it works. The acts in this list are not unknown gems waiting to be discovered - they're acts that are primed and ready to be launched into the public subconscious. The very fact that the article refers to "tastemakers" just highlights the point - the public's musical taste is manufactured, because unless you're willing to delve into the recesses of the musical underground, to scour internet sites or to go down to local gigs and find out what sort of bands are out there for yourself, then these are the bands you have to choose from. In a way, it's an X Factor for people who go on about liking "real" music, even though the styles, haircuts and music of these bands are every bit as disingenuous as Cowell's protégés.

Maybe it would be unrealistic to expect things to happen any other way, but it doesn't stop failed musicians like myself feeling like these people are having everything handed to them on a plate, rather than having to struggle to even get noticed, especially when you know there is better music out there which is (and will remain) undiscovered; and it doesn't stop me feeling irked when the BBC tries to claim some sort of victory when mentioning acts that have been in the top 5 of the list in previous years, and have gone on to become famous, even though this is precisely the reason for the existence of the list.

Rant over.

The Little Things in Life

2010-11-30T15:46:00.000Z

Three blogs in eight days counts as "regular", yeah? I noticed my blog was on the Bella Caledonia blog roll, so I feel even more compelled to ensure my bleatings are coming at a regular speed - nothing worse than clicking a blog link, only to find it hasn't been updated for ages.

Anyway, James Kelly's blog points out that Google and Yahoo are celebrating St. Andrew's Day in different ways, and it got me thinking about what differences there would be to domain names when Scotland becomes independent. I've made a comment which erroneously (or prematurely) pretty much assumes Scottish independence would automatically see a complete dissolution of the United Kingdom, but ignoring that for now, it reminded me of something I've been thinking about recently.

Things will change when Scotland eventually becomes independent. Okay, that's pretty obvious and it's the whole point of becoming independent! But a lot of the things that people speak about changing are not things that seem to immediately impact people's everyday lives. Sure, we'll be a richer country and we'll finally be able to realise our full potential, particularly in terms of energy (both oil and renewables), but I'm not sure to what extent these things are at the forefront of the average man-on-the-street's mind. Just because someone doesn't believe Scotland needs independence, it doesn't automatically mean they believe the lies that Scotland can only survive under the shelter of the Union. I wonder what percentage of the electorate doesn't really mind either way, as long as they can just get on with their lives without any interruptions? After all, I seem to remember Alex Salmond having to quash the idea that Scottish independence would require people to carry a passport in order to cross the border to England, and it was this which first made me realise that there was more to independence than just controlling our own taxes, borrowing powers and assets. As we get closer to independence, the negative Unionist tactics will become dirtier and dirtier. People will be told that independence would turn their lives upside down, "just for the sake of the SNP's independence obsession", or words to that effect.

Those of us who are pro-independence need to anticipate these tactics beforehand, so that we're prepared to rubbish them before the media turn them into "fact". You just have to witness Alex Salmond humiliating Iain Gray at FMQs to see the power of anticipating your opponent's moves before he makes them. Salmond comes along with a copy of a newspaper or a bunch of statistics, having already worked out the answers to Gray's predictable tirades of artifical indignation every week, while Gray stands there, struggling to work Salmond's retorts into his pre-prepared script, before giving up and just carrying on reading what's in front of him. There are things which independence may or may not change which, on the face of it, seem like pretty trivial matters, but which may make all the difference to how easily Scottish independence can fit into people's lives. Will the BBC be replaced with an SBC, and would people still get to see their favourite TV programmes? Are people more concerned about fiscal policy or the actual coins and notes that they spend? Would people still be able to play the National Lottery? Would English goods suddenly become more expensive? Would there be massive changes to telephone cables, electricity and other infrastructure? There are probably about as many questions as there are people to ask them, but coming from a family that lets the size of the wee cubby-hole in our living room define what TV we buy and the size of our driveway restrict what car we have, I know that it is often seemingly trivial things that can end up being the main stumbling blocks for making changes (urgh, I almost wrote "for change" there - that's sooooo 2010 General Election). We need to make sure this isn't the case for Scottish independence, so let's start off by making sure people know that voting for independence won't stop them being able to watch Strictly Come Dancing or the X Factor!

Anyone got any other "little things" that could potentially become "big things"?

John Swinney's Statement Today (Look, I started writing it before midnight and finished it after midnight, okay?)

2010-11-25T00:11:00.002Z

I thought John Swinney did a good job in Holyrood today. I think he gave us all the facts we needed, and explained how the current SVR situation came about. He was right to express regrets about his handling of the situation, although I think anyone looking at it fairly can see how events just conspired to turn some of his judgements into ones which, in hindsight, were the wrong ones to make. Sometimes you make a decision based on a few assumptions, but in the end, circumstances change and you can't do what you intended to do. The SNP knew they wouldn't be using SVR this parliament - this was a correct assumption. They also assumed HMRC were following their wishes to get SVR working for the next parliament session - this turned out to be an incorrect assumption, and if there's one thing John Swinney should learn fromthis whole episode, it's that you cannot trust HMRC to do anything that they're meant to do, or on time.

Anyway, here are the main points from Swinney's speech, points which I think everyone should know and which I don't think the media coverage has so far adequately conveyed (shock there, then):

The SNP Scottish Government allowed the Scottish Variable Rate tax varying power to lapse - this is false. The powers are contained in the Scotland Act, and remain so
All that was required to carry the power forward was £50,000 per year. This is false. Labour/Lib Dem paid HMRC £12,000,000 for their IT system to accommodate SVR, and £50,000 per year for HMRC to keep track of Scottish addresses for the system. This contract ended on 14th May 2007, before the SNP entered government. When they entered government, they were advised that to invoke SVR, the earliest possible implementation date was April 2009 - halfway into the new parliament. This is exactly the same timescale that prompted Michael Moore's letter last week
In one of his first briefings as Finance Minister, John Swinney was informed that in 2000, SVR had been (and he says this is a quote) "mothballed". He was presented with three options:
1. If SVR was applied from April 2008, the implementation would be sub-optimal. The yield to Scotland from SVR would be £10 million - £26 million short, and would require further IT costs of £3.4 million to upgrade the system
2. If SVR was applied from April 2009, the first reliable date of implementation, they would have to pay IT costs of £2.9 million
3. The option that Swinney asked his officials to pursue with HMRC, was that if SVR was not applied during this government, costs of £1.2 million would be incurred, to allow the system to be in a 10 month state of readiness thereafter

So, here is the first very important point: in 2007, the SNP did NOT inherit a system that allowed SVR to be applied at 10 months notice. The £50,000 fee was to keep the database of tax payers up-to-date ONLY - not the system itself. Paying the annual fee would have kept the database up-to-date, but it would still not be usable without the system upgrades. By not paying this annual fee, the SNP Government has saved us £200,000 over four years - not a massive amount, but more than enough to raise accusations of governmental waste if this story had gone a different way. In 2007, John Swinney took steps to ensure there would be a viable system in place in time for the next Scottish Election.

In early 2008, government officials sought clarity from HMRC regarding the delivery of the £1.2 million system upgrade for the next parliament. On 28th May 2008, HMRC informed the government that progress was slower than expected (shock there, then), sparking a long period of communications between government and HMRC officials to obtain answers. Finally, on 28th July 2010, HMRC asked for £7 million for the work to be undertaken for the system upgrade, which would allow the system to be ready by 2012/2013. If the government did not agree to this, the system would not be ready until the following year 2013/2014, and after three years of prolonged talks, they required an answer in just three weeks.

So, as you would expect when money's too tight to mention, the government was not going to throw money about willy-nilly, so they asked for consultation on the matter (which we know from Alex Salmond's letter to have been an offer of talks on 20th August 2010). In September, the government reminded HMRC of this offer, and was given only an acknowledgement and a promise about a call that never came.

Here's an important point Swinney makes about the IT upgrade: they were neither consulted about them, nor advised of the costs beforehand. You can't do that. The Scottish Government is effectively a client of HMRC in this situation, and no company I have worked for would get away with telling clients "oh, we've decided to change your system without asking you, and we expect you to pay £7 million for the privilege."

Swinney then went on to explain why he had not informed parliament of the SVR problems until now.

In 2007, Swinney had no intention of using SVR, and he had instructed his officials to deal with the problems of the system he had inherited. If he HAD made a statement in parliament, others (and let's not beat around the bush here, we're talking about Labour) would have criticised him for using parliamentary time to highlight "the woeful record" of his predecessors
In 2008, he believed the protracted talks between government officials and HMRC were leading to a productive conclusion, and didn't believe he should take the matter "into the political sphere"
He chose not to come to parliament after 20th August 2010 because he believed talks were still under way, and didn't want to breach the confidentiality of those talks, a confidence requested by - among others - the Secretary of State for Scotland

Iain Gray stood up afterwards, and rattled off a bumbling incoherent mess that had clearly been written without any of the relevant facts at hand (witness his stumbling around 15:30 into the Democracy Live coverage when he says "and, and not to meet the other, err, requests" when he tries to remember one of the several costs Swinney had mentioned in his statement), focussing entirely on the £50,000 annual fee, a figure which Swinney booted into touch minutes into his statement by revealing that even a continuation of this fee would merely have kept the database in a working state, but not the actual system that would use the database. This is typical of Iain Gray, the exact type of behaviour one has come to expect from this rank amateur politician, a man who agrees with freezing public sector pay, and yet stands outside parliament joining in a protest against those very same pay freezes. He also goes on about the cost of the system upgrade, saying "£1.2 million, or £7 million, or £26 million, or another of the figures that have been thrown around like, erm, erm, erm... SNOWSTORM!!!!" (yes, that's a direct quote from the man who thinks he should be Scotland's next First Minister) Ah yes, £26 million for the IT upgrade. I remember that. Oh wait, no I don't, because that was the figure Swinney quoted for how much we could expect to lose if we took the early version of the upgrade. What a plonker. Besides, if Swinney HAD mentioned £26 million for the IT upgrade, is Iain Gray seriously suggesting we should have paid it? That tells you a lot about Iain Gray in itself.

Several opposition MSPs gave examples of parliamentary questions which mentioned varying income tax, and said that Swinney could have brought up the inability to vary income tax on these occasions. The fact is government officials had been trying to resolve the SVR issue up until Michael Moore's letter, and I think that the earliest time Swinney could realistically have brought up the inability to vary income tax was this year, when HMRC asked for £7 million to have the system ready for 2012/2013. Up until that point, it seems to me that the government was under the impression that SVR was being sorted out by HMRC, and therefore would be usable.

MSPs who made good speeches today: Christine Grahame, Patrick Harvie, and of course, John Swinney.

I'd just like to mention something I've brought up in various blog comments. 1.5 million Scots certainly DID vote "YES" to tax-varying powers. Powers. POWERS. PowerSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. SVR is one power (and it's not a very good one). Where are the rest? Or is this why we're getting Calman thrust upon us without being asked?

Incidentally, how come Pauline McNeill (presumably a supporter of Patrick Thistle) is the only person who knows that the leader of the Greens has changed his name to Partick?

Michael Moore's letter - just a successful smokescreen?

2010-11-22T03:03:00.000Z

The furore over the Scottish Variable Rate has put me in the mood to start blogging again for a few days now, but I didn't feel like I had anything new to add to the argument that was important enough to put as a blog rather than just a reply to someone else's blog. Until now, that is.

I was searching for information on just what exactly the HMRC's £50,000 annual charge for maintaining SVR was for and how long it might have taken to get the system back up and running if the £7 million upgrade and Calman proposals weren't an issue. In doing so, I came across a very interesting article in the Edinburgh Evening News from 15th November (i.e. three days before Michael Moore's letter).

The reason I found this article interesting is because it seems to be what the real story should have been - that SVR had cost us millions to set up, and that the introduction of the Calman proposals would lead to that money having been completely wasted - rather than what the story has become, which is that the SNP is being accused of managing to "lose" the Government's ability to raise or lower income tax by 3p.

I find the last section of the article to be particularly enlightening, which is why you're about to see it quoted in a little box:

"A Scotland Office spokesman said talks were under way with HMRC about implementation of the new tax powers so it could be done in the simplest way possible. He confirmed there would be a similar arrangement to pay for the costs of the new system, involving money from Scotland's budget going to HMRC for the identification of Scottish taxpayers."

This fits with the narrative in which Alex Salmond and his ministers are trying to frame the story, as stated by the First Minister in his open letter to Michael Moore:

"The clear impression can only be that your letter was not about the cost of financial powers that are going to be superseded, but rather about establishing a precedent for the Scottish Government paying to install and administer the Calman tax proposals - which unlike the SVR will require to be used every year."

If the media had taken this original story and ran with it, we would currently be talking about how preposterous it is that the UK Government wants to impose a new tax system, and make the Scottish Government pay for it, so not only reducing the block grant, but making us use part of it to pay for the very system that reduced that grant - a bit like forcing someone to buy you a baseball bat and then smashing them round the face with it. But no, Michael Moore's letter has successfully changed the narrative to be about the Scottish Government "losing" its sole tax variance power (a power so useless that none of the big four parties would ever use it - but also a power that remains in the Scotland act). As a result, what should have been a negative story about the forthcoming Scotland Bill's tax changes has turned into a negative story about the SNP, just in time for the 2011 election campaigns, which will begin in earnest in January (if, indeed, they haven't already begun).

It wouldn't be so bad if the media would focus on digging out the truth here. After all, the main question is who exactly is at fault for SVR currently being unusable until 2013/2014

The Scottish Government, for deciding not to renew the £50,000 annual maintenance of the outgoing system?
HMRC, for changing their IT system and demanding £7 million in July for SVR to be included?

We can only know the answer to this question if we know:

Why there needed to be an annual maintenance fee paid
What happened to the system when it stopped being paid
How long it would take to get the system back in working order for SVR if the maintenance fee was renewed

That's assuming it even could be made working again - is the system still there, or have HMRC updated their other systems already, leading to the incompatibilities that require this £7 million upgrade? As an aside, I find it very hard to believe such an upgrade would really only take two years - I've spent two years working on systems for local government, one in particular which started long before I got there and was only just about reaching completion when I left, and that was not for anything nearly as complicated and important as a tax system. But the point is the media should be finding out these facts, rather than stoking up a big row based on Michael Moore's letter, in which he even admits himself he doesn't know the full backstory (err, maybe you should have gone and found that out before writing your open letter to the media and opposition leaders, Michael?)

We also need to know the date at which the maintenance fee was up for renewal as well as the date when the IT system upgrade was first mooted (both happened sometime in 2007), so we can compare these to when the Calman Commission was first set up (6th December 2007). After all, if the renewal date is after the first suggestions of an IT upgrade (or even after the Calman Commission being set up - perhaps unlikely), then it becomes patently obvious that renewing the system - with the knowledge that it was going to be replaced by either an upgraded system or an entirely new one - would have been bad governance. As it is, the only real debate around the Government's decision not to renew the maintenance contract is whether they should have announced to Parliament that they would be stopping it, or if that would have been akin to announcing any other maintenance contract changes. At the time of the decision not to renew the maintenance contract, either they knew the system was going to be out-of-date by the time they left office, or they just had no idea that by the time of the next election, the system would no longer be able to be just switched back on.

While it's easy to say "this was a parliamentary power, voted for by the people, and therefore any changes should have been announced or debated in Parliament", it's equally easy to imagine the circumstances under which this might have seemed like a fairly innocuous decision that didn't warrant parliamentary time. As I say though, we can't know any of this until we know some very important facts - facts that aren't going to come to light by just blindly printing whatever Michael Moore says. It's one thing for the media in Scotland to be so blatantly biased against the SNP and the independence movement in general; it's quite another for it to completely ignore its main function, i.e. gathering the facts and presenting them properly.

The biggest shame in the whole debacle is that, with the Calman proposals on the horizon, Alex Salmond is quite right when he says the whole debate is "academic", and yet it's looking like it could cause for the SNP anyway, all over the heads of how John Swinney worded something in his budget statement. Here's a thought - if the Scotland Office is in talks with HMRC about how to fund the costs of the Calman changes to the tax system, then why on earth do they want £7 million for a system which is already out of date before it's even been implemented?

Feeling the impact of the Tory government? I am.

2010-06-14T16:57:00.000+01:00

I'm sure I'm not alone in having felt somewhat sheltered from the "global economic crisis" up until now. I'm single and I don't have a mortgage, so the full extent of my financial responsibilities are rent, gym membership and my mobile contract. Also I work in IT, for a company that provides software for councils, so my job has always felt pretty secure. Of course, that depended on councils maintaining an appetite for buying software to improve their efficiency, something that was only going to become significantly at risk under one circumstance: a Tory government.

Recently, a handful of workmates have left for pastures new, and they haven't been replaced. I saw this happening at my former employers, where there was a disconcerting number of leavers with their roles being left unfilled, until our manager eventually informed us that he was willing for the number of leavers to double before he even thought about getting replacements. I figured the writing was on the wall, so I made my move, and a few weeks later I found out I had been proven right, as the company started asking for voluntary redundancies and getting people to reapply for their jobs (which I personally think is a disgraceful practice). I voiced my concerns to a colleague recently, saying I noticed parallels with my previous employers, and last Friday, I was (unfortunately) again proven right, as an email from the CEO about "streamlining" quickly led to my department being told that three out of our seven Java Developers would be leaving. Welcome to Tory government.

Initially I assumed I would be out the door, as I am the second least-senior person in the team. However, with the software architect being told his position was no longer required, it's now down to two out of six. I'm still not confident, but apparently there is one other person who is possibly more likely to be in the firing line than me, so we'll soon see. The decisions will be made by Friday, meaning four of us will have spent a week needlessly worrying for our jobs, in which time we'll probably get in the mood for seeking work elsewhere anyway. If I go, I'll be moving back to Aberdeen (a move I intended making in about 6 months time anyway), so the onus is on me to start seeking work in Aberdeen now. So if I get kept on, I could end up leaving a few weeks anyway, meaning someone will have been made redundant when they could have just been kept on. But if that's the way things are done, then I can hardly do anything about it.

Anyway, the fact is that this is a direct result of the Tories deciding to put a squeeze on public spending. My company has decided there is no point in making new products if no one is going to buy them (rather than trying to make products that are so good people can't afford not to buy them), so we'll just be concentrating on improvements and support, which obviously requires less people. Perhaps it's indicative of a flaw in our business plan (since it is essentially wholly dependent on public spending), but for me, it's a tangible example of the public spending cuts leading directly to job losses even out-with the public sector (and possibly subsequent increases in benefits payments), and stifling growth in the private sector. Besides, I know from my dealings with councils as a citizen (rather than as a software provider) that there are still a lot of tasks that could be made much easier for residents (and therefore more efficient and ultimately cheaper for councils) if they were automated with some good software. Getting the person who pays council tax on a property is a massive headache for instance, when really it should just be as simple as filling in an online form and clicking "Submit".

I'm digressing. The point is that early signs that perhaps this Tory government wasn't going to be quite so bad after all have, for me at least, been totally destroyed. I'm fortunate in that if the worst happens, I can pretty much just retreat back to my parents' home and live a frugal life until I find another job, but others with mortgages, spouses and children will not be so lucky. The Tories have come in, and within weeks we're back to the same old results: spending cuts and job losses. Bah!

Lib Dems: a tale of two ideologies

2010-05-31T02:12:00.000+01:00

The recent post by James Kelly on his SCOT goes POP! blog about whether Alistair Carmichael was even Clegg's third choice as Secretary of State for Scotland touches upon a couple of things I've pontificated about on here, particularly the absurdity of him being the Lib Dems' representative on the Scottish election debates when it's now very clear he wasn't intended to be the Scottish Secretary in a Lib Dem Government. For the record, here's Alistair's take on it, from a reply he gave me to an email I sent him on the matter not long after the ministerial posts had been dished out:

With regard to the ‘Scottish Leaders' debates, I would like to thank you for your kind words. While I accept your point that in retrospect it may seem confusing that I have not been appointed to the Scotland Office, I feel that the Scottish debates were never a ‘job interview’ in the same way as the three UK leaders debates. I saw the debates that I participated in as being more about policy than personality; as a great opportunity for me to put across the Liberal Democrats’ point of view on issues relating to Scotland rather than secure myself a position after the election.

I can certainly see where he's coming from, and I particularly respect his last line there. He hints at the UK debates being more personality-driven, and about three men applying for the post of Prime Minister, which of course is exactly what was so wrong about those debates in the first place and why American-style politicking doesn't transfer well to a parliamentary democracy; but still, I'll never get over the fact the BBC very disingenuously called their one a "Scottish Leaders Debate", when there was only one leader there, along with a now-former Scottish Secretary, and two people who have both been twice overlooked for the post of Scottish Secretary.

Anyway, I'm digressing from the point I was wanting to make. I'm in agreement with James Kelly that it's odd that Carmichael has been overlooked yet again, but Hythlodaeus' comment sheds light on the reason, and basically hits upon a common trait of the Lib Dems with Government posts. The party can be split into roughly two groups: the economic liberals and the social democrats. Most of the government posts appear to have been given to those on the economic liberalism side, specifically those who contributed to the Orange Book (Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, Chris Huhne, Steve Webb, Ed Davey, and the book's editor, David Laws). Look at the membership of the social democratic Beveridge Group though, and you'll find a couple of whips and Norman Baker, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Chris Huhne is in both groups, which is a bit odd.)

So essentially what we have is a Tory government, bolstered by those Lib Dems who share more in common with the Tories than Labour. If for some reason the Lib Dems broke up and all their MPs were forced to join either Labour or Tory, the vast majority of Lib Dem ministers would surely join the Tories. Now, this might sound obvious - after all, if you're trying to form a team that works well together, you're hardly going to fill it with staunch left-wingers. But just think about who was on their negotiating team, and then ask yourself if there was ever really any chance of the Lib Dems forming a coalition with Labour. Right from the outset, Nick Clegg intended dealing with the Tories. I know it's a point that's been made many times before, but how many Lib Dem voters do you think really understood that the emphasis in the party lay far more with the Liberal part than the Democrat part? (GENERALISATION ALERT) You ask students who they voted for, and they'll say Lib Dem, but ask them if they cared more about free market liberal economics or social democracy, and they'll certainly say the latter. Do people really understand what this party stands for these days?

I expect Simon Hughes to become Deputy Leader, and he's already made waves in the media about having a deputy leader to keep the identity of the party, or something like that. Being a member of the Beveridge Group, I suspect the identity he will try to keep is the social democracy one. Going by the two ideologies in the party, and the allocation of government posts, it's easy to see the Lib Dems becoming very fragmented. As people turn against the Lib Dems because of their Government exploits, I just wonder if we'll see a gap gradually form between the two sides: government (economic liberals) versus non-government (social democrats). It's becoming quite difficult to see what actually bonds these two parts together, and as the Tories will never accept proportional representation, will the social democrat wing rise up and try to reclaim the party? Once in place as deputy leader, will the centre-right's coup to get Charles Kennedy to step down (and thus "reclaiming liberalism", as the Orange Book put it) be replicated by a centre-left coup to get Simon Hughes in charge and "reclaim social democracy"?

Most of this is complete conjecture. It's 2:12am in the morning, and I've just gotten over-excited at finding out about the Beveridge Group and that Alistair Carmichael was one of the MPs that set it up.

Oh Danny Boy, the treasury is calling...

2010-05-30T04:58:00.000+01:00

So Danny Alexander is the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury. He certainly seems to have climbed the ranks fairly swiftly, going from virtual unknown before the election to arguably the third-most powerful MP in the Liberal Democrats in a matter of weeks. It strikes me as a bit odd that someone who Nick Clegg clearly rates highly and is part of his "inner circle" has only just come to prominence - almost sinister, even - but perhaps he just performed extremely well in his role in the negotiating team and is being rewarded accordingly.

Although Alexander does have an educational background in economics (having studied PPE at Oxford), I can't help feeling Chris Huhne would have been the more logical replacement for Laws. We all know by now that Laws was a millionaire ex-banker who climbed the ranks of JP Morgan swiftly, which made him seem the obvious choice for the position. Huhne was an ex-City economist and even has an impressive background as a journalist in the field - contrast this with Danny Alexander's pre-Westminster career in a succession of press officer roles. Looking at it like that, I can't help feeling Danny's sole credentials for the job are that he is seemingly a favourite of Nick Clegg's. Okay, so you don't necessarily expect the Education Secretary to be an ex-teacher, or for the Justice Secretary to be an ex-QC, but when you've got someone who knows a bit about economic issues available, it's surely not too far off the mark to expect them to be the obvious candidate for a treasury job? In fact, I'd also have put Ed Davey ahead of Danny Alexander in the list of likely candidates.

Incidentally, I'm pleased to see Michael Moore coming in as his replacement as the Scottish Secretary, what with him being the Deputy Leader of the Scottish Lib Dems. I never understood why he wasn't given the job in the first place, other than Alexander's afore-mentioned closeness to Clegg. It might have been nice to see Jo Swinson getting a look-in and bolstering the number of women in the cabinet, but perhaps she's viewed as too young, and I wonder if Moore being a South of Scotland MP is a factor as well, since it's the closest the Tories seem to have to a "heartland" in Scotland.

Ooh, I'm very cynical tonight. Oh, and is it just me, or is the sight of so many people rushing to Laws' defence a little bit disconcerting? Using public money to pay rent to your lover because you want to keep your relationship a secret does not exactly strike me as particularly "honourable", which is one phrase being bandied around about him. I sympathise with the guy for being effectively outed against his will by the press revelations, but if you don't want your family and friends knowing you're gay, I can think of few things more stupid to do than becoming an MP. Personally, I think giving leniency because of someone's sexuality is almost as bad as being persecuted because of it, and it's not as if being gay is a hindrance to his job - it didn't stop Lord Mandy, Ben Bradshaw, Nick Brown or David Cairns getting Cabinet posts (I didn't even know those last two were gay until just now), and with ten gay Tory MPs (including the high-profile Alan Duncan), it seems to be less of an issue with even the Lib Dems' coalition partners. I'm all for people being allowed to have a private life, but this has been a massive error of judgement on David Laws' part.

It would be interesting to see if he'd been treated with the same kid gloves if the expense-fiddling and public outing wasn't happening at the same time, but then I don't suppose the situation would have arisen in the first place under those circumstances. The fact remains: Lib Dem activists shouldn't be trying to cloud the issue with implications of a gay witch-hunt or trying to excuse him because he seems a talented guy. He broke the rules, so he had to go.

Scotland Office a bit blasé about 7th May 2015's double election?

2010-05-26T02:46:00.001+01:00

One of my latest emails has been to the Scotland Office, where I was voicing my concern about the decision to hold the 2015 UK election on the same day as the 2015 Scottish election. Email went thus:

I'm extremely concerned about the proposal to have a 5-year fixed-term parliament. Personally I thought it was plainly obvious to everyone who wanted fixed-term parliaments that it should be four years, but we'll ignore that for now.

The next general election is due to fall on 7th May 2015. This is also the date of Scottish and Welsh elections. The Scotland Office surely remembers the catastrophic failure of holding national and local elections in 2007, when voters were baffled by the two different voting systems, leading to a record number of rejected ballots. The current proposal will be even worse, not to mention the fact that Westminster and Holyrood constituencies are different - how on earth will that be anything other than an administrative nightmare? On top of all that, we'll likely be using a new voting system for the Westminster election, and this will be the first time anyone will have used it.

Is this just a massive oversight, or is it some cunning plan to marginalise the SNP and plaid Cymru, who everyone knows do much better in Scottish and Welsh elections since people feel they can actually form governments? Either way, it just cannot be allowed to become law. It's just wrong in so many ways.

Pretty reasonable, aye? I'm just pointing out the chaos that ensued in 2007 due to holding an Additional Member System election and a Single Transferable Vote election at the same time, and that by 2015 we will likely have a new UK voting system, which will almost certainly not be the same as the Scottish one. After all, it was decided that the council elections would never be held on the same day as the Scottish ones again, so it's not like this is just my opinion - it was a recognised problem and action was taken to stop it happening again. Action which, apparently, is going to be completely ignored.

Anyway, I'd pretty much forgotten about it (I sent it almost two weeks ago) until I got this reply yesterday:

Dear Mr Daniel

Thank you for your email of 14 May about the proposal to establish five-year fixed-term Parliaments. You highlight that the next UK general election will take place on 7 May 2015. This has been confirmed in the Government's 'Programme for Government' which was published on 20 May 2010.

We are aware that the first of these UK elections is due to take place on the same date as the Scottish Parliament election. The Scotland Office, which currently has responsibility for the Scottish Parliamentary elections, will be working very closely with the Ministry of Justice, which has responsibility for the UK parliamentary elections, to ensure that both elections run smoothly.

That's not really good enough, is it? It's essentially saying, "you're correct that the elections are on the same day. We know this, and we'll make sure it all goes nicely." It's a bit like when someone gives me some detailed plan verbally, and when asked if I understand, I just go "aye, totally", even though I've already forgotten what they just said. What I'm looking for is an assurance that this wasn't just dreamt up without a thought for the logistics or the circumstances, or at the very least an acknowledgement that there are significant obstacles to be removed between now and 2015. But no, I've been told they'll be "working very closely" together. How reassuring...

We'll see if I get a reply to my reply to their reply.

Why are people so scared of independence?

2010-05-21T15:15:00.000+01:00

Why are people so scared of independence? Why do they hate the SNP so much?

Recently, I've been at the receiving end of friends and associates ranting at me because I vote for the SNP and want independence for Scotland. It's a common thing for an SNP supporter I think, to have people ranting at you like you've just told them you support apartheid or think Hitler was just misunderstood. Even for those who aren't vehemenently against the SNP, you're still asked to give a detailed list of reasons why Scotland should be independent. It's quite bizarre really, and it leads me to wonder why it happens.

Being expected to defend the ideals of independence at a whim is rather difficult for me, for one main reason: I really don't understand what there is to defend. I've decided that, from now on, any time I'm asked I will reply with "well, why do you think we should be in the union?" I suspect people will struggle to answer. The fact is, I just don't understand why you wouldn't want your country to be independent. To me, it's completely non-sensical, especially if you have any sense in pride in your nation. I think it's so inherently obvious that we should be independent, that I struggle to see what I'm having to defend.

This makes it all the more disheartening when people seem to attack you for having such high hopes for your country. My suspicion is that those who are almost violently against independence have believed a little too much of what they've read in the newspapers, and also that they are (quite understandably, to be fair) scared of such a big change. There was a lyric in one of my old band's songs that went something like "people think that we're free just because we're comfortable", and I think it rings true in this case - people assume that just because we're not being visibly supressed by some evil dictatorship that there is nothing wrong with the union, and think "everything's generally okay, so why rock the boat?" The simple fact is that being in the union does supress Scotland - perhaps not in terms of human rights, but certainly in terms of supressing our potential. But even this is no reason for the sort of venom you get directed at you for being in favour of independence.

So why is it that a simple comment in support of the SNP or independence reduces people to the level of Labour MSPs during a session of FMQs - a seething morass reminiscent of a pack of wild dogs, kept in a cage and teased with sticks? I really want to know, but the fact is the pro-union stance is never questioned in the media. You never see Brian Taylor asking Iain Gray why we should be staying in the union. You never see Glenn Campbell interrogating Labour MSPs when they try to claim that Scotland receives a subsidy from the Barnett formula and asking them to explain why their heartland of Glasgow is still rife with child poverty despite the billions of pounds generated by our oil reserves.

Most of all, why do people think that Scotland would be unique in being the only country in the former British Empire to not benefit from independence? The level of hate that people seem to feel when you speak about the SNP or independence suggests it is a result of people being whipped into a frenzy, and that is no way to hold a constructive debate. This needs to be rectified when the referendum comes back into play, and I worry that the SNP are still failing to make the media properly represent those of us who don't wish to be included in this frenzy, as well as those who are undecided either way and need to see proper reasoning from both sides.

Deformed Political Reform

2010-05-13T16:20:00.001+01:00

One of the things that most worries me about the ConDem coalition is that they seem to be proving rather successful in convincing people that they really are going to be bringing in political reform, or at least they're managing to convince the media of it, which is essentially the same thing since far too many people actually believe what they read in the papers and see on the TV. I can envisage a situation where people have been asked to vote on AV in a referendum, but there will still be a lot of people saying "but this isn't really any fairer." Their voices will fall on deaf ears though, because those who do not quite understand why FPTP is unfair will say "oh you're never happy, are you? We're not going to go voting on a referendum again and anyway, you'll just want another one after that!" So by giving the illusion of offering political reform, they are actually just trying to kill of calls for proper reform.

I managed to catch most of the coverage of the "Fair Votes Now" protest on the BBC News channel on Saturday quite by accident, and it certainly seemed as if I was watching the beginning of a new political dawn. This was quickly rectified when Nick Clegg came out and spoke to the protesters, and it was then that I knew absolutely for certain that any ideas that he is the great political reformer people want him to be were completely naive. People were shouting for PR and for fairer votes; he only promised the usual clichés like "real change", when as we can all see by now, Nick Clegg's idea of "real change" is a pocketful of coins, as opposed to the "imaginary change" he is giving us. I was pretty disappointed with the protesters actually, because they let him away with this. A part of me was sure they would realise what he was really saying (or not saying) and turn on him; but being a bunch of middle-class hippies and wishy-washy studenty political types (most of whom were probably wearing their Che Guevara t-shirts, available at a capitalist institution near you), they went "oh yippee, he has spoken, and his words are great!"

So what are they actually offering? Well, we're getting a referendum on AV, which is no fairer than FPTP. Why? Because it still guarantees that anyone who didn't vote for the winner has just wasted their vote. The idea of "fairer votes" is (or should be) that it makes every vote count; but plurality systems like FPTP and AV mean that the result is the same regardless of whether or not the people who didn't vote for the winner turn up or not. All it will do is allow MPs to pretend they have a bigger majority than they really do, thus allowing the incumbency factor to be even worse than it is now, as well as making the "only we can beat them here" message even more prevalent (but no less false) as there will now be clear runners-up. We'll still end up with the least-hated candidates rather than the most-liked ones winning, as people will just rank the candidates in order of the least amount of hatred they have for them. It could, in fact, completely distort the true political feeling of the country. Besides, this will require an element of electronic voting, as at the very least we'll need computers to tally up the votes. If we're going to end up spending a massive amount on new machinery, why not just go the whole hog and introduce full electronic voting so spoilt ballots are no longer an issue, and we don't need to wait until midday on Friday to find out the result? There'd also be no more problems of the sort we had this time around where polling stations ran out of ballot papers.

So that's rubbish, but what about the rest? Well, we're going to have fixed-term parliaments. Excellent, and long overdue. But there's a sting in the tail - it's going to be the full 5 years. I don't like this, because for one thing it's been decided purely to ensure that this government gets to have that full 5 year term. The mian reason I don't like it, though, is because it means the next General Election will fall on the same day as the corresponding Scottish and Welsh elections. I can't help feeling they've done this on purpose - Labour in particular are bad enough for mixing their message when it comes to elections, with prospective MPs offering action on knife crime in their campaign literature even though it is a devolved issue which they can't really do anything about, certainly not in their official capacity; it's just going to get worse if we have both elections on the same day. After all, how many people are really going to go to the polling booth thinking "I like Labour's policies on reserved issues, but I prefer the SNP's plans for devolved issues, so I'll vote for a Labour MP and an SNP MSP"? People will just vote both ways, rendering the idea of a separate election pointless - you might as well just combine them all and dish out the MSP seats according to MP votes. Besides, they're two separate election systems, and if 2007 should have taught us one thing, it's that certain sections of the general public have difficulty when presented with two different voting systems. From every way you look at it, this is just unworkable, and a clear example of Westminster politicians forgetting devolution happened.

We also have the new 55% rule being touted around. There was confusion about this at first, with even the obligatory "down with sort of thing" internet campaign that popped up a few minutes later not quite understanding what was being proposed (and in doing so will probably have seriously damaged their campaign). It's not that they need 55% to vote in favour of a Motion of No Confidence, it's that they need 55% to vote in favour of dissolving parliament. In fact, this is even worse - it means there could be a successful vote of no confidence, but with only 53% of the MPs being non-Tory, we could end up with a clearly discredited minority government deciding to carry on for the full term. Unlikely, of course; but unlikely isn't good enough. Interestingly, Tom Harris is (rightfully) getting his knickers in a twist over it, but has failed to remember that his party are no strangers to installing undemocratic practices into parliament, with the 1998 Scotland Act stating that 66.666% of MPSs have to vote in favour of a No Confidence motion to trigger an early election. In fact, it's rather surprising that this opponent to PR doesn't think it's actually a pretty fun wheeze.

One last thing I'm going to mention is the plan to fully implement the Calman Commission proposals. Transferring more powers to Holyrood is obviously good, but the Calman Commission's proposals were very quickly discredited as being essentially "devolution light" or even "devolution with no added sugar". I'll probably say more about this another time, but I want to mention why this is in keeping with their other "reform" proposals. The idea is that Scots will think they are getting more than they really are (which is the main theme of all these reforms) and so the appetite for independence will be stifled somewhat, at least among those who are ready and willing to be convinced of the case for independence. Maybe one day we'll look back upon it as one small step in the long gradualist road to independence, but I'm not particularly convinced. Besides, it depends just how "in full" the proposals will be implemented - some of the proposals are positively bad, and I recall that they include sending a couple of powers back to Westminster, which does not seem particularly progressive.

This is what Cameron and Clegg are all about though, isn't it? Style over substance. Offering "change" and "real change" but really just tinkering with a few things, and not necessarily in a positive manner. And people fall for it, because the media fall for it, and they tell the people that it's real, when in reality it's all just a façade.

Pfft.

Only independence can stop the Tories

2010-05-11T23:49:00.001+01:00

So there we have it, Scotland is going to be run by a minority party. A party with only 1 MP in the entire country. A party which owes nothing to the Scottish electorate - after all, even if everyone had voted for Labour, they would still have gotten in - and therefore has no reason to look favourably upon us. Let's face it: we're screwed.

Or at least we are if the electorate doesn't wisen the fuck up. We now know that instead of the Labour election message being "only Labour can keep the Tories out", it should have been "vote Labour, get Tory". Actually, one message could have been employed by every party in Scotland: "England will decide your government, and England will vote Tory". As a country, we might as well have all sat at home for all the good it did us to go out and vote.

Before the election, Labour and the media were desperate to get the SNP to say they wanted a Tory government as it would be better for their chances in the future. The truth is that not every party cares first and foremost about itself like Labour does. The evidence has been on offer even more over the past few days, with Labour MPs coming out saying "a period of opposition would be good for the Labour party". You know something? I couldn't give a flying fuck what's good for the Labour party. All I care about is what's good for Scotland, and it most certainly is NOT a Tory government. For all their failings (and there are a LOT of them), I would still rather have Labour in government because having to pander to the Unions means they can never become entirely right-wing, despite how much the New Labour project tried to do so. But no, these self-serving idiots have bailed on us. It's quite clear that the Lib Dems felt that Labour's heart just wasn't in it when negotiating, reportedly refusing to budge on most of their manifesto. If Labour really cared about keeping the Tories out, they would have done everything in their power to get the Lib Dems on board - and they certainly wouldn't have been so scathing about the SNP's offer of help. No, they just gave up, and so now we, the Scottish people, will bear the consequences.

So what's the answer? Simple: independence. It's the only way to guarantee an end to Tory rule in Scotland. The Tories have only won a majority in Scotland twice - 1900 and 1955 - and yet since 1900, there have been 12 occasions when Scotland has been given a Tory government which we didn't vote for. This is the 13th. Unlucky for some - but who?

Hopefully, it won't be Scotland. The SNP are in the strongest position they've ever been in, and the Scottish people have now had a Tory government imposed upon them yet again, even though Labour claimed they could stop it, and even though the Lib Dems actually could have. For the sake of the country, this has to be the reality check certain parts of Scotland have so desperately needed for decades. The message must be loud, it must be clear, and it must be driven into the minds of the electorate long before the election next year, to try and stop them falling once again for Labour lies and Lib Dem fibs:

"Only independence can stop the Tories."

Scotland, it's time to take responsibility for yourself and help bring a close to this last remnant of the British Empire. Let's see what happens to the independence referendum bill, shall we?

Margaret Curran and Cathy Jamieson - will they give up their dual mandates?

2010-05-09T03:14:00.002+01:00

You may remember the fuss Labour kicked up when Alex Salmond first returned to Holyrood. Despite a significant number of MSPs in the first sitting in Holyrood having the dual MSP/MP mandate (including the first two First Ministers, Donald Dewar and Henry McLeish), Labour chose to criticise Salmond for being an MP and an MSP. He has now stood down of course, as he had always intended to do when deciding to stand for re-election to Holyrood, but that doesn't change the fact they tried to make a big deal about it.

The fuss they made is particularly interesting when looking at the recent General Election results in the Kilmarnock & Loudoun and Glasgow East constituencies, where current MSPs Cathy Jamieson and Margaret Curran have been elected MPs. In light of this, I have just emailed both ladies to check that they intend to act as they wished others to act, and that they're not just a pair of reactionary, hypocritical fools. The email to Margaret read thus:

Hi Margaret

Congratulations on getting elected as the new MP for Glasgow East. I'm an SNP supporter myself so I was particularly saddened to see John Mason being ousted as he has been a very good MP, but I'm sure your election came about as a result of fighting a good campaign focussing on local issues reserved to Westminster, and not just a bunch of scare tactics about the Tories or issues that you can only affect in your position as MSP. Not that I'm suggesting this is what all Labour candidates did, but it was certainly how my new MP (Anas Sarwar) got elected. I would also like to congratulate you on managing to win with a bit of grace for once, rather than giving a mad rant like we've seen from you so many times before. This is how we would like our elected representatives to behave, so good on you for having a bit more class these days.

Anyway, the main point of this email is to say that, given the hard time you and your colleagues in Holyrood gave Alex Salmond about him being both an MP and an MSP when he first got re-elected to Holyrood, I would just like your assurance that you will shortly be announcing that you will be standing down from Holyrood at the next election. After all, you wouldn't want to be seen as a hypocrite, would you?

Yours sincerely

Douglas Daniel

The email to Cathy was similar, although obviously without the references to John Mason and the mad rants. I won't bother putting it up here as I essentially took it as the template for Margaret's email. Anyway, if I get a reply from either woman, I'll put it up here. If not, I'll get in touch with someone at the SNP and insist that they start badgering both women to either announce that they will be standing down in 2011, or to give a public apology on behalf of the Labour party for making such a fuss about Alex Salmond's perfectly legitimate position between 2007 and 2010.

Will we see the paper's making any comment on their situations? Of course we won't.

UPDATE

When I got up this morning, Cathy Jamieson had already replied, which I must admit I'm rather impressed by.

Thank you for your email. I made it clear when I was selected to run for Westminster, in advance of the General Election, that I would not stand for Holyrood in 2011 if I was elected to Westminster. In addition, I made clear that I would take only one salary for the period when I served in both Parliaments, and that I would not take the resettlement grant from Holyrood when transferring to Westminster. I think it would be ill advised in those circumstances for accusations of hypocrisy.

Regards
Cathy Jamieson

I must admit, I feel a wee bit silly now. Still, that's what I get for relying too much on Wikipedia (during the General Election, I found it was quite good at saying which MPs were standing down at this election, so I assumed this lack of info on her page meant she hadn't made an announcement yet). Subsequent emails from Cathy suggested she took it in good jest, so I'm actually sorry I was so cynical in her case, and I'm not just saying that because she mentioned that she's seen my blog...

Email to the right unhonourable Jim Murphy MP

2010-05-07T15:55:00.000+01:00

Dear Jim

I would congratulate you on managing to hold your seat in the election yesterday, but the lack of grace you showed afterwards stops me from doing so.

I watched your little rant on BBC1 last night. I won't pretend that I'm not an SNP voter, and as such you'll probably think I'm biased or just plain wrong; but the fact is what you said was an utter disgrace, and you made a complete embarrassment of yourself. I'm ashamed that we have people like you representing us. After lying for the whole election that only a Labour victory would secure Scotland against the Tories, and thus making the SNP an irrelevance, I was amazed to see you suddenly launching into a vitriolic attack against the democratically elected Scottish Government, which suggested they were not the irrelevance you liked to pretend they were. I'm not at all surprised when you spout your ill-informed opinions about how well the SNP administration has performed in Scotland, and to be honest you're perfectly entitled to your opinions; but your assertions that the SNP had gone backwards was nothing but an absolute lie.

Let's look at the results, shall we?
Labour: no gains, no losses, voter percentage increase of 2.5%.
SNP: no gains, no losses, voter percentage increase of 2.3%.

Hmmm... looks pretty similar to me. If your idea of "backwards" is to return the exact same number of seats as last time, and to increase vote share by over 2%, then it would seem every party in Scotland is going backwards. There's an interesting discussion there of course, about how your party's negative campaign tactics are keeping Scotland back, but you won't listen to it, so I won't bother trying.

Alex Salmond is to be commended for ignoring the petulant remarks by people like you and Douglas Alexander, and instead extending a hand to the Labour party. He does this because the SNP truly do care about Scotland - if they were the self-serving party you always claim them to be, he'd be on the phone to David Cameron right now. But as we now know, that is never going to happen.

I'll say it again: you're an utter disgrace.

Incidentally, as neither the leader of the Labour party nor the Scottish Labour party, what were you doing on the Scottish Leaders Debate last week? Gordon and Iain too busy were they?

Yours sincerely

Douglas Daniel

Last night's result: the unofficial independence referendum?

2010-05-07T15:06:00.002+01:00

I've gotten over the devastating result last night; no, not the Tories effectively winning the UK election despite a mere 1 seat in Scotland, but Scotland showing absolutely no desire for political change. But then I got to thinking - could it be that Scotland has unwittingly revealed a subconscious desire for independence?

On the face of it, the answer is "no". This is if you follow the current Tory line that Scotland voted overwhelmingly for the Union, and thus voted to go along with whatever the UK as a whole voted for (although it's quite clear that this statement is exactly the same as saying "go along with whatever England voted for"). But that would only be true if this election had been fought on a joint Labour/Tory/Lib Dem ticket of "it's us or the SNP - only a vote for our parties can stop independence". Of course, this wasn't the case; what the election really boiled down to was "only we can stop the Tories" versus "only we can give you strong government". The result? Scotland voted overwhelmingly against the Tories. You can, of course, word that slightly differently, and this is where my point comes from:

Scotland voted overwhelmingly against the rest of the UK.

England voted for the Tories. If we remove Scotland from the election, the Tories win outright with a proper majority. Look at England alone, and you see they won with ease. Even Wales seem willing to give them another go though, returning eight Tory seats and putting their share of the vote comfortably ahead of the Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru. But Scotland bucked the trend. England have said "we want a Tory government" and Wales have said "we're not totally against that, actually"; but Scotland have said "NO! Get your stinky Tories off our land! Err, except that one in Dumfriesshire, of course." They're a comfortable last place out of the four main parties in Scotland, both in terms of seats and vote share. Scotland does not want the same Government as the rest of the UK.

There is a fundamental difference here, a difference that the current set-up just cannot deal with sufficiently. The question I would be posing to voters in the central belt is this:

"Do you want to be governed by the party you voted for, or the party England voted for?"

Here's the thing: Labour have the vast majority of seats in Scotland. But even if they had 100% of the seats - even if every single person in Scotland voted for them - they would still be looking at a defeat today. No matter who we vote for, it will always be England that decides who governs the UK. Ergo, the UK is run according to the whims of England, and England alone. Add in the non-Labour Welsh seats - all 14 of them - and the Tories still come out on top. In fact, you could add Northern Ireland into the mix, and even if Labour somehow stood in and won all 18 constituencies, they still wouldn't have gotten a majority today. The UK would be ruled by a Government that was rejected by every part of the UK except for England, making it England's Government. How can that be right?

When the independence referendum eventually comes back onto the agenda, I hope the SNP point this out to people. "We don't care if you're an SNP supporter or a Labour supporter - none of us want the same government as the rest of the UK. If Scotland was an independent country, then it would have voted overwhelmingly to be governed by Labour at the General Election; but instead, we're governed by a party that Scotland almost unanimously rejects outright." Scotland last night voted to be governed differently from the rest of the UK, so I hope those same Labour supporters remember that when the referendum comes along, and vote accordingly; no amount of bluff and bluster from Jim Murphy can hide the fact that the SNP's case for independence has now been strengthened, and nothing David Mundell says can hide the fact that the one thing almost all of Scotland agrees on is that we don't want the Tory party foisted upon us.

What do Labour have to do to lose a General Election in Scotland?

2010-05-07T03:24:00.001+01:00

I'm watching the results start to come flying in now, and it's a depressing sight. It was obvious that Labour were going to win the most seats in Scotland - mainly due to the central belt's refusal to acknowledge their decades of failure - but what I'm seeing is just incredible. Rather than hanging onto these seats by the skin of their teeth, they seem to have increased their vote almost across the board. This is ridiculous, but I suppose it is the culmination of two factors.

Firstly, there's the depressingly successful "it's a two horse race/it's us or Conservative/vote for us or the Tories will get in" negative campaigning they've deployed to scare voters into voting for them. Most of these claims have been questionable, if not downright lies. In my current constituency for example, Glasgow Central, we were overwhelmed with leaflets from Anas Sarwar saying that it was a straight fight between him and the Tory candidate. This was a complete lie: his main opposition was Osama Saeed from the SNP. But the people of Glasgow Central were taken in by these blatant attempts to mislead, and like battered wives repeatedly going back to their violent husbands, they went scurrying back to Labour, despite their total mistreatment of the electorate. Well, I hope they're satisfied - they've snubbed an excellent potential MP and instead continued the Sarwar dynasty. This is the son of the man who was the most expensive MP in 2009; the man who spent most of his time as an MP absent from Westminster, but also self-admittedly absent from his constituency; the man who is a director of the same company where his other son - as managing director - was convicted of fraud charges. I'm sorry, but the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Well done people of Glasgow Central, I suspect you've just elected the MP you deserve.

There's a second reason for this bizarre upsurge in support, though. I suspect these are not new Labour voters (as opposed to New Labour voters); rather, they are just Labour voters who simply couldn't be bothered in the previous General Election or two, but heeded the call to keep Labour in. So it's not a case of Labour winning over new people with their dazzling array of positive messages; it's just people reverting to type.

I've just heard both Jim Murphy and Douglas Alexander saying that the SNP are going backwards (Alexander parroting Murphy's words like the fucking puppet that he is). This is yet more lies, or at least it is at this point in the results. When the SNP end the election with less than six seats, then it will be possible to say they are going backwards. However, considering they have managed to increase their vote share in all five of the seats the have so far held - including 5.9% increases in Angus and Perth & North Perthshire - then I don't quite understand where the backward movement is coming from. If Labour want to talk about moving backwards, how about they look at their backwards-looking electioneering?

Och, Iain Gray is about to speak some utter nonsense. I've had enough, I'm going to bed. Well done Scotland, well done. If you listen carefully, you'll hear the sound of slow hand-clapping from disbelieving onlookers wondering where you've been for the past five years. Roll on 2011.

(Incidentally, bearing in mind the fuss Labour held over Alex Salmond being both an MP and MSP, will Margaret Curran and Cathy Jamieson be giving up their seats in Holyrood now that they've been elected to Westminster, or should we expect the usual do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do? More importantly, will the media play the same role they did against the SNP? Don't hold your breath...

Scottish "Leaders" Debate - where were the leaders?

2010-05-03T19:18:00.000+01:00

Last night's debate on the BBC was certainly more entertaining than the three UK debates we've seen over the past three weeks. Why? Simple: audience participation. It was great to see the audience automatically shooting down the panel members when they gave rubbish answers (David Mundell being laughed at for saying the Tories had been "honest" about cuts was particularly good). However, to be perfectly honest, it was only marginally better in substance than the UK ones had been. I'll address that in a moment, but first I've got a bit of a beef with the name of the debate, and why it is yet another hole in the ridiculous arguments for banning the SNP from the main debates.

This was billed as a "Leaders Debate". Let's look at the panel:
Alex Salmond - leader of the SNP
Jim Murphy - Scottish Secretary (below Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and even Douglas Alexander on the Government's own list of cabinet members)
David Mundell - Shadow Scottish Secretary purely down to being the sole Tory MP in Scotland
Alistair Carmichael - Lib Dem's Scottish spokesperson

Now, I'm one of those people who obsesses over spelling and grammar, so maybe I'm taking things a bit too literally... But where were all the "leaders" in this debate? I count ONE. If calling the three main debates "Prime Ministerial Debates" was apparently a valid reason for refusing Alex Salmond entry to the parties, then why did no one kick up a fuss about three men who have no intention of becoming leaders of their parties being included in a "Leaders Debate"? There aren't even any guarantees that any of these men will end up as Scottish Secretary after the election - even Jim Murphy could be promoted or demoted at Brown's whim if Labour somehow retain power.

To me, it's yet another indicator of how much the parties really care about Scottish voters. Are Scottish issues really so below Clegg, Cameron and even the MP for Kirkauldy and Cowdenbeath that they can't take 60 minutes out of their schedules to come and tell us how they plan to deal with them; or is it just that they don't care? You can't blame them really - everyone knows hardly any seats will change hands across Scotland because people are so stuck in their ways. But then, they're only interested in appearing on prime time TV, and the BBC put this out at 9pm on a Sunday. More people probably watched Graeme Dott attempting to continue Scottish dominance in the snooker. Also, it wasn't live like the main debates, which for some reason just makes it seem a bit less important. Still, at least this one actually received a bit of advertising - I missed every one of the other Scottish debates due to only finding out about them afterwards. The main debates, however, were very heavily publicised.

Still I suppose even if they had appeared, they would have just been going over the same things they went over in the main debates. Where were the Scottish issues? Alex Salmond tried his best, bringing up the obvious cuts to Trident and ID cards, and being the only politician to point out that immigration is GOOD for Scotland and listing a plethora of immigrants who have made valuable contributions to Scotland (I'm maybe exaggerating a bit there). But where were the truly Scottish issues? Immigration is an English obsession, who like to blame their lack of national identity on the masses of immigrants apparently coming into their country (refusing to acknowledge that British people flit to other countries too). This part of the debate inevitably led to a suggestion that Scottish immigration controls be devolved to Holyrood, which received the standard "BORDER CONTROLS AT GRETNA!!!!!!" response from Jim Murphy, but this was about as far as we got to hearing any debate on further devolution or independence. What I was really hoping for was for someone to bring up the point that the Calman Commission proposals have been completely forgotten about in this election, mainly because it isn't an issue that will win or lose votes in key marginal English seats. I'm a bit disappointed Alex Salmond didn't make a case for getting more discussion about it, but this hasn't been the focus of the SNP campaign so far anyway, so it's no surprise. Still, why have the three London parties been allowed to get away with forgetting all about this commission which they were the ones to set up? I can only hope that it's part of a longer game for the 2011 Scottish Election - after all, the referendum bill itself was, quite brilliantly, given a swift up-and-under kick up the backside, allowing it to land on the other side of this election, ensuring it didn't get lost in the pre-election furore.

I suppose we'll find out soon enough. But still, "Leaders Debate"? I feel another email to the BBC coming on...

BBC replied to my complaint - hat duly eaten.

2010-04-30T17:29:00.000+01:00

It looks like I'm too cynical - here's the reply I have just received from the BBC in regards to my complaint a few days ago:

Mr Daniel,

Thank you for your e-mail. The was a bylined piece by our political reporter, which aimed to provide the background to the case - and to do it in an engaging way, which is why the tone is different to that of our straightforward news stories. However, there are links from the piece to the original news stories which provide the factual coverage of various stages of the process which led up to the court case.

We use our political reporters and correspondents to bring their own insight and analysis to our coverage, and given that, we feel that the terminology and analysis within the piece were appropriate in this context.

Best wishes,

News website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle.shtml

So, that's it then. According to the BBC, it's perfectly fine to peddle half-truths and rumour as facts, as long as it's some sort of opinion piece. I would have a bit more sympathy for their stance if they had headed the article with "OPINION" or some other way of making it clear that this was someone's personal take on the situation. But what they gave was an anonymous piece that suggested it was the BBC trying to set out the facts - after all, isn't that what a Q&A should be about?

This is a typically pithy response, like the others I have received from them when I've had a grievance about their reporting. It's not good enough, because they've given no evidence to show they've even grasped what my issue was, never mind trying to see it from my point of view. I've always been in favour of the BBC, but their coverage of this election has really forced me to reconsider how much I value it. I think it's important to have a media organisation free from pressures from advertisers and shareholders, but ever since the old "Dodgy Dossier" stuff and the subsequent pandering to Labour's every whim to avoid being castrated any more than they were, the BBC really seems to have gone downhill.

All we ask is that the Scottish electorate are given a balanced view of the true political landscape in this country - is that really too much to ask?

Could we see Labour win but Gordon lose?

2010-04-29T12:35:00.000+01:00

Today's blog by Malc In The Burgh mentions the fact that Gordon Brown has thus far refused to attend EIGHT hustings in his constituency, and this got the cogs in my brain whirring into action.

If he's snubbed so many hustings, then perhaps his electorate will decide to snub him and go for someone else instead (I'd like to think SNP, but with the Lib Dems winning the Dunfermline & West Fife in the 2006 by-election, you'd have to fancy their chances if there's to be an upset). Could we see Labour returning to power, but without Gordon at the helm? It would certainly be the most bloodless of bloodless coups and perhaps the only way to make him relinquish power. I expect there are a lot of people out there who would be quite happy for Labour to return to power with a different leader.

However, bearing in mind all the fuss we had in the media over Brown being an "unelected" PM (which unfortunately resulted in a lot of people believing this was a legitimate problem, rather than just how parliamentary democracy works), what would people make of the new PM not being the person who was the leader of the party when they voted for them? It would be quite a bizarre situation - not only would there be all the negotiations a balanced parliament will require, but there would have to be a new Labour leadership election as well. This would presumably have to be resolved first, because the results would surely depend on who would actually be leading the government. If the papers were so opposed to Gordon Brown being "ushered" into the PM post (despite every man and his dog knowing full-well before the 2005 election that Blair would eventually be standing down and effectively handing the reins to Brown), then how would they feel about it happening right after the election, especially when there is no way of knowing beforehand who would assume the role? "You don't have a mandate from the electorate" would presumably be the cry... unless, of course, the media was just trying to make a story out of it in 2007 (surely not?) and aren't really fundamentally opposed to how the PM is decided.

This, of course, highlights one of the many fallacies of the idea of holding leaders debates (sorry, Prime Ministerial debates) which is often ignored - at the time of the debates, none of the three men on stage are actually elected politicians, and there is nothing to stop the electorate deciding not to re-elect one or any of them. It's unlikely, hence why it's usually ignored, but it's still possible, meaning that after all this mass debating we could end up with someone who wasn't even on our TV screens leading the country, rendering the whole exercise completely pointless. The SNP have been refused entry into these debates because of the outrageous decision that the governing party of Scotland is irrelevant to the election, merely because they don't field candidates in all of the constituent parts of the union (including Northern Ireland, which puts them on equal footing with the three London parties)... But it could turn out that what Gordon Brown has to say is completely irrelevant to the entire UK, even including voters in the Home Counties. So why should he be getting a platform?

BBC bias against the SNP - shock there, then.

2010-04-27T20:13:00.000+01:00

Right, I've been cruising the politics blogs and leaving my little nuggets of wisdom/ill-informed nonsense for a while now, so I thought it was about time I started up my own blog, if only to have all my musings in one place for my own convenience. I intend to use this to comment on politics in Scotland, put up the various letters of complaint I send to people, and anything else that I feel like pontificating about.

I'll start off with this email I sent to the BBC complaining about the blatant bias displayed in one of their election pieces. It's a Q&A about the SNP's legal action over the BBC deciding that the governing party in Scotland - that's the one that achieved the most votes in Scotland in the 2007 Scottish Election and the 2009 European Election, i.e. a significant chunk of the Scottish electorate - is a minority party, and thus undeserving of a proper platform amongst the election debates. These debates have been "game changers" as far as the political landscape of the UK goes, and not being involved in them has almost certainly damaged the SNP's potential in the forthcoming election. Here's the article in question, feel free to decide I'm over-reacting (even though I'm not): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/scotland/8646005.stm

This is an awful piece of "journalism". It is written with a clearly biased stance, including saying the SNP "grumbled" about being omitted from the debates (grumbled is not a word known for its positive connotations) and saying that the SNP's fund-raising campaign was a "part-PR exercise" - this may or may not be true, but it is for the reader to decide, and this can be done perfectly well without your input. The bit about how they were hardly likely to issue a press release if they hadn't raised the £50,000 is pure speculation, and has no place in a "Q & A" section, which one expects to be facts, facts and more facts.

Also, further down, you repeat this tripe the three Unionist parties have been coming out with about Salmond being unable to explain his absence from three of the four Scottish debates. Whether Salmond appeared on these debates is neither here nor there - the SNP is not taking legal action so that Alex Salmond can get on TV; they are taking legal action to ensure the SNP as a party are part of the debate, thus ensuring that the Scottish political landscape is fairly represented. The SNP are the governing party of Scotland, so it is ludicrous to suggest that they are an irrelevance or a minority party. To do so suggests that the large section of the Scottish electorate who will vote for them are also an irrelevance, which pretty much proves the point of any Scot who "grumbles" about this election snubbing Scotland in favour of English-only issues. If there is a party that can be called "irrelevant" in Scotland, it is the Tories, who have to rely on David Mundell as their sole Scottish representative in Westminster. Why have they not been excluded from the Scottish-only debates?

One of the favoured ways Unionists try to cloud the issue is by pointing out that Alex Salmond is not standing for election in this campaign. How, then, is this compatible with their subsequent complaining about Salmond snubbing most of the Scottish-only debates? Is he not doing as they wish? Why do you not highlight this hypocrisy?

The BBC: failing Scotland in every way it can.

I'll update if I get a reply from them. So, don't expect an update.